0091 In chapter seven, Mark Smith asks, “Are humans basically evil, according to Genesis?”

The question brings the reader back to the word, “good”, appearing in Genesis 1.

The question brings the reader forward to the term, “original sin”, a concept that swims right below the threshold of consciousness, after Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans.

0092 The condition of the early stories of Genesis is that of a family tradition, with enough continuity as to construct fairy tales about the thousands of years of increasing social complexity in the Ubaid and the Uruk, culminating in the Great Mesopotamian Flood, centuries before the start of the Sumerian Dynastic.  

These stories are fairy tales, told to children in Seth’s family tradition for thousands of years.  These stories are preserved by Sarah, who steps (along with Abraham) out of the Sumerian world, presumably during the tempestuous culmination of Ur III.

0093 There is something problematic about speech-alone talk.  It facilitates unconstrained social complexity.  It inclines humans towards sin and death.

Technically, if there is such a thing as original sin, then how could Abel and Enoch and Noah be good people from the start?

0094 What gives?

Original sin is all about the polarity between Adam’s greedy act and Jesus’s sacrifice.  It is a way to describe the economy of salvation.  Noah’s flood story says it all.  The design of the thoughts of human hearts is continually evil.  So, we sin.  Plus, we repent of our sins.  That is the nature of our current Lebenswelt.

0095 Smith proposes that the fairy tales of early Genesis are constructed backwards, within the Yahwist tradition, in order to provide a front end to the stories of Noah’s flood.

Such speculation seems viable when one is only looking at the Biblical text.

How easy it is to forget the oral traditions that leave no written trace.

How easy it is to erase such traces, for the ones who write the script.