The Origin of Sin

Greece and Rome, Early Judaism and Christianity

David Konstan (New York University, USA)

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Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
07 April 2022

Ancient history: to c 500 CE; Ethics & moral philosophy; Christianity; Ancient religions & mythologies

Where did the idea of sin arise from? In this meticulously argued book, David Konstan takes a close look at classical Greek and Roman texts, as well as the Bible and early Judaic and Christian writings, and argues that the fundamental idea of ""sin"" arose in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, although this original meaning was obscured in later Jewish and Christian interpretations.

Through close philological examination of the words for ""sin,"" in particular the Hebrew hata' and the Greek hamartia, he traces their uses over the centuries in four chapters, and concludes that the common modern definition of sin as a violation of divine law indeed has antecedents in classical Greco-Roman conceptions, but acquired a wholly different sense in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.

By: David Konstan (New York University USA)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 481g
ISBN: 9781350278585
ISBN 10: 1350278580
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 07 April 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University, USA. Among his books are Friendship in the Classical World (1997), Pity Transformed (2001), The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks (2006), Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea (2010) and In the Orbit of Love: Affection in Ancient Greece and Rome (2018). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Reviews for The Origin of Sin: Greece and Rome, Early Judaism and Christianity

[A] book that should be read by anyone who is interested in Judaism and, above all, in ancient Christianity ... [An] essential book for the history of religions. * Myrtia (Bloomsbury translation) * In The Origin of Sin, the classicist David Konstan offers an enlightening comparison between the concepts of sin in the literature of Greece and Rome on the one hand, and Judaism and Christianity on the other … [H]is argument carries much conviction and sheds interesting light on the distinctiveness of the founding ethos of both Judaism and Christianity within their cultural milieux. * The Expository Times *