The translation of Romans 5:12 – Moyise

Much of the debate on Romans 5:12 is due to the translation of “eph ho”. Original sin, adamic condemnation, defiled nature all of these ideas lean heavily on a faulty translation in the Latin tradition. Moyise has an interesting new(ish) book out which touches on the passage:

“In Romans 5:12, Paul says that death entered the world through Adam’s sin and so death came to all because (eph ho) all sinned. It is now commonly agreed that the Greek words eph ho mean ‘because’ (Paul also uses them in 2 Corinthians 5:4 and Philippians 3:12, 4:10) and not ‘in him’ as Origen (c. 200 CE) took it and as it was translated into Latin (in quo). The Latin translation lends itself to an understanding of ‘original sin’ whereby death comes to all people because all people sinned ‘in Adam’. The author of Hebrews offers an argument for the superiority of a priesthood of the order of Melchizedek by saying that when Abraham offered tithes to Melchizedek, Levi was involved in this act because he was ‘still in the loins of Abraham’ (Heb. 7:10). This shows that such an argument was possible in the first century, and why the Latin text could be taken to mean that all human beings are ‘in Adam’ and thus involved in his act of disobedience (and hence guilty). Whether such a doctrine can be constructed on other grounds is debated, but it is not what Paul is saying in Romans 5:12”

Steve Moyise, Paul and Scripture: Studying the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2020), 26.

2 thoughts on “The translation of Romans 5:12 – Moyise

  1. Philip Edmonds

    The apostle Paul spends a lot of Romans chapter 3 getting to his statement in verse 23, “for all have sinned and and fall short of the glory of God”. He shows in that chapter why “all have sinned”. When he says “because all sinned” in Romans 5 v 12, it seems to be referring back to his earlier conclusion, so the “because” could be paraphrased as “because (as I have already shown)” … all sinned”.

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  2. brucep

    Not wanting to nag, but I’m annoyed by the quoted “it is now commonly agreed…” because there’s another plain reading by Greeks reading Greek that English speakers with a Latin focus keep missing. It makes very good sense, I think, maybe too much so, because it rules out a popular doctrinal dispute.

    Quoting myself from the last time this came up here: “According to the Greeks and other Orthodox streams of Christianity, Western Christians *still* haven’t fully corrected Jerome’s and Augustine’s error with “for that all have sinned”, or “because all have sinned”, because we don’t look far back enough for the antecedent of ἐφ’ ᾧ. “

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