GoodLittleAtheist

I thought the sin was disobedience. God told them not to and they did it anyway. They refused to recognize God's authority over Man. Something like that.

rosy tetra

In general, the Original Sin / need for a savior thing sounds like less of a moral/guilt issue and more of a spirit/flesh issue. I keep picturing Robin Williams as King of the Moon in Baron Munchausen, trying to keep his (rational?) head separated from his (lustful) body. If only the King of the Moon knew that with Christ and the Spirit, he could be transformed so that his body is like a zombie, a slave to God, with instant forgiveness for any fleshly slip-ups.

Evoken

Gen. 3:2-3
2 And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die.

It seems to me that the woman was aware that eating the fruit was not a good thing. If she had no ability to distinguish between good and evil then she would have obeyed the serpent right away and would not have raised this objection.

Evoken

Yes and not only that but God was with them since the begining and had given them the whole earth to subdue it and was with them in The Garden. The Serpent on the other hand was a stranger and had given them nothing, yet they still choose to listen to it rather than God.

rosy tetra

But still Adam and Eve made the decision to eat the fruit before they ate the fruit. If they were incapable of knowing good and evil before eating the fruit, then they were incapable of making a volitional choice to do evil. So it’s not the eating of the fruit that transformed them, but the decision to eat the fruit that transformed them, or was at least was a crucial part of the transformation process. So it’s like some other stories – they had the ability (to know good and evil) within themselves all along.

mikey1987

oh yea, i didnt mean to say it was for judaism. but the christian concept of god IS Yahweh. i dont know waht else to call "Him"

Awmte

Which would still not constitue a sin... In fact, given the moral vacuum obtaining at the time, they could have defied God and all his angels (which would still not constitute a sin. Can a baby sin?

Sheshbazzar

Umm, If only I had been able to convince my "christian" friends that "Yahweh" was "their" god, I'd likely still be a "christian", but they would have none of it, rejecting the name of "Yahweh", and branding me as a "cult" member for even speaking it.
Many years have passed, and thanks to modern communications, not all of them remain as ignorant as they were at that time,
nevertheless, it remains that to have any "fellowship" with them, I must
"conform", and speak their words, their names, and sing their songs.
No thanks, I'm not a "christian", I'll live out my days as a "cult" member.

Evoken

You seem to think that for it to constitute a sin they need to have done it a first time. That simply does not follows.

The baby analogy does not work either. We are not dealing with babies here. Adam was very capable already, he had named the beasts(a scientific tast), subdued the earth (agriculture), taken care of the garden, etc. He had some innate knowledge (see that he reconized Eve as flesh of his flesh), also Eve's objection to the serpent. He was not some ignorant baby walking around the garden with no knowledge of anything.

Awmte

You seem to be conflating intellectual capacity and moral awareness. Let me provide another analogy: Could a Turing Machine sin?
For any act to be a sin, a conscious, volitional decision must be made with the full capability of differentiating good from evil (and, obviously, choosing the evil).
IMHO, a mistake, no matter how egregious, cannot constitue a sin.