Tuesday, April 6, 2004
The God of Old
The God of Old by James L. Kugel
…There were also asides and things mentioned in passing that were absolutely fascinating:
(I)n Hebrew this word for “sinner” still carries a note of inadvertency connected to its verbal root, which means “to miss the mark.”
This is certainly not the context in which I understood sinner as I grew up. It somehow makes the sin easier to bear, knowing that a sinner is not one who has deliberate chosen to do wrong, but is one who has missed the mark. It means you tried to do good, and failed.
