Image of God in the context of "Adam and Eve"

In Christian theology, original sin (Latin: peccatum originale) is the condition of sinfulness that all humans share, which is inherited from Adam and Eve due to the Fall, involving the loss of original righteousness and the distortion of the Image of God. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3 (the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden), and in texts such as Psalm 51:5 ("I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me") and Romans 5:12–21 ("Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned").

The specific doctrine of original sin was developed in the 2nd century struggle against Gnosticism by Irenaeus of Lyons, and was shaped significantly by Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD), who was the first author to use the phrase "original sin". Influenced by Augustine, the Councils of Carthage (411–418 AD) and Orange (529 AD) brought theological speculation about original sin into the official lexicon of the Church.

B'Tselem (Hebrew: בְּצֶלֶם, IPA: [beˈtselem]; transl. "In the Image [of God]"; Arabic: بتسيلم), also known as the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, is a Jerusalem-based Israeli nonprofit organization aiming to document human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, combat any denial of the existence of such violations, and help create a human rights culture in Israel. It is headed by Yuli Novak, who took over in June 2023 from Hagai El-Ad. B'Tselem also maintains a presence in Washington, D.C., where it is known as B'Tselem USA. The organization is controversial within Israel, with reactions ranging from harsh criticism to strong praise.

Kabbalah, the central system in Jewish mysticism, uses anthropomorphic mythic symbols to metaphorically describe manifestations of God in Judaism. Based on the verses "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:27) and "from my flesh shall I see God" (Job 19:26), Kabbalah uses the form of the human body to describe the structure of the human soul, and the nature of supernal Divine emanations. A particular concern of Kabbalah is sexual unity between male and female potencies in Divinity on high, depicted as interaction of the two sides in the sephiroth, Adam Kadmon the divine Anthropos, between archetypal partzufim or divine personas, and the redemption of the exiled Shekhinah, feminine divine presence, from captivity among the impure forces called qlippoth "husks" below.

Kabbalists repeatedly warn and stress the need to divest their subtle notions from any corporeality, dualism, plurality, or spatial and temporal connotations. All divine emanations are only from the spiritual perception of creation, nullifying from the Divine view into the Ohr Ein Sof (Infinite light). As "the Torah speaks in the language of Man", according to Berachot 31b and other sources, the empirical terms are necessarily imposed upon man's experience in this world. Once the analogy is described, its dialectical limitations are then related to stripping the kernel of its qlippa "husk" to arrive at a more accurate conception. Nonetheless, Kabbalists believe their mythic symbols are not arbitrary but carefully chosen terminologies that mystically point beyond their limits of language to denote subtle connotations and profound relationships in the Divine spiritual influences. More accurately, as they describe the emanation of the Material world from the Four Worlds, the analogous anthropomorphisms and material metaphors themselves derive through cause and effect from their precise root analogies on High.