Much of our understanding of Paul's discussion on "sin" in Romans 5:12-19 is colored by centuries of church history and theology. For instance, nowhere in today's text or anywhere else in the New Testament is there any reference to something called "original" sin. That phrase was derived from the Vulgate's Latin translation of Paul's Greek text - a translation which makes a much stronger grammatical case for a causal connection between Adam's sin and the resulting sinfulness of all future generations of human beings.

The Vulgate (thus Augustine) translates verse 12b as in quo - "in whom" all have sinned, rather than the less personalized Greek eph ho - "because" all have sinned. Paul's statement in the original Greek points back less to one man, Adam, than it does to the cause of the univ…