what is the history of the word "sin"
when the word is used in the bible, what were the original (hebrew and greek) words and what did they mean?
from http://www.wordsyoudontknow.com/10-words-whose-etymology-you-dont-know/
"I’m intrigued by what etymology reveals. Consider, for example, the etymology of the word “sin”. It comes from the Old English “synn”, which has the meaning of a crime and is associated with doing evil. The Old Norse is “synd”, and the German Sünde. But its inclusion in the Bible is as a translation from the Latin “peccatum,” which doesn’t mean the same thing at all; its meaning is more in the sense of a religious error. In the original Greek version of the New Testament, the word is “hamartia,” which literally means to miss the target – a word normally associated with archery. In biblical Hebrew, the generic word for sin is het. It means to err, to miss the mark. Judaism teaches that sin is an act, and not a state of being, while Christianity (at some point) decided we were all born in a state of sin. All of which indicates that it’s easy for meaning to get mangled in translation."
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Meditations/Chata_ah/chata_ah.html
http://evidenceforchristianity.org/what-are-the-origins-of-the-word-sinr/
a very common feature of religious thought (throughout history and across cultures) is that there is a "higher" or "transcendent" level of reality, beyond the purely physical and material, and that it has rules or mandates or laws which, if followed, result in some kind of happiness or blessing or reward
and that if broken, denied or refused, result in some kinds of punishments, or states of misery
in some cases these are direct punishments from particular entities, and in some cases they are more like simply being allowed to suffer the bad consequences of poor decisions
also
one of the essential messages of the story of the garden, was that humanity existed in harmony with the will of the divine at one time in our history but that, as a result of our "eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" we were separated from that harmony
my own way of understanding this is that there was a time in our evolutionary history (before the development of the pre-frontal cortex maybe) when we did not have the ability to make abstract value judgments. thats a short and easy statement but if you understand it, theres a lot to it - everything that distinguishes us as human, the very ability to distinguish ourselves as human, separate from the rest of "gods creation", originates from our ability to make abstract value judgements
and once we gained that ability, we then had the biological "hardware" for "the knowledge of good an evil" and became "aware and ashamed of our nakedness"
this would have been when genuine selfishness (and sinfulness) was able to develop, but also its counter, true selflessness (or righteousness)
and so it was the time when we came to need (or lets say "benefit greatly from") a set of "higher order" rules, guidelines, principles ect. by which to make decisions
and to understand that people, without being educated to the existence of this set of guidelines, aka in our "natural" state, are going at some point to make decisions which result in direct punishment or in "facing the consequences of our actions"
so, the idea of original sin, as it makes sense to me, is to understand that a part of our nature is not totally alert to the higher order principles which lead to "blessedness" in life, and that we need instruction of these principles in order to make the right choices
somewhere along the way, a sect of Christians decided that "WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE" was more important than "how and why you act in any given situation" and thats why we have the doctrine of "salvation through faith alone" even though Jesus himself said that we will be judged by our deeds
thats how i understand it
People are complicated.
