Sin Vocabulary in the Greek New Testament

Corpus: Greek New Testament (TAGNT)
Method: Strong's-based lemma grouping across 11 sin-vocabulary stems
Two metrics: (1) sin-vocabulary words as % of total words; (2) verses containing ≥1 sin-vocabulary word as % of total verses
Build script: scripts/nt/lexicon/build_sin_vocabulary_report.py

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Contents

1. Key Observations
2. Vocabulary Scope
3. Metrics Comparison Overview
4. Metric 1 — Word Frequency
5. By Book
6. Word Group Heatmap
7. By Corpus Section
8. Metric 2 — Verse Coverage
9. By Book
10. By Corpus Section
11. High-Density Verses
12. Data Tables
13. Methodological Notes

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Key Observations

Word Frequency (Metric 1)

• 1 John has the highest sin-vocabulary word density in the NT (1.41%) — more than any Pauline letter, despite being far shorter than Romans. Its sustained focus on sin, confession, propitiation, and the nature of righteous living accounts for the concentration.
• Romans is second (1.18%), reflecting Paul's systematic argument about universal sin and guilt in chapters 1–3 and 5–8.
• The Gospels and Acts are strikingly low (0.07–0.19%). Jesus consistently uses narrative and parable rather than the hamartia word group.
• Acts is the lowest in the entire NT (0.07%) — its theological center is proclamation and the movement of the Spirit, not doctrinal elaboration of sin.
• Revelation is near-zero (0.04%) despite containing the NT's most intense judgment scenes. It uses different vocabulary — θηρίον, πόρνη, δράκων — rather than the hamartia/adikia cluster.
• The Pauline and General Epistles converge at nearly identical word-density averages (0.44% and 0.42%).

Verse Coverage (Metric 2)

• 1 John has the highest verse coverage in the NT (15.2%): more than 1 in 6 verses explicitly uses sin-vocabulary language, confirming its unique preoccupation with the topic.
• Romans ranks second (14.9%) but the verse metric reveals that nearly 1 in 7 verses touches the sin-vocabulary cluster — a far more striking picture than the word metric alone suggests.
• 2 Thessalonians rises sharply (10.6%) under the verse metric — its verses on the "man of lawlessness" (2:3–12) are long on ἀνομία vocabulary but not numerous, so the verse metric captures them better than word density.
• The General Epistles (6.4%) now clearly outpace the Pauline Epistles (5.5%) in verse coverage, while the two sections were nearly tied on the word metric. This suggests the General Epistles address sin in more verses but with less concentrated vocabulary per verse.
• The Gospels remain the lowest section (2.4%) under both metrics — sin vocabulary appears in roughly 1 in 40 Gospel verses.

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Vocabulary Scope

The analysis covers 11 Strong's lemma groups spanning the main Greek word families used for sin and moral failure:

Strong's	Lemma	Gloss	Count (NT)
G0266	ἁμαρτία	sin (noun)	174
G0264	ἁμαρτάνω	to sin (verb)	43
G0268	ἁμαρτωλός	sinner	48
G0265	ἁμάρτημα	sinful act	5
G0458	ἀνομία	lawlessness / iniquity	16
G0459	ἄνομος	lawless	10
G3900	παράπτωμα	trespass / transgression	22
G3847	παράβασις	transgression (of law)	7
G3848	παραβάτης	transgressor	5
G0093	ἀδικία	unrighteousness / iniquity	25
G4189	πονηρία	wickedness / evil	7

Total occurrences: 362 across 141,746 NT words (0.26% of NT words); found in 369 distinct verses out of 7,957 total NT verses (4.6% of NT verses).

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Metrics Comparison Overview

The two charts below are displayed together for easy comparison. The shape of the distribution is similar under both metrics, but the scale reveals different things: the word metric captures how intensively a book uses sin vocabulary; the verse metric captures how broadly across the book the topic is addressed.

Notable divergences between the two metrics:

Book	Word %	Verse %	Interpretation
Romans	1.18%	14.9%	Very high on both — sin is a sustained, word-intensive theme
2 Thessalonians	0.60%	10.6%	High verse coverage from ἀνομία cluster (ch. 2) but short book
Hebrews	0.70%	9.9%	Long verses dilute word density; verse coverage better reflects reach
Luke	0.19%	3.3%	Consistent with Gospels narrative pattern — sin words scattered broadly
Revelation	0.04%	1.0%	Both metrics confirm near-absence of hamartia vocabulary

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Metric 1 — Word Frequency

Definition: (sin-vocabulary word tokens) ÷ (total word tokens in book) × 100

This metric measures how intensively sin vocabulary is used relative to a book's total word count. A book with many words about sin packed into a few passages will score high.

By Book — Word Frequency

Word Group Heatmap

This heatmap breaks the total sin vocabulary into five word-group clusters and shows occurrences per 1,000 words for each book × group cell.

Key patterns: - ἁμαρτία (the hamartia cluster) dominates across all sections — it is the NT's primary term for sin - ἀνομία (lawlessness) appears most in Matthew (5:23), 2 Thessalonians (2:3 — "man of lawlessness"), and 1 John (3:4 — "sin is lawlessness") - παράπτωμα (trespass) is concentrated in Romans and Ephesians — Paul's preferred term for the specific act of transgression (Rom 5:15–20; Eph 2:1) - ἀδικία (unrighteousness) is primarily Pauline and Johannine; Romans 1:18–32 accounts for much of its concentration - πονηρία (wickedness) appears scattershot — not dominant in any single book

By Corpus Section — Word Frequency

Corpus Section	Total Words	Sin-Vocab Words	Word Frequency
Gospels & Acts	85,889	121	0.14%
Pauline Epistles	32,124	140	0.44%
General Epistles	23,733	100	0.42%

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Metric 2 — Verse Coverage

Definition: (verses containing ≥1 sin-vocabulary word) ÷ (total verses in book) × 100

This metric measures how broadly sin vocabulary is distributed across a book's verses. A book that mentions sin in many separate verses — even just once per verse — will score high regardless of how concentrated the words are.

