Sin, Obedience and Thinking for Ourselves

I found this website to be very interesting. It makes alot of sense. I guess that I will be doing some research on what they have listed below. : )

http://www.stagework.org.uk/webdav/harmonise?Page/@id=6022&Session/@id=D_jyh3YjS5CwdRsBHpgvAe&Section/@id=1009 Introduction The beginning of the lesson plan

http://www.stagework.org.uk/webdav/harmonise?Page/@id=6022&Session/@id=D_nE361WxecsY63mQwcVRD&Section/@id=1011 This link has the info that is listed below.

Sin, Obedience and Thinking for Ourselves

Learning outcomes

By the end of these lessons students should have a knowledge and understanding of:

• Myths of creation and afterlife

• The concepts of goodness, evil, sin Doctrines of the consequences of behaviour (reward, punishment).

By the end of these lessons students should be able to reflect upon and evaluate:

• Ethical values and actions

• Making responsible individual choices

The Bible: Original sin

Further levels of meaning come from the stories of creation, sin, good and evil from the Christian and Jewish Bible (the book of Genesis) and retold in John Milton’s famous poetic work Paradise Lost. Eve disobeys God by eating forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This is called “The Fall” (that is Adam and Eve have fallen into sin). ‘Original sin’ means that people are programmed to be disobedient and selfish, ‘evil’ by nature. Pullman asks the daring question – what happens if John Milton, and the Bible, got the story the wrong way round and this is really the origin of knowledge and imagination? The Christian Bishop, Hugh Montefiore, born a Jew, called this “the Fall upwards” – that is, humans became intelligent seekers for knowledge which gave them difficult choices.

Stories make you think

Pullman’s story is designed to make us think about our own lives, experiences, relationships and beliefs and is not to be taken literally. Stories in the Bible were also written and told to make us think, and they too should not be taken literally. It doesn’t really matter whether or not you can cut through the skin of our world into the next with a subtle knife – we assume really that you cannot; equally, it does not matter whether God created the world in six days, or whether snakes really were cleverer than humans and could talk. What myths and stories say about human experience, strengths and weaknesses is important for us to think about. You should reach your own opinions on the matters discussed – but do not be in a hurry. You need a lot of information first and need to know how to test whether information is true or false. You may agree or disagree with particular ideas. The important thing is to think about these things, to try to find your own answers, and to discuss issues with others. There are no easy answers. Life would be very boring if there were.

Task 2.1

a) Consider the question, What kind of world do you want to live in? What needs to be done to make our world closer to this ideal world? What bits of that can you achieve in your lifetime? (AT2)

b) On Stagework , go to Sources and Influences . What does John Milton say about Satan? And what does William Blake say about the imagination?

Paradise in The Bible

In the story who is on which side? Who is evil? And who decides? What is the origin and cause of evil and sin? Genesis in the Bible described the coming of sin when Eve, the first woman was tempted by the serpent. We are going to explore the story of Eve in paradise (called the garden of Eden) in the Bible (Genesis). This is a Jewish story or myth which Christians have adopted.

Task 2.2

a) Read Genesis chapters 1 to 3 in a modern version of the Bible. How does the writer explain human life?

b) Class project

Group A : Research “the big bang hypothesis” about the origin of the universe. Why have scientists today suggested this?

Group B : Research: evolution by natural selection. How is it thought that living things change (evolve) gradually over time? Together: How might we know whether the universe was created deliberately or happened by accident? (AT1)

God, Satan and the ‘sons of God’ (bene elim)

Satan was not at first considered evil. In the book of Job, he is a member of the heavenly court (“the sons of God”, bene elim appear in HDM) who accused the God-fearing Job of being pious only for reward. Job’s prosperity was then stripped away. God is described as a monarch in a palace surrounded by courtiers. He expects loyalty from subjects like Job, but regards Job as one of the best. It was this boast that caused one courtier, Satan, to challenge God to this test of faithfulness. The God of these stories walks around, disputes and is in every way human. He made humans ‘in his own image’ whilst keeping them at a lower status. He was concerned that the first couple could have become his equal by having knowledge and eternal life. He was concerned when they built a tower into heaven (the tower of Babel [Babylon]) which might challenge him. The courtiers (bene elim) decided to marry human women and have superhuman children, called the Nephilim (Genesis 6:1-4).

