El autor tiene intuiciones interesantes, pero pierde claridad con una ingente cantidad de referencias que quedarían mejor en las notas al texto principal.

Voy a leer su estudio sobre el Génesis en breve.

Blocher is simply difficult to read. There's just no way around it. Unfortunately, his lack of clarity greatly affects, in my estimation, his value. When compared to the clarity of say, Anthony Hoekema or others from the Dutch Reformed tradition, his writing comes off as remarkably muddy. This is unfortunate, because he has written on some important theological topics.

Given the complexity of the subject at hand, original sin, and the muddiness of Blocher's writing I am not so sure he succeeded in "illuminating the riddle." Nor was I convinced of his thesis (or completely clear what his thesis was).

Unless one is engaging in in-depth research on the doctrine of original sin I would recommend sticking with Anthony Hoekema (Created in God's Image), John Murray (Imputation of Adam's Sin) or a standard Systematic Theology (Boettner and/or Bavinck).

Balanced, highly erudite.

Henri Blocher offers another thoughtful and insightful study of Christian doctrine. Working from a broadly Reformed background, Blocher maps out key elements of the doctrine of original sin and interacts with contemporary critiques and reformulations. Chapter 1 highlights what Scripture broadly teaches about sin. CHapter 2 zeroes in on Adam and the Garden of Eden and the historicity issues there. Chapter 3 looks at Paul's view of Adam in Romans 5. Chapter 4 discusses how the doctrinal of original sin makes sense of human experience. Chapter 6 looks at the issue of the transmission of sin.

Tends to be academic, but if you take it slow, it will be stimulating reading.

In general, NSBT is an excellent series - but this volume doesn't quite live up to the others. Most of the book is spent conducting a survey of historical positions on original sin and then, when Blocher does come to analyse the key Pauline text, he spends only a few pages outlining a radical new understanding of what original sin is. The final chapter is spent, again, back in the literature, with Blocher pointing out flaws in other models.

Not the best read ever. Pretty disappointing.

This is a must read! Excellent monograph on Original Sin.

Fairly good.

There was definitely some meat here, but it was (as these books are want) very dry. Theology (the philosophical side of things, anyway) can often seem an exercise in splitting hairs, but what Blocher’s undertaken is more like nuclear fission.

The book does ramp up and get pretty good around chapter 4. There are some helpful pieces of truth. As a useful tool, however, if I were in a real life situation in which I was needing to pull out these arguments apologetically, I fear I would have already found myself in the middle of answering a fool according to his folly (in a Pr. 26:4 sense).

Finally, if Blocher were to write more books, and were to inquire of my advice first (unlikely), I would strongly encourage him to read Orwell’s essay On Politics and the English Language.

Although D.A. Carson comes from a perspective that I expected would advocate for original sin, I did not expect him to disagree with the idea of alien guilt inherited by Adam's posterity. His solution makes more sense and has more biblical support than retaining Adamic guilt would. This is an angle on Original Sin feasible for theological descendants of Arminius rather than inclining purely towards Calvinism/TULIP.

He recognizes Adamic solidarity, but not at the level of the analogies commonly used where the head of a state's decision to go to war places children born in a state at war. Instead, he sees our human (Adamic) solidarity as deeper than that, such that spiritual war includes actual enmity in the will of every human being. This hostility towards God carries guilt.

This is compatible with acknowledging that no person is inherently righteous by nature. All are unrighteous, and because they are naturally at enmity with God, they are enemies of God.

Overall, the book had a lot of Biblical data earlier on while also engaging many philosophical voices later on. As I'm more interested in the former than the latter, my personal rating is not as high. Still, I recognize the need for a volume of this nature to engage with the academic community on that level, so if someone is looking for that, add a star.

Original Sin is a rather challenging book to read. It is not a surface treatment of the subject and it requires concentration to follow. The author, Henri Blocher, quotes extensively as he addresses prior understanding of original sin before he offers a fresh understanding of Romans 5. If you are concerned about, or would like to learn more about the subject of original sin and it's transmission to the human race, it's an essential book to read, but perhaps after some introductory material first if you are new to the theological study.

I think Blocher delves too deeply into the different philosophical thoughts surrounding original sin. He shines the brightest on his exposition of Romans 5. That chapter was straight

Reread it on January 5, 2002

I have to confess: This book was really hard to read. At times I had to reread sections and still had no clue what exactly the author was trying to say. Sometimes the use of flowery, academic referencing statements were lost on me. It's not that there was nothing in the content that was helpful. It just seemed like the book could have been half the length and much easier to read. Original Sin is obviously a really critical doctrinal issue, so it is unfortunate that the authors style of writing and terms are so hard to understand. It is one of those books that I can only recommend to a very narrow audience of readers.