# Original Sin Is Foreign to Judaism Objection Defeater ## Intro Judaism, the objection runs, has no doctrine of original sin. Every person is born morally neutral, with a good inclination and an evil one, and free to choose. [Ezekiel 18:20](/codex/ezekiel-18-20/) says the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father. [Genesis 3](/codex/genesis-3/) is not read in Judaism as a fall that ruined human nature. The whole apparatus, inherited guilt, a corrupted will, the need for a redeemer to fix something broken at the root, is Augustine's, built on a Latin mistranslation of [Romans 5:12](/codex/romans-5-12/), and it is foreign to the Hebrew Bible. Much of that is right, and the concession has to be substantial. **Augustine's specific formulation is a Western Christian development.** Inherited *guilt*, transmitted through procreation, is not what Eastern Orthodoxy teaches and never has been. The Greek fathers speak of ancestral sin: humanity inherits mortality and a disordered condition from Adam, not Adam's culpability. And the Latin text Augustine used at [Romans 5:12](/codex/romans-5-12/) rendered the Greek *eph' hō* as *in quo*, "in whom," which supported an idea the Greek does not require. That is a real point and Christians should grant it. But the objection claims more than that, and the rest does not survive the Hebrew Bible. *"Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually"* ([Genesis 6:5](/codex/genesis-6-5/)). *"The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth"* ([Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/)). *"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me"* ([Psalm 51:5](/codex/psalms-51-5/)). *"There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not"* ([Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/)). *"For there is no man that sinneth not"* ([1 Kings 8:46](/codex/1-kings-8-46/)). *"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked"* ([Jeremiah 17:9](/codex/jeremiah-17-9/)). And Jewish texts from the Second Temple period say it in the sharpest possible terms. **4 [Ezra 7:118](/codex/ezra-7-118/)**: *"O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants."* That is not Augustine. That is a Jewish author, writing at the end of the first century, in Hebrew or Aramaic, mourning what Adam did to everyone. ## Cheatsheet **The 30-second reply:** > I will give you Augustine. Inherited guilt transmitted through procreation is a Western Christian formulation, Eastern Orthodoxy has never taught it, and the Latin at [Romans 5:12](/codex/romans-5-12/) rendered the Greek in a way that supported it and that the Greek does not require. Now here is what I am not giving you. [Genesis 6:5](/codex/genesis-6-5/) says every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually. [Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/) says it is evil from his youth. [Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/) says there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. First Kings 8:46 says there is no man who does not sin. And 4 Ezra, a Jewish book from the end of the first century, says "O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants." A universal moral defect running from the beginning is in your Scriptures and in your literature. **The 6 fast facts:** 1. **[Genesis 6:5](/codex/genesis-6-5/) and 8:21** state a universal and early corruption of the *yetzer*, the inclination or formation of the heart. 2. **[Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/) and [1 Kings 8:46](/codex/1-kings-8-46/)** state universal sinfulness without exception. 3. **4 [Ezra 7:118](/codex/ezra-7-118/)**: "the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants." A Jewish text, roughly AD 90 to 100. 4. **2 Baruch 54:15**: "Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all," followed immediately by an insistence on individual responsibility. Both are held together. 5. **b. Sanhedrin 91b** debates whether the evil inclination enters at conception or at birth, which presupposes that it is there from the start. 6. **b. Kiddushin 30b**: God says "I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as its antidote." The tradition treats the *yetzer* as a condition requiring a remedy. **The 4 strongest counter-moves:** - *"Does Ecclesiastes allow for a person who does not sin?"* 7:20 says no. Ask what accounts for a universal without exception. - *"When does the evil inclination arrive, on the Talmud's own account?"* Sanhedrin 91b debates conception or birth, and neither answer is "when you first choose wrongly." - *"Why did God have to create the Torah as an antidote?"* Kiddushin 30b's own framing implies a condition needing treatment. - *"Who wrote 4 Ezra?"