Questioning Sin: From the Ancient World Down to Today, a Philosophy of Wrong-Doing
What is sin exactly? What does 'to sin' actually mean? What are the origins of the word? How does sin relate to the Bible? In this episode Rob and I answer a lot of questions while delving into the nature of sin, discussing etymologies, interpretations coming to the question of who are the true sinners, especially of today? Are they the every day people in our lives, our friends, family and neighbours or are they people in our governments, working daily towards undermining and destroying humanity? A large topic, you will discover the Seven Deadly Sins do not feature in the Bible nor does Original Sin. Where do they come from? Well, you'll have to give this one and listen and find out on another episode of Rob and Dolli: Life to Life.
Forbidden Fruit (1509) - Michelangelo - Sistine Chapel, Florence
A Personal and Researched Discussion and Understanding of Sin
- Christijan Robert Broerse
These days, I consider myself a Christian. In my childhood I was raised by a New Age mom (whose teachings embraced compassion and forgiveness, tenets of Christianity) but grew up fascinated with the Bible. I studied it, read interpretations, philosophers. But I do not attend church because I rarely find fellow Christians who seek a further understanding or question their religion's history. In fact, they mock the New Age types and I cannot accept this kind of disdain. I appreciate deeply how I was raised and was told to always keep an open mind.
The one aspect I find in modern Christians is their dislike of this idea of self-love which is based on the widely-accepted notion that we are all 'sinners'. For me, self-love is not self-idolization or self-adulation. Self-love is respecting and loving the self as an individual created divinely. Having lived through a horrific illness with roots in self-hatred and lack of self-forgiveness, self-love was the antidote. Seeing myself through the eyes of compassion, I learned to be more forgiving of my imperfections, embracing my life, and learning to let go of anger and I was able to heal. (If I kept to the idea of being a sinner, I would still be suffering today, how is that healthy for one's spirit? How is that helpful?)
While the Bible is a powerful and beautiful text, we must acknowledge it has been edited and revised by political hands. The word of God has been edited. For instance, today, I urge everyone to compare one’s King James and New International Bibles. Look at the following chapters: Matthew 17:21, 18:11, 23:14, Mark 7:16, 9:44 and 46, 11:26 and 15:28 along with Luke 17:36. They are missing in the NIV. However, these passages appear in an Orthodox Study Bible. Why was this done? Or why were certain books not included? The Apocrypha appears in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions but not in the Protestant denominations.
Returning to the idea of being 'sinners' and self-hatred. I firmly believe the conflation of 'sin' has led to loathing ourselves. For instance, ‘sin’ stems from Old English, syn which is in turn related to German Sünde and Old Norse synd. This word, while meaning 'moral and religious offence' is derived from the Latin sons, sonstis which means 'guilty, criminal'. (Here, our English word which means religious offence is actually from a secular word equated with outright 'lawbreakers'.) The Latin word for sin, peccatum lacks the castigating heaviness we have equated with our 'sin' which means 'lapse, misconduct, doing something wrong'.
We will return to the Latin. Next, we must examine 'sin' in the Old Testament. Sin is the word that replaces three separate terms in Hebrew. Chet (חָטָא) meaning 'misstep, missing the mark (like a marksman missing the target)', is mentioned 34 times in the Old Testament. Avon or Aven (אָוֶן) is 'an error or harmful act that requires making amends' while Pesha (פֶּשַׁע)is 'a conscious, rebellious act like revenge, theft, and murder' and mentioned 93 times.
“I acknowledged my sin (חָטָא) unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. ”
As someone living in another country, I respect the nuances of language. For instance, in German, the word 'available' can be translated into various words: as a person, erreichbar (reachable) while a book in a store is verfügbar (obtainable). In a train, if you ask if a seat is available, you ask if it is frei (i.e. ‘available’ to sit in). When using the German language, we cannot indiscriminately hope to apply one version of 'available' to the three unique situations mentioned above. It is the same with Biblical translation.
Already, we must acknowledge that the Old Testament was not written in English but translated into English. We are one step away from the original meaning. Meanwhile, the word 'sin', adopted from Latin meaning 'guilty, like a criminal', is used for concepts like chet and also... pesha. Isn't that ridiculous? And also limiting. So, let us say a son comes home from school and shows his parents a math test. He has scored 8 out 10. He made a mistake... twice. Twice. Would you say his mistake is on the same level as someone who murders someone? No. Obviously not.
Yet Christians, based on their tradition (one politically shaped as I will show) must believe we are all, every single one of us... sinners. I believe the Christian faith of today suffers from the conflation of etymology and mis-translation as much as misinterpretation.
We must now turn to the New Testament where sin and sinner appear. In Mark 1:5: "And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him (St. John the Baptist) in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." Here the word sin is derived from Greek: ἁμαρτία (Pronounced: ham-ar-tee'-ah). This word, much like the Latin peccatum and Hebrew chet (חָטָא) originally means 'missing the mark' while also denoting something of a 'tragic character'. Aristotle in his Poetics wrote about when describing the "...the character between these two extremes – that of a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty" (Poetics, Chapter XIII). Error or frailty. We all make errors, we all have moments of frailty but are we criminals as in the Latin sense of sons?
“Actions are commonly regarded as involuntary when they are performed (A) under compulsion (B) as a result of ignorance.”
