One of the more intriguing verses in the Bible is Isaiah
45:7, which answers the age-old question from whence does evil come.
In the Authorized Version of James I, King of England, this
verse reads: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create
evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
The Three Isaiahs
This verse is part of the section of the Book of Isaiah known
as Second Isaiah.
“What do you mean, ‘Second Isaiah’?”, you ask.
Biblical scholars have known for quite a while that the
Isaiah as we have it today was written in three stages stretching across four or
more centuries.
First Isaiah (chapters 1-39) is generally considered to be
the words of the prophet Isaiah himself, with the exception of chapters 24-27,
which are a later interpolation. Isaiah’s time as a prophet began in the final
days of the northern kingdom called Samerina and Bit Humria, witnessed the fall
of Samaria, and ended in the early days of direct Assyrian rule.
Second Isaiah (chapters 40-54) was written by an anonymous
author, possibly a prophet, living in exile from the southern kingdom, which
was first known in Samerina as Teman, among its other neighbors as Bit Dawid,
and later as Yehud.
In the Jewish Tanakh, the two kingdoms are called Israel and
Judah, at least in their English translations; the transliteration of the
Hebrew produces Yisrael and Yehudah. While
the northern kingdom was established by the dynasty ruling the semi-nomadic Canaanite
tribe called Israel, it was known as Bit Humria, or House of Omri, and as
Samerina. It was, in fact, the senior of
the two, senior in age and in importance.
The southern kingdom, founded later, was at first simply known as Teman
(the South), and sometimes as Bit Dawid, or House of David. The name Yehud first appears at the time of
the Babylonian conquest.
Third Isaiah (chapters 55-66) is the work of several
anonymous prophets after the return to the southern kingdom from Babylon.
When these three bodies of work became one, we do not know,
but most scholars agree that the Book of Isaiah achieved its present form around
70 BCE, during the reign of Salome Alexandra of the Hasmonean dynasty, as Queen
of Judea, which at the time included the conquered lands of Idumea, Philistia, Samaria,
Galilee, Iturea, and Perea.
WHO created evil?
The reason this particular verse of the amalgamated Book of
Isaiah is so intriguing, and vexing to Christians, Samaritans (yes, there are
about 750 left), and Jews, is that it answers the age-old question of “where
does evil come from” by quoting God (portrayed as referring to himself as
‘Yahweh’) saying “I create it”.
I think because this particular verse that Second Isaiah belongs
to the early Persian period of the Levant, and Third Isaiah to the later
Persian and/or early Hellenistic period.
What’s more, I think this section was likely written in the same period as
the Book of Deuteronomy, or at least that of its Chapter 6 (especially Deut.
6:4, the verse known as the Shema: “Hear O Yisrael: Yahweh your God, Yahweh is One.”), since the
themes of these two passages fit together so well. Both passages deal with the unity of God.
Given the ample architectural evidence (compared to the
dearth testifying to the contrary) there is no doubt that the inhabitants of
both the northern kingdom (Samerina, Bit Humria) and the southern kingdom (Teman,
Bit Dawid, Yehud) were polytheists before the conquest by the monotheistic
Iranians in the later 6th century.
There is anecdotal evidence of this even in the Bible, including in that
part most sacred to American fundamentalist Christians, the so-called ‘Ten
Commandments’, which are more accurately the ‘Ten Statements’.
Note that this polytheism existed only in the henotheistic
form, which may acknowledge and even worship several gods but holds one (the
national god Yahweh in this case) up above them all, as early as the 9th
century BCE. In the case of Samerina and
Teman (the name Yehud only surfaces later), this deity was Yahweh. At several pre- Exile archaeological sites in
Palestine, Yahweh’s consort is Asherah, while at the Hebrew colony at the
island of Elephantine in southern Egypt that existed from the mid-7th
century, his consort is Anath.
By the end of the 5th century, under the
influence of their monotheistic occupiers, the inhabitants of Samerina and
Yehud and their cousins of the colonies in Egypt (Elephantine, Memphis, several
others) had traversed theologically from henotheism to monolatry
(acknowledgement of several deities but worship of only one), and finally to
full-fledged monotheism. Though the people
of Samerina and Yehud adopted its monotheism, they kept their own god and at
least officially shunned the dualism that is an intrinsic part of Zartosht’s
teachings.
Emphasizing this unity, the oneness of Yahweh, is the idea
underlying both the verse in Isaiah and that in Deuteronomy, the former more
explicitly denying Zoroastrian dualism.
This is why the writer of Second Isaiah puts the words into the mouth of
Yahweh that both light and dark, and both good and evil, come from him.
A more correct translation
A better translation would be: “I form light and create
darkness, I make good and create evil: I, Yahweh, do all these things.”
In the Orthodox Jewish Bible, the Isaiah 45:7 verse is
rendered: “I form ohr, and create choshech; I make shalom, and create rah; I, Hashem,
do all these things.”
Where Christians translators often render the YHVH as “LORD”,
Jewish translators substitute “Hashem”, meaning literally “The Name”, which
becomes “Shema” for Samaritans. “Ohr”
means light and “choshech” means darkness, but the other two terms are a bit
more problematic.
“Shalom” is usually translated into English as “peace”, but
can also be translated as “prosperity”, while “rah”, usually translated as “evil”,
can also mean “adversity”, and if “rah” were to be translated this way, “shalom”
as “prosperity” would clearly not mean a capitalist’s fantasy but the polar
opposite of adversity. Various English
translations use one or the other set of translations. However, we find a clue to the most correct
translation in the rendering of the verse as used in the Shacharit (morning) prayers
in Judaism.
The two chief sets of prayers revolved around the Shema and
the Tefillah. The latter is an ancient
set of benedictory supplications dating two millennia. The first is based on the afore-mentioned
verse in Deuteronomy, 6:4. It is
actually three separate passages, the first passage being the most important,
Deut. 6:4-9.
In modern English, this would read: “Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our
God, Yahweh is One. Love Yahweh your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep
these words in your heart, and teach them diligently to your children. Discuss them sitting in your house and walking
down the road, when you lie down, and when you rise up. Bind them as a sign on your hand,
and wear them as an ornament between your eyes. Write them upon your doorposts and upon
your gates.”
In Shacharit, there
are two blessings, or prayers, before the recitation of the whole Shema, and
one after. The first of these is taken
directly from Isaiah 45:7. In the prayers,
the Hebrew word “Adonai”, meaning “Lord”, is substituted for the actual
name.
In English, this
benediction, which is called Yotzer ohr (“Creator of light”) in Hebrew, goes: “Blessed
are you, LORD our God, King of the universe, who forms light and creates
darkness, who makes peace and creates all things. Blessed are you LORD, who
forms light.
Note that whichever rabbi wrote this benediction could not
being himself to write that God creates evil, instead felt the need to
whitewash the “evil” in the original verse completely out of existence as if
God himself were not saying he creates it.
That is why so many “translators” render “shalom” as “prosperity” and “rah”
as “adversity”. In doing so, however,
all of them ignore the intent of the writer to show that ALL things come from
Yahweh.
Yes, “shalom” and “rah” can be validly translated as “prosperity”
and “adversity”, but in other contexts than this one. In this verse is a dual dichotomy, and for
the dual dichotomy to be valid, it has to balance out all the way around. “Prosperity and adversity” just does not carry
the same weight vis-à-vis “light and darkness” that “good and evil” does.
Neither belief nor disbelief are relevant to the true
translation of this passage, but it is clear from the widespread attempts to whitewash
the evil out of this verse, so to speak, that belief has been getting in the
way and hindering rather than helping.
I use the actual name Yahweh rather than any of the
oft-substituted euphemisms because the fear of using the name derives from
superstition rather than any real spiritual motivation. Most of those avoiding its use have no qualms
about using it in vain with their actions.
ADDENDUM: In the second chapter of Genesis, the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil (or ‘Etz HaDa’as Tov v’Rah’, where ‘tov’ means ‘good’
and ‘rah’ means ‘evil’) symbolizes in reality the “Tree of Infinite Knowledge”. In that scheme, ‘shalom’ and ‘rah’ together could mean ‘all things’. Alternatively, ‘rah’, which can be translated
as either ‘evil’ or adversity’, is best translated also as ‘dysfunction’, i.e. ‘chaos’;
in this case ‘shalom’ might be translated as ‘order’, i.e. ‘cosmos’. In other words, the
meaning of what Second Isaiah has Yahweh say in Isaiah 45:7 is that “I create
everything”, i.e. light and darkness, good and evil, order and chaos,
prosperity and calamity. Note the
current, not the past, tense, by the way.
