Bravo, I was wondering if anyone would ever point that fact out.
From the beginning, any grouping of people governed their families, tribes, countries without the necessity of the Ten commandments to define sin. The Law wasn't given to define sin it was to make trespasses/transgressions increase. And with the increase of trespasses/transgressions scripture says there was an increase in sin following.
Do you agree that the Israelites were given knowledge of what sin is and that the source of that knowledge was God's Law?
In Romans 3:20, God's Law was given in order to give us knowledge of sin, in Romans 7:7, Paul wouldn't have even known what sin is if it weren't for the Law, and in 1 John 3:4, sin is defined as the transgression of the Law, so I don't see how you can deny that it was given to define sin.
In Romans 7, Paul said that Law of God is holy, righteous, and good (7:12), that he wanted to do good (7:13-20), that he delighted in obeying it (7:22), and that he served it with his mind (7:25), but contrasted that with the law of sin, which was working within him to cause him not to do the good that he wanted to do (7:13-20), which held him captive (7:23), and which he served with his mind (7:25). In other words, the Law of God is not sinful, but was given to reveal was sin is (7:7), and when our sins are revealed that should lead us to repent and cause sin to decrease, but there is a law of sin that is sinful and stirs up sinful passions to bear fruit unto death (7:5), which causes sin to increase. If you do not distinguish between what Paul said about the Law of God and the law of sin especially in Romans 5-8, then you will end up interpreting verses like 7:22 and 7:5 or 5:20 as saying that Paul delighted in stirring up sin and causing sin to increase, which is nonsense. Rather, 5:20 is speaking about a law that causes sin to increase, so he was speaking about the law of sin, not about the Law of God.
All the jumping around with definitions of what trespass/transgress mean has been amusing to me. They aren't 'little' sins 'big' sins, that's just a Catholic throw back to venial sin and mortal sin. As someone did correctly post in the other thread "Sin is sin", period IMO. Theologians just have never figured it all out yet. They call an iniquity sin and transgression sin, and of course 'sin is sin'. But what does scripture do?
There is a sense that all sin is the same in that it all separates us from God, but there is a sense that all sin is not the same in that they have different penalties. For example penalty for eating an unclean animals is not the same as the penalty for committing murder. Some sins instructed for someone to be expelled from the community while others did not. Furthermore, the same is true with the rewards for obedience not all being the same.
EXO 34:7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation."
If iniquity and transgression were sin then the bible wouldn't be as redundant here as the resident armchair theologians we've read. And as for the root of sin? The bible spells that out in Genesis and the temptations of Jesus and 1John.
Iniquity is intentional sin.