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Exploring the Nature and Effects of Original Sin
Assignment 1
When Man took the fruit of the Forbidden Tree, we lost that close relationship with God and Adam and Eve were casted and banned from the Garden of Eden. This story is perhaps the strongest example of a huge turning point in human history since it is because of their Original Sin the descendants of Adam and Eve are greatly affected. In this paper I will argue that woman’s punishment “…yet your desire shall be for you husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Gen. 3:16) applying it to the treatment of women using examples from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, God invited man to be in communion with him to share the immense love that he has but, some may believe that the covenant between Himself and man was completely lost after the sin of Adam and Eve:
After the fall, [God] buoyed them up with the hope of salvation by promising redemption; and he has never ceased to show his solicitude for the human race. For he wishes to give eternal life to all those who seek salvation by patience in well-doing.
Even if it may seem that all hope was lost and the fear of death is lurking behind the corner, God promises them that they are going to be saved and redeemed. Although it is good that all mankind is promised redemption, the punishments that God brought upon Adam and Eve has affected the rest of man and continues to have its affects today.
The example in which reveals how God punishes Eve and how it affected women can be seen in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Throughout history, women have been subordinate to men. Women have always been under man’s rule always serving him and having little to no right or say in anything. This is cle...
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...ah is, in a sense, a renewal of the covenant with Adam.
Overall, these being the few of the many examples of how Original Sin has affected all of mankind, there is still hope for us. Whomever seeks and wishes to be saved, just as Noah wanted to be saved, shall be saved. However, submission has always been a part of history and though we have advanced and now women have more rights and slowly becoming equal to man, the submission will always be there.
Works Cited
Catechism of the Catholic Church Second ed., Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 20.
Kate Chopin, The Awakening, Bedford/St. Martin’s (Boston New York), 79.
Ignatius Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, 2nd Catholic edition. (Gen 8:15-16).
Ignatius Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, 2nd Catholic edition. (Gen 8:18).
John Bergsma, Bible Basics for Catholics, Ave Maria Press (Notre Dame Press: 2012), 40.
Kate Chopin's novella, The Awakening. In Kate Chopin's novella, The Awakening, the reader is introduced into. a society that is strictly male-dominated where women fill in the stereotypical role of watching the children, cooking, cleaning and keeping up with appearances. Writers often highlight the values of a certain society by introducing a character who is alienated from their culture by a trait such as gender, race, or creed.
Looking back through many historical time periods, people are able to observe the fact that women were generally discriminated against and oppressed in almost any society. However, these periods also came with women that defied the stereotype of their sex. They spoke out against this discrimination with a great amount of intelligence and strength with almost no fear of the harsh consequences that could be laid out by the men of their time. During the Medieval era, religion played a major role in the shaping of this pessimistic viewpoint about women. The common belief of the patriarchal-based society was that women were direct descendants of Eve from The Bible; therefore, they were responsible for the fall of mankind. All of Eve’s characteristics from the biblical story were believed to be the same traits of medieval women. Of course, this did not come without argument. Two medieval women worked to defy the female stereotype, the first being the fictional character called The Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The second woman, named Margery Kempe, was a real human being with the first English autobiography written about her called The Book of Margery Kempe. In these two texts, The Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe choose to act uniquely compared to other Christians in the medieval time period because of the way religion is interpreted by them. As a result, the women view themselves as having power and qualities that normal women of their society did not.
As a Collective human element, women in Genesis often appear as obstacles to these broad-overriding goals through nonfulfillment of their particular roles in the divine scheme. From the Garden of Eden right through to the story of Joseph, women, as wives, mothers, and daughters, are typically unreliable, inadequate, deceitful or, simply by virtue of their womanhood, an outright liability, and they frequently threaten to undermine God's will as it is expressed in the opening book of the Bible.
Violence against women is not a new social issue and Pamela Copper-Whites’ book The Cry of Tamar does well in bringing this to light not only as a social issue but as a religious issues as well. Tamar’s story sheds light on the violence and degradation of women in the biblical times.
...s right there with them. Even though he knew they would continue to experience hardship, he promised that he would remain faithful to them and always be with them. Jeremiah 29:11-13 states, “For I know the plans I have for you declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (English Standard Version). Even when the Judeans and Augustine were facing their darkest times and had almost completely lost hope, God was still there pursuing them and waiting for them to seek after him.
The bible has been the center of many debates and has been used correctly and incorrectly. My objective in this paper is to illuminate the many flaws in the century-old yet ever present interpretation of the bible that suggests women are lesser than men. I will also commend and explain the use of the bible during the civil rights movement.
