Nothing matters but to write something with meaning, something that will endure, something that will matter to some one, even if it's one person. Christ the Lord -- imagine. Making people believe in him, people who never thought about him, never thought they wanted to. Imagine. Making them feel they can smell the dust on the road in Nazareth, they can feel his tears, see through his eyes, "be there.!" And who is He? The Jesus of the gospels, the Son of God, and the Virgin, visited by shepherds and magi. What was it like to grow up with the whispers of all that? Anne Rice. Paradise West, California.

I refused to watch "The Passion". How can any thinking person believe that our "salvation" could come from the breaking of God's laws, ie, "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? Surely if Jesus was real it would be his LIFE, not his death that carried meaning? I'm not a Christian, although I am the daughter of a fanatical minister, and see this religion as corrupt from the onset. According to the Bible, we need salvation because we are born in sin, and the death of Jesus and belief in his rising is what will save us. Doesn't matter if we are perfect, never doing wrong, because we are tainted from the start. This original sin was no sin, though. Adam and Eve could not have disobeyed God until after they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Without knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, you also have no knowledge of obedience and disobedience. It is impossible to chose to disobey God or anyone else if you don't know there is such a thing as good and evil or right and wrong. To sin one must chose to do what they know is wrong. No sin could have been committed until after eating that fruit. This renders the entire foundation of the Christian religion null and void. That said, I have to say that I have always told my Christian friends that I would be happy to read something written by Jesus (blank stare). I've read every book Anne has written, 2 or 3 times. I imagine I might read this one as well, but if you know your history about the Council of Nicea and how the New Testament was patchworked together (year 325 under the orders of Constantine), you are going to be reminding yourself that this is a work of fiction, and that it is the human imagination that is, in fact, the most beautiful thing in Anne's books. Hers.

You've got some interesting thoughts there. I actually haven't seen The Passion of the Christ either. But I think you may be missing the symbolism of Christ's death. Certainly the 10 Commandments say 'thou shall not kill,' but sacrifice is also very prominent in the Old Testament. It's woven into the very fabric of the Jewish faith--look at Passover. So the fact that Jesus had to die, had to be sacrificed, is fulfillment of Old Testament laws on a pretty grand scale. And his life did have meaning--it's what he chose to do with his life that gave it value.

As for your comments on original sin, you say they had no knowledge of right and wrong--but God told them not to eat from that tree. So they knew that much. And they disobeyed that.

I'm not looking to get into a big debate (I'm certainly not the best person for it), but I don't think you can so easily write off the very foundation of Christianity as null and void. It's not that simple. If it were, it would have happened a long time ago. I'm not saying Christians are always right or perfect or anything like that--we prove that on a daily basis. And Christianity can often be complicated--the very source of the Bible is a good example--but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Sometimes a bit of faith is necessary.

I guess I'm just saying not all the holes you're trying to poke into Christianity really work. Some of them have merit, and have been debated for hundreds of year, but not all your points.

You are missing the point, Kevin. If you don't know the difference between right and wrong, being told not to do something has absolutely no meaning for you because you don't understand the concepts of right and wrong! Obedience and disobedience are subcategories under right and wrong! Right and wrong are something you have to learn. According to the story, after eating the apple, Adam and Eve learned the difference between right and wrong only then because it was only at that point they realized "Wow, we're naked. This is wrong. Better go make some clothing." Up until then being naked was ok.

Yes, sacrifice is a big component of the Jewish religion. That doesn't make it ok. And human sacrifice? If you do your research you'll find lots of that was going on amongst the Jewish culture. I have read and researched this subject extensively, and have lots of input from my very well known and respected Middle Eastern Archaelogist daughter, whom I will not name.

And yes, I can write off the religion as null and void because it is right for me personally to do so. It's always the simple concepts that people can't get their brains around. I've related my ideas to several friends who hold PhD's in religious studies. None have ever looked at it from my point of view! And all agreed I had a major point. There are, indeed, new things under the sun. Best to you.

If what you're saying is true, doesn't it strike you as odd that the almighty God would command mankind to do something we couldn't do? That sounds kind of stupid. Shouldn't God know better? I think you should give the story more credit than that, as opposed to just writing off God as stupid.

I guess I give the text more credit than that. It doesn't actually tell us much about what Adam and Eve were like pre-fruit. I don't see much evidence for saying they didn't know the difference between right and wrong. That seems like a stretch too far to me.

Isn't sacrifice a pretty simple concept as well? I guess I don't see how Christ being sacrificed invalidates salvation. Again, it's always seemed like fulfillment of the Old Testament to me. Maybe part of is the God-man idea, the idea that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.

Well, enough of it still makes sense to me that I buy it, and I'm just not buying enough of your argument. Maybe you should write a book and lay it all out. ;-) I'd even blog about it.

Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Temptation is the desire to have or do something that you know you should avoid.

Eve understood the concept of right and wrong before the first sin because without knowing the difference between right and wrong temptation cannot exist.

Hey, I'm definitely not writing God off as stupid. I don't think God had anything to do with the story. I think the story was written by men. There is evidence that it was written in Babylon when the Israelites were captured and enslaved by the Babylonians. Their "stories" are just a little too close to the Babylonian's stories for me to credit as original thinking. But don't take my word for this. If you read Elaine Pagels "Beyond Belief", you'll get a lot of the history of the writing of the Bible. She's a major professor of religion at Princeton, a gnostic scholar, and believable because she herself is a Christian. I'm not. Perhaps that will shed a little light for you.

I'm sorry you can't comprehend what I'm trying to tell you about the right and wrong thing. Adam and Eve didn't know they were naked until AFTER they ate the apple. Suddenly what had been natural because WRONG. If they knew right from wrong BEFORE they ate that apple, why weren't they wearing clothes before then? I'd say it's because they didn't know it was "wrong".

Adam and Eve were not actually naked as the world see's nakedness. Actually Adam and Eve were clothed with God's Glory, a light that surrounded them. And they knew what they were doing was wrong because when they were tempted by satan they didn't give in right away,because they knew God told them not to eat from that tree but they did it any way. And when they decided to listen to satan (the serpent) instead of God, God's Glory was no longer covering them because the sin that they had committed made them unrighteous and dirty and to have a Holy body means that you must be Holy and Righteous just as God is Holy and Righteous.So Adam and Eve became the beginning of the fall of man.And death did come because they no longer had their immortal bodies.And no one on this earth could be perfect as God is perfect after that. So He left His Heavenly Kingdom and came down here as a humble little baby.He was the only one that could save the world by His sacrifice.Because sin had a debt that needed to be paid and no man on earth could pay that debt. So God became flesh to pay that ultimate sacrifice and defeat death when He rose from the grave.And those who confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead then they shall be saved and will receive God's Holy Spirit to cover their sins by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.And the bondage of sin will be broken when they believe and follow Him.
Also God wrote the Ten Commandments on our hearts. And when we do something wrong our conscious tells us that, but if we go on ignoring that then our conscious is severed and we become numb to the pangs of guilt.
The Bible is written by men inspired by God. God speaks to His people through many different means.And the scriptures were fulfilled when Jesus died on the cross. Throughout the old Testament you will find that Jesus is there, for example Psalm 22.Jesus was the perfect, spotless, lamb of God. God the Father is the mind of God, Jesus is the body of God, and the Holy Spirit is the spirit of God. That is how we are made in His image we have a mind, body, and spirit.