Judaism and Christianity have to explain why humans, created by a good and merciful God, sin and commit evil. Rabbi Michael Mayersohn introduces the readers to the conclusions of the Hebrew Bible, the rabbinic literature of Talmud and Midrash, the writings of Paul, Augustine, Aquinas and Martin Luther. Nowhere else can a reader find the rabbis of Talmud and Christian saints Paul and Augustine all in one place talking about an issue as important as sin and evil. The Bible introduces us to the topic of sin with the story of Cain and Abel and Christianity takes us back to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In its own distinctive way each tradition tries to explain why humans created by God sin. In this fascinating exploration Rabbi Mayersohn will take us to these sacred texts and explain how Judaism and Christianity reach the conclusions they do about human sinfulness. Is sin inherent in the human condition or the result of some external influence? What is God's role in the story of humans and evil? Is Original Sin the only answer to how sin appeared in the human story? What do these two great faith traditions have to say about these and other important questions?

ARE WE SINNERS?

CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH BELIEFS ON SIN AND EVILBy MICHAEL MAYERSOHN

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Rabbi Michael Mayersohn
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-6911-3

Contents

Chapter 1 Sin in the Hebrew Bible................................................................................1Chapter 2 The Origin and Ultimate Disposition of the Evil Inclination in Rabbinic Literature.....................19Chapter 3 The Manifestation of the Evil Inclination in Rabbinic Literature.......................................29Chapter 4 The Struggle with the Evil Inclination in Rabbinic Literature..........................................41Chapter 5 Strategies for Combating the Evil Inclination in Rabbinic Literature...................................57Chapter 6 Paul and Augustine on the Origin and Nature of Sin.....................................................71Chapter 7 Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther on Sin................................................................89Chapter 8 Where We Differ, What We Share Regarding Sin and Evil..................................................95Appendix Mortal, Venial, Serious Sin and the Sacrament of Penance................................................105

Chapter One

SIN IN THE HEBREW BIBLE

We find numerous references to sin in the Bible and a few in-depth discourses on the nature of sin, what constitutes sin, how one repents and whether God forgives our sins. Sin and God's response to it are prevailing themes of the sacred text as we return to the ideas again and again. Sin is the primary source of human and divine conflict and drama. Sin creates conflict in human interaction and in our relationship with God. The interplay of sin and repentance provides the push and pull of the human connection with God. Sin drives us away when we transgress and repentance draws us close to God when we turn away and return to God's ways.

In this chapter we will examine the Bible's references to and discussions of sin in an attempt to understand what the Biblical text sees as specific sins, the process of atonement and forgiveness and the large category of sacrificial sin offerings. We will also examine the most extensive Biblical discourse on sin, Solomon's prayer as recorded in I Kings 8. The goal will be to understand how the Biblical writer understood and conceived of human and specifically Israelite sinfulness and how it affects our relationship to God.

Very near the beginning of the Bible we read a declarative statement about sin that lays the groundwork for much of the later Jewish traditional understanding of human sin and the ability of people to control and manage sinful impulses. God is speaking to Adam and Eve's oldest son, Cain, in the wake of his distress at realizing that God was paying heed to his brother Abel's sacrifices and not to Cain's. Responding to Cain's distress, God says to him, "Surely if you do right there is uplift. But if you do not do right sin couches at the door; its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master." (Genesis 4:7) This is the first place in the Hebrew Bible where we see the word sin and it is worth noting that it is in the context of contentious feelings that lead to an act of violence. The expression, "sin couches at the door," suggests that sin is ever present, waiting to take advantage of a person's inclination to let it in. The close and looming presence of sin tells us that we are likely to succumb in any moment and that it is seductive and enticing. Sin is right there, "at the door," through which one has to pass to be part of the world. But while "its urge is toward you," each person has the power to rule over sin and master it. Sin is personified as having an urge and that urge is toward the person with feelings of exclusion, rejection and anger. From this first explicit reference to sin in the Hebrew Bible the sacred text is teaching that sin lurks nearby, that it is not passive but active, and that it cannot be defeated or vanquished, and can only be managed and controlled.

These themes, that sin is always near and present, that it possesses a desire toward humans and that people can control and manage it, are stressed repeatedly in the later rabbinic tradition, as we will see in subsequent chapters. God's statement to Cain is quoted frequently in the rabbinic literature to support the idea that sin is not something that is alien to people or of passing interest, but that it is close, seductive and persistent.

The Christian reader may perceive something missing from this initial discussion of sin in the Bible. We jumped right to the story of Cain and Abel, ignoring the story of Adam and Eve and the violation of God's commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As we will see in the later discussion of the Christian tradition and the idea of Original Sin, this story is the very foundation of Christian teaching on the subject. Jewish tradition never focuses on the Adam and Eve story in the context of sin and the word sin is not used in the telling of the story. This is the beginning of the differences between Judaism and Christianity on the question of sin and its place in human behavior.

At the end of the Noah Flood story in Genesis, after the waters have receded and everyone has exited the ark, Noah builds an altar and makes sacrificial offerings to God. God is depicted as being pleased by the sacrifice and "said to Himself, 'Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man's mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being as I have done.'" (Genesis 8:20f) After destroying all of the living beings on earth because of their wickedness, God resolves never to do that again while acknowledging that man has the capacity for evil "from his youth." This suggests, as later rabbinic texts that we will examine in subsequent chapters will describe, that the evil inclination of humans is there from the beginning. Humans have this capacity not because of something they learn along the way or because of life experiences, but because that is how they were designed. This will have immense importance both for the rabbinic tradition in their discussion of the good and evil inclination and certainly for Christianity and its consideration of the idea of Original Sin.

In numerous instances in the Bible the references to sin are unspecific and undefined. The listener and reader are left to guess or deduce what constitutes sin, or it is assumed that they will understand what the sin is. Before we read about the outrageous acts of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), God is depicted as speculating on whether to talk to Abraham about the plan to destroy the cities. God is quoted as thinking, "The outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave!" (Genesis 18:20) The reader is left to wonder what their sin is, and after reading Genesis 19 and the story of the crude people of Sodom one is still left guessing whether the sin is the homosexual brutality of the men or their inhospitable treatment of the visitors. God identifies their sin as grave, but the reader is not explicitly told what the sin is. Jewish tradition holds that the sin of the people is their threatened violence against the guests as suggested by Lot's offer of his daughters in their stead. Lot's plea on their behalf is based on his responsibility to take care of them when he says, "do not do anything to these men, since they have come under the shelter of my roof." (Genesis 19:8) In Ezekiel (16:49-50) we read of Sodom, "pride, fulness of...