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The Issue of Original Sin: Why should one mans sin condemn us all?
The most common defense is a derivative of Augustine’s stance, which is that biologically we were all present in Adam when he sinned; as if to conclude we are all therefore guilty. There later came a “federal head” concept which would essentially work as any representative of a people group. For instance, a single act or decision made by our president could easily thwart our relationship with any given nation. It argues that it is not so much we personally committed evil, but that we unfortunately suffer the consequences of being part of a people group which committed evil. An example would be the way a white man might have felt early after slavery was abolished, there is a deep shame in just being white, a shame which perhaps still thwarts the relationship between the two races, even generations later. This theory is functional at best, but is certainly strained when we begin to think that one mans eating of an apple could condemned every generation that follows until the sun burns out. I also don’t really like it because it doesn’t consider that we all sin; as I find that to be an extremely valid argument since I’ve yet to find anyone prior to their having committed a sin personally. Nonetheless, this theory I would say is simply mans best formulated answer to the rub we innately have with the idea of “original sin.” The best retort however, I find in the Bible itself.
Gen 2:9
Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

We’ve finished the creation narrative, and we arrive at this moment, where God makes trees good for food, and then two specific trees. One of life and one of knowledge of good and evil. God goes on to place Adam in the garden and tell him that he can eat of any tree, but if he eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil then he will surely die[Gen 2:17]. Then, of course, Adam eats of it; so what has just happened, and why should it somehow condemn everyone else ever. First lets see what the new testament says.
Rom 5:12-14
… through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—For until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

This is the best transliteration I can think of from the Greek, which is much fewer words. For instance the word ὁμοίωμα(likeness) is very similar to the word τύπος (a type of) in it’s application, but they are two very different words. Paul only uses “a type of” because of the analogy he is setting up where he compares Adam to Jesus in that sin came in through one, and grace came in through the other. We see that sin was in the world before the mosaic law was, even though we only define sin by a straying from the mosaic law. To present evidence of this Paul notes that death has reigned, therefore sin existed (since death only entered through sin). So lets get down to business: what happened on that day when Adam ate the fruit?
Given the text that we have, we can see what it does not say about that day. Adam did not do a thing which now is accounted as though we each had individually done it by our own freewill. Paul notes that even those who did not sin the way Adam did, which is to disobey Gods command, had sinned before there was even a written law at all! Really what we should do right now is examine what exactly sin is, but we can do that another time. So what really happened? Death entered; remember the two trees?
Tree of life and tree of knowledge: pick one. There are trees good for food, and two other trees. I adhere to the idea that when Adam ate from the tree of knowledge that he essentially unplugged his power cable and replaced it with a data cable. The tree of life was the alternative. I cannot know if he ever ate from the tree of life, the text is inconclusive, but he nonetheless could not go back and eat from the tree of life because he was kicked out of the garden. At that moment he ate from the tree, there was a hard-wire shift; one which I have no simile for because nothing like it has ever happened since. Where once we had pure life, now we have knowledge. This is why knowledge(and the search for it) is the single greatest driving force in human history, it is this search that so often keeps us from “living.” At least, this is the case in my personal life. So why are we condemned? Maybe a more appropriate question is why do we inherit our parents traits and physical features? Better yet, why are we in a parent/child spawning relationship? How come at the creation of each of us does God not pick up a mound of dirt and breathe into it, as He did for Adam? Adam taught the body how to die; how to sin. To be clear, I’m using that loosely, freewill(as Adam demonstrated) has always been available to us, likewise “sin” was always on optional choice of freewill, but Adam shifted our natural bent.
This is why we don’t have to teach a two year old to bite mommy when she takes the pacifier away. We are now born with a false perception of what is important and what is a good/satisfying means of living. Before a real sentient and cognitive person can even fully develop we find that the person has already sinned a number of ways. Is it possible to not sin? Absolutely. The only one I’ve known to not sin at all is Jesus, whom scripture tells us, though divine, was born wholly into the bloodline of mankind; completely human. One can note that there was no male sperm used to inseminate, as Mary was a virgin, this to me is God stepping into the game and saying “let me show you what I mean, and that it is in fact possible.” This brings us to your next contention:

