These verses are difficult to fit into Paul’s argument, though as far as the exegetical matters relating to translation are concerned, verse 13 is not difficult. Most translators assume that the Law referred to in this verse is the Jewish Law, and so indicate this by using a capital “L”, however, the New English Bible takes law in a more general sense (“before there was law”).

The first clause of verse 13 may be quite easily rendered by making “people” the subject of sin—for example, “before the Law was given, people in the world sinned.” In order to make specific an interpretation of the Law as being the Law of Moses, one may say “before the Law was given to Moses” or “before God gave the Law by means of Moses.”

The verb rendered account is kept was a term used in business and referred to the entering of accounts into a ledger. If, in the receptor language, this passive verb has to be rendered by an active one, then God in the one who did not keep account of sins.

Paul’s reasoning is here difficult to follow. If no account is kept of sins, why then did death rule over all men from the time of Adam to the time of Moses? Somehow Paul seems to imply that no record could be kept of sin, unless it was sin against a specific command of God, such as the specific command given to Adam or the specific commands contained in the Mosaic Law. But even though all men did not sin as Adam did by disobeying God’s command (that is, by disobeying a specific command of God; see New English Bible “by disobeying a direct command”), all men did sin. And since all men did sin, death ruled over all men. Fortunately, the translator does not have to answer all of these difficult questions; but in order to deal adequately with the meaning of the passage, he should at least know the basic problems involved.

Most translations take Paul’s literal words (Revised Standard Version “whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam”) in a way similar to what the Good News Translation does. The rendering of the New English Bible has already been given; An American Translation* has “who had not sinned as Adam had, in the face of an express command”; while the Jerusalem Bible has “even though their sin, unlike that of Adam, was not a matter of breaking a law.”

The expression from the time of Adam to the time of Moses may cause certain difficulties in some languages because of the necessity of recasting the relations and relating these to death—for example, “all the people who lived from the time Adam lived until the time Moses lived, all had to die”; or, in relation to the following clause, “all people who followed after Adam, and all those who lived until Moses lived, had to die, even those persons who did not sin just as Adam sinned when he disobeyed the very command which God had given him”; or “… when he disobeyed the very words that God had spoken to him.”

Paul begins by saying Adam was a figure of the one who was to come. The word rendered figure is difficult to translate; the Revised Standard Version has merely transliterated (“a type”). Several modern translations render this noun either by the verb “prefigure” (Jerusalem Bible “Adam prefigured the One to come”; Moffatt “Adam prefigured Him who was to come”) or by the verb “foreshadow” (New English Bible “Adam foreshadows the Man who was to come”; An American Translation* “Adam foreshadowed the one who was to come”). Phillips has “Adam, the first man, corresponds in some degree to the man who was to come.” This word figure is used in a variety of ways in the New Testament and in other early Christian literature outside the New Testament. Paul himself uses it in 1 Corinthians 10.6 with the meaning of “example,” and in 1 Corinthians 10.11 the adverbial form made from this root is used with the meaning of “by way of example.” The best explanation of the precise meaning of this word in the present passage is to be found in the series of analogies and contrasts listed in the verses following (15-17).

For languages which lack a term for “figure,” “type,” or “foreshadow,” one may employ terms denoting similarly—for example, “Adam was in some regards similar to the one who was to come.” In some languages one must indicate both the similarity and the contrast—for example, “Adam was in some ways like and in some ways different from the person who was destined to come.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .