Sinners of the land

[neilgodfrey]

I am trying to recall where I once read an argument that the Second Temple term "sinners" could well have referred to the "common people" as opposed to those of the literate or priestly and scribal classes. Has anyone else heard this argument and more importantly -- where/who has published it?

Thanks
Neil

[Secret Alias]

am ha-aretz = people of the land. Sanders rejects that equation with sinners but others do.

[DCHindley]

I am trying to recall where I once read an argument that the Second Temple term "sinners" could well have referred to the "common people" as opposed to those of the literate or priestly and scribal classes. Has anyone else heard this argument and more importantly -- where/who has published it?

Thanks
Neil

The Greek word used in the LXX to translate the adjective חַטָּא (fallible, sinful) seems to have been the participle ἁμαρτάνω (do wrong, sinner). I understand that ἁμαρτωλός is actually a technical term for "missing the mark" in archery.

IMHO, Judaism as practiced by the returned exiles in the Persian period was imposed on the common people of Judah, who had never been deported (probably 90% of the population, the peasants). From their insular bubble, they had imagined that they had preserved the ancestral traditions etc perfectly but were shocked to see what real Israelite religion looked like (not particularly monotheistic) when they encountered it.

Of course, THEY couldn't be wrong, so it HAD to be the locals going astray of "proper" traditions. Without the elites like themselves to maintain proper observance, the returned exiles reasoned, the common folk had degenerated.

By the turn of the Christian era they (the elites, whom I identify with the Pharisee party) had largely succeeded in conforming the actions of the common people to their own POV. Yet there remained a sizeable portion who either could not, or would not, conform. These non-conformists, it seems, were primarily "people of the land" (common people, peasants).

I think Morton Smith wrote a book, Parties & Politics that Shaped the Old Testament, that even Jacob Neusner thought was his only really noteworthy book.

DCH

[neilgodfrey]

I am trying to recall where I once read an argument that the Second Temple term "sinners" could well have referred to the "common people" as opposed to those of the literate or priestly and scribal classes. Has anyone else heard this argument and more importantly -- where/who has published it?

Thanks
Neil

The Greek word used in the LXX to translate the adjective חַטָּא (fallible, sinful) seems to have been the participle ἁμαρτάνω (do wrong, sinner). I understand that ἁμαρτωλός is actually a technical term for "missing the mark" in archery.

IMHO, Judaism as practiced by the returned exiles in the Persian period was imposed on the common people of Judah, who had never been deported (probably 90% of the population, the peasants). From their insular bubble, they had imagined that they had preserved the ancestral traditions etc perfectly but were shocked to see what real Israelite religion looked like (not particularly monotheistic) when they encountered it.

Of course, THEY couldn't be wrong, so it HAD to be the locals going astray of "proper" traditions. Without the elites like themselves to maintain proper observance, the returned exiles reasoned, the common folk had degenerated.

By the turn of the Christian era they (the elites, whom I identify with the Pharisee party) had largely succeeded in conforming the actions of the common people to their own POV. Yet there remained a sizeable portion who either could not, or would not, conform. These non-conformists, it seems, were primarily "people of the land" (common people, peasants).

I think Morton Smith wrote a book, Parties & Politics that Shaped the Old Testament, that even Jacob Neusner thought was his only really noteworthy book.

DCH

Thank you. That looks like a start.