(Note: the blue horizontal menu bar directly above lists the subsections of "Original Sin in the Bible as Read Today." Beginning with "Acceptance of Evolution by Pope John Paul II," be sure to read each of these subsections before moving on to the next primary section, "New Interpretation of Original Sin.")

Original Sin in the New Testament—The Pauline Literature

There are a number of New Testament texts which pertain to a discussion about original sin, but all of them are in the context of salvation by Christ:

Hebrews 9:24-28—"Christ … made his appearance once and for all, at the end of the last age, to do away with sin by sacrificing himself."

2 Corinthians 5:21—"For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God"

John 1:29—"Look, there is the lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world"

St. Paul focused on the universality of sin and the need for all to be saved by the grace of Christ appropriated through faith and baptism: "All have sinned" (Romans 3:23) and "all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin" (Romans 3:9). They can be justified only by God's "grace, as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement, by his blood, effective through faith" (Romans 3:24-25).

In Paul the universal dimension of human sin is especially exemplified in the figure of Adam: "As all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:22), and "Sin came into the world" through Adam and "death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned" (Romans 5:12-21). The full meaning of the final clause, "because all have sinned," is unclear. It implies personal guilt for committing sin, but in light of statements that Adam's sin "led to condemnation for all" (Romans 5:18) and that by his disobedience "the many were made sinners" (Romans 5:19), the connection between Adam's sin and that of all others must be very intimate.

Does the New Testament teach the historical existence of Adam? Does the contrast between Adam's sin and Christ's redemption in the Pauline literature (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:21-23; and elsewhere) imply that the New Testament teaches the real historical existence of Adam as recounted in Genesis? No, it does not. Stanislaus Lyonnet, SJ,⁹ for example, states:

Adam's culpability, the universality of sin, and the solidarity of all men are to [Paul] facts commonly known and proven from Scripture. They are not ends, but rather presuppositions and means for his proof. He uses them in order to illumine and clarify the universality of the saving work of Christ…. [T]he literal understanding of the account of the Fall does not belong to the object of Pauline teaching…. (quoted by Connor 1968, 220-221).

Yet even if Adam is taken as a symbol for all humanity, there is an underlying understanding of the unity of all people and a certain interaction and complicity in sin. Romans 5:12-21 is the classical illustration of this: "Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because (Greek: eph ho) everyone has sinned."

In his commentary on Romans, Fr. Joseph Fitzmyer, SJ (1993) gives an exhaustive list of the various translations of the difficult Greek expression eph ho in Romans 5:12.

The eph ho of Romans 5:12 means:


1. "with the result that" (Fitzmyer)


2. "since," "because," "inasmuch as" (Achtemeier, Barrett, Bonsirven, Bruce, Bultmann, Dibelius, Dodd, Dunne, Käsemann, Kuss, Lagrange, Pesch, Prat, Schlier, Wilckens)


3. "in whom" (Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure)

(Doubleday Anchor Bible, 1993).

Fitzmyer translates Romans 5:12 as follows: "Therefore sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all human beings with the result that all human beings sinned." He then comments:

[In Romans 5:12] Paul is ascribing death to two causes, not unrelated: to Adam and to all human sinners. The fate of humanity rests ultimately on what Adam, its head, had done to it. The primary causality for its sinful and mortal condition is ascribed to Adam.… The universal causality of Adam's sin is presupposed in 5:15a ["If death came to many through the offence of one man…"], 16a ["One single offence brought condemnation…"], 17a ["It was by one man's offence that death came to reign over all…"], 18a ["One man's offence brought condemnation on all humanity"], 19a ["Just as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners…"]. It would then be false … to interpret 5:12 as though it implied that the human condition before Christ's coming were due solely to individual personal sins (416f).

Fitzmyer concludes by stating that "the formal effect of Christ's obedience has been to make humanity upright in the sight of God at the judgment seat" (421). Here again the perspective on the sin of "Adam" ratified by all humanity is from that of salvation in Christ.

Whichever translation of "eph ho" is correct, the main point for us to understand is that the figure of Adam is symbolic and not real. If "eph ho" is translated as "because," then the part of individuals in the totality of human sins is highlighted; if "eph ho" is translated as "with the result that" (or even, "in whom"), then the sinfulness of humanity as a whole is highlighted. If "Adam" is taken as a symbol of all humanity, which is generally acknowledged to be the case, then the text need not mean that the sins of the first human being have been handed on in some way to other human beings.

Romans 7. In this chapter Paul makes such statements as "I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me" (Romans 7:16-17). Who is the "I" of this chapter? Is Paul speaking of himself before or after his conversion, or of all humanity? Fitzmyer lists five opinions as to the identity of the "I" (Ego in Greek): (1) Paul before his conversion, (2) any youthful Jewish boy, (3) Adam, (4) Paul as a Christian, and (5) all humanity. Fitzmyer accepts none of them, but says that "the confrontation of the Ego with sin and the law is … considered … from a historical and corporate point of view. Paul views humanity as it was known to him through Jewish and Christian eyes, without Christ and in Christ" (465).

In rejecting the psychological explanation of the "I" in Romans 7 as talking about Paul himself after his conversion to Christianity, Fitzmyer points out all the references to the Mosaic law and adds: "Such an interpretation tends to make of Paul a young Luther" (464). Nevertheless, the issue of the experience of concupiscence, so emphasized by Augustine and Martin Luther, partly on the basis of Romans 7, is an essential part of the teaching on original sin. All Christians acknowledge the presence of concupiscence even after faith and baptism, but they view it in different ways. We will address this later.

9. Society of Jesus (Societatis Iesu) (Jesuits)

Words highlighted in green appear in the Glossary.