Origin of Sin

"In this meticulously argued book, David Konstan takes a close look at classical Greek and Roman texts, as well as the Bible and early Judaic and Christian writings, and argues that the fundamental idea of 'sin' arose in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, although this original meaning was obscured in later Jewish and Christian interpretations. Through close philological examination of the words for 'sin,' in particular the Hebrew hata' and the Greek hamartia, he traces their e uses over the centuries in four chapters, and concludes that the common modern definition of sin as a violation of divine law indeed has antecedents in classical Graeco-Roman conceptions, but acquired a wholly different sense in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The Hebrew word hata', rather than denoting just any offense against divine injunctions, refers more narrowly to the violation of the covenant, which takes the form of chasing after foreign gods. As such, it pertains above all to the Israelites, who alone are parties to the covenant. Those who have fallen away can earn forgiveness by repenting of their error and confessing before God - a paradigmatic script for sin and its remission that is en