Unchanging God/ Changing Principles: Why are the commands of the old testament magically deemed inactive?
There are a number of extremely good resolutions to this contention. Firstly, it should be noted right out that simply because someone may give instruction today that is completely opposite of a previous instruction does not mean that the one giving the instruction has changed in the least. As I would tell a two year old he is not allowed to cross the street alone, but when he is fifteen I will let him play freely on the street. One must be incredibly strict and rigid during the outset of child rearing, both for the child’s safety because it lacks the cognitive power to understand the consequences of its action or inaction, while also in order to instruct him in the way that is ultimately right. It is similar to poetry, in that it is not simply adhering to the formalities, but it is knowing what formalities you are not adhering to; know what you are not doing. How can one know right from wrong if he is never taught specifically what either is? How therefore could he choose which he desired to be? Naturalism is a prominent response to this conundrum, but again, that is a discussion for another time(one which I would absolutely love to engage in).
I hold it fair to consider instances where governmental laws shift, enact new ones, or relinquish others, having nothing to do with the fairness of the laws, but of the time in which they are in. For instance: war-time laws. Every government sees the need for them, as they are not inherently wrong, but are certainly unnecessary in a time of peace. This is largely the case for the (appropriately named)cleanliness laws: sometimes abstaining from certain meats or food groups or ways to clean a wound. These laws were given in a time where meat was full of disease and the surrounding nations thought rubbing different sorts of feces on wounds somehow helped the healing process. As human kind advanced, it should be obvious why the new testament does not recommend those in the same way it does of others. The same is true for the Levitical sign laws.
Sign laws were sometimes to the people of Israel but more often specifically to the Levites. These were laws having to do with ones outward appearance, their function was to separate Gods people from the other nations of the world in an apparent way. It served a number of functions during war, captivity, slavery, and even in religious practice God would have them do certain things as an act of remembrance. Like us, the Israelites often forgot their identity and who their God was, so God instituted ways of remembrance. I know good Christians who still adhere to these laws, though I find serious contention with the practice if it is to be considered a required practice, since Paul writes to the Galations [chapter 3] about trying to be saved by laws still, as if to suggest Jesus’ blood was not enough in its redemptive integrity. Lo, again I find the best explanation for the shift in doctrinal teachings within the Bible itself.
Mat 19:8
He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.

God has always been after our hearts. This excerpt from Matthew is at a moment where the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus with the very same argument of “conflicting instruction.” They present scripture that says God has made man and wife one flesh and no man can separate what God has put together, and yet Moses says if you divorce you have to give the woman a certificate of divorce; as if to suggest that the two commands innately conflict. The two passages however don’t even conflict by nature, they sort of appear to at first, but Moses is only providing a provision in an attempt to control something which he by no means is condoning, but nonetheless is happening.
Gal 5:14-16
For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

This is the whole of the old testament laws, they are rigid instructions which describe what eating from the tree of life would have looked like, or perhaps just what life was like before eating of the tree of knowledge. They are all strange and hard and unfamiliar to mankind, because we’ve been locked into the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil for so long. In the creation narrative we have God making things and saying “this is good” and then when Adam eats of the tree he says “this is good” and thusly the generations after him continue only to make the same foolish mistakes of inventing their own good. We end up just more and more corrupt.
In conclusion, the new and old testament have no apparent contradictions as to the law or the character of God. Gods dealing with human kind has in fact changed, just as in child rearing, with an eventual goal of stepping back and letting them make their own choices unaided by you; this is where we are now. It is not to say God is inactive by any means, but it is to say that He has given us all we could ever need, and prepared us accordingly, and now we have more freedom than ever before in history. Ultimately however God was always more interested in our hearts, and the mosaic law was all part of exposing our own broken heart to ourselves so that we would understand really the travesty that happen to us because of Adam and our real need for a savior. With Jesus’ death entered the Holy Spirit, which is a complete game changer, and is a topic for a whole new discussion, which I would thoroughly enjoy having!

Grace and peace,
Nathanael W

PS: You could see also my blog The Law: A Ring which deals similarly with these topics. https://nathanaelw.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/the-law-a-ring/