The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah Vol 1 - Predestination

learned the doctrine of original sin. The statement
that as in Adam all spiritually died, so in Messiah
all should be made alive,^ finds absolutely no
parallel in Jewish writings.' What may be called
the starting point of Christian theology, the
doctrine of hereditary guilt and sin, through the fall
of Adam, and of the consequent entire and helpless
corruption of our nature, is entirely unknown to
Rabbinical Judaism. The reign of physical death
was indeed traced to the sin of our first parents.^
But the Talmud expressly teaches,^ that Gk>d
originally created man with two propensities,^ one
to good and one to evil (Yetser tobh, and Yetder
hcurafi). The evil impulse began immediately after
birth.^'^ But it
of wbidi they respectiyely developed what is
connected with them (Ber. B. 12).
* For further notices on the Cosmology and
Anthropology of Fhilo, see Appendix IL: * Philo
and Rabbinic Theology.'