Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin
did my mother conceive me. (Psa 51:5 [Heb: v. 7])
This is a
commonly used proof-text for the doctrine of Original Sin and the various
approaches thereof (e.g., Roman Catholic and Reformed Protestant). Notwithstanding,
at best, this only teaches that one
has a propensity to sin, not that Adam’s sin is infused and/or imputed against
people. As Mitchell Dahood wrote:
brought
forth in iniquity. All men have a congenital tendency toward evil; this doctrine
finds expression in Gen viii 21; I Kings viii 46; Job iv 17, xiv 4, xv 14, xxv
4; Prov xx 9. (Mitchell Dahood, Psalms
II, 51-100: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968], 4)
On this
text, Herbert Haag in his book-length refutation of Original Sin, noted:
The idea that Adam’s descendants are
automatically sinners because of the sin of their ancestor, and that they are
already sinners when they enter the world, is foreign to Holy Scripture. The
well-known verse from the psalms, ‘Behold I was born in iniquity, and in sin
did my mother conceive me’ (Psalms 51:7; 50:7), merely means that everyone born
of woman becomes a sinner in this world, without fail. The Bible often uses the
device of attributing a man’s later deeds or achievements to him from the time
of his conception and birth. (Cf., for example, Jeremiah 1:5, where Jeremiah is
made a prophet in his mother’s womb.) (Herbert Haag, Is Original Sin in Scripture? [trans. Dorothy Thompson; New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1969], 106-7)