Original Sin - A Cultural History: 1

This is a fascinating mix of history, literature, theology, science, anthropology ... perhaps because in part the overall argument is that it makes no sense to try and understand the heart of human beings by dividing us up into separate compartments. When you take us as people, whole people, the one claim that seems always to be true is that we have a persistent and unedifying capacity to do wrong - to be bad - to let ourselves (and everyone else) down; and that we do not hold back in so acting.Jacobs recounts this story through early church history and the reception of the biblical passages that relate to this topic, but in some ways the book really accelerates into gear when he begins traversing far and wide the impact of this notion of 'original sin' in American and recent European history. His analysis of the core of much twentieth century belief seems just right: an ability to see the reality of human sin coupled with the commitment to various forms of aimlessly upbeat anthropology (the noble savage; the blank slate of the human mind; the plain old 'goodness' of all us folks). The result, in the modern mind, is a kind of endless chasing of the tail of optimism. But as Jacobs' history shows, it has never worked before, and the current odds don't look good.So unfashionable as the doctrine might be, 'original sin' it is: a basic realism about human nature that still manages to avoid despair. I half expected the book to move on to more theological accounts of how to handle this insight today, and it does not really do so. But this would complement any such theological account. It is also beautifully written. In short: a book that will stay with me for a long time, deep in the mind and heart. Highly recommended.

It would be natural to expect any book on original sin to be dull, worthy, depressing and difficult. Alan Jacobs has pulled off a minor miracle in writing one that is fast paced, engaging and entertaining. Jacobs, a professor of English rather than a theologian, wears his learning lightly, and as result has produced an erudite work that is accessible to the general reader. As the subtitle indicates this is not a work of theology but rather the history of an idea, its proponents and opponents. An idea that despite many difficulties and unattractive features, has enormous explanatory power in answering the question: where does evil come from? Although Jacobs does not hide his own position, he writes as a storyteller rather than propagandist.Highly recommended.