{"id":1072,"date":"2010-04-23T14:04:38","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T14:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/04\/the-story-of-sin--a-dark-tale-part-two.html"},"modified":"2010-04-23T14:04:38","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T14:04:38","slug":"the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/04\/the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-two.html","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Sin— A Dark Tale Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thumbnail<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the first chapter of his
\nimportant book,  <\/span>Gary Anderson lays out
\nhis cards as to how to approach the issue of sin.  <\/span>His will be a history of ideas and their
\ndevelopment approach, or put another way, a diachronic approach.  <\/span>In principle, this is no different than what
\nI did in my book Jesus the Seer <\/u>where I charted the way prophecy was
\nviewed and talked about at the various stages of salvation history.   <\/span>Anderson
\nwill do the same thing for the topic of sin, and he stresses from the outset,
\nquite rightly, that metaphors matter. 
\n<\/span>And the metaphors about sin and its consequences and remedies are
\nvaried.  <\/span>We can talk about being cleansed
\nfrom sin, or having a burden lifted,  <\/span>or
\nhaving a stain removed.  <\/span>Anderson stresses that sin always has
\nconsequences in a moral universe, and of course he is right about that.   <\/span>It’s one of the things Christians sometimes
\nhave trouble wrapping their minds around. 
\n<\/span>They tend to think that if your sins are forgiven then there are no
\nconsequences to those sins.   <\/span>This of
\ncourse is false. When a drunk driver runs over a small child’s leg, which makes
\nit impossible for the leg to be entirely properly healed or reconstructed, even
\nif the man is forgiven for his sinful act, 
\n<\/span>the child still has to live with the consequences of it, and indeed, if
\nthe man is arrested and jailed, he will have to live with the tangible
\nconsequences as.   <\/span>Even if he is not
\narrested or jailed, if the man has any moral compass at all, there will be
\nconsequences, there will be guilt to live with or be dealt with.   <\/span>Sin always has consequences, which
\nforgiveness does not necessarily erase. 
\n<\/span>Forgiveness can produce healing in a relationship or help to move on in
\nlife, but it seldom erases or reverses consequences of sin, particularly if we
\nare talking about interpersonal sin and person to person forgiveness, and not
\ntalking in the abstract about what God does with our sin. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

            <\/span>Anderson begins his
\ndiscussion of the ‘early history of sin’ by talking about the Day of Atonement
\nritual we find in Lev. 16.  <\/span>He points out
\nthat the way sin is envisioned in this chapter is as a weight or burden that
\nmust both be lifted from the person in question, but also placed on some other
\ncreature (the scapegoat), and removed from the scene. “It is not enough for Israel to fast
\nand repent; the physical material of the sin that had rested on the shoulder of
\nevery Israelite must be carted away into oblivion.” (p. 6).  <\/span>Anderson
\ncontrasts this with the way that Jesus regularly speaks of sin as a debt to be
\npaid (see e.g. the parable in Mt. 18.23-34). 
\n<\/span>He explains, in part the transition from the notion of sin as a burden
\nto sin as a debt with the onset of the use of the Aramaic language and its
\ncoming to prominence among God’s people from the Persian period onwards. “One
\nof the linguistic items that came on board was the construal of sin as a debt,
\na metaphor implied in the Aramaic tongue, but not in the Hebrew.” (p. 8).  <\/span>Of course one of the problems with this
\nobservation for Biblical theology is that apart from a very few lines in Daniel
\nand a few sayings of Jesus, the Bible is not written in Aramaic.  <\/span>It is written in Hebrew and Greek.  <\/span>Should we mainly derive our understanding of
\nsin and its metaphors from a language which contributes precious little to the
\ndiction of the Bible?  <\/span>It’s a question
\nworth asking. <\/p>\n

            <\/span><\/p>\n

          Anderson goes on to
\ndescribe what the use of economic language did to the way sin was viewed.  <\/span>If sin creates a debt, then according to
\nancient culture, the debt must be paid off in some way.  <\/span>One could even become a debt-slave and so work
\nit off.  <\/span>Take for example the case of
\nGod’s people being sold into exile in Babylon,
\ndue to their sinfulness. “There the physical punishment of exile served as the
\nmeans by which Israel
\nraised ‘hard currency’ to pay off the debt she owed.’ (p. 8).  <\/span>We see this sort economic way of viewing sin
\nand its consequences when Paul says ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom. 6.23).  <\/span>Anderson
\nreasons that once it became common to see sin as a debt, the next normal step
\nwas to see virtuous activities as a credit, building up brownie points in
\nheaven.  <\/span>And of course he is right that
\nvarious early Jews did view the matter this way.  <\/span>Tobit for example in Tob. 4.9 has a father
\ntelling his son that if he will give alms on a regular basis “you will be
\nlaying up a good treasure for [yourself] against the day of necessity.” One
\nmight think of the phrase “storing up treasures in heaven” used by Jesus.  <\/span>Anderson
\nthen charts how a doctrine of merit arises, and with it the rising notion that
\nhuman beings could do something to counteract or compensate for their sins.  <\/span><\/p>\n

         
<\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/span>Why does
\nthis sort of discussion matter?  <\/span>Anderson answers towards
\nthe close of the first chapter that of course how one talks about sin to some extent determines what one does about
\nit<\/i>.  <\/span>He is right about this of
\ncourse.  <\/span>Provocatively he adds “If God
\nkeeps a record of what one owes, then there must be a corresponding ledger
\nsheet that documents what one owns.”  <\/span>(p.
\n13).  <\/span>What happens when one begins
\nthinking this way is that one begins to assume a business mentality about sin
\nas debt, and virtue as credit.  <\/span>One
\nbegins to think in terms of an exchange— for example almsgiving to the poor
\nis seen as a credit which helps cancel or pay back some of the debt. This idea
\nof course will not only characterize the ongoing Jewish tradition, but some
\nforms of the Christian tradition, even leading to the notions of indulgences,
\nor buying years off of purgatory through good works.  <\/span>For example, the magnificent Norman cathedral
\nin Durham England where I did my doctoral
\nwork was built by stonemasons free of charge…… well not totally free.  <\/span>They were granted all sorts of treasure in
\nheaven,  <\/span>namely years off of purgatory
\n(and maybe even forgiveness for sins). 
\n<\/span>It is of course some of these notions of sin and its punishment and
\nvirtue and its rewards that led to the Protestant Reformation in the first
\nplace, of which we will say more later in this discussion.  <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the first chapter of his important book,  Gary Anderson lays out his cards as to how to approach the issue of sin.  His will be a history of ideas and their development approach, or put another way, a diachronic approach.  In principle, this is no different than what I did in my book Jesus…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Story of Sin- A Dark Tale Part Two - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/04\/the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-two.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Story of Sin- A Dark Tale Part Two - 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}