Romans 5:12 -Misleading Translations

It's been quite a while since I've seen you on the BaptistBoard, brother.
Nice to hear from you again.

I love my chasms; we have small one in. Romans 5:12.

sin entered and death
and so death came to all in that all sinned​

You saw it in your summary when you wrote:

Certainly “misleading translations” is an overstatement: the passage has been understood in various ways, most of them orthodox.

In fact, in the Anchor Yale Bible, Joseph A. Fitzmyer provides five pages of discussion on the phrase.
He begins noting, "The meaning of the phrase ephʾ hō has been much debated throughout the centuries,"

Then he provides no less than eleven varying translations that have been proposed and how the verse has been understood over the ages. (Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 33, 2008, 413-417).

I believe we can agree on the meaning of the first portion of the verse.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; Romans 5:12 (AV 1873)​

“one man” = ADAM (relating to Genesis 3)

In the rest of the passage, 5:12-21, Paul focused on what Adam’s sin caused to happen to all people.

So what does, ephʾ hō mean? The controversy is doctrinal.

Colin Kruse sums up the various meaning in his commentary (Paul's Letter to the Romans, ed. D. A. Carson, The Pillar New Testament Commentary, 2012, p. 242).

“The NIV construes it as ‘because’, thus yielding the translation ‘death came to all people, because all sinned’. In this case individuals are subject to death because they all have sinned in their own persons.”​

He continues,

“If it is translated ‘in whom’, we get the translation: ‘sin entered the world through one man, in whom all sinned, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people’. In this case, people are subject to death, not because of their own sin but because of Adam’s sin. Ambrosiaster says: ‘For it is clear that all have sinned in Adam as though in a lump. For, being corrupted by sin himself, all those whom he fathered were born under sin.
Others construe it differently again—in one case to indicate the result of Adam’s sin was that death passed to all, and in another to indicate the realm in which the effect of Adam’s sin occurs—that is, in the world.
There is now a tendency among a number of scholars, no matter how precisely they construe eph’ hō, to identify a primary and a secondary cause for human beings becoming subject to death. The primary cause is Adam’s disobedience, through which death first entered the world, and the secondary cause is the sin of disobedience of all human beings, who likewise bring death upon themselves. (ibid 242)​

Simply saying, are we condemned by Adam’s sin?
Or are we condemned for our sins?
(Or both?)

Or are each of us condemned to sin as a result of Adam’s original disobedience? – I think that’s the view you propose.

(am I correct?)

Rob

 

I don’t disagree with your understanding of Romans 5

In fact verses that follow verse 12 spell the view out quite plainly.

5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.​

Re: 5:12, and your argument through grammar, I’m no expert and must follow those that are.
The KJV’s translation is certainly not written so today’s readers might easily understand it.
Those that translate modern versions appear almost unanimous.

Rob

 

The Greek text says otherwise, . . . και δια της αμαρτιας ο θανατος . . . .
και and
δια through
της αμαρτιας the sin
ο θανατος the death
The text of Romans 5:12 teaches the sin is he cause of that death.

 

Dr A T Robertson is quite right in what he has to say on the use of the Greek grammar here.

"For that all sinned (eph' hôi pantes hêmarton). Constative (summary) aorist active indicative of hamartanô, gathering up in this one tense the history of the race (committed sin). The transmission from Adam became facts of experience. In the old Greek eph' hôi usually meant "on condition that," but "because" in N.T. (Robertson, Grammar, p. 963)." (Word Pictures)

So, some of the versions that are supposed to be "wrong" here, like the NKJV, ESV, NIV, and actually right as this is how the Greek grammar has it. But this passage has been much disputed, and will have advocates on different sides.

 

What I had argued was clear, that sin had became a cause for death. Not death being a cause for sin.

και ουτως εις παντας ανθρωπους ο θανατος διηλθεν εφ ω παντες ημαρτον

και and
ουτως in this way
εις into
παντας all
ανθρωπους men
ο θανατος the death
διηλθεν passed
εφ upon
ω who
παντες all
ημαρτον having sinned.

 

I imagine the way this passage works with the image of an infection (no it’s not a perfect illustration).
When Adam sinned he was infected/poisoned, this lead to his death. This infection was passed on to all humankind. Infection leads to sickness, this sickness leads us to death.
All humans sin because they are of Adam. We sin because we are of Adam’s nature. Individually sin condemns each of us to death.

