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In Romans 5, Paul casually drops one of the most consequential theories in Christian history.

Romans 5:12 (NHEB):

"Therefore as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all people, because all sinned."

I take Scripture seriously. Which is why I'm bothered by how often we read Paul's letters and nod along without asking basic questions: when Paul writes to Romans about sin entering through Adam and spreading to everyone, where did he get that framework?

Not from the Torah or Tanakh, the Jewish scriptures. Moses never taught inherited guilt - in fact, Deuteronomy explicitly says the opposite. Not from the Prophets. Ezekiel spends an entire chapter explaining that sons don't bear their father's guilt. Not from Jesus. He welcomed children and said the kingdom belongs to them, never mentioning they carried Adam's condemnation.

So where did Paul get it? And more importantly - when did Paul's letter to a Roman audience become THE definitive explanation of sin that all Christians must accept? If you believe Scripture is authoritative, these questions should matter to you.

In this article:

The Greek Framework Paul Used

Judaism: You Own Your Own Sin

What Jesus Said About Inherited Sin

So What's Actually True About Original Sin?

The Greek Framework Paul Used

Paul grew up in Tarsus. Major Greek university city. Home to one of the most important Stoic philosophy schools in the empire. Greek was his first language. He had Greek rhetorical education. Roman citizen from birth. His thought patterns, his way of constructing arguments, his conceptual categories - all shaped by Hellenistic culture.

In Greek thought, there's this concept of miasma - spiritual pollution that spreads. You see it everywhere in Greek literature. Greek tragedy, one person's sin curses entire family lines. The House of Atreus: generations suffering for one ancestor's crime. Greeks understood guilt as contagious, hereditary, communal.

When Paul writes to Romans about sin spreading from Adam, he's using their conceptual framework. This is what good cross-cultural communication looks like. You don't explain the gospel in completely foreign categories. You use concepts your audience already understands and show how Christ fulfills or transforms them. Paul the missionary is doing his job.

Judaism: You Own Your Own Sin

The Torah and Tanakh, which Jesus himself and all Jews believe, is explicit about guilt and responsibility.

Deuteronomy 24:16 (NHEB):

"Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, neither shall children be put to death for their fathers. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin."

Your sin is YOUR sin. Your father's sin is his problem. You don't inherit guilt. Ezekiel 18 hammers this point home for an entire chapter. The son doesn't bear the father's iniquity. Each person gets judged for their own actions. Individual moral responsibility is bedrock in Judaism.

Ezekiel 18:20 (NHEB):

The soul who sins, he shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him."

Sure, Judaism had the yetzer hara - the evil inclination. An internal pull toward selfishness. But that's not the same as saying you're born guilty of someone else's sin. You have a choice between good and evil impulses. Nobody in Second Temple Judaism was sitting around worried about how Adam's sin transmitted to them. That wasn't a theological problem that needed solving.

What Jesus Said About Inherited Sin

Jesus didn't explain sin like Paul either. Jesus called people to repent of THEIR sins. The things THEY did. He treated individuals as morally responsible for their own choices - just like the Tanakh says.

Matthew 18:3 (NHEB):

"Truly I tell you, unless you turn, and become as little children, you will in no way enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Become like children. Not something you say if you think children are born totally depraved and condemned. When people brought children to Jesus, he welcomed them. Said the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. No mention of inherited Adamic guilt.

The rich young ruler asks what he must DO to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him what to DO. Not "Well, first understand that you're condemned by Adam's sin...". The woman caught in adultery - Jesus says "Go and sin no more." YOUR sin. YOUR choice going forward.

Jesus' teaching was accessible to his Jewish audience using their categories. Paul's explanation was accessible to his Roman audience using their categories. Different audience, different conceptual tools. But then later Christianity made Paul's Roman framework mandatory for everyone.

So What's Actually True About Original Sin?

The concept of "original sin" is the doctrine that Adam's guilt and corrupted nature pass to all his descendants at birth. But let me spell this out clearly: There is no biblical evidence for this being a doctrine before Paul.

This isn't what the Torah teaches. Deuteronomy and Ezekiel are explicit - you're responsible for YOUR sins, not your ancestor's. This isn't what Jesus taught. He called people to repent of their own actions, welcomed children without mentioning inherited guilt, and treated moral responsibility as individual.

