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Judeo-Christian sin
Joshua
Veteran
What does sin mean to you? How many contexts can you use it in? I've always thought of sin as nearly always bound to the context of a divine transgression, that is until I discovered that the Greek word for sin is usually hamartia which was used by Aristotle as any mishap from murder to misspelling; according to Wikipedia:
a term developed by Aristotle in his work Poetics. The word hamartia is rooted in the notion of missing the mark (hamartanein) and covers a broad spectrum that includes accident and mistake,[1] as well as wrongdoing, error, or sin.[2] In Nicomachean Ethics, hamartia is described by Aristotle as one of the three kinds of injuries that a person can commit against another person. Hamartia is an injury committed in ignorance (when the person affected or the results are not what the agent supposed they were).I then assumed that the more pejorative context had possibly been carried on by old Jewish converts. I discovered that the gamut of words for sin in Hebrew are: chet, pesha, 'avone, ashma and aveira with the most common one being chet which according to this site means:
In Hebrew, there is no word for sin. The Biblical word "Chet" appears in reference to an arrow which "missed the target." The archer is not "bad." Rather, he made a mistake - due to a lack of focus, concentration or skill.This concept isn't altogether different from Buddhism, but I feel like the contemporary usage has a lot more superstitious baggage, is this accurate or due to lack of research?
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I don't usually use the word in regards to Buddhism, because people in the USA usually associate "sin" with disobeying God's will, which carries quite a bit more weight than simply screwing up in general.
I agree with the root notion, that true 'sin' is more about acting in a way that does harm than any kind of divine context. However, our social culture has changed it. Much like saying karma in the west might not be pointing at the idea of mental imprint or natural response, so needs to be used with care.
Humans (Adam and Eve) were originally in a happy state (Eden), guided by natural wisdom (God). Then they wanted to do things their own way (eat the apple) and as a result were no longer in that blissful state and started to suffer (got kicked out of Eden). So there you go: desire caused suffering. While there was no desire, there was no suffering. Put another way, while they were selfless and in tune with the way things were, things went swell but when they decided that they could cook something better than that natural flow of things, they became selfish and things got miserable. Very Buddhist, I'd say!
Furthermore, the concept that we're all sinful from birth, as negative as it sounds, does not need to be taken the way it's traditionally taken. Perhaps what that means is that when we're born, we suffer from the fundamental delusion that we are separate and that we need to maintain that separation. As long as we have that delusion, things will go sour for us. We'll keep "sinning" (acting unskillfully based on that delusion) and drive ourselves deeper into misery.
To "repent" may be interpreted as admitting to ourselves and possibly others that our view of the world and ourselves is no good and has never been good. Admitting that a long, long time ago we've lost touch with what is true and until that touch is regained, not only we will be unhappy ourselves but we'll keep making others unhappy too.
I know there's the old saying that, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." Personally I think that it's as accurate, or even more accurate that those who cling to history are doomed to repeat it.
The Gospels are written in Greek so that Aramaic would be supererogatory. In both Greek and Latin, the Pater uses the words for 'debts' and 'debtors'.
To be in debt is not to have "done something to another person", it clearly means that we owe something. Not the same, I think. After all, our very society, today, is built on debt.
A sin could be a debt, for ex. if you wrong someone in some way, that's a sin, but you owe them a debt, you owe restitution, or an apology, or whatever. That may've been the way things worked in Jesus' time. Justice for some transgressions took the form of making restitution to the aggrieved. (Just my guess, but that's how it used to work in Native American tribes.)
First of all, 'sin' has a quite different meaning in Jewish theology. Indeed, as within the Christian communities, there is much debate on what is meant by 'sin'. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by those with the loudest voices who want to impose their own interpretation on texts and traditions. There is an enormous amount of debate and discussion, as well as much disagreement, on how we are to understand the notion of 'sin'.