In the beginning, the Fall of Man began when Adam and Eve heeded not the Word of God but that of the serpent, and ate fruit from the forbidden tree. Due to their actions they were cast out of the garden of Eden into a sinful world ashamed and having to provide for themselves (KJV, Genesis 3). These actions have left believers and non believers pondering God’s actions towards man kind.
By redemption, Jesus Christ has reconciled us to God from whom we were estranged because of sin.
In the novella The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the main character Edna Pontellier “becomes profoundly alienated from traditional roles required by family, country, church, or other social institutions and is unable to reconcile the desire for connection with others with the need for self-expression” (Bogard). The novella takes place in the South during the 1800’s when societal views and appearances meant everything. There were numerous rules and expectations that must be upheld by both men and women, and for independent, stubborn, and curious women such as Edna, this made life challenging. Edna expressed thoughts and goals far beyond her time that made her question her role in life and struggle to identify herself, which caused her to break societal conventions, damage her relationships, and ultimately lose everything.
The depreciation of women and their overall inferior position in society can be attributed to the androcentric interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, especially the story of Adam and Eve. Throughout history, the story of Adam and Eve has been used by men to point out the inherent evil in women by pinning the eventual expulsion of Adam and Eve from Heaven on the neck of Eve. Eve has long been blamed for the expulsion from Heaven and in effect, women, even up until today, are portrayed as the “gateway to sin.”
Shapira, Amnon. “ON WOMAN'S EQUAL STANDING IN THE BIBLE—A SKETCH: A FEMINIST RE-READING OF THE HEBREW BIBLE: A TYPOLOGICAL VIEW.” Hebrew Studies, vol. 51, 2010, pp. 7–42. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27913961.
...edge of Good and Evil did indeed produce the lustful Fall of Man, but it was in Christ that God fulfilled the covenant. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (King James Version, 1 Cor. 15.22).
The root of all gender issues which presently exist in society may be traced back to The Creation Story in Genesis. This crucial chapter of the Bible provides evidence supporting that God intended for man and woman to exist as equals, yet he assigned gender roles once Adam and Eve disobeyed him by eating the fruit from the forbidden tree of good and evil. Thus, men have been characterized as the “breadwinners” and women as “child bearers and housekeepers” since the beginning of humanity. The story of Lilith as Adam’s supposed first wife suggests Adam took on a patriarchal role from the beginning, yet Lilith refused to accept his assumed superiority. She initially challenges him, and then leaves him; she represents a rebellious, yet independent woman. Although these two stories on the first man and woman are significantly different, the two convey that men and women have been trapped in certain roles since the beginning of time, and have always had a power struggle between them. Gender issues have not evolved over time; they have always existed.
She defends the position that one immoral women does not make all women the same. Not only does this argument lack logical value, it also confines women to a biased stereotype. On the other hand, Judith Plaskow incorporates elements of women’s inequality through discussion of the Torah. She identifies areas for improvement that cultivate gender equality to be in creating equal distance to God, being able to tell their own stories and ultimately allowing women to claim the Torah as their own. Further, the aspects of Lilith involving her rebellion of divine intervention are understood as the society being unable to understand or interpret the actions of a strong woman. Therefore, her actions are innately attuned with demonic aspects of existence in order to provide efficient explanation. Overall these two examples show how immoral implications of one woman influence the ultimate discernment of all women in an unfair way. They represent two aspects of creation story that cast a stigma without clear enumeration or valid examples beyond single
Temptations are one of life’s most riveting tests or enticements that we face diurnal. Moreover, it causes us to yearn for something that we do not necessarily need or it causes us to sin. Furthermore, if we give into temptation, we may be blissful, but it will only be ephemeral. It is because of “The Fall of Man” that sin is second nature for us, which in turn makes it facile to give into temptation. In other words, as the verbal expression goes “we were born in sin and live therein.” As a result, our temptations can either make us or break us. The Bible states in Romans 7:19 that “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (King James Version). Strictly speaking, albeit we aspire to do good, because of our sinful nature, it becomes a struggle. However, it is for this reason, our nefarious nature that God sent down his son from Heaven, to give us hope. My definition of hope is “a positive anticipation of God’s promise.” It is this hope that gives us a reason to live, a reason to go on and vigor to surmount these temptations. Moreover, it is his death, burial and resurrection that gives us the hope of his saving grace. Nevertheless, despite the fact that hope is inexhaustible, temptation is inevitable, therefore, the Gospel according to Matthew 26:41 states” Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak (King James Version).