Sin and Its Remedy in Paul, Nijay Gupta & John Goodrich, eds

So many books, so little time. Having tasted a few chapters of Scripture and Its Interpretation, Nijay Gupta's new edited volume arrives on Sin and Its Remedy in Paul. Since I am quite fond of sin, I feel compelled to read several chapters until the next book screaming at me arrives. Start the stop watch.

Nijay writes the first chapter: "Sin in Context: ἁμαρτία in Greco-Roman and Jewish Literature." I both love and hate the fact that the publisher has apparently forced them to write really short chapters. Nevertheless, he packs a wallop in 13 pages--bite size for an afternoon intermission.

He starts with secular literature: Aristotle, Herodotus, Polybius, Strabo, Plutarch, Arrian. Should I be disturbed that he likes Polybius, the Debbie-downer, the most? The primary take-aways from this section are two. First, the word has no particular religious connotations. Second, "most often the terminology pertains to any sort of error, mistake, or offense, with no assumption about motive" (6). It isn't very common in Greco-Roman literature, only used some 200 times in the extant literature we have 

As it turns out, this background is not particularly helpful for understanding the word group in the New Testament, in my opinion. By the way, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics book 5 is interesting on this score. Aristotle has three categories of injury: 1) atychema, accidental injury or harm, 2) hamartema or unintentional offense, and 3) adikema, harmful intent.

The second second section is on Jewish literature. He prefaces with the Hebrew Bible, drawing heavily on Joseph Lam (2016). Transgression metaphors in the HB include burden, debt, path, and stain. Then Mark Boda (2009) considers sin in the Old Testament a "violation of the command of God" (7). But sin is not primarily a legal category in the OT but a religious category.

Finally, Nijay makes his way through Jewish intertestamental literature: Tobit, 1 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Psalms of Solomon, Twelve Patriarchs, Josephus, Philo. A little more on the intentional side in this sweep, but it could still be used of unintentional harming. Philo is interesting because he sounds a little like Matthew 5 and acts of intent before action.

Bottom line--we'll just have to let the NT speak for itself. None of this background is determinative for how the NT uses the word group.