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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Is.45:7 God created evil?

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  • From: "Read, James C" <K0434995 AT kingston.ac.uk>
  • To: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Is.45:7 God created evil?
  • Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 15:42:40 +0100


Yizthak wrote:
You're simply wrong on the linguistic issue. But even assuming you are right,
how do you know that Chronicles did not understand the subject of "wyst" to be
God's anger. Couldn't we translate it (in light of your translation
above) "And an
adversary stood upon Israel and one [ie, God's anger] incited David to count
Israel"? If Chronicles "definitely" refers to the adversary in 1 Chr
21:1 then 2 Sam
24:1 just as definitely refers to God's anger being the inciter.
END QUOTE

You are absolutely right here. There is no way of knowing conclusively the
answer
to these questions if we are to consider only the linguistics of the phrases.
As you have rightly observed,the language in the passage in Chronicles also
allows
for another interpretation of events and so we must look at a larger context
in
order to correctly understand the two texts.

I do not want to get invovled in a futile debate about the authorship of Job
but even
critics agree that it was composed long before Kings and Chronicles and so
for the
purposed of our discussion the book of Job provides a good context in
understanding
what could seem to be a contradiction.
The book of Job clearly identifies trials and temptation as originating with
a fallen
angel named Satan (adversary).

Furthermore, your current understanding of 2Sam 24 does not make sense if we
are to
understand it as a chain of events.

1) Yah gets angry
2) He gets David to commit a sin

The following questions arise:
1) Why did Yah get angry?
2) Surely if we are to understand that he got angry before the sin then there
must have been another
reason for his anger. What was that reason?
3) If so, did Yah get David to sin just because he was already angry about
something else?
4) Does this line of thinking have any logic what-so-ever?

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