It turns out that I am even less a bible scholar than I thought I was. I thought at first what do those pointy heads at Oxford know and I pulled out my trusty Elsdon Methodist Church King James (the official bible of the Methodist Church, much as Budweiser is the official beer of the Chicago Cubs,) and leafed to chapter three, and there was the serpent talking to Eve. Well shit.
I do remember being surprised by the contents some years ago, and reconstructing it. I think what it was. was in popular lore Eve persuades Adam, likely using her womanly wiles, to take a bite out of the apple, whereas in the bible he doesn't seem to need any persuading, Somehow over the years (Beagles speaks of a certain amount of memory loss not being uncommon amongst us golden agers) I must have conflated that into not necessarily Eve taking the first bite.
I do like Old Dog's explanation of the two of them trying to weasel their way out of the blame. I'm sure they learned weaseling from that apple.
Even though I have been identified as the least of the bible scholars in Beaglestonia, I will take issue with Beagles' proclamation that you can't get to heaven by doing good deeds. Well sure he's got some quotes to support his position, but has it not been written you can dig a quote out of the good book to support anything you choose? What's going on at the last judgement, is Jesus sitting there and trying to decide if people really really like Him before He decides which escalator they should board? What about the wages of sin are death.
Unsure of my mastery of the bible I googled the wages of sin are death, and googled kept offering the wages of sin is death. WTF? Being google it also offered links as to why that verb usage is used. It turns out back in the day when they were first printing bibles wages meant something like reward, and was thus a singular noun, taking the singular verb form. That was less exciting than I thought that it would be.
And it turns out the reference (Romans 6:23, though I am sure you guys already knew that) to the wages of sin is followed by the gift of god being eternal life, so that clouds things a bit. Still it begs the question of why is it speaking about the wages of sin at all then if all god's chilluns is going to heaven?
So this point system sounds pretty much like karma, like that book St Peter has on the podium before him with all the names and after the names a list of sins I assume, maybe good deeds also in another column, like those things they urge you to write up when making a difficult decision, and depending on the outcome you are led to the chute or the ladder. I'm pretty sure, bible scholarship aside, that this is what the Christian in the street believes, If he dips into the company till or the boss's wife, his chances of being poked by a pitchfork are increased. And I can't help but think that he doesn't think that giving the bum that buck, isn't going to end up on St Peter's ledger.
A beggar is sitting outside Starbucks and two Christians walk by. One of them is moved by the guy's plight and gives him a buck. The other Christian doesn't care about the guy's plight, but he did speak sharply and unfairly to wifey that morning and now he wants something to balance that item on St Peter's ledger and gives him a buck. As far as the bum is concerned they are equally good because they both gave him a buck. But do you, glancing up from your venti, think one of them is gooder than the other?
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