* A Jew, at the end of the first century, in a book preserved by Jews before Christians preserved it. **Concessions to make freely:** - **Augustine's formulation is Western, late, and not universal in Christianity.** Inherited guilt transmitted by procreation is Latin theology. Eastern Orthodoxy teaches ancestral sin: inherited mortality and a disordered condition, not inherited culpability. John Meyendorff's *Byzantine Theology* sets out the difference. - **The *in quo* rendering of [Romans 5:12](/codex/romans-5-12/) is a real translation issue.** The Greek *eph' hō* is most naturally "because" or "inasmuch as"; the Old Latin and Vulgate rendered it "in whom," which supported reading all humanity as having sinned *in* Adam. Augustine did not read Greek well and used the Latin. This is a fair criticism. - **Judaism affirms free will robustly, and that is a genuine difference.** The tradition's confidence in the human capacity to choose and to repent is real, load-bearing, and not a misunderstanding. - **[Ezekiel 18:20](/codex/ezekiel-18-20/) is true and Christianity affirms it.** Nobody bears another's judicial guilt for another's acts. - **Rabbinic Judaism does not read [Genesis 3](/codex/genesis-3/) as a fall in the Christian sense.** It reads it as the origin of mortality and of certain conditions, and the *yetzer hara* tradition develops largely without reference to it. - **The Second Temple texts are not rabbinic Judaism.** 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, Sirach, and Wisdom are Jewish and they are not the Talmud, and rabbinic Judaism did not canonize them. Their evidential value is about the range of Jewish thought, not about normative halakhah. - **Sirach 25:24 is about Eve specifically** and its use in this argument should be careful, since it has a misogynistic reception history that should not be reproduced. **What NOT to defend:** - Do not claim Judaism teaches original sin. It does not, and the claim is false. - Do not defend inherited guilt as the only Christian position. Say that Eastern Christianity does not hold it. - Do not use Sirach 25:24 as a centerpiece. Its history is ugly and it is not necessary. - Do not argue that Judaism has a low view of sin. Yom Kippur, the *Al Chet* confession, and the whole *teshuvah* literature say otherwise. - Do not treat the *yetzer hara* as identical to the Christian doctrine. It is not, and the differences are real. **The closing line:** > *"You are right that Judaism does not have Augustine's doctrine, and I am not going to pretend it does. What I want is narrower. Your Bible says the imagination of the heart is evil from youth, that there is no man who does not sin, that there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. Your sages debated whether the evil inclination arrives at conception or at birth, and neither answer was 'when you first choose.' And a Jewish writer at the end of the first century wrote 'O Adam, what have you done? The fall was not yours alone, but ours also.' We disagree about the mechanism. We are not as far apart as the slogan suggests about the diagnosis."* ## In full Defeater for the counter-missionary claim: *"Original sin is a Christian invention. Judaism holds that people are born morally neutral with two inclinations and full freedom to choose, that [Ezekiel 18:20](/codex/ezekiel-18-20/) forbids inherited guilt, and that [Genesis 3](/codex/genesis-3/) is not a fall. The doctrine is Augustine's, built on a Latin mistranslation, and it has no roots in the Hebrew Bible."* The distinction between ancestral corruption and inherited guilt, the Hebrew Bible's own statements about universal and early moral defect, the Second Temple Jewish reflection on Adam's effect on his descendants, and the rabbinic *yetzer hara* tradition's own presuppositions do not warrant the claim that the diagnosis is foreign to Jewish thought, though they do warrant conceding that the specific Augustinian formulation is not Jewish. The objection is deployed as part of the atonement cluster: if there is no radical defect, there is no need for a radical remedy, and the cross is an answer to a problem that does not exist. It is therefore best engaged as a question about anthropology rather than about doctrine-history, though the doctrine-history concessions have to come first. The defeat structure is **five-pronged**. 1. **The Augustinian formulation is conceded, and it is not the whole of Christianity.