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All we have at our disposal are the metaphors that serve as the building blocks for larger narrative complexes in which these ideas occur.
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The point of departure of Anderson's study (2009:5-6) is the argument of Paul Ricoeur (1967) in his seminal work The Symbolism of Evil that we have no direct or unmediated access to the semantic content of ideas such as sin and error or their rectification. The study of sin has received a renewed impetus with the publication of the influential study, Sin - A History, by Gary Anderson (2009). Thereafter the conceptualisation of sin, as a particular kind of substance (a stain and a stumbling block), will be discussed. It will first engage with the recent studies of Nathan Eubank (2013) and Rikard Roitto (2015), who both have utilised the work of Gary Anderson (2009) on the development of the concept of sin in the biblical text in order to further analyse Matthew's metaphors for sin. The article will therefore investigate Matthew's metaphors for sin in order to understand the social dynamics and theology underlying the first Gospel. It is not a lexical or semantic study of Matthew's terms for sin in Table 1 or of specifics sins, 1 but rather an attempt to grasp how he conceptualises sin within his socio-historical context. what qualities or behaviour transgress Matthew's understanding of the Law), but rather on sin as a concept. The focus of this article is, however, not on individual sins (i.e. τὸ σαπρὸν δένδρον - Mt 7:17-18), are included in domain 88, then references to sin are even more pervasive in his Gospel than suggested by Table 1. Furthermore, if it is taken into consideration that Matthew often refers to sin or sinners in a figurative manner of which some lexical items (e.g. It is evident from Table 1 that lexical items, which refer to sin, permeate the Gospel of Matthew. While not all of these lexical items are used by Matthew, his vocabulary for sin or specific moral and ethical behaviour, which can be described as being sinful, remains extensive (cf. Out of these items, 29 (88.289-318) refer to sin as an action or state (subdomain Sin, Wrongdoing, Guilt). The Greek-English lexicon based on semantic domains by Louw and Nida (1989:742) describe semantic domain 88 ( Moral and Ethical Qualities and Related Behaviour) as being 'unusually large' with subdomains O-L' (negative qualities of human behaviour) comprising 213 lexical items. The focus of this article is on the conceptualisation of sin in the Gospel according to Matthew. In this regard it is important to note that Matthew's conceptualisation of Israel's sin as a debt not only refers to their sin in the period before the birth of Jesus, but also to their rejection of him as the Messiah. It is suggested that Matthew's use of specific metaphors for sin was not just due to Aramaic linguistic influences on Second Temple Judaism, but also to the socio-historical context in which his Gospel originated. It also argues that the metaphor of sin as a burden is not the same as that of a stain, for the latter evokes the complex relationship between sin and impurity.
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The article argues that the replacement of the conceptualisation of sin as a burden by that of a debt in Second Temple Judaism has not fully occurred in Matthew. It builds on the work of Nathan Eubank who describes the sin of Israel as a debt to be repaid by analysing other Matthean metaphors of sin as a substance, stain and stumbling block. This article focuses on the conceptualisation of sin in the Gospel according to Matthew. The conceptualisation of sin in the Gospel of Matthewĭepartment of Old and New Testament, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa