{"id":1073,"date":"2010-04-25T15:59:26","date_gmt":"2010-04-25T15:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/04\/the-story-of-sin--a-dark-tale-part-three.html"},"modified":"2010-04-25T15:59:26","modified_gmt":"2010-04-25T15:59:26","slug":"the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/04\/the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-three.html","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Sin— A Dark Tale Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

<\/p>\n

           If you are a serious student of the Bible and its key terms
\nand metaphors, it does not take long before you realize that ‘sin’ is seen as
\nsomething more than just a momentary lapse of good judgment resulting in a brief
\nstupid act.  <\/span>This of course is how we in
\nthe West have tended to view sin— I think for example of the famous remark of
\nthe British chap when asked to comment on the indelicate matter of illicit sexual
\nintercourse who said— ‘the position is ridiculous, the pleasure momentary, and
\nthe price exorbitant’.  <\/span>Well, at least he
\ngot the last part partly right. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

            <\/span>Sin in the
\nOld Testament is treated as a weighty matter, indeed, as Anderson points out, it is treated as a
\nweight, a thing of substance. In his second chapter, Anderson comes to grips with this metaphor
\nwhich in fact is found early and late in the OT–in the Pentateuch, in Isaiah,
\nand in the exilic book called Ezekiel. One could say it is the dominant way of
\nviewing sin in the OT period.  <\/span>Consider
\nfor a moment the following  <\/span>chart created
\nby the good doctor:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hebrew verb                      <\/span>          <\/span>Translation    <\/span>                    <\/span>Number of Occurrences<\/p>\n

Nasa (<\/b>plus awon, hattah, pesa<\/b>)  <\/span>‘to bear\/bear away a sin’                <\/span>108<\/p>\n

Salah <\/b>(plus the
\nabove terms)  <\/span>      <\/span>‘to forgive a sin’                             <\/span>17<\/p>\n

Kipper (<\/b>plus the
\nabove terms)     <\/span> <\/span>‘to wipe away sin’                          <\/span>6 <\/p>\n

Kissah  <\/span><\/b>(plus the above terms)     <\/span>‘to cover over a sin’                        <\/span>1-2<\/p>\n

Kibbes <\/b>(plus the
\nabove terms)      <\/span>‘to wash away sin’                         <\/span>1-2<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This chart may surprise some, but Anderson is right in his
\nstatistics, and the point he makes is that we need to conceptual things in
\nterms of a sense unit, by which I mean both the noun for sin, and the verb it
\nis connected to.  <\/span>The metaphor arises in
\nthe connection of the verb and its object. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The ‘burden’ of the second chapter
\nfocuses on the notion of sin as a burden or weight to be carried, or carried
\naway.  <\/span>In particular there is a conundrum
\nwhen it comes to the verb nasa <\/b>plus
\nsome Hebrew for sin.  <\/span>On the one hand, in
\nsome cases it means to carry\/bear the weight of one’s sin. In other contexts
\nthe same phrase means to carry away\/ bear away the weight of one’ sin.   <\/span>The first can be seen to refer to
\npunishment, taking the consequences of one’s sin,  <\/span>the latter can be seen to refer to atonement
\nor forgiveness— the weight is lifted, put on the pack animal or scapegoat and
\nborne off into wilderness by a being other than the sinner him or herself.   <\/span>How can one and the same phrase mean both
\nthings, depending on context?   <\/span>In the
\ncontext of punishment it means one thing, in the context of mercy, quite the
\nopposite!   <\/span>For example, in Lev. 5.1 we
\nhear ‘when a person has heard a curse and he does not give information he shall bear the weight of his own sin’ (<\/i>nasa awon). <\/b> <\/span>But contrast Exod. 10.17 “bear away the burden
\nof my offense (nasa awon<\/b>) just this
\nonce, and plead with the Lord your God that he remove this death from me”.    <\/span>Obviously the famous scapegoat passage in
\nLev. 16 (see the famous Rob Bell YouTube video) has this language used in the
\nsecond sense of  <\/span>bearing away and so
\nforgiving this weight of a man’s sin.   <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or consider the famous response of
\nCain in Gen. 4.13 where again we have the phrase nasa awon.  <\/span><\/b>Should it be
\ntranslated–‘the weight of my sin is too great for me to bear’ (with possible
\nimplication, this punishment is too harsh!), or does Cain mean ‘the weight of
\nmy sin is too great to be borne away’ (i.e. it is beyond forgiveness), or does
\nhe simply admit culpability here ‘the weight of my sin is too great to be borne
\naway (by me)’, which is to say he could not atone for himself, but perhaps God
\ncould have mercy a bit and forgive him (see the discussion on pp. 24-25).
\nWhatever we make of this story, and whether we see Cain as a whiner or one who
\nreally finally owns up to the severity of his sin, or he cries out in despair
\nof being able to do anything about the ‘weight’ 
\n<\/span>you can certainly see that ‘a text without a context’ can very easily be
\nmistranslated when you have a Hebrew phrase that can have two such
\ndiametrically opposite meanings.  <\/span>In any
\nand all cases— the weight of sin and its consequences has to be borne by
\nsomeone or something, whether the sinner, or the substitute.  <\/span>And forgiveness means still that someone had
\nto pay the full price—- it just wasn’t you if you went through the scapegoat
\nritiual.  <\/span> <\/span><\/b> <\/span>I would emphasis as much or more than Anderson that the ‘burden’
\nweight’ metaphor in regard to sin is dominant in the OT early and late. And as
\nsuch, we need to weigh the significance of this for Biblical Theology. <\/p>\n

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

           If you are a serious student of the Bible and its key terms and metaphors, it does not take long before you realize that ‘sin’ is seen as something more than just a momentary lapse of good judgment resulting in a brief stupid act.  This of course is how we in the West have…<\/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-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Story of Sin- A Dark Tale Part Three - 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-three.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 Three - 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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\/1073","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=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}