** Augustine's mature position, developed against Pelagius, holds that Adam's guilt as well as his corruption is transmitted to all his descendants through generation. Eastern Christianity has never taught this. The Greek fathers speak of **ancestral sin**: from Adam humanity inherits mortality and a disordered nature that inclines to sin, and each person becomes guilty by his own sin rather than by Adam's. John Meyendorff's *Byzantine Theology* documents the difference and traces part of it to [Romans 5:12](/codex/romans-5-12/), where the Greek *eph' hō pantes hēmarton* is most naturally "because all sinned," while the Old Latin and Vulgate rendered it *in quo omnes peccaverunt*, "in whom all sinned." Augustine's Greek was weak and he used the Latin. **A Christian who does not concede this is defending the weakest available version of his own position.** 2. **The Hebrew Bible asserts a universal and early moral defect.** The texts are not marginal and they are not obscure. - **[Genesis 6:5](/codex/genesis-6-5/)**: "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." The word is *yetzer*, the same root the rabbis later use for the inclination. - **[Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/)**, after the flood, when the human population has been reduced to one righteous family: "the imagination of man's heart is evil **from his youth**." The condition survives the judgment and is dated from youth. - **[Psalm 51:5](/codex/psalms-51-5/)** (51:7 in the Hebrew numbering): "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." - **[Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/)**: "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." - **[1 Kings 8:46](/codex/1-kings-8-46/)**, in Solomon's dedication prayer: "for there is no man that sinneth not." - **[Psalm 143:2](/codex/psalms-143-2/)**: "in thy sight shall no man living be justified." - **[Jeremiah 17:9](/codex/jeremiah-17-9/)**: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" - **[Job 14:4](/codex/job-14-4/)** and **15:14**; **[Proverbs 20:9](/codex/proverbs-20-9/)**, "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" These do not establish inherited guilt. They establish a universal condition, present early, from which no one is exempt, which is the diagnosis the objection says Judaism lacks. 3. **Second Temple Jewish texts reflect directly on Adam's effect on his descendants.** - **4 [Ezra 7:118](/codex/ezra-7-118/)** (a Jewish apocalypse of roughly AD 90 to 100): "O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants." - **4 [Ezra 3:21-22](/codex/ezra-3-21-22/)**: "For the first Adam, bearing a wicked heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him. Thus the disease became permanent; the law was in the people's heart along with the evil root, but what was good departed, and the evil remained." - **2 Baruch 54:15**: "For though Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time, yet each of them who has been born from him has prepared for himself the coming torment." Note that the same verse insists on individual responsibility, and 2 Baruch 54:19 states it outright: "Adam is therefore not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us has become our own Adam." **Both halves belong** and quoting only the first would be dishonest. - **Wisdom of Solomon 2:23-24**: "God created man to be immortal... nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world." These are Jewish works, and 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch are close in date to the New Testament. They demonstrate that first-century Jews were thinking about exactly this question and reaching conclusions closer to the Christian diagnosis than the modern slogan allows. 4. **The rabbinic *yetzer hara* tradition presupposes a condition present from the start.** - **b. Sanhedrin 91b** records a debate between Judah the Prince and Antoninus about when the evil inclination takes hold, at conception or at the formation of the embryo, with the conclusion favoring the earlier point. The debate's premise is that the *yetzer* is not acquired by choosing wrongly. - **Genesis Rabbah 34:10** discusses the *yetzer hara* being present from the womb or from birth. - **b. Kiddushin 30b**: "I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as its antidote" (*tavlin*, seasoning or remedy). The framing is therapeutic: a condition exists and a treatment is provided. - **b. Sukkah 52a-b** lists seven names for the *yetzer hara* drawn from Scripture, including "the evil one," "the uncircumcised," "the stumbling block," and "the hidden one," and describes it as growing stronger daily and seeking to kill a person. The *yetzer hara* is not the Christian doctrine, and saying so is required. What it is not is a neutral capacity for choice. The tradition describes an inclination present from the beginning of life, growing, dangerous, and requiring a divinely supplied remedy. 5. **[Ezekiel 18](/codex/ezekiel-18/) is about judicial liability, not about the transmission of a condition.** The chapter opens by quoting the proverb "the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (18:2) and argues against it: "the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son" (18:20). Its subject is whether a person is punished for another's acts. Christianity affirms Ezekiel's answer without qualification. The doctrine under discussion concerns an inherited condition rather than an inherited legal verdict, and on the Eastern Christian formulation the distinction is explicit. Using [Ezekiel 18](/codex/ezekiel-18/) against ancestral corruption is a category error, and the same error is examined at [No One Can Die For Another Objection Defeater](/codex/no-one-can-die-for-another-objection-defeater/). The defeater is targeted. It does not claim that Judaism teaches original sin, that the *yetzer hara* is the Christian doctrine, that Second Temple apocalypses are normative for rabbinic Judaism, or that Augustine's formulation is defensible as stated. It claims that a universal moral defect present from the beginning of life is asserted in the Hebrew Bible, developed in Second Temple Jewish literature, and presupposed by the rabbinic inclination tradition. ## Argument structure | | Premise | Notes | |---|---|---| | **P1** | **The Augustinian formulation is conceded as Western and late.** Inherited guilt transmitted by generation is Latin theology; Eastern Christianity teaches ancestral sin, inherited mortality and disorder without inherited culpability. Romans 5:12's *eph' hō* rendered *in quo* in the Latin supported a reading the Greek does not require. | Conceded premise | | **P2** | **The Hebrew Bible asserts a universal and early moral defect.** Genesis 6:5 and 8:21 (*yetzer* evil from youth); Psalm 51:5; Ecclesiastes 7:20; 1 Kings 8:46; Psalm 143:2; Jeremiah 17:9; Job 14:4; Proverbs 20:9. Universal, exceptionless, and dated early. | Textual survey | | **P3** | **Second Temple Jewish texts reflect on Adam's effect on his descendants.** 4 Ezra 3:21-22 and 7:118; 2 Baruch 54:15 with 54:19's counterbalance; Wisdom 2:23-24. Jewish authors, close to the New Testament in date. | Second Temple precedent | | **P4** | **The rabbinic *yetzer hara* presupposes a condition present from the start.** b. Sanhedrin 91b on when it enters; Genesis Rabbah 34:10; b. Kiddushin 30b on Torah as antidote; b. Sukkah 52a-b on its seven names and its growth. | Rabbinic-presupposition argument | | **P5** | **Ezekiel 18 concerns judicial liability, not an inherited condition.** The chapter answers the sour-grapes proverb about punishment for another's acts, which Christianity affirms. An inherited condition is a different category from an inherited verdict. | Category correction | | **C** | **The diagnosis is not foreign to Jewish thought, though the Augustinian formulation is.** **The defeater concedes that Judaism does not teach original sin, that Eastern Christianity rejects inherited guilt, that the Latin rendering of Romans 5:12 is a real issue, that Jewish free-will theology is robust and load-bearing, and that Second Temple apocalypses are not normative rabbinic Judaism.** | | ## Master objections to the whole argument **MO1: "You are collecting verses about how people behave and calling it a doctrine of nature. [Genesis 6:5](/codex/genesis-6-5/) describes the generation of the flood, a specific wicked generation. It is a narrative observation, not an anthropology."** - Four responses. (a) **The distinction is fair and it is the right objection to make.** (b) **[Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/) is the answer, and it is decisive on this point.** It comes *after* the flood, when the wicked generation has been destroyed and humanity is reduced to Noah's family, and it says "the imagination of man's heart is evil **from his youth**." The condition survives the removal of the generation that occasioned the first statement, and it is dated to youth rather than to circumstance. (c) **The wider texts are not narrative-bound.** [Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/) and [1 Kings 8:46](/codex/1-kings-8-46/) are general statements in wisdom and prayer, not descriptions of a particular generation. (d) **Solomon's prayer is the strongest of these**, because it is offered at the dedication of the Temple and states the universal as the reason the Temple's forgiveness provision will be needed. **MO2: "[Psalm 51:5](/codex/psalms-51-5/) is poetic hyperbole from a man in extreme guilt after adultery and murder. Reading a doctrine of conception out of David's self-abasement is exactly the eisegesis you criticize elsewhere."** - Three responses. (a) **The genre point is correct and the verse should not carry weight alone.** It is a penitential lament and its rhetoric is intensified. (b) **It contributes to a pattern rather than founding one.** Strike [Psalm 51:5](/codex/psalms-51-5/) entirely and [Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/), [Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/), and [1 Kings 8:46](/codex/1-kings-8-46/) are untouched. (c) **The rhetorical force is itself informative.** When David reaches for the most extreme statement of his condition available, what he says is that the problem goes back to his conception, which indicates that the category was available to him. **MO3: "4 Ezra and 2 Baruch are apocalypses that Judaism did not canonize. Rabbinic Judaism ignored them and they survive because Christians copied them. They are not evidence about Judaism."** - Four responses. (a) **Their non-canonical status is conceded and stated in the concessions.** (b) **Their transmission history is real and does not make them Christian compositions.** They are Jewish works, written by Jews, in a Jewish milieu, at a date close to the New Testament. Their preservation by Christians is a fact about manuscripts, not about authorship. (c) **The claim they support is about the range of Jewish thought, not about normative halakhah.** The objection asserts that the idea is foreign to Judaism; a Jewish author writing "the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants" falsifies that. (d) **The same standard must apply elsewhere.** Counter-missionary argument uses non-canonical Jewish material freely where it helps, and a rule excluding it must be applied consistently. **MO4: "2 Baruch 54:19 says 'each of us has become our own Adam.' You have quoted the first half of the passage and buried the half that refutes you."** - Three responses. (a) **This page quotes both halves in the premise and in the concessions**, precisely because quoting one would be the kind of selective citation this cluster forbids. (b) **The two halves together are the interesting datum.** 2 Baruch holds that Adam brought death upon all *and* that each person is responsible for his own condemnation. That is not a rejection of ancestral corruption; it is a Jewish author holding inherited consequence and personal responsibility together, which is close to the Eastern Christian position. (c) **Christianity holds both too.** Ancestral corruption does not remove personal responsibility on any orthodox formulation, and the Eastern one is explicit that guilt attaches to a person's own sin. **MO5: "The *yetzer hara* is not a defect. It is the drive that builds houses and has children. Genesis Rabbah 9:7 says that without the evil inclination no one would build a house or marry or beget children. You are turning a neutral energy into a disease."** - Four responses. (a) **This is the best objection to premise 4 and the citation is accurate.** Genesis Rabbah 9:7 does say that, commenting on "and behold, it was very good," and the tradition genuinely contains a positive valuation of the *yetzer* as vital energy. (b) **The tradition also contains the negative valuation and does not reconcile them.** B. Sukkah 52b describes it growing stronger daily and seeking to kill a person; b. Kiddushin 30b calls the Torah its antidote; b. Sukkah 52a lists names for it including "the evil one" and "the stumbling block." A tradition that calls something an evil one requiring an antidote is not describing a merely neutral energy. (c) **The premise's claim is narrower than the objection assumes.** It is that the *yetzer hara* is present from the beginning of life rather than acquired by choosing, which Sanhedrin 91b's debate presupposes on any valuation. (d) **The double valuation is itself a point of contact.** Christianity also holds that human faculties are good in creation and disordered in use, which is the same structure. **MO6: "Even granting everything, Judaism holds that a person can repent and be restored by his own free choice. Christianity says he cannot. That is the real difference and none of your verses touches it."** - Three responses. (a) **The objection has correctly identified where the disagreement actually is, and it is a genuine and deep one.** (b) **The Hebrew Bible contains material pressing on it.** [Jeremiah 13:23](/codex/jeremiah-13-23/), "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." [Jeremiah 31:33](/codex/jeremiah-31-33/) and [Ezekiel 36:26-27](/codex/ezekiel-36-26-27/) promise that God will write the law on hearts and give a new heart and Spirit *causing* obedience, which addresses inability rather than ignorance. See [Jeremiah 31 New Covenant Objection Defeater](/codex/jeremiah-31-new-covenant-objection-defeater/). (c) **The disagreement is narrower than it looks.** Christianity does not deny free agency, and Judaism does not claim self-sufficiency; the daily liturgy asks God to incline the heart and to help against the *yetzer*. Both traditions ask God for what the objection says one of them thinks it can supply alone. ## Premise 2, the Hebrew Bible asserts a universal early defect ### Affirmative case 1. **[Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/) is post-flood and dates the condition to youth.