Zoroastrian influence

The great battle between God and Satan appears later and owes a great deal to Persian religion, Zoroastianism, which still exists today. The three Magi or “wise men from the east” were Zoroastrians in the story of Jesus’ birth. They worshipped one God, Ahura-Mazda and believed that the universe is one gigantic battle between the forces of good and evil. They influenced Jews and Christians. The New Testament book Revelation has an example of this great battle. Christians identified Satan with the Devil, the Evil One, the Prince of Darkness – and with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Zoroastrians are mentioned in Northern Lights , p.97.

Task 2.3

Search in the library, encyclopaedias or the internet to find out more about Zoroastrians. Put information together as a class project. (AT1). What do you think is meant by an evil person? Why did Zoroastrians think there was a King of Evil?

Sin as failure to achieve one’s ideals

There is another view of sin, based on the Greek word for sin, hamartano, ‘failure to hit the mark’. This means the sort of behaviour that we know lets ourselves and our friends down. The first part of this process is to develop our ideals or promises; the second to stick by them whatever the consequences.

Task 2.4

a) How must the witch Seraphina Pekkala have felt when she failed to save the life of Lee Scoresby as she had promised? Contrast this with how Ruta Skadi behaves after she has killed Jopari. Discuss these feelings of guilt and revenge. (AT2)

b) The past century has included great violence and acts of genocide. What would you do if you were ordered to kill, and if you refused you would be killed yourself? Would you live up to your non-violent ideals, or try to save your own life?

c) Write a story, or prepare a role play, of a person who sees bullying happening. One character intervenes and stops the bullying; another does not but turns away. Make your characters as realistic as possible. (AT2)

Background Notes for Teachers

The Genesis story of Paradise

A ‘paradise’ was originally the walled garden of a king in the ancient world. The Genesis story describes this paradise as a “garden”, in the east, in Eden (the Middle East). The human (in Hebrew the word for both human and male is adam) was created first, “from the dust of the ground” and life breathed in. To provide a partner, the first human was put to sleep and divided into male and female. The man (now referring to the male human, is generally now called “the man” (ha’adam) and not Adam ) could say that she is “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” as she had been taken from his side; the object of life is to bring these two halves together again through marriage. In this paradise there was no shame, or guilt, or anger – or even hard work.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil

One tree, in the middle, was declared out of bounds and would cause death. This was “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. The serpent, or snake was “more shrewd [clever] than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made”. This snake questioned, doubted, investigated and did not accept the authority of the Lord God. For those who did accept God’s authority, the serpent was the tempter and God’s adversary. In our story, the serpent was simply a snake who began a conversation with one of these not too bright humans who simply accepted God’s authority. “You will not die” [if you eat the forbidden fruit] the serpent said, “Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”. The fruit looked good, so she ate, and gave to the man who also ate. Their eyes were opened but the first thing they felt was shame, and made clothes for themselves by sewing fig leaves. They hid from the Lord God when they heard him on his evening walk, but the truth was soon out and the man confessed, blaming the woman, who in turn blamed the snake. This is called “the Fall”, the point when ‘sin’ entered the world. The man and woman had discovered the Lord God’s knowledge, and so had to be excluded from the garden in case they also ate the fruit of the tree of life and became immortal, and God’s rival. So the first man and woman were banished out of the garden and an armed guard, called a cherubim, a kind of dragon, placed to bar access to the tree of life. Thereafter, life outside the paradise was hard, its people having to grow food, kill animals, make enemies and kill, produce babies through painful childbirth and so on. The world and human life as we know it had begun. Paradise was lost and humans ever after dream of finding it again. The ‘sin’ therefore was to challenge God.