"Sins of the Parents in Rabbinic and Early Christian Literature"

Dov Yehuda Weiss

"Sins of the Parents in Rabbinic and Early Christian Literature"

Journal of Religion, 97(1), 1-25

For over two millennia, Jewish and Christian theologians have grappled with the biblical notion that God punishes children for the “sins of [their] parents” (Exod. 20:5).1 This doctrine, found in the Decalogue, has posed an obvious question for many readers of the biblical text: Why should one person suffer for the sins committed by another? Does this method of divine providence correspond with a loving, fair, and just deity? From the second to the fifth century CE, various Gnostics, Marcionites, Valentinians, Pagans, and Manicheans used this passage to prove—against the emerging orthodox Christian position—that the Old Testament God is not synonymous with the Supreme Deity.2 For them, the Old Testament God is either morally imperfect or, worse, outright evil. Early Christian thinkers (prior to Augustine3) who defended the Old Testament God against this accusation were thus forced to adopt a number of exegetical techniques to neutralize the moral problem.4 These charitable reinterpretations of Exod. 20:5 were based on an early Christian guiding principle: as a perfectly ethical being, God would never punish one person for the sins of another. Accordingly, the Exodus passage should not be understood according to its plain sense: indeed, God never punishes innocent children for their parents’ sins.

2017