Text: Subject: [acim-l] Sin and the Bible Date: 17 Oct 1998 00:45:51 -0000 From: Reply-To: A Course in Miracles List To: A Course in Miracles List One of the things that most impressed me about ACIM when I first began eading it was that it's view of sin is the same as the Biblical view, in dramatic contrast to that of most Churches and Synagogues. This will shock some people but the modern concept of "sin" does not occur in the Bible at all. The Greek and Hebrew words commonly translated as "sin" have more to do with "missing the mark" or "error" than they do with the usual Judeo-Christian notion of an active, substantial evil that should result in blame, shame, guilt, judgement and punishment. There is a second concept strongly present in the Bible, most notably the pre-Christian Jewish part, and that is the concept of "transgression." Transgressions are defined as violations of covenant (or contract). For instance, if I agree to work in your vinyard for 6 days and you agree to pay me 12 shekels for this on Friday, and you DON'T do it, you would be guilty of a "transgression." Not a "sin" or even "missing the mark." This idea emerges from a pastoral nomadic society of small clans or tribes in which the social contract of (mostly unspoken) covenants between members are vital to everyone's survival for a variety of reasons, one of them being that open strife in such small, intimate groups is "life-threatening." These people, whose thinking lies behind most of the old Testament, has a very strong, visceral awareness of the importance of social contracts or "covenants" and "keeping one's word" was far more mportant for survival than it is in most modern contexts. People in such tribal groups lived in "covenant relationship" with each other. The labour of each and the cooperation of all was vital for survival. "Peaceful" relations between everyone was vital for the peace of mind of all. Out of this culture came the idea of a Covenant between God and his "chosen people." In its simplest form that covenant can be stated as "You will be my people and do as I say and I will be your God and prosper you by way of miracules. Now if you think about it, that is not an idea inconsistent with ACIM. ACIM tells us that when we follow the Holy Spirit's lead, (do as God says) then everything will be ok and we can expect miracles to follow. The first form of this Covenant arose between Abraham's clan and God, with Abraham being a "prophet" who supposedly was in close touch with the Holy Spirit. The Bible begins, after the creation myth, telling the adventures of Abraham and his decendents in their on-again, off-again covenant with God. When they followed the Spirit, indeed things went well and when they did not, things went very badly indeed. Breaking of the covenant was a "transgression" and/or "missing the mark" just as following the ego [body-mind] instead of the Holy Spirit, in the language of ACIM, is "error." The consequences of the error means that miracles dry up and things start to go very wrong. This is sometimes described as punishment by God or even vengeance by God but more often it is recognized as a "natural consequence" of violating "laws of nature" and not the act of a nasty, judgemental God who's out to get people. God is more often characterized as all-forgiving and highly indulgent of wayward humans. Now within the context of "this world" and a covenant confined to "this world" there is obviously a lot of common sense to this. Social relations do work better if we keep our promises! Everything works better if we follow the leading of the Spirit instead of ego. Insofar as the ancient Hebrews taught this, what they taught was sensible and in no way inconsistent with ACIM. Moses was the first to codify the covenant in the famous ten commandments, the first of which is "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and have no other Gods before Him." That is obviously quite implicit in ACIM. If you want to be happy and see miracles abound, that is what you gotta do! Moses goes on to outline social and family law: You should honour your parents and avoid adultery. You shouldn't murder, steal, covet anything that is your neighbour's or, take any graven image of anything in heaven or in earth nor bow down and worship such an image. And you shouldn't lie. It's pretty hard to argue with most of those and impossible to argue with some. They are simply sensible ways for humans in bodies to get along with each other well. They include primitive social welfare legislation to protect the elderly (honour your parents, it's the children's job to look after elderly parents) and child welfare legislation (thou shalt not commit adultery, since that puts a marriage and the kids' welfare at risk). It is hard for me to imagine the Holy Spirit authentically leading anyone to murder, steal, covet, not look after elderly parents or children. FAILURE to do these things isn't "sin" in the modern sense that "God is gonna get you" but rather "transgression" in that it violates the spirit and cuts the transgressor off from God (creates an illusion of separation based on fear and guilt). After a few centuries of spectacular success under Mosaic Law and the Mosaic covenant, things started to come apart for the Jews as the religion became legalistic and institutionalized and most people got very out of touch with the Spirit. So along come the Prophets, men and women who are unusually attuned to the Spirit. They preach to the nation and are eternally villified and often murdered in their lifetimes BUT are eventually recognized as having been right. Under their influence Judaism is massively reformed and things go well for Israel again for a time until once more corruption and legalism set in. Then comes the Pharisaic Reformation, a rebellion against widespread corruption and the idea that "if we obey all the laws scrupulously, then we have kept our part of the bargain and God will then have to keep His." Out of this originally rather high-minded movement of high integrity came the extreme legalism Jesus rails against in the New Testament. Cuz they missed the really vital point that people are to follow the SPIRIT of God and that can never be contained in a legal code. Of course murdering our brothers isn't loving or following the Spirit but following the Spirit is more than just refraining from murder. In the history of religion, and this involves every religion I've looked to, not just Judaism and Christianity, this problem arises: a truly inspired prophet brings the word of the Spirit to a community; after much controversy the prophet is accepted as authentic; by the time this happens, the prophet is dead and others, in his name, codify it into a rulebook which really misses the prophet's point. It is the "rule