** "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." 2. **[Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/) is exceptionless.** "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." 3. **[1 Kings 8:46](/codex/1-kings-8-46/) states the universal in a prayer of dedication.** "For there is no man that sinneth not." 4. **[Psalm 143:2](/codex/psalms-143-2/)**: "in thy sight shall no man living be justified." 5. **[Proverbs 20:9](/codex/proverbs-20-9/)** poses the question rhetorically: "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" 6. **[Jeremiah 17:9](/codex/jeremiah-17-9/)** describes the heart itself as deceitful and beyond knowing. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Universal sinfulness in practice is not the same as a corrupted nature. Everyone sins; that does not mean everyone is born unable not to."* 2. *"The Hebrew Bible also has righteous men. Noah was perfect in his generations; Job was blameless; Zechariah and Elisabeth walked in all the commandments blameless."* 3. *"*Yetzer* means formation or inclination, not corruption. Reading a doctrine of nature out of it is overreach."* ### Rebuttals 1. **The distinction is real and the premise does not overstep it.** The claim is that a universal condition present from early life is asserted, which is the diagnosis. Whether the condition entails inability is the disagreement identified at MO6 and is argued from [Jeremiah 13:23](/codex/jeremiah-13-23/) and the new-covenant promises rather than from these verses. 2. **The righteousness texts are genuine and are relative, as their own contexts show.** Noah is "perfect in his generations" and gets drunk and is shamed two chapters later. Job is blameless and repents in dust and ashes. Solomon calls no man sinless in the very prayer where he asks God to forgive the righteous. The Hebrew Bible uses *tamim* and *tzaddiq* of covenant faithfulness rather than sinlessness, which is why [Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/) can stand alongside them without contradiction. 3. **Conceded on the lexical point.** *Yetzer* is from *yatzar*, to form or fashion, and denotes the formation or inclination of the heart. The premise does not rest on the word carrying "corruption" but on what [Genesis 6:5](/codex/genesis-6-5/) and 8:21 predicate of it: that it is evil, that this is true of man generally, and that it holds from youth. ## Premise 4, the yetzer tradition presupposes an early condition ### Affirmative case 1. **b. Sanhedrin 91b** debates whether the *yetzer hara* enters at conception or at the formation of the embryo, in an exchange between Judah the Prince and Antoninus. 2. **The debate's premise is that it is not acquired by wrongdoing.** Neither position in the exchange is that a person becomes subject to the *yetzer* by choosing wrongly. 3. **b. Kiddushin 30b** frames the situation therapeutically: "I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as its antidote." 4. **b. Sukkah 52a-b** collects seven scriptural names for the *yetzer hara* and describes it as renewing its strength daily and seeking a person's life. 5. **Genesis Rabbah 34:10** engages the same question of when the inclination attaches. 6. **The daily liturgy asks for help against it**, which presupposes that human resources alone are insufficient. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Sanhedrin 91b is an aggadic exchange with a Roman emperor, not a legal ruling. You are building on a story."* 2. *"The *yetzer hara* has a positive side, as Genesis Rabbah 9:7 says. Ignoring that is quoting selectively."* 3. *"Judaism's answer to the *yetzer* is Torah study and mitzvot, which are available to everyone. So the condition has a remedy within the system and needs no redeemer."* ### Rebuttals 1. **The genre point is granted and the premise's claim is modest.** Aggadah records what sages thought, and the exchange is evidence that the question "when does the evil inclination attach?" was answered with "very early" rather than "when a person first sins." 2. **Answered at MO5, and this page states the positive valuation in the objections rather than omitting it.** The tradition holds both, and the argument does not require the *yetzer* to be wholly negative. 3. **This is the substantive theological difference and it is correctly located.