Reconsidering Hamartia as “Sin” in 1 Corinthians

Abstract

English translations of the New Testament (nt) consistently render the Greek termhamartiaand its cognates as “sin.” English translations of other Greek texts dated to roughly the same time period, however, provide a variety of English words such as “mistake,” error,” or “things we get wrong,” to accommodate contextual nuances. This essay argues that this bifurcation has several unappealing consequences for the study of Christian beginnings. The palpable difference in translation portrays thenttexts as unique departures from the moral discourse of the time and reifies an unnecessary divide between early Christian and other kinds of moral literature, while the unqualified use of the English word sin brings with it the possibility that readers will import more unified theological doctrines about sin onto texts written well before the doctrines were even developed.

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