Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 171:681 (Jan 2014)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Matthew S. DeMoss

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BSac 171:681 (January-March 2014) p. 110

Book Reviews

By The Faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary

Matthew S. DeMoss

Editor

Sin: The Early History of an Idea. By Paula Fredriksen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. 209 pp. $24.95.

Fredriksen, a noted scholar in the field of Jesus and early Christian research, bases Sin on the Spencer Trask Lectures that she gave at Princeton University in 2007. In the book she describes “the [early] development of Western Christian ideas about sin” (p. 2). Throughout her treatment, Fredriksen draws the connection between the various Christian ideas of sin and how they relate to God, humanity, and the world. Her aim is to sketch “a staccato history of early Christian ideas about sin by focusing on those moments that represent evolutionary jumps—points of ‘punctuated equilibrium,’ as evolutionary biologists say” (p. 4). To do this she traces the concept of sin through seven figures from Jesus to Augustine.

Chapter 1 addresses the continuity and discontinuity between Jesus and Paul. Jesus, working within a Jewish context, “defined sin as breaking God’s commandments” (p. 16), and repentance was tied “into long traditions of purifications and sacrifices” (p. 20). Fredriksen maintains that for Jesus, the temple and sacrifice led to atonement and forgiveness, and then after the destruction of the temple, Christians interpreted Jesus’ death as sacrifice in the place of the temple and inserted Jesus’ critique of the temple within the Gospel texts. Paul’s letters, unlike the later Gospel texts, she says, suggest that earlier Christians shared the same respect for the temple. Even though Jesus and Paul shared a Jewish heritage, Paul’s Hellenistic outlook created a different perspective on sin for Paul than for Jesus. According to Paul, sin represented a cosmic revolt against God that Christ conquered through His death. Fredriksen, however, overstates the contrast between Jesus and Paul, portraying Jesus as a Jewish wisdom teacher with no apocalyptic perspective and Paul as proto-Gnostic. She maintains that apocalyptic elements within the Gospel narratives that appear to parallel Paul actually reflect the theology of the early church.

Chapter 2 discusses second-century writers Valentinus, Marcion, and Justin Martyr. All three capitalize on Paul’s interaction between flesh and sin. According to Marcion and Valentinus, flesh impedes one’s ability to live as God intends. “ ‘Salvation’ for both Valentinians and Marcionites meant redemption from the flesh” (p. 78). For Justin, “salvation meant redemption of the flesh” (p. 79), which would come in the last days. Unlike Justin Martyr, ...

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