Ken Boa taught me during the mid 1970’s. He present’s his take of this passage when he writes:

Paul’s beginning point is the account in Genesis 1–3. It was traditional for the Jewish interpreters to relate closely the concepts of sin and death, and so what Paul introduces in this initial verse is in keeping with good Jewish theology. Paul indicates that Adam sinned, and as a result of his sin death came into the human race. However, it is important to realize that Paul does not make men guilty of Adam’s sin or indicate that all men die because of the sin of Adam. Paul says rather that death spread to the whole human race, because all men sinned. The verb rendered sinned in this passage is an aorist, and some few have tried to interpret this as meaning that when Adam sinned all of his physical descendants sinned along with him. It must be admitted that a meaning similar to this could be arrived at on the basis of verse 19, but that is not the meaning of the present passage. In this verse Paul is saying that death became a universal experience because all men sinned.
Kenneth Boa and William Kruidenier, Romans, vol. 6, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 167–168.
​

Rob

 

This is a passage in the Bible that will never be fully understood in anyones lifetime! There will always be good arguments for the various readings that there are. Even the best Greek scholars cannot agree what the Apostle Paul means. Just take the simple adverb, "ὥσπερ", and look at some scholary works, and you will see confusion and division, and there is no real agreement, or understanding. As important as this passage is, it should not be the only place that we can get teaching on the sin of Adam, and how it passed onto the entire human race. For, it is not just that we all "died in Adam"; but that in him all "sinned". But, this is just another opinion!

 

False.
Which shows your lack understanding. Because of Adam and Eve's sin, all mankind became sinful having inherited the knowledge of good and evil which causes the sin nature (Genesis 3:11, Genesis 3:22) in mankind. So all men sin (Ezekiel 18:4, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die.").

 

I always get a little dubious when an argument from grammar claims the verse does not mean what it apparently says.
There is no grammatical reason why because could not be the intended meaning of Romans 5:12, death spread to all people because all were made sinners.

 

Nothing correct in this post.

 

I'm only offering this hint for those that are unwilling or unable to purchase some newer commentary sets.

Google books frequently provides large sections of commentary text to preview a book.
One commentary that has been very generous with allowing portions to be online is the New International Commentary on the New Testament.

Whether you are interested in this passage (or not), the commentary provides up-to-date scholarship on the Bible. Simply find the book on Google Books and search for the passage you wish to study.
You can preview much of Douglas Moo's commentary (first edition was published in 1996) on Romans 5:12 by clicking on the link and turning the digital pages.
HERE=> NICNT Romans 5:12 [LINK]. <=HERE
He updated his commentary in 2018 (now there's 12 pages on the verse!).

…Paul’s focus is not at this point on the corporate significance of Adam’s act but on his role as the instrument through whom sin and death were unleashed in the world. (3) With the majority of commentators, then, we think that “in this way” draws a comparison between the manner in which death came into the world—through sin—and the manner in which death spread to everyone—also through sin. Verse 12 then is a neatly balanced chiasm:

A sin (12a) produces

B death (12b);
B all die (12c)​

A because all sin (12d).​

If this reading of the structure of the verse is right, then v. 12d has the purpose of showing that death is universal because sin is universal: “all sinned.” This means, in turn, that we are giving the opening words of this last clause (ephʾ hō) a causal meaning. This is the meaning adopted by most commentators and by almost all English translations. But it is not the only possible rendering. Perhaps the most famous alternative is the translation “in whom,” adopted by Augustine and by a few others. For, assuming that “the one man” is the antecedent of the pronoun, we have then an explicit statement of “original sin”: “in Adam all sinned.”42 But this interpretation, and others that rest on a similar grammatical basis, are unlikely. For the two words in the Greek phrase probably function together as a conjunction.44 The phrase may then mean “from which it follows,” “with the result that,”46 “inasmuch as,” or “because.”48 The last suggestion is by far the most popular among modern scholars, although the evidence in its favor is not nearly as strong as some suggest. Nevertheless, this is the meaning the phrase almost certainly has in 2 Cor. 5:4, and probably also in Phil. 3:12 (it almost certainly does not in Phil. 4:10), and it is the meaning that fits best in the context here.

Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 321–322.​

Enjoy,

Rob

 

Recall the thread that asked if "all had sinned" could mean "all had been made sinners?" And my answer was yes because the word (sinned in English) means to have missed the mark. Because we were made sinners we missed the mark. As for an allusion to the OP, being made sinners means being made spiritually death, thus all missed the mark because they were made in a separated from God spiritually dead state.