[Saya]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

There's enough Hebrew that can be interpreted to either support "Original Sin", or to at least suggest that humanity has enough inherent awfulness to make it a pedantic point. In either case there's something wrong with people and it's their fault because God, being infallible, couldn't have possibly made something flawed.

If you're a Christian looking for something in the Old Testament looking for that point, but there's no mention of it, no hell, and no afterlife in the Old Testament, the Sadducees you might remember mocked Jesus because they believed there is no afterlife at all. Originally not all Hebrews believed in the Fall anyway, this is why Genesis has two creation stories, the first has no mention of a fall and the second one does. Even Cain wasn't inherently evil, God tells him to look inside himself and find the goodness in himself. "Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you furious? And why are you downcast? If you do right, won't you be accepted? But if you do not do right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it."" In Judaism, we have the capacity to do good or or go astray. This is in contradiction with the doctrine of original sin, good deeds don't matter without grace, and Cain could not have had grace.

From what I understand Jewish interpretation is that the Fall wasn't even necessarily bad, its just why we are mortal and we have to work hard and God doesn't give everything to us on a silver platter. This is very different from early Catholic interpretations. Augustine believed we have no capacity to do good without grace.

The idea of Limbo is just one of many vile papist fallacies. There's no Hebraic basis for that one. And now they're letting just anyone into heaven. Amazing.

It came from the Augustine idea that God preordinates who will receive grace (who will be vessels of mercy or vessels of wrath.) Its a really dismal view that it really doesn't matter what we do, because God already decided before we were born, and its only going to be a minority of us. Which they contradicted early on with the Tertullian idea of merit, but I digress.