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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Psalm 51:5
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
What do shipmates feel about the wording when we are told that 'in sin my mother conceived me'? To me it reads as though the woman is judged as being sinful for having borne a child which seems incongruous when a child born from love in a Christian marriage. Maybe it is referring back to Genesis and original sin, but I feel it isn't helpful to us to look on sex in marriage as being sinful. Also, to point a finger at the woman when it takes two to tango is also disturbing in these days of equality. Hopefully wiser Bible scholars than I can remedy my confusion.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
Someone more knowledgeable about the Hebrew can I'm sure shed more light, but my understanding is that this verse has nothing to do with sex or actual conception. It's David's poetic way, in a psalm of repentance, of describing the human condition. He is saying that some inclination to sinfulness is part and parcel of being human—embedded in our DNA, as it were.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
The NET Bible translates the verse as:
quote:
Look, I was guilty of sin from birth,
a sinner the moment my mother conceived me.
And the footnote further explains:
quote:
Heb “Look, in wrongdoing I was brought forth, and in sin my mother conceived me.” The prefixed verbal form in the second line is probably a preterite (without vav [coding mark that does not copy well] consecutive), stating a simple historical fact. The psalmist is not suggesting that he was conceived through an inappropriate sexual relationship (although the verse has sometimes been understood to mean that, or even that all sexual relationships are sinful). The psalmist’s point is that he has been a sinner from the very moment his personal existence began. By going back beyond the time of birth to the moment of conception, the psalmist makes his point more emphatically in the second line than in the first.
As I read that, they are acknowledging that the line could be read as suggesting the psalmist was conceived out of illicit sexual intercourse (or that all such relationships are sinful), but that that reading does not really make sense in context.
I tend to agree with that perspective. The psalm is all about the psalmist's own sinful nature.
Verse 1: I am a sinner, forgive me!
Verse 2: Forgive me, I am a sinner!
Verse 3: I know I am a sinner.
Verse 4: Hoo boy! Am I a sinner!
Verse 5: Well, this is the point. Does it make sense at this point to blame somebody else and say "Mom was a sinner"? That doesn't fit at all. It makes more sense, following Verse 4's declaration to follow with this: I've always been a sinner!
Verse 6: You expect better from me.
Verse 7: Forgive me!
Verse 8: Forgive me!
Verse 9: Did I mention that I am a sinner?
...and so on throughout the remainder of the psalm.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
Apologies for the double post. Apparently the NET Bible link does not take you directly to the Psalm. To make life easier, here is a link to a variety of translations for Psalm 51.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
How else are we conceived other than through our mother? Even God Incarnate needed the cooperation of a woman.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
I tend to agree with that perspective. The psalm is all about the psalmist's own sinful nature.
Exactly. We can get this from the parallelism of Hebrew poetry. The first part of the verse is "I was born in iniquity" so the "sin" of the second half should be the psalmist's too, not his mother's.
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
Thanks for the thoughtful replies. It hadn't occured to me that it meant that I was sinful at the time of my birth rather than the act of conception being sinful. I've wondered about the verse for many years, so I'm glad to finally discover the meaning.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I've run into a number of people who get the same mistaken impression from that passage when it's quoted in the liturgy. Not sure what the remedy is, other than increased teaching. I wonder how much it contributes to the widespread idea that Christianity/God/the Bible condemns sex in itself as bad.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Isn't it really saying that 'We're all in this together'?
Yes, that's how it feels to me.
I don't read it as anti woman or highlighting the inequality of the sexes, something which unfortunately comes up elsewhere in the Bible, esp. Proverbs.
I see the Psalmist as saying that we all inherit the sin potential through no fault of our own. It doesn't leave me feeling sex is bad or that our mothers have acted inappropriately.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Of course. But a large segment of the population is apparently misreading it (mishearing it, whatever) and I was wondering if that contributed to the misunderstanding of sex in any major way.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
I guess this is a case for using a different version of the psalm rather than the traditional one which obviously is ambiguous to more than me.
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
This is just my opinion but here goes. I don't think the verse should be taken to have deep meanings about human nature, original sin, or anything else. I think it's just a hyperbole about how very very sinful he feels himself to be. I'm so sinful that I was even sinful when I was conceived. Now THAT is sinful, man!
He's not making any deep theological pronouncements about human nature, sin nature, natural nature, original sin, or anything else. He's just bragging about how damned sinful he is.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Although once Christianity had recognized original sin, this would be an ideal proof text.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Of course. But a large segment of the population is apparently misreading it (mishearing it, whatever) and I was wondering if that contributed to the misunderstanding of sex in any major way.
1500 years of the Church controlling our attitude to sex, (with good reason maybe? I don't know), has created more misunderstanding than the above psalm extract.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
This may be stretching it a little bit. But I had always assumed that David wrote this prayer of confession after Nathan had confronted him about what David had done to gain Bathsheba.
I think he is only talking about himself. He realizes the depth of his sin even back to the point of his conception.
I don't think David would have understood our "doctrine" of original sin. Nor do I think David would acknowledge that sex is sinful--though his affair with Bathsheba certainly would have been
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The magic word mousethief, hyperbole. To read original sin in to this is the weakest of post hoc 'reasoning'.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
This is just my opinion but here goes. I don't think the verse should be taken to have deep meanings about human nature, original sin, or anything else. I think it's just a hyperbole about how very very sinful he feels himself to be.
Yup, agreed!
[ 22. September 2016, 15:16: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I've always read it as meaning that the psalmist, and we all, are sinful to the very core of our being and each in our own life has been sinful all of that life. I have no learned argument to support that, save that it is open on the text.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I've always read it as meaning that the psalmist, and we all, are sinful to the very core of our being and each in our own life has been sinful all of that life. I have no learned argument to support that, save that it is open on the text.
Only if you read the Psalmist as offering lines for any of us to claim. Maybe that was the purpose: giving us all words to say when we felt that sinful. Maybe he was talking about just himself. Who knows. We've felt the universality in it just like we do in a good story or folk song or whatever. But the text does not actually even hint at the idea that this applies to all of us. The claim is only made about whoever "I" refers to.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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