Paul used Greek pollution concepts to explain Christ to Romans. That's fine as contextualization. But somewhere along the way, we turned his Roman-audience explanation into cosmic truth and called it orthodoxy.

So what happens if you stop believing in the original sin doctrine?

If you believe in original sin: You're born guilty. Condemned before you do anything. Totally depraved. You need salvation from something you inherited, not something you did. Infants need baptism to wash away Adam's guilt. You deserve hell from birth.

If you don't: You're born with the image of God. You become responsible for sin when YOU sin. Children aren't little guilt-carriers - they're what Jesus said the kingdom belongs to. You need salvation from your own choices, your own distance from God. Repentance means turning from what YOU did wrong.

One framework starts with "you're condemned and corrupt." The other starts with "you're made in God's image and responsible for your choices". Original sin makes salvation about escaping cosmic inheritance. Without it, salvation is about relationship, repentance, and choosing to follow God.

ICE agents are cruising areas with immigrant-owned businesses, and kidnapping patrons and employees alike. Yesterday they abducted two US citizen employees at a suburban Target, one who was begging them to allow him to go get his passport to show them.

ICE is going door to door in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, asking residents where their immigrant neighbors live. Read that again. If it sounds like something out of your high school history textbook, that’s because it is.

ICE is targeting schools and school buses. They pepper sprayed teenagers and abducted two school staff members at the high school up the street from me on Wednesday. Police are literally escorting school buses to ensure children can get to school and home safely. The Minneapolis Public Schools have moved to virtual learning for the next 4 weeks because it’s unsafe for children or teachers to physically come to school.

They are targeting hospitals and clinics. Patients are scared and are cancelling their appointments or just not showing up. Kids are missing their checkups and vaccines, folks aren’t getting their cancer care, etc.

They are smashing windows in cars and homes.

ICE is increasingly picking up Native Americans—again, targeting folks based on skin color alone.

They are arresting and beating legal observers. A friend of a friend had her arm broken yesterday. Folks are showing up at local hospitals, brought in in ICE custody, with severe injuries that are absolutely inconsistent with mechanism of injury reported by ICE. (Think: patient appears to have been beaten unconscious, while ICE agent says he slipped and fell.) I can’t emphasize enough that these ICE agents do not have warrants. There are 2,000+ agents here and they are simply hunting for anyone that’s not white. It doesn’t matter if you’re a citizen or a green card holder, they will kidnap you first and ask questions later. But the community is fighting back.

Protests are happening every day.

Community groups have been leading know-your-rights sessions for months, often to packed venues.

Whistles are being distributed by the thousands, carried on keychains and worn on coat zippers, always at the ready to be blown in warning if ICE is spotted.

Drivers are following ICE vehicles, blaring their horns in warning.

Businesses are locking their doors even while open to keep employees and customers safe. As I type this, I’m standing guard at the locked door of our neighborhood burrito joint while I wait for my takeout order, so the employees can focus on their jobs. The place is packed with neighbors supporting this small business.

Anti-ICE signs are posted everywhere. The community is making it crystal clear that ICE is not welcome here.

Parents and neighbors are standing guard outside schools, organizing carpools, and escorting kids to and from school on foot.

Parents of kids in Spanish-immersion daycare (there are a LOT of these daycares here!) are keeping their kids home so the teachers don’t have to take the risk of coming to work.

Churches and community groups are holding fundraisers to buy and deliver groceries to families who don’t feel safe leaving home.

i am kind

i am in control of my emotions

it does not bother me when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

everyone in the house has the right to be in the kitchen

*pinches nose*

Fellas, is it cultural appropriation to inherit your family's culture but you don't pass the blood quantum test?

This reminded me of a post I saw about someone theorizing what MCU Morgan Stark's middle name was because we just knew her middle initial was "H" and they considered that the namesake might be Yinsen Ho but they didn't want to believe that because it would be, quote, "cultural appropriation".

Cultural appropriation. To name your child after someone you personally knew and was very important to you.

Don't you know it's unnatural for someone of a different race to be important to you? The races are not supposed to mix!

And us horrid young adults would ask her why she still worked at Taco Bell, because it was starter job and who would want to stay there forever? Her response?

“I make enough money to make sure I always have roses in my bedroom.”

This answer changed me as a person. It changed the way I thought about what makes someone successful, and made me step back and realize that I was so caught up in what I thought success and happiness should mean that I didn’t know what I wanted them to mean.