Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Evil & God

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Evil & God
  • Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:33:57 -0500

Dear pawel,

I understand the idea. The problem was if the idea is
christian, or jewish, or both christian and jewish, or
neither christian nor jewish. In my opinion it is, on
one hand, both christian and jewish, as it is observable
both in christianity and in judaism, and, on the other
hand, neither christian nor jewish, as it is not an
official dogma of either of the religions.

HH: I think it is an assumed truth in all the Christian fellowships of which I have been a part. Yet, I have no doubt that its origin is Jewish, and I believe there are suggestions of it in the Tanakh.

The fall of Lucipher is a story, a picture, an illustration.
It would be a really weird idea to take it literally.
A fall is a move, so it presupposes the state 'before'
and the state 'after'. Lucipher, being good before,
stopped being good and became evil. How would it be possible
when time does not exist? The 'mysterium pravitatis' lies
in the mystery of love. God loves his creation and wants
the creation to love him. It is impossible without free
will on both sides. Free will means choice and the possibility
of choosing the evil. This is the price for love.

HH: This is an excellent paragraph.

There is neither a mention of a 'jecer ha-tov', nor of
'jecer ha-ra', the idea being of talmudic origin. As
it is believed, jecer ha -ra is innate and jecer ha-tov
appears at the age of bar-micwa (13). Actually, both
'jecers' seem to be a necessary condition of free will.
We may suppose that in paradise man was free from jecer
ha-ra. Rabbi Elijahu Dessler presents a very interesting
approach to the problem, assuming that in paradise
onely jecer ha-tov was possible. Hence my question.

HH: Well, there is mention of the jecer ha-ra:

Gen. 6:5 ¶ The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

The word "inclination" is jecer and the word "evil" is ra.

HH: Is there a need to assume that prior to Adam's sin that there was a jecer ha ra. There had been no sin. Nor need one assume a jecer he-tov in the sense you seem to be defining it, as a strong tendency to do good that would prevent one from sinning. Why can we not imagine a perfect environment and a neutral mind-set? Adam and Eve delighted in all the good things, including God's presence, but Eve could be deceived, and Adam could follow his wife's example, though he knew it was forbidden.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard
From pawel AT kul.stalwol.pl Thu Aug 11 11:40:50 2005
Return-Path: <pawel AT kul.stalwol.pl>
X-Original-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from filia.kul.stalwol.pl (filia.kul.stalwol.pl [213.76.133.168])
by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 59A1A4C006
for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:40:50 -0400
(EDT)
Received: from bjt106.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl (bjt106.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl
[83.28.161.106]) by filia.kul.stalwol.pl (Postfix) with ESMTP
id 1D66C2789B; Thu, 11 Aug 2005 17:40:52 +0200 (CEST)
From: Pawel <pawel AT kul.stalwol.pl>
To: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <e6ea6c00050811074957428e06 AT mail.gmail.com>
References: <49k06j$27q55s AT mxip28a.cluster1.charter.net>
<1123770798.8144.9.camel@localhost>
<e6ea6c00050811074957428e06 AT mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-2
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 17:40:46 +0200
Message-Id: <1123774846.8144.54.camel@localhost>
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Evolution 2.0.4-3mdk
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org, tladatsi AT charter.net
Subject: [b-hebrew] Evil, God, Satan, & Enoch
X-BeenThere: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.6
Precedence: list
Reply-To: pawel AT kul.stalwol.pl
List-Id: Hebrew Bible List <b-hebrew.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
<mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew>
List-Post: <mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
<mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 15:40:50 -0000

Dnia 11-08-2005, czw o godzinie 17:49 +0300, Yitzhak Sapir napisa³(a):

Even if you accept the idea that Henoch contained said references
(see Rolf's comments), it is wrong to use it in this context to say
that the idea is Jewish. In case Henoch did originally contain an
said references, it might be said that various sects of Jews in
the Second Temple period accepted the idea. However, Judaism
as it has developed in Pharisaic and Rabbinic Judaism did not, so
all the book of Henoch tells you is that the idea is not "Jewish" but
may have been an idea that was accepted by certain sects during
the late Second Temple period that no longer exist. However, in
light of Rolf's comments even this is probably too much to say. In
any case, the idea is not Jewish if you are referring to Rabbinic or
Pharisaic Judaism. If you want to claim it isn't Christian, that is
up to you.

The question was: what is the origin of the idea? If you agree
that it was accepted by certain sects in the I century, you
don't mean to say the sects were Christian, do you? They were
Jewish and the origin of the idea is therefore Jewish, too.
The idea might have been abandoned later (if you claim it was,
that is up to you) in the Pharisaic and Rabbinic Judaism, which
does not change the fact that it came into being as part of
Jewish spirituality and was not a Christian invention.

--
Pawel Sajdek
<>< XPICTOC NIKA ><>





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page