Misconceptions of Evil and Good,
Sin and Forgiveness
One of the most flagrant and consistent misleading translations I see in all
current version of the Gospels regard's Christ's use of "evil." The term
that is almost always translated as "evil" or "wicked" is
ponêros (poneros), which means
"oppressed by toil," "burdened," and "worthless."
Of things, it means "toilsome," "painful," and "grevious." In a moral sense,
"worthless," "base," and "cowardly." It does not mean "evil"
in the sense of malicious, which is another word that Matthew uses very seldom,
kakia. Nor is it the term used for "corrupt" or "rotten," another
uncommon term, sapros.
What difference does this make? A great deal, for example, in the
Lord's Prayer, Christ asks God to "delivery us from evil." This isn't a
plea to save us from the malicious intent of others, but rather a plea to be
saved from the burdens and toils of life and our own worthless and base impulses.
In other parts of the Gospel, people are described as "evil" but because
poneros is almost always used, the meaning is very different from the way
the Gospel is normally read. For example, in
Mat 7:11, Christ says: "If you then, being evil, know how
to give good gifts unto your children..," which sounds like a condemnation of
humanity as evil. However, a more accurate reading would be "You, being
oppressed by toil, know how to give good gifts to your children..." in
which Christ isn't condemning our flaws as much as recognizing our burdens and
limitations.
Part of the confusion is that Christ often contrasts poneros with
agathos (agathos), which when applied to
things means "good" in the sense of a good sense of "sound," "useful," and
"morally good." When applied to people means "well-born," "capable," and
"morally good." The contrast here is less between evil and good, but between
oppressed and healthy, worthless and useful. Agathos is from
the same roots as agape, brotherly love and the love between God and man,
and agapao the love of things. In Greek, the opposite of agathos
is most often
kakos, which is related to kakia that Matthew uses, and means
"wicked," "slanderous," and "cowardly."
However, more often than not, the term translated as "good" in Christ's
sayings in Matthew is
kalos, which means "beautiful," "of fine quality," "noble," and "virtuous."
This word is used in the many verses to describe both good acts and good things
(Mat 3:10
Mat 7:17
"good fruit,"
Mat 5:16 "good works,"
Mat 5:44 "do
good," Mat 12:33
"good tree," Mat
13:8 "good ground,"
Mat 13:24,
"good seed," Mat
17:4 "good for us,"
Mat 26:24
"good for that man"). Again, despite the alliterative ease of contrasting
kalos, the beatiful-good, with kakos, the standard Greek word for
evil, we just don't see that form in the New Testament. Kalos is
used frequently, but kakos is never used. Agathos is also
)though lesson commonly) used in
contrast to poneros. Agathos is not used to describe good things
but to refer to good deeds (as is kalos) and good people ('the good").
Agathos,
when applied to people, means "well-born," "gentle," "brave," and "capable."
When applied to things, it means "serviceable," "morally good," and
"beneficial."
What stands out in reviewing all these verses together is Christ's view that
there are two contracting types of things, actions, thoughts, and people. Those
that serve a purpose and those that are useless. There are productive, reliable
people and their are people who are useless. There are productive, reliable
things, like good trees and good seeds, and there are useless things. There are
productive thoughts and actions and their are useless actions. So Christ was less of a moralizer than a pragmatic teacher.
With a
better understanding of the term Christ used for evil, the Gospels come across
much less condemning of actions and people and much more sympathetic to the condition of humanity,
where we constantly try things that are really useless for us.
There is a similar problem with sin and forgiveness. It may surprise people,
but Christ doesn't say a lot where his words are translated as "sin" and
"forgiveness." When he does, the sense is much more that our relationship with
other people must be based on letting their errors go. We must accept that
people always make mistakes. What about the words translated as "sin" and
"forgiveness?" Well, Matthew (and other NT authors) never put those exact words
in Christ's mouth. These terms used are:
"Sin" is from
hamartanô or
harmartia which mean "to miss the mark," "to fail in one's purpose," "to
err," "to be mistaken," and "to neglect."
In Greek, the word not used in the Bible and the word that actually means
"sins" is
alitros, which means "sins," "sinner," and "sinful." It is impossible that
the authors of the NT didn't know this word. All other Greek words based on the
idea of sin are relate to it--alitria
(sinfulness),
alitêrios (sinning),
aleitês (sinner) and even, and this is funny,
alêtheia (sincerity), capturing the idea that sinners are good at lying.
There is a similar problem with "forgiven," though the idea of "forgiving sins"
didn't really exist before the NT. The NT authors use the term,
aphiêmi, which means "to send forth," "to launch," "to send away," "to put
away," "to get rid of," "to set free," and "to be released from." It means
literally "to go from."
It is interesting that this word gets translated as "forgiven." This is
Christ's first word in the Gospel (Mat
3:15) when he tells John to "go ahead" and baptize him. It is often
translated as "to leave" or "to let" in the Gospels.
It is first translated as "forgive" in the Lord's Prayer (Mat
6:12) where it is applied to forgiving debts. It has the sense of leaving
something alone and leaving someplace. It is used commonly to mean "send forth"
or "go forth" in many other contexts. Christ "sends forth" the apostles. The
shepherd looking for the lost lamb "goes forth" into the mountains. Apiemi is
based on another word for "letting go," aphesis.
Christ was literally telling us "to let it go."
"Forgiveness," in the Christian sense didn't exist in Greek anyway, before
Christ. But there are others words in Greek that are used for various ideas of
"forgive." Many are based on the root,
aidôs, which means "respect for others," "reverence," "compassion," and
"forgiveness." It is the most saintly form of forgiveness.
Sunchôreô is another root which means "assent" or "concede" and is used to
mean the economic forgiveness of debt.