2 comments:
In my opinion Yahweh the Bible God is both good and evil, or is a Jekyll and Hyde in personality. Different sources claim different things about the passage in Isahiah chapter 45, verse 7. No one really knows what it means. Much of the Bible, including this verse, is vague, ambiguous, unclear, and full of contradictions. The Bible has caused centuries of disagreement, division, and confusion.
The three categories of evil are: Moral evil, which is the evil done by any intelligent,conscious being such as Humans, the Devil, Satan, demons, archons, djinn, evil fairies. Violence, cruelty, malice, selfishness, lying, stealing, killing are some examples of Moral evil.
Then there's Natural evil, which is the harm and suffering caused from Nature, which is th
e hardest to explain and hardest to justify in my opinion. Natural evil can also be called Blind evil, Amoral evil, or Non moral evil.Natural evils are so numerous and have existed since the beginning of time. The early earth during the Precambrian era was a hellish inferno, anaerobic, suffocating, unbreathable, with sulfur, methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide, boiling mud pools, and temperatures thousands of degrees hot.
Other examples of Natural evils are violence and killing through predation, diseases such as cancer, stroke, aneurysm, heart disease, tooth decay, malaria, ebola, etc. There are venomous creatures such as Stonefish, Brazilian wandering spiders, Centipedes, etc. Mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, lice, screw worm flies, bedbugs all contribute to make life a hell.
Other Natural evils are intense cold, intense heat, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, vog, acid rain, overpulation, starvation, dehydration, pollution, floods, droughts, famine, birth defects, miscarriages, mental retardation, dementia, blindness, deafness, execrement, mold, mildew, vermin, grime, scum. Nature has a cruel, violent, dangerous, repulsive side.
Grievous accidents and injuries cause suffering and death to both humans and animals. Car and motor vehicle accidents and dangerous machinery such as chainsaws fill up hospitals and cemeteries. Fire is a very dangerous and scary element.
The worst form of suffering is probably being buried alive inside a coffin, crypt, vault, etc. Suffocation and claustrophobia. Unbearable torture, a fate worse than death.
Supernatural evil is the evil from Satan and demons. Author Gregory Boyd claims that Satan and demons are to blame for all Natural evil and for all Moral evil/Human evil and sin. We don't really know in what ways Satan and demons are evil. Job is the only book in the Bible where Satan inflicts physical torture, killing, and death. There's much stronger evidence that Satan and demons are evil by desiring to drag humans in hell, and by possessing human minds and bodies.
Is God partly evil, or insane, or indifferent, uncaring, unintelligent, incompetent, mentally blind, morally blind, or weak and powerless? We don't really know. Monism believes in a powerful, sovereign God, while Dualism believes in a weak God who is not in charge of the creation.
The only thing that's certain is that the world is a hellhole and horror movie. The puzzle and origin of evil is the most disturbing mystery which is not likely to be solved.
Why do theologians and why do religious folks continue to believe that God is all good, all powerful, and all wise? This belief is not only unproven but extremely unlikely to be true. Two more attributes should be added as it pertains to God or the creator, Rationality and Sanity. Is He rational, or irrational? Is He sane or insane? Theres no way to know this. The only way to answer the age old question of the origin and cause of evil is to either question God, which is impossible, as He chooses to be hidden and silent, or to somehow be able to study and dissect who and what God is, which is impossible. We would have to know what are the extent of His powers, or what can?He do and not do, what is the extent of His intelligence and knowledge, what is His goodness, or is He good as we understand the definition of good, or is He devoid of goodness? Is He rational or not? Is He sane or not? Did He create or cause all the Natural evils and did He cause Moral evil or sin? Did He create Satan and demons? Did He foresee that angels would turn bad and become Satan and demons? Did He foresee that Humans would become so evil? Did He knowingly create mosquitoes, ticks, jellyfish, sharks, screw worm flies? Did He foresee the harm and suffering He would cause by creating and allowing these things? Why create these things if He knew the harm and suffering these things would cause and the resulting agnosticism, atheism, heresy, apostasy, and blasphemy as a result of these evils?
Its a God that doesnt make sense.
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