Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com>]

On 15/07/2003 12:21, Yigal Levin wrote:

> At 11:58 AM 7/15/2003 -0700, Peter Kirk wrote:
>  
>
> > Well, let me put it this way. According to Muslim tradition and the 
> > Qur'an, all prophets were sinless, and that includes most of the major 
> > figures in the Bible. According to the New Testament, only Jesus Christ 
> > was sinless and indeed all others have sinned. Some ancient Christian 
> > traditions also hold that the Virgin Mary was sinless.
> >
> >    
> While I have no stake in this one way or another, a billion Catholics (give
> or take a few million) are "some ancient Christian traditions"?...
Fair enough. I don't want to be dismissive of anyone, although there are 
probably another billion or so nominal Christians who don't hold this. 
But the Catholic dogmas on this are actually modern. I wanted to point 
to the ancient traditions, which are as  mixed as the modern ones.

> ... In any
> case, it's important to distinguish between personal "sins" committed by
> some (and probably all) humans and that "Original Sin" that Paul et al.
> would have us all responsible for. ...
Paul clearly teaches that all have sinned individually, it's not just a 
matter of collective "original sin". See Romans 3:9-20  where he quotes 
a string of psalms to prove his point, and the summary in v.23. In fact 
I don't think Paul really taught "original sin" at all, it's just that 
Augustine of Hippo misunderstood an ambiguous Latin translation. But 
that takes us a long way off topic.

> ... No Jewish tradition, Chronicles
> included, ever claimed that anyone is "sinless" - look at Moses and his
> rock-hitting. As far as Muslim traditions, what the "perverted"
> Jewish/Christian Bible says about Musa, Daud, Suleiman or Isa (Jesus) is
> irrelevant anyway.
>
> Yigal
>
>  

--
Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/