Was sin necessary for knowledge?

[The Grand Nudger]

There's nothing objective in that description of moral authority.  I say this to you as a moral realist, myself.

OFC, you're free to posit any definition for sin that you like.  I only note that the definition you've chosen is both problematic for and specific to a christian eschatology not present in the narrative of the fall or in the story of cain and able.  Nowhere, for example..had god told cain not to kill his brother.  The narrator assumes as a matter of fact that any listener would recognize the evil of the act, is all.  In the fall they're given such an order, but there is a reason behind it.  It's moral status, or it's designation as sin, hangs on what consequences would purportedly befall the protagonists...not the simple fact of it's having been decreed so.

[tackattack]

I agree that in both cases the designation as sin is dependent on the consequences because volition or choice necessitates a causal relationship. As much as I’d prefer not to use this particular example,Cain wasn’t told not to kill able, true. If we assume God did not want him to kill his brother, then it was sinful. If we say sin is based on having rules to follow or knowledge then Cain didn’t sin. I disagree with the latter and I don’t see where it is logically inconsistent or problematic.

[The Grand Nudger]

If what is right or wrong is not based upon any objective fact of the matter..and not even upon a spoken command..but upon a man knowing the un-uttered mind of a god, we find ourselves creating even further problems for the narrative, and christian eschatology, already a poor match for the OT story.

[pocaracas]

Well... Mankind did eat the fruit of knowledge, so they would know the mind of god with respects to knowing right from wrong... sin from virtue.

[The Grand Nudger]

Under that view, sure, but since tack is operating under the assumption that sin is a breach of fealty rather than knowledge of moral consequence, it's a moot point a few choices back in the arc.

[pocaracas]

Under that view, sure, but since tack is operating under the assumption that sin is a breach of fealty rather than knowledge of moral consequence, it's a moot point a few choices back in the arc.

I'd say it was a breach of fealty in the garden.
Once out, mankind would be knowledgeable, much like we are nowadays.

[The Grand Nudger]

All things to all men, it seems.  Also a problem. Here again, though, we've rejected that view a few choices back.

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Ultimately, btw,  I think that any attempt to derive an ideology consistent with an entirely disparate religion what would be thousands of years in the future (assuming that the OT narrative as we have it is part of a much older oral tradition) is misguided and unfair to the narrative.  OFC this story won't be able to meet that expectation, and it's just a story.  

Problems of consistent retroactive application are in no way shape or form shortcomings of the narrative itself.

[John V]

Multiple instances of parallel independent construction.

Or passed down from the beginning. Just depends on your world view.

Skeptics see similarities to the Bible in other ancient religions of the area and, from their world view, assume the Hebrews heard and incorporated such items.

From my POV, some things were known and passed down from the beginning. They got corrupted over time. God then stepped in with Israel and restored truth.

[The Grand Nudger]

Parallel independent construction is when different groups of people come up with similar or even the same things entirely without each others help.  Like the example of the bow. Neither rumplestiltskin, nor the ot, were passed down from the beginning. The similarities between a specific idea in them, however, are coincidental, and not due to one being based upon the other.

[pocaracas]

Multiple instances of parallel independent construction.

Or passed down from the beginning. Just depends on your world view.

Reality does not depend on the world view, does it?
What really happened, back then, may be lost to us, as it happened before the written word. But, from our present point of view, we can make educated guesses as to what happened, based mostly on archeology, but also anthropology, biology and psychology.

Evolution suggests that mankind appeared out of social apes. Such social groups, as can be seen presently with Chimps, Bonobos and Gorillas... even Capuchin Monkeys!, already have a sense of right and wrong, of fairness, of loyalty, of reciprocity and other traits that we attribute to a moral agent, even if they don't have a language to articulate those.
If we had these traits prior to being humans, then it renders the religious story false (as it couldn't have been passed down from the beginning, given that there was no language to pass it down with) and also provides us with the one tool to understand why these traits feel so ingrained within most of us... so ingrained that we cannot intuitively say from where they came... so ingrained that they seem to have been bestowed upon us since before birth... but how? enter the great gap filler.

Here, this guy has a very interesting 15 minute TED talk on the subject: