Original Sin: A Cultural History

One of the most important concepts in Western culture, explained with great talent

Very understandably, the notion of original sin offends a certain modern sensibility. Isn't it immoral to suggest that everyone alive today bears the guilt of the transgression of a hypothetical Adam, lost to the mists of history? That we're all guilty before a judgmental God of something we didn't do? And isn't it a bit misogynistic, with the stuff about blaming Eve for the Fall of Man? But then again, looking at the rivers of blood that flow through history, and perhaps even looking at our own imperfections, our own failings ("When viewed from the inside, every man's life is a series of failures," George Orwell--no Christian and well-acquainted with worldly success--is reported to have said), don't we find that there seems to be something...broken...at the heart of human nature? Something we all share--something inherited, perhaps--that, in some mysterious way, bends the timber of our humanity? One of the most powerful and important concepts that Western civilization has used to try to make sense of this paradox of human nature has been the idea of original sin. And it's precisely nowadays, when the concept is left to the wayside, that if we want to understand our own culture, we need to know more about it. Alan Jacobs, a distinguished scholar of literature (and a Christian) provides with this excellent book a wonderful overview of, just as it says on the tin, the history of this concept of original sin in our culture. A disclaimer here: Alan is a friend of mine. Despite our friendship, and our shared Christianity, and my knowledge of his talents as a writer and scholar, it took me a long time to pick up this book, because I was afraid it would be mostly dry, academic scholarship. Don't make the same mistake. It is an absolutely engaging, well-written, lucid book, very easy to read. Though Jacobs is a Christian, he writes here first as a lover and scholar of culture, not as an apologist. Jacobs finds precedent for the notion of original sin even outside of Jude...