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Book Cover
E-book
Author Anderson, Gary A., 1955- author.

Title Sin : a history / Gary A. Anderson
Published New Haven : Yale University Press, ©2009

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Description 1 online resource (xv, 253 pages)
Contents part 1: introducing the problem -- Chapter 1 : What is a sin? -- Chapter 2: A burden to be borne -- Chapter 3: A debt to be repaid -- part 2: Making payment on one's debt -- Chapter 4: Redemption and the satisfaction of debts -- Chapter 5: Ancient creditors, bound laborers, and the sanctity of the land -- Chapter 6: Lengthening the term of debt -- Chapter 7: Loans and the Rabbinic sages -- Chapter 8: Early Christian thinking on the atonement -- part 3: Balancing debts with virtue -- Chapter 9: Redeem your sins with alms -- Chapter 10: Salvation by works? -- Chapter 11: A treasury in heaven -- Chapter 12: Why God became man
Summary "What is sin? Is it simply wrongdoing? Why do its effects linger over time? In this sensitive, imaginative, and original work, Gary Anderson shows how changing conceptions of sin and forgiveness lay at the very heart of the biblical tradition. Spanning nearly two thousand years, the book demonstrates how sin, once conceived of as a physical burden, becomes, over time, eclipsed by economic metaphors. Transformed from a weight that an individual carried, sin becomes a debt that must be repaid in order to be redeemed in God's eyes." "Anderson shows how this ancient Jewish revolution in thought shaped the way the Christian church understood the death and resurrection of Jesus and eventually led to the development of various penitential disciplines, deeds of charity, and even papal indulgences. In so doing it reveals how these changing notions of sin provided a spur for the Protestant Reformation." "Broad in scope while still exceptionally attentive to detail, this ambitious and profound book unveils one of the most seismic shifts that occurred in religious belief and practice, deepening our understanding of one of the most fundamental aspects of human experience"--Jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-235) and indexes
Notes Print version record
Subject Sin -- History of doctrines
Religion.
religion (discipline)
RELIGION -- Christian Theology -- Ethics.
RELIGION -- General.
Religion
Sin -- History of doctrines
Sünde
Zonde.
Synd -- kristendom -- historia.
Synd -- judendom -- historia.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780300154870
0300154879