By Book — Verse Coverage

By Corpus Section — Verse Coverage

Corpus Section	Total Verses	Sin-Vocab Verses	Verse Coverage
Gospels & Acts	4,785	114	2.4%
Pauline Epistles	1,741	95	5.5%
General Epistles	1,431	92	6.4%

The General Epistles pull ahead of the Pauline Epistles under the verse metric (6.4% vs 5.5%), reversing the near-tie seen in word density. This suggests that books like Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 1 John, and 2 Peter spread their sin vocabulary more broadly across their verses, while Pauline letters like Romans concentrate it in dense theological argument sections.

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High-Density Verses

The following verses contain the highest concentration of sin-vocabulary words (4 occurrences per verse):

1 John 3:4 — πᾶς ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν καὶ τὴν ἀνομίαν ποιεῖ, καὶ ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ἀνομία
"Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness." — the only verse in the NT that explicitly equates ἁμαρτία with ἀνομία.

Romans 7:13 — ἵνα γένηται καθ᾽ ὑπερβολὴν ἁμαρτωλὸς ἡ ἁμαρτία διὰ τῆς ἐντολῆς… ἡ ἁμαρτία διὰ τῆς ἐντολῆς κατεργάζηται … ἁμαρτία
The densest single verse in Romans' treatment of the Law-sin dynamic (ch. 7).

1 Corinthians 9:21 — τοῖς ἀνόμοις ὡς ἄνομος, μὴ ὢν ἄνομος θεοῦ ἀλλ᾽ ἔννομος Χριστοῦ, ἵνα κερδάνω τοὺς ἀνόμους
Paul's "all things to all people" — 4× ἄνομος in one sentence as rhetorical wordplay, not theological elaboration.

1 John 5:16–17 — three sin-vocabulary words across two related verses on mortal and non-mortal sin.

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Data Tables

Metric 1 — Word Frequency

Book	Total Words	Sin Words	Word Frequency
Matthew	18,882	24	0.13%
Mark	11,865	19	0.16%
Luke	20,119	39	0.19%
John	16,069	26	0.16%
Acts	18,954	13	0.07%
Romans	7,180	85	1.18%
1 Corinthians	6,986	18	0.26%
2 Corinthians	4,497	6	0.13%
Galatians	2,268	8	0.35%
Ephesians	2,470	6	0.24%
Philippians	1,628	0	0.00%
Colossians	1,631	4	0.25%
1 Thessalonians	1,502	1	0.07%
2 Thessalonians	839	5	0.60%
1 Timothy	1,623	7	0.43%
2 Timothy	1,273	2	0.16%
Titus	680	2	0.29%
Philemon	349	0	0.00%
Hebrews	5,026	35	0.70%
James	1,779	12	0.67%
1 Peter	1,729	8	0.46%
2 Peter	1,112	6	0.54%
1 John	2,191	31	1.41%
2 John	249	0	0.00%
3 John	210	0	0.00%
Jude	468	1	0.21%
Revelation	10,167	4	0.04%
NT Total	141,746	362	0.26%

Metric 2 — Verse Coverage

Book	Total Verses	Sin Verses	Verse Coverage
Matthew	1,071	23	2.1%
Mark	678	18	2.7%
Luke	1,151	38	3.3%
John	878	22	2.5%
Acts	1,007	13	1.3%
Romans	430	64	14.9%
1 Corinthians	437	11	2.5%
2 Corinthians	255	5	2.0%
Galatians	149	7	4.7%
Ephesians	155	5	3.2%
Philippians	102	0	0.0%
Colossians	95	3	3.2%
1 Thessalonians	89	1	1.1%
2 Thessalonians	47	5	10.6%
1 Timothy	113	6	5.3%
2 Timothy	83	2	2.4%
Titus	46	2	4.3%
Philemon	25	0	0.0%
Hebrews	303	30	9.9%
James	108	9	8.3%
1 Peter	105	7	6.7%
2 Peter	61	6	9.8%
1 John	105	16	15.2%
2 John	13	0	0.0%
3 John	14	0	0.0%
Jude	25	1	4.0%
Revelation	404	4	1.0%
NT Total	7,957	369	4.6%

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Methodological Notes

• Data source: TAGNT (The Apostolic Greek New Testament) morphological database via the bible_grammar query API
• Lemma matching: Strong's prefix matching (e.g., all forms tagged G0266 match ἁμαρτία regardless of case/number ending)
• Metric 1 scaling: Raw word counts divided by total word tokens per book, expressed as percentage
• Metric 2 scaling: A verse is counted once even if it contains multiple sin-vocabulary words; divided by total verse count per book
• Excluded terms: πονηρός (G4190, 79×), ὀφειλέτης (G3781), and αἰτία (G0156) were excluded to keep the analysis focused on direct sin terminology
• Revelation caveat: Revelation's near-zero scores under both metrics do not mean it is unconcerned with evil — it uses apocalyptic imagery (θηρίον, πόρνη, δράκων, εἴδωλον) to encode moral failure symbolically rather than lexically
• CSV exports: Word-frequency data in nt-sin-vocabulary-by-book.csv; verse-coverage data in nt-sin-vocabulary-by-verse.csv