Cena (anche convito o festino) in Casa Levi (Feast at the House of Levi) - Paolo Veronese - Gallerie d’ell’Accademia, Venice
In Mark 2:15: "While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him" (NIV). Here sinner is derived from μαρτωλός, (ham-ar-to-los'), an individual of a tragic character. We mustn't forget that the individuals, yes, divinely inspired to write about these events, were using a lexicon passed down to them. Words can be limiting but also powerful, especially when they are twisted. Jesus was a friend to those of tragic dispositions. He cared for them with compassion and he cast no judgement. He healed and cured. But Jesus respected those that came before him in the greater tradition. He would have been aware of chet (חָטָא), avon (אָוֶן)and pesha (פֶּשַׁע). I am certain he would not have conflated the deeds of someone making a mistake to equal those of greater crimes. Nonetheless he was forgiving of all.
But what about 'Original Sin'? This was an interpretation made, much, much later. For instance, read Genesis 3. The word 'sin' does not once appear in the entire text wherein Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit and they are cast out. The idea that Adam sinned is derived from Roman 5:12: "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" (NIV). Paul, we must not remember, was not present with Jesus. Paul, formerly Saul persecuted Christians. Isn't it interesting that a former persecutor of the followers of Jesus should steer the concept of sin regarding Eden when Jesus doesn't speak about Adam and Eve in this way. (He spoke about Adam and Eve in terms of union in Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6.)
Augustine of Hippo (354-40), taking his inspiration from Paul created 'original sin' (pecctatum orginale). Augustine, we must remember comes from Carthage, a place where Moloch was once worshipped, mentioned in the histories of the Roman Livy and the Greek Plutarch. Moreover, Augustine had been a hedonist in his teens and youth and a Manichean before converting to Christianity. Yet he had a huge influence on the political and intellectual development of the church. In his City of God 13:23, he wrote "inheritance of sin and death is conveyed to us by birth" and that all people of all faiths are "part of mass damnation, justly condemned because of sin." (Again return to the boy with 8/10 on his math test and telling him he is outright damned. Pretty cruel right? And extreme.).
Evagrius of Pontus (345-399)
In addition, at the Councils of Carthage in 418, along with other individuals, Augustine assisted in the evolving church, helping to make the decree that man was indeed 'sinful'. In the canons, VI: The statement 'if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves,' should not be said out of humility because it is true.' True, by who? Not by Christ. No. This canon was not decreed by Christ. This canon does not appear in the Bible nor do the seven deadly sins which were devised by Pope Gregory I in 590 A.D. which was based on a list of evil thoughts by Evagrius of Pontus (345-399).
The widely-accepted notion of being a sinner is derived from Saul/Paul and Augustine, both men who were not saints and despite their good intentions, we should be hesitant to admire. Such as it is, following them, the entire Christian doctrine that we are all sinners has culminated as a result of manipulation brought out about through a) the misuse of translation, b) re-interpretation of texts and c) political machinations outside of Christ's original teachings. Moreover, I believe this concept of 'sin' is used to train people to believe they are unworthy and are essentially criminals, to brainwash them to denigrate themselves. (How different is that from the idea that we should hate ourselves because we drive a gas-powered vehicle or want to use an oil stove in this day and age? Or that we are a cancer and need to be eradicated? Might we associate Augustine with Bill Gates and would this make more sense?)
I truly and sincerely ask Christians to study their texts, to question how their faith has been organised and shaped. It is not anti-faith to discuss such ideas. We must be open, how else are we to learn? This openness is risky and people hold to tradition like a crutch and for those like myself, willing to question it, I am sure I will receive numerous comment. I am drawn to Christ. To Christ. Not Paul. Nót Augustine. I read the Gospels, not the writings of a Carthegian or a former persecutor of followers of Christ.
I also recognise and consider that tradition was not always tradition. During the time when the traditional Bible was coming into being, the texts of the Gnostics were being written and demoted. Yet in the Gospel of Philip, the writer follows in the tradition of Judaism when discussing pesha. In the Jewish faith. Yetzer ha‑ra (יֵצֶר הַרַע) is the evil inclination in Judaism that leads to pesha. The Gospel of Philip writes: "as long as the root of evil is hidden, it is strong. When it is recognised, it is undone, and if it is brought to light it dies." (83). This along with other texts were not considered canonical. I believe this text inspires self-responsibility. While I believe in Christ, I believe we must better ourselves by being inspired by Him. To simply say we say we are 'saved' denotes we are not further involved in our development as divinely created human beings. We evade self-responsibility.
As we awaken on this Great Awakening journey, we must devote ourselves to the light, to research and questioning. Question everything. Everything. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) once said the greatest deception humans suffer are from their own opinions. Opinions on tradition can be misguided. Christianity, while sourced from a beautiful place, has meanwhile been shaped by 'opinions'. Question the nature of 'sin' or why the Bible is missing passages today or why certain books were considered okay and others heresy. Christ didn't judge the writings. In fact, he only wrote in the sand.
“The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism – no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity served up sweet.”
I feel it is hypocritical to think one's religion is superior without investigating its origins or how it has been culturally adapted. The Christian philosopher Kierkegaard wrote about Christianity and Christendom. In the latter, Christendom represented the visage of Christianity without the truth. I would argue 'sin' and 'sinners' belongs to Christendom, a facade used to belittle humanity, to lead humans towards self-hatred and make them helpless (how can you undo something you never did in the first place?) and thwart its wondrous, loving and compassionate potential.
For those that want to further explore the Bible and its many facets I can recommend this website:
Here you can find the Bible translated into multiple languages (English, German, French, Italian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slavic, as well as Norse), and within those languages, from the traditional to more modern interpretations. I can highly recommend it.