An Archeaology of the Fall never uses the words “Original Sin”, at least not intentionally.   Instead, the last half of the novel labors to show that the image of the semiotic transition from hand-speech talk to speech-alone talk parallels the image of the mythic transition inherent in the text of Genesis 2:4 on.  The parallels are evocative and work both ways.

For example, the image of the serpent coming into existence as a projection of Eve’s own doubt (gelling, as it were, with a spiritual being) does not have a corresponding image in the semiotic transition.  Perhaps it should.

In a similar fashion, Zimmerman’s section on the “sin of the world” that thwarts God’s plan and is an unbroken continuation of the transgression of Adam and Eve has a corresponding image in regards to the semiotic transition in An Archaeology …, but one that is not developed as much as it could be developed.  We are all swimming in seas of symbolic orders.  All these symbolic orders are – to some degree – exclusive.  How do we describe our fractured treading?  How do we describe the individual’s and the institution’s perspectives?

Reading Chapter 11 of Zimmerman’s work (on the propagation of Original Sin), with An Archaeology of the Fall in mind, leaves me with the impression that Christians may be on the verge of discovering that the long-held traditional idea that “Baptism washes away Original Sin” contains insights never before imagined.  Pieces of a mosaic will suddenly fall into place.

Baptism is all about opportunity.