From: (Nigel B. Mitchell)

Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

Subject: Re: The Bible & Salvation

Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997

(Michael Kennedy) invited me to expand on the

following comment:

I would understand

you mean it literally.

Michael had stated that in his understanding of “Salvation” part of

the deal is “a restoration of things back to the way they were set up

originally for Adam and Eve.”.

Evidence from the Mishnah and Talmudim, and other sources, shows

pretty clearly that the word *paradeisos*, a loan word from the

Persian language meaning ‘garden’, was used by Jews from about 100

years before Jesus to at least 500 years after with shades of meaning

which included a place of being with God, a place of eternal happiness

and peace, and a place of reward for the righteous. This assoication

is clearly linked with the Hebrew *gan eden*, ie the garden of Eden of

Genesis 2-3.

Even if the Jews in the time of Jesus regarded Adam and Eve as

historical people, and Eden as a geographical locality (both of which

I regard unlikely, as do nearly all Biblical scholars), modern people

with our greater knowledge of the nature of history, the formation of

the Universe and our part in it, and the nature of the Biblical

record, can hardly do so. The story of Adam and Eve is a metaphorical

story of a perfect primeval past – an illustration amongst the bold

brushstrokes with which Genesis 1-11 depicts Human sinfulness, God’s

goodness, and our need to repent and turn to God. In the same way,

identifying “Paradise” with the place of eternal life for those who

enjoy God’s favour extends the mataphor by indicating that Jesus’

death on the Cross undoes the consequences of sin, and our faith in

him is the means by which we share in the benefit of what he has done

for us.

The text which indicates most clearly what I mean is 1 Cor 15:22,

where Paul says “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in

Christ.”

Cheers


N+

Related Articles:

• Copyright vs free information-sharing (a new religion)
• COMPUTER PASSWORDS
• STARTING A NEW FACEBOOK PAGE/GROUP 15/09/2011
• Science of the social network (Facebook et. al)
• Darling, it’s over: Has technology made it impossible to have an affair?

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.