** The Christian claim is that the remedy has to reach further than instruction, which is exactly what [Jeremiah 31:33](/codex/jeremiah-31-33/) and [Ezekiel 36:26-27](/codex/ezekiel-36-26-27/) promise when they describe God writing the law on hearts and giving a new heart and Spirit. The disagreement is about the sufficiency of the remedy, and locating it there is progress from the slogan that Judaism has no diagnosis at all. ## Live-cite kit **Scripture** - [Genesis 6:5](/codex/genesis-6-5/) and, more importantly, [Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/), "evil from his youth," read after the flood. - [Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/); [1 Kings 8:46](/codex/1-kings-8-46/); [Psalm 143:2](/codex/psalms-143-2/); [Proverbs 20:9](/codex/proverbs-20-9/). - [Psalm 51:5](/codex/psalms-51-5/), cited with its genre acknowledged. - [Jeremiah 17:9](/codex/jeremiah-17-9/); [Jeremiah 13:23](/codex/jeremiah-13-23/), the leopard's spots. - [Ezekiel 18:2](/codex/ezekiel-18-2/) and 18:20, conceded and affirmed. - [Jeremiah 31:33](/codex/jeremiah-31-33/) and [Ezekiel 36:26-27](/codex/ezekiel-36-26-27/), on the remedy. **Jewish sources** - 4 [Ezra 3:21-22](/codex/ezra-3-21-22/) and 7:118. - 2 Baruch 54:15 **and** 54:19, both halves. - Wisdom of Solomon 2:23-24. - b. Sanhedrin 91b; b. Kiddushin 30b; b. Sukkah 52a-b; Genesis Rabbah 34:10 and 9:7, the last conceded as a counter-text. **Scholarly** - John Meyendorff, *Byzantine Theology* (Fordham, 1974), on ancestral sin and [Romans 5:12](/codex/romans-5-12/). - N. P. Williams, *The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin* (Longmans, 1927), the classic survey. - Solomon Schechter, *Aspects of Rabbinic Theology* (1909), on the *yetzer*. - E. P. Sanders, *Paul and Palestinian Judaism* (Fortress, 1977). - Michael L. Brown, *Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus*, vol. 2 (Baker, 2000). **Aphorism** - "[Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/) comes after the flood. The wicked generation is gone and the diagnosis stands." - "Your sages asked when the evil inclination arrives, not whether." - "A Jew wrote 'the fall was not yours alone, but ours also.' In the first century." ## Tactical notes - **Give away Augustine first and completely.** Inherited guilt, the *in quo* rendering, and the Eastern position. This is the concession that makes everything after it credible, and most Christians cannot make it because they do not know it. - **Lead with [Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/), not 6:5.** The post-flood placement is what answers the "wicked generation" reply before it is made. - **Then [Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/) and [1 Kings 8:46](/codex/1-kings-8-46/)**, because they are general statements in genres that are not narrative. - **Introduce 4 Ezra by its provenance.** "A Jewish apocalypse from about the end of the first century." The provenance is the argument. - **Quote 2 Baruch 54:15 and 54:19 together, always.** Volunteering the counterbalancing half is worth more than the citation itself. - **Concede the positive *yetzer* before it is raised**, with Genesis Rabbah 9:7 named. - **Do not use Sirach 25:24.** Its reception history is misogynistic and the argument does not need it. - **Know where the conversation is going.** The real disagreement is about whether the remedy must be more than instruction, which is [Jeremiah 31 New Covenant Objection Defeater](/codex/jeremiah-31-new-covenant-objection-defeater/) and the atonement cluster. - **What NOT to defend:** that Judaism teaches original sin; inherited guilt as the sole Christian view; the *yetzer hara* as identical to the Christian doctrine; Sirach 25:24. ## See also - [Original Sin](/codex/original-sin/), the doctrine hub. - [No One Can Die For Another Objection Defeater](/codex/no-one-can-die-for-another-objection-defeater/), where the same [Ezekiel 18](/codex/ezekiel-18/) category error is examined. - [Blood Atonement Not Required Objection Defeater](/codex/blood-atonement-not-required-objection-defeater/), on the remedy the diagnosis calls for. - [Jeremiah 31 New Covenant Objection Defeater](/codex/jeremiah-31-new-covenant-objection-defeater/), on the promise of a new heart addressing inability. - [Jews Do Not Need Jesus Objection Defeater](/codex/jews-do-not-need-jesus-objection-defeater/), the covenantal form of the same dispute. - [Judaism](/codex/judaism/), on the *yetzer* tradition and Jewish anthropology. - [The Jewish Defense](/codex/the-jewish-defense/) and [Counter-Missionary Movement](/codex/counter-missionary-movement/), the cluster hubs.
## Common questions this page answers **Q: Does Judaism believe in original sin?