The Mental Base of Guilt in the Old and New Testaments: A Psychoanalytic Approach

In religious Life guilt is a common emotional experience. This study has been carried out to find out: How the Old and New Testaments speak about guilt? What are the words used by the Old and New Testaments writers in explaining the mental process involved in experiencing guilt? As Guilt was first vividly analyzed in psychoanalytic tradition, this question has also been discussed: Does the Bible’s language and narrative of guilt correspond to Psychoanalytic narrative and terms? In the Old Testament, guilt is dealt with more fully in Psalms. In the New Testament Paul is the Chief figure that describes and explains guilt. The Basic structure of guilt narrative is the same in the Old Testament, New Testament and Psychoanalysis, but throughout history differentiated words and terms have reinforced writer’ explanatory competence and they have reached a more explicit language.