book" and the simplistic idea of "covenant" which gives rise to the modern idea of sin which ACIM characterizes as "insane religion." The Bible is largely a history book and you can see this story acted out again and again. Instead of following the Spirit people start to think that God's favour or miracles can be "earned" by "following the rules." In place of the "Spirit within," religion tends to install the rulebook "from without." Judaism has been struggling with this for millenia. I had to deliver something to a Synagogue on Tuesday and I needed to get a signature to verify receipt. I met a rabbi at the door who told me he couldn't sign because it was a Jewish holy day and "signing" was "work" which "God's Law" forbade him to perform. "But" he told me with a cheery smile "you can forge my signature if you want and I will lie, if asked, and say it IS my signature!" Chuckling quietly to myself I forged his signature and we smiled and shook hands and he thanked me for being so "sensitive." I hope that everyone can see the problem with the rabbi's interpretation of the "law" here ... an interpretation that makes forgery and lies ok, but signing your name not ok. All with the idea that this will "please God" and curry favour with Him. Long before ACIM, Jesus in the New Testament takes this sort of legalistic religion to task. It is THAT kind of thinking which generates the illusions of "sin" and "guilt" and "blame" and "shame" and "judgement" and "punishment" and THAT creates hell! In it's 66 different books written over a span of a thousand years or so, the Bible reflects quite a number of different ideas about "error" or, if you prefer, "sin." There is no "single teaching" but rather the voices of quite a number of teachers reflecting several distinctly different ideas. I've tried here to summarize some of the major ideas one finds in the Bible that deal with the general problem. I don't see a major discrepancy between much Biblical thought on "sin" and what I find in ACIM. Certainly one can find a lot of things in the Bible which are completely congruent with ACIM's overall thrust and one can find few that are quite a bit different too. The Bible and ACIM are as difficult to compare as Apples and Oranges. In ACIM we find a well organized discourse by a single mind attempting to explain and teach a number of concepts which are also frequently the subject of Biblical authors. In the Bible we find perhaps as many as 100 different authors writing over many centuries to widely diverse audiences. In many cases the Biblical authors are writing to people they know as a supplement to verbal communication. In other cases, an account of three years' of ministry is condensed to 20 pages - obviously a lot got left out. And all this took place 2 or 3 thousand years ago! There is strong evidence that much of what is written in the Bible today originated as oral traditions which were passed along for quite a while before being written out. This is most especially the case with the oldest material which may not have been written down for several hundreds of years. If not alteration of the barebones facts, one can expect shifts in nuance to occur over such periods. As for the "myths" with which Genesis begins, the creation story, the Adam and Eve story, the Cain and Abel story, the flood story, the tower of Babbel story, etc., there are similar myths in other sources from the ancient near east. Many of these are of very great antiquity indeed, much older than Abraham and may have survived as much as 10,000 years as oral tradition before being written. That is, some of them are early Bronze Age or late Stone Age in origin. Much of the Old Testament is certainly Bronze Age, contemporaneous with Homer's Illiad and Odyssey. Even the New testament is early Roman Empire! In other words the cultural context of Biblical authors and their audiences is just a tad different from that of ACIM! I find it interesting that we see in the Bible much of the same tension between divergent views of "sin" as we read about in ACIM! It's not a new problem :). ACIM is clear that a "universal theology" is impossible but that a universal experience of God is not impossible. ACIM claims to be written by (or channeled from) Jesus - a person who claimed in life to be the Jewish Messiah and was certainly a devout Jew. As such it is my view that the "context" within which ACIM must be understood is indeed the context of the "Jewish Covenenant" which of course is what the Bible is all about. It's a covenant which both Jew and Christian claim as their own yet recognize [it] is accessible to all. To me the "purpose" of all this is clearly spelled out in ACIM, and it is join in the job of saving the world, the job for which God "chose" Abraham in the first place and began the long task of teaching whomever would join in the covenant how to listen to God and realize the miracles. It's a purpose no less clearly spelled out in the Bible. God chose Abraham to be an example to SHOW THE WORLD the "way to salvation." Jesus, in his ifetime underscored this when he said "I am the way, the truth, and the life, there is no way to the father but by me (that is, after the fashion of my example and teaching)." And ACIM points out that "teaching" is not abstract and intellectual theology, which can never be universal, but direct experience which is by definition experiential. The ego error that is common with the "chosen people" idea is that God chose us because we are better than others and he likes us more. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth! The Holy Spirit knows no special relationships." That idea is "sin" or "missing the mark." The Teacher's manual points out that the Spirit will lead teachers and students to find each other AND that we are all students and all teachers. This makes us all "chosen people" in that sense. And the Abramic covenant remains in force, it has not been superceded. As we follow the Spirit rather than ego, then we shall indeed see miracles. As we follow ego instead of spirit, we will make for ourselves a living hell on earth that is indeed an attack thought on God. So all of us, and that goes for you too Mr. Richardson, have been led to this place by the Spirit because we have something to learn and something to teach, one to another. We are all "chosen" and we share this part of our path with one another. We wouldn't be here otherwise! :) Well I think I have said enough about THIS one! All the best! God's will is your happiness, don't forget that :) Doug +------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A Course in Miracles List : 243 members (public) http://www.spiritweb.org/Spirit/acim-l.html Archive-password: jesus List-Operator: Doug Thompson

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