Your correspondents (Letters, 10 October) follow Fr Daniel O’Leary (‘Illuminated by starlight’, 3 October) in questioning the traditional doctrine of Original Sin – that the first human beings were created perfect and immune to death, and that at the start of their lives they corrupted human nature by a sin of disobedience.
They seem to accept, however, that the authors of Genesis 2.4 – 3. 24 intended their narrative to be understood in this way.
Joseph Fitzpatrick in The Fall and the Ascent of Man argues very persuasively that this is a misinterpretation: that it is meant to describe a rite of passage from childhood to maturity (something often called the ‘death’ of the child) and to explain how human beings from living like animals became properly human.
William Charlton, Hexham
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