By tracing the vocabulary around 'sin' in classical and biblical texts, Konstan argues for a new definition that was superseded by the later Christian traditions.

Where did the idea of sin arise from? In this meticulously argued book, David Konstan takes a close look at classical Greek and Roman texts, as well as the Bible and early Judaic and Christian writings, and argues that the fundamental idea of "sin" arose in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, although this original meaning was obscured in later Jewish and Christian interpretations. Through close philological examination of the words for "sin," in particular the Hebrew hata' and the Greek hamartia, he traces their uses over the centuries in four chapters, and concludes that the common modern definition of sin as a violation of divine law indeed has antecedents in classical Greco-Roman conceptions, but acquired a wholly different sense in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.

"[A] book that should be read by anyone who is interested in Judaism and, above all, in ancient Christianity ... [An] essential book for the history of religions." - Myrtia (Bloomsbury translation)