** Not in the Christian sense, and that should be conceded plainly. Judaism holds that a person is born with two inclinations, the *yetzer hara* and the *yetzer hatov*, and with the capacity to choose between them, and it does not read [Genesis 3](/codex/genesis-3/) as a fall that ruined human nature. What is worth noticing is how much of the diagnosis is nevertheless present. [Genesis 8:21](/codex/genesis-8-21/), spoken after the flood when the wicked generation has been destroyed, says "the imagination of man's heart is evil **from his youth**." [Ecclesiastes 7:20](/codex/ecclesiastes-7-20/) says "there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not," and [1 Kings 8:46](/codex/1-kings-8-46/) says "there is no man that sinneth not." The Babylonian Talmud at Sanhedrin 91b debates whether the evil inclination attaches at conception or at the embryo's formation, and neither answer is "when a person first chooses wrongly." B. Kiddushin 30b has God say "I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as its antidote," which is the language of a condition requiring treatment. **Q: Did Augustine invent original sin?** He gave the doctrine its distinctive Western form, and that much of the objection is correct. Augustine's mature position, developed against Pelagius, holds that Adam's **guilt** as well as his corruption passes to all his descendants through generation. Eastern Christianity has never taught this. The Greek fathers speak of **ancestral sin**: humanity inherits mortality and a disordered condition from Adam, while each person becomes guilty by his own sin. Part of the divergence traces to [Romans 5:12](/codex/romans-5-12/), where the Greek *eph' hō pantes hēmarton* most naturally means "because all sinned," while the Old Latin and Vulgate rendered it *in quo omnes peccaverunt*, "in whom all sinned," supporting a reading the Greek does not require. Augustine's Greek was weak and he worked from the Latin. John Meyendorff's *Byzantine Theology* sets out the difference. A Christian who does not concede this is defending the weakest available version of his own tradition. **Q: What is the yetzer hara?** The *yetzer hara* is the evil inclination in Jewish thought, paired with the *yetzer hatov*, the good inclination. The word *yetzer* comes from *yatzar*, to form or fashion, and denotes the heart's formation or bent. It is the same word [Genesis 6:5](/codex/genesis-6-5/) and 8:21 use when they say every imagination of man's heart was only evil and evil from his youth. Rabbinic tradition holds two things about it that sit in tension and are not reconciled. Negatively, b. Sukkah 52b describes it as growing stronger daily and seeking to kill a person, b. Sukkah 52a lists seven scriptural names for it including "the evil one" and "the stumbling block," and b. Kiddushin 30b calls the Torah its antidote. Positively, Genesis Rabbah 9:7 says that without the evil inclination no one would build a house, marry, or have children, treating it as vital drive. Both should be reported. It is not the Christian doctrine, and it is also not a neutral capacity acquired by choosing wrongly. **Q: Do Jewish sources outside the Bible discuss Adam's effect on his descendants?** Yes, and some of them in strikingly direct terms. **4 Ezra**, a Jewish apocalypse of roughly AD 90 to 100, says at 7:118: "O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants." At 3:21-22 it says that the first Adam bore a wicked heart, transgressed, and was overcome, "as were also all who were descended from him. Thus the disease became permanent." **2 Baruch 54:15** says "though Adam sinned first and has brought death upon all," and the same passage at 54:19 insists that "Adam is therefore not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us has become our own Adam." Both halves belong together and quoting only the first would be dishonest; a Jewish author is holding inherited consequence and personal responsibility together, which is close to the Eastern Christian position. These works are not canonical in Judaism and are not normative rabbinic theology, and their evidential value concerns the range of first-century Jewish thought. **Q: Does [Ezekiel 18:20](/codex/ezekiel-18-20/) refute original sin?** It refutes inherited judicial guilt, which is one Christian formulation and not the only one, and which Eastern Christianity rejects for reasons of its own. [Ezekiel 18](/codex/ezekiel-18/) opens by quoting the proverb "the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (18:2) and argues against it: "the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son" (18:20). Its subject is whether a person is punished for another person's acts, and Christianity affirms Ezekiel's answer without qualification. An inherited **condition** is a different category from an inherited **verdict**. The chapter also does not address the mechanism of atonement, which is a separate use frequently made of it and which is treated at [No One Can Die For Another Objection Defeater](/codex/no-one-can-die-for-another-objection-defeater/) and [Blood Atonement Not Required Objection Defeater](/codex/blood-atonement-not-required-objection-defeater/).