A student of ancient Greek classics will tell you that there is an unexpected connection between sinning and marksmanship.
The New Testament Greek word for sin, amarteia, is first found in Aristotle's Poetics, and comes from a term in archery which means "to miss the mark."
Notice how Jack misses the wolf, but Ennis is right on target with the stag.
Food for thought.
"Missing the mark" seems to me to be a less judgement-laden view of sin. More a matter of self damage and therefore stupid. Can we read this into the Greek?
Here is something I wrote last year:
http://forums.thebookforum.com/showthread.php?p=125219#post125219As I meditate upon this thread, I am thinking of circles and lines. Lines make me think of "straight as an arrow". Arrows make me think of Aristotle's Poetics where he uses the Greek word hamarteia to denote the tragic flaw of a hero. Hamarteia was originally a term used in archery. Hamartenein means to "miss the mark." In a competition, even hitting the target, but missing the bullseye, constitutes hamarteia. Hamarteia becomes the Greek word used in the Epistles to denote sin.
In Hebrew, the word KHATAUAU is the analog of the Greek hamarteia. The Greek term has the sense of a missing of the goal, or a straying away from the right path.
The Hebrew "Khata" carries a meaning more closely related to "taking the wrong path" which is considerably different than the Greek "hamartia" - "missing the mark."
One may take the position that anything less than absolute perfection in performance would be "missing the mark."
Can you see any connection between this duo of hamarteia and khata and our two very different games, badminton and goodminton?
The Hebrew word "Khata", on the other hand, is related much more closely to a lifestyle perspective. "Walking the wrong path" is less concerned about individual actions than overall ways of living.
The Old Testament is concerned with actions of the individual, but the emphasis seems to be centered around how a person lives life, not on the specific things that he or she does. Khata reflects this. We see this emphasis also in the Hebrew word for repentance, "shub." "Shub" means "to turn around," which is what one does when correcting for walking the wrong path. The New Testament word, "metanoein" (to repent) also carries the connotation of change, lit. "changing one's mind," but Hebrew is a more visual language.
We may see errors in terms of straight lines. We may see repentance or regret in terms of circles. But, may we ever really return to the same place twice, on the banks of Heraclitus' river?
Notice how the Hebrew notion of "straying from the path" is less harsh and judgmental than "hitting the target but missing the bull’s-eye."
I am reminded of a Woody Allen movie in which the protagonist sleeps for something like a thousand years and wakes up in the future. He visits a doctor, and the doctor passes him some cigarettes and says, "Here smoke, and inhale deeply, we have discovered that this is good for you. Oh and be certain to eat lots of chocolate."
We enjoy doing certain things. We find them quit pleasurable. Smoking and chocolate are two very enjoyable things. We yearn for a world, a never-never land where all those things which are intensely pleasurable are also virtuous and salutary.
Certain other things, like vigorous cardiovascular exercise, or long hours of study and memorization, or various sorts of practice (such as piano practice), are not quite as pleasurable.
When we are still quite young, we discover that there is much pleasure in "self gratification." Yet, if we do it constantly, we actually may suffer an injury to our body.
I was flipping tv channels one day, and came in on the middle of a PBS documentary on HIV/AIDS. A middle aged man who was suffering from full blown aids, was describing how he had visited a bath house recently, and entered a room, and saw 50 young men experiencing what Jack experienced in the tent with Ennis, without benefit of protection. He commented that
if they could feel the pain that he feels every day, then they would not indulge in such a pleasurable but hazardous activity.
The point I am trying to make in these ramblings, is that we are tempted to "shop around" for a physician, or an ideology, or value system, which will tell us what we want to hear.
So, in answer to your question, we may
read all sorts of things into the Greek, and we may construct a system of beliefs and values which makes us feel at ease with our desires, but the Greek notion of hamarteia for Aristotle was undoubtedly something very different than St. Paul's notion of hamarteia.
Alan Watts was one of the first writers in the 1950s to make Zen Buddhist teachings popular in the West. Watts was an Anglican clergyman, married, who became enamored of Zen, and disenchanted with Christianity.
Alan Watts was educated in private boys schools in England where he had certain homosexual experiences. He went on to do what he felt was expected of him. He married a woman and was ordained. The woman he married was someone sheltered from the ways of the world. At a certain point, Watts felt something was lacking. He sought a relationship with another male, and tried to convince his wife that the three should participate in a ménage au trois (I am not such a good speller at 3am). His naive wife did not know how to deal with the situation, so she sought advice from a Bishop.
One thing led to another, and Alan Watts resigned from the clergy, and eventually became a Zen master/lecturer/writer of sorts.
Watts wrote something in his early years which jumped out from the page at me. He wrote
If you belong to an absolutist religion, and you fall grievously short of it's expectations, then you begin to feel alienated from the very Universe itself, since you are alienated from the wrathful deity who created that universe."
I am paraphrasing from memory what Watts wrote. But I realized that I was in that same predicament of alienation from the entire universe, because I had "fallen far short" of the target set for me by Orthodox Christianity.
Well, speaking of shopping for a doctor, or an ideology, which suits us, Alan Watts proceeded to carve out for himself a designer version of Zen which suited his tastes, and made him feel comfortable.
He had three or four marriages, and a backbreaking burden of alimony/child-support judgments against him. His only means of income was an equally backbreaking schedule of lecture tours and publishing. Watts could not find the strength to do this without drinking alcohol. In the final years, he was drinking a quart of vodka a day, much like the writer O'Henry.
Alan Watts wrote an autobiography entitled "In My Own Way", which painted a rosy picture. After his death, a biographer wrote a more accurate account of his life, called "Zen Effects."
It is growing late, and I need some sleep. I have a few more things to say, to make my point. Perhaps with your kind indulgence, I may resume here tomorrow.
But, for several days, I have been things of posting at this forum something quite wonderful which Camus once said. Perhaps here and now is as good as any to quote him:
Perhaps the greatest sin of all is to hanker for some future life, and ignore the implacable grandeur of this life which we already possess.
Implacable grandeur is such a potent phrase. We placate someone or something by gratifying or satisfying it. Grandeur may only be satisfied by our admiration. But an
implacable grandeur is one which, like some bottomless pit, keeps demanding our endless admiration, and even when we are old and withered and dry of continued admiration, that grandeur goes on and on, demanding.
There is never enough time, is there?
