Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Mitchell Dahood and Herberg Haag on Psalm 51:5 and "Original Sin"



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)