{"id":1074,"date":"2010-04-27T19:09:49","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T19:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/04\/the-story-of-sin--a-dark-tale-part-four.html"},"modified":"2010-04-27T19:09:49","modified_gmt":"2010-04-27T19:09:49","slug":"the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/04\/the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-four.html","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Sin— A Dark Tale Part Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

<\/p>\n

In chapter 3 the plot of the story
\nof sin thickens, or since we are t<\/i>alking
\nabout sin, one could say the plot sickens.  <\/span>At the outset of the chapter,  <\/span>Gary Anderson demonstrates how the Hebrew phrase
\nnasa awon <\/b>is rendered into Aramaic,
\nnamely either as qabbel hoba <\/b>‘to
\nassume a debt’  <\/span>or in other contexts  <\/span>sbaq
\nhoba–<\/b>‘to remit a debt’. The latter refers to a person who graciously
\nrefuses to collect on a debt, while the former refers to the person who has and
\nmust pay a debt.  <\/span>So for example using
\nthe familiar examples from Lev. 5.1 we have ‘if a person becomes obligated by
\nsin…he assumes a debt’ or  <\/span>from Exod.
\n10.17 ‘remit the debt of my sins just this once….’   <\/span>If you compare that with the translation of
\nthe Hebrew in the previous post on Chapter Two, you will see the
\ndifference.  <\/span>Anderson goes on to show that in the later
\nrabbinic languages there is “a complete interchangeability between commercial
\nand theological terminology.’ (p. 29).  
\n<\/span>This brings Anderson
\nto his discussion of Jesus, who should rightly be discussed before the later rabbinic
\nmaterial, but is not.  <\/span>Here Anderson says Jesus “spoke
\na form of Hebrew close to that of the rabbinic dialect” (p. 31).  <\/span>It is not at all clear to me what he means by
\nthis,  <\/span>since in fact, in the fragments we
\nhave, Jesus speaks Aramaic, and not <\/i>rabbinic
\nHebrew.  <\/span> <\/span>Surprisingly enough, when it comes to Jesus
\nAnderson discusses exactly two texts—
\nMt. 6.12, which he takes
\nto be a literal rendering of Jesus’ Aramaic, and the parable he has already
\ndiscussed found in Mt. 18.23-35.  <\/span>His
\nconclusion about Jesus, and indeed about the NT is that the notion of sin as a
\nweight has disappeared, while the notion of sin as a debt is found widely,
\nincluding in the Gospels on the lips of Jesus. 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While I would certainly not want to
\ndeny that one of the metaphorical ways that Jesus images sin is in terms of
\ndebt (see the parable mentioned above), it is certainly not the only way.  <\/span>The language of ‘redeeming’ of course can be
\nrelated to financial debt, even today (you can redeem the coupon….etc.), but
\nthe language of ransom (Mk. 10.45)  <\/span>or
\nthe language of ‘taking away the sins of the world (John 1) does not come from
\nthis commercial metaphor.  <\/span>Indeed, the
\nlatter example certainly does seem to come from the scapegoat\/burden complex of
\nideas about sin in the OT.   <\/span>And then
\nthere is a further problem.  <\/span>Anderson argues (p. 32)
\nthat “in contemporary Greek the word ‘remit’ 
\n<\/span>(aphiemi<\/b>)  <\/span>and the word debt (opheilema<\/b>) did not have a secondary meaning of ‘forgive’  <\/span>and ‘sin’. 
\n<\/span>Now it must be said this conclusion is very questionable, even if we are
\nonly dealing with Matthew.  <\/span>Matthew in
\nfact is probably not urging the Christian audience he is addressing to pray for
\ndebt relief or for that matter to relieve someone else’s literal debts, though
\nthat is a good deed, indeed. No, more commercial language is used to talk about
\nsin and forgiveness.  <\/span>What the words
\ndenote and what the words connote are not one and the same.  <\/span>The subject of Mt. 6 and Mt. 18 is sin and
\nforgiveness even if commercial language is used to describe it.  <\/span>And this brings me to another point. Nouns
\nand verbs mean what they mean in contexts. 
\n<\/span>It is not true that ‘in the beginning was the dictionary’.  <\/span>What we have in the famous petition in Mt. 6
\nand Lk. 11 is that one writer decided to go with a more literate translation of
\nwhat the words denote, the other with what the actual connotation was, to avoid
\nconfusion.  <\/span>Besides all this, both of the
\naforementioned Greek words have a semantic field— opheilema <\/b>can indeed also refer to a wrong, not merely a debt, and
\nwhile we are at it, aphiemi <\/b>can even
\nmean to divorce!   <\/span>Anderson has over-simplified things here, and
\nin so doing distorted the evidence.  <\/span>And
\nit might be worth thinking further about just exactly what Jesus meant when he
\nsaid ‘Come unto me all you who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give
\nyou rest. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’.  <\/span>Possibly Jesus is contrasting his yoke with
\nthe yoke of the Mosaic Law,  <\/span>but
\nconsidering the fact that most early Jews hardly saw the Mosaic Law as some
\nonerous burden, why should we not think Jesus was referring to the burden of
\nsin, which Jesus would alleviate the sinner from?  <\/span>It’s worth pondering.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But in any case Jesus certainly
\ndoes talk about forgiveness of sins, not just forgiveness of debts, and it is
\nimportant to get that point across. 
\n<\/span>Jesus has enormous concern about the poor, and indeed even debt relief
\nif Lk. 4 is read as suggesting that Jesus proclaimed the year of Jubilee had
\narrived. But the sin problem, whether imaged as debt or something else is a
\nbigger problem, to say the least.  <\/span>In an
\ninteresting further discussion,  <\/span>Anderson shows how at Qumran
\n(e.g. 11QMelchizedek) one of the things that happened when remitting a debt
\nbegan to be seen as an metaphor for forgiveness of sins, is that Jews began to
\ngo back and look at OT texts (e.g. Deut. 15) that were about remitting literal
\ndebts, and wondered if in fact they were also about sins as well.  <\/span>Whatever, may be the case with that,  <\/span>Anderson
\nis saying too much when he tries to claim that the metaphor of weight was
\nsimply replaced by a metaphor of debt. For one thing the metaphor of weight
\ndoes not disappear, though it is true that the commercial metaphor rises to the
\nfore.  <\/span> <\/span> <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

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

In chapter 3 the plot of the story of sin thickens, or since we are talking about sin, one could say the plot sickens.  At the outset of the chapter,  Gary Anderson demonstrates how the Hebrew phrase nasa awon is rendered into Aramaic, namely either as qabbel hoba ‘to assume a debt’  or in other…<\/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-1074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Story of Sin- A Dark Tale Part Four - 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-four.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 Four - 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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\/1074","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=1074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}