A collection of possibly every sin imaginable, according to a New Testament study

A compilation of New Testament passages makes it possible to gather more than seventy behaviors considered sinful, many of them everyday ones and not just serious crimes. The catalog ranges from sensual immorality and murder to gossip, laziness, and meddling in other people's affairs.

The New Testament does not offer a single, closed list of sins. What it does offer are scattered enumerations, especially in Paul's letters, which together add up to a broad catalog. That yields a count of more than seventy entries, mixing serious wrongs with habits of daily interaction.

## From a list of vices to an open catalog

The letters to the Galatians and the Romans contain the best-known enumerations. Galatians 5 lists works of the flesh such as sensual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, divisions, and envy. Romans 1 adds gai acts, gossip, and disobedience to parents.

To those lists are added scattered passages from the Gospel of Matthew, which condemns anger, slander, and boasting, and from the pastoral letters, which mention love of money, vanity, and hypocrisy. The result is not a penal code, but a portrait of behaviors that Christian tradition has been grouping together over time.

## Money and the tongue, the two focal points

A large share of the entries have to do with money. Greed, theft, swindling, fraud, bribery, avarice, withholding wages, and lying about money appear in various books. The first letter to Timothy sums up the problem in a famous phrase: the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

The other block is that of speech. Lying, slander, gossip, blasphemy, false testimony, coarse language, and inappropriate jokes recur throughout the texts. The letter of James even compares the tongue to a small fire that sets an entire forest ablaze.

## Sins of conduct and of omission

There are entries that fit neither of those two categories. Bitterness, lack of mercy, favoritism, ingratitude, and hardness of heart describe ways of relating to others. Others are omissions: neglecting the poor or failing to provide for the needs of one's own family.

The list also includes laziness, cowardice, abandoning the faith, and meddling in other people's affairs. That breadth explains why the catalog grows so large: it does not distinguish between crime and character flaw. Any reader looking for a clear boundary between the serious and the minor will not find it here.

Later tradition, with the doctrine of the seven deadly sins, organized this material differently. But the sum of New Testament passages remains the reference for anyone who wants to see the complete map.