Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 2
The transcript claims the Western church’s view of the fall shifted partly because of a Latin translation that read Romans 5 as “because in him all sinned”; how does that story challenge modern confidence that our inherited theological “defaults” are obviously biblical?
Another way to ask: How does the Romans 5 translation story make you question whether our usual “default” beliefs are automatically what the Bible teaches?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
The transcript suggests that major “default” doctrines can grow from translation and language barriers, not just from the plain meaning of Scripture. That should humble modern Christians about assuming our inherited readings are self-evident, especially if they come through later traditions.
- The speaker says the West relied on Latin, while “very, very few laypeople in the West can read Greek,” and even Augustine “is not fluent in Greek.”
- He points to an “error” in the Old Latin of Romans 5: it reads “because in him all sinned,” implying “we all sin somehow in Adam.”
- This fuels a Western drift toward inherited guilt: “we are guilty for Adam’s sin. The guilt comes down to us.”
- He contrasts this with the East having “a bunch of views,” including inheriting “mortality…not his sin,” and that Pelagius’s view was “perfectly Orthodox in the East” in his lifetime.
- Jerome, even translating from Greek, “follows” the ingrained Latin reading because it was “so ingrained in the West.”