Romans 5:12

New Testament

12 So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned 13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed. 15 But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many! 16 And the gift is not like the one who sinned. For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, led to condemnation, but the gracious gift from the many failures led to justification. 17 For if, by the transgression of the one man, death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ!

4 Ezra 4:30

2 Esdras
Pseudepigrapha

28 The evil about which you ask me has been sown, but its reaping has not yet come. 29 Until the crop of evil has been reaped as well as sown, until the ground where it was sown has vanished, there will be no room for the field which has been sown with the good. 30 A grain of the evil seed was sown in the heart of Adam from the first; how much godlessness has it produced already! 31 How much more will it produce before the harvest! 32 Reckon this up: if one grain of evil seed has produced so great a crop of godlessness, how vast a harvest will there be when good seeds beyond number have been sown! 33 ‘I asked, ‘But when? How long have we to wait? Why are our lives so short and so miserable?’ 34 He replied, ‘Do not be in a greater hurry than the Most High himself. You are in a hurry for yourself alone; the Most High for many.

 Notes and References

"... The apocalyptic book 4 Ezra, often called 2 Esdras, or the Apocalypse of Ezra, is a writing of Jewish origin stemming from the period after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The book is designed as a profound aid for Jews to cope with the reality of Roman emperors persecuting the pious. In that context, the history of Israel is retold, especially stressing human inability to fathom the ways of God. This inability is then connected with the concept of evil. Sin is not seen as an act of a freely operating human, but as the inevitable outcome of the sowing of the bad seed. Later in the Book of 4 Ezra a desperate question is raised ... It is remarkable to see that Eve is never mentioned in 4 Ezra. The ideas of the author of IV Ezra are not remote to those of St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans ... The rest of the Epistle to the Romans makes clear that Paul construes human wrongdoing as original or inherited sin. Here, and elsewhere, Adam is seen by Paul as responsible for the sinful condition of mankind ..."

Becking, Bob "Signs from the Garden: Some Remarks on the Relationship between Eve and Adam in Genesis 2–3" in Eidevall, Göran (ed.) Enigmas and Images: Studies in Honor of Tryggve N. D. Mettinger (pp. 22-36) Eisenbrauns, 2011

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