11 July 2023
Once again, I struggle to find the words. Our English language comes with a lot of baggage that just doesn't get you to the Hebrew understanding of things.
There is a Hebrew word for "evil" -- ra. Most of the words in the Bible translated as "evil" are based on this root. There are about ten different words based on the root to indicate various kinds of evil. In typical Hebrew fashion, those variations have more to do with major issues in the life of an ancient Hebrew, and none of the rational structure characterizing the West today. Furthermore, those occurrences are often translated into other words, depending on the context: bad, wicked, mischief, calamity, etc.
It's not a question of what evil is (ontology), but what it does in terms of God's agenda.
It starts with the identification of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I've noted in the past that the flavor of the Hebrew language here is that the fruit of this tree is deciding or judging what is good and evil. It's not a question of recognizing good and evil, but of usurping God's prerogatives. As one commenter said, it's an attempt to "hack the code". I rather wish that the early English translation had chosen to call it the Tree of Usurpation or Self-deification, or something that better indicates the core issue.
At least "Forbidden Fruit" gets closer to that. But the silly notion that it has to do with sex (at least as we experience it) or apples is altogether from western pagan mythology. There is far too much reading back into the Genesis account our western pagan heritage, including the lingering threads of Victorian propaganda about what is "proper".
For quite some time, evangelicals have correctly understood that the biblical definition of sin is "any variation from God's declared will". God says this, and sin is saying anything else. In the Hebrew mind, what you "speak with the mouth" can be a euphemism for how you act. Actions speak louder than words is a Hebrew concept. What is often translated as "hypocrisy" can easily miss the point, the point being that you claim to serve God but serve someone else. The basic concept of sin is yielding yourself to some other deity, and that other deity could be your own reasoning.
The western concept of evil is itself wrong. In the Bible, it refers to destruction or calamity. The definition is a matter of context. It's always rather unpleasant for someone, but it's not always inherently nasty as we think of it. Thus, there are verses saying outright that God sometimes creates evil. He destroyed Egypt at the Exodus. It was unpleasant -- "evil" -- for the Egyptians for a very long time afterward, but it was necessary for Jehovah to show His superiority, and to forcefully assert His claim over His chosen nation. It was the fallout from the ongoing dispute of some members of God's council against some of His choices.
Thus, the Forbidden Fruit has more to do with mankind asserting the right to decide what is a blessing versus what is destructive of good order in the universe. It boils down to demanding the right to decide what we need, and so we define "good and evil" based on what we like and don't like, when it should be what God likes and doesn't like.
Jehovah created all things based on His own internal moral character. That moral character is woven into the whole, so that the logical coherence reflects whatever pleases Him. Across the entire Ancient Near East, the common notion of morality was a matter of being consistent with reality, and it was always connected with what one or more deities declared appropriate. God consigned the nations to various members of His divine council. They (the council members as well as their client nations) all agreed in principle that there was a moral fabric, and that the basic requirement of life, both divine and human, was to live consistent with the design of reality. That was the meaning of "morality", and it was often characterized as "law" in our English translations of the Bible and other Ancient Near Eastern literature.
From where we stand as humans examining the underlying philosophical assumptions of such literature, a fundamental element of the contention between God and some members of His council has always been a matter of whether that "law" is independent of Jehovah or if it is more like His very breath, standing totally as the living assertion of His will. Perhaps the dispute hangs largely on whether those free-agent members of the divine council can also assert their own version of divine good order.
Thus, we have a lot of Ancient Near Eastern cultural expression that indicates pagan rulers asking rhetorically, "Who is Jehovah that I should care what He thinks? We have our own god(s) to guide us." But the Fall in the Garden went a step beyond that, asserting that mankind can stand among the gods and declare for themselves what reality is (or ought to be). Early in the Genesis narrative we see this reflected in the way certain figures act. This continues right up to the Flood, with everyone "doing what was right in their own eyes" as their own gods. The Flood changed that part, at least.
The Book of Genesis immediately moves on to the Tower of Babel. It's not that the ruling household in Babel claimed to be deities, but they asserted a limited deification based on being chosen by the higher powers. They asserted the right to rule based on the guidance of what they considered to be deities who did a better job than Jehovah. They chose the lights in the sky as the manifestation of their gods. They were trying to build a ziggurat so as to read the stars, which had been invisible to human eyes before the Flood.
Until that time, the Earth had been covered with a permanent cloud layer, but the Flood brought most of that down as rain that lasted weeks. The monotonous climate of the Garden with the heavy dew from those days was now replaced with intermittent rain and seasonal temperatures and weather patterns. This frightening change called for seeking to identify the gods who controlled it, and the combined nations assumed it was the stars in the sky that had knocked down the clouds, so as to reveal themselves to the people on Earth.
If Jehovah had allowed this, it would have locked all humanity under a false regime. So, He demanded that each member of the council take charge of their own mini-nation and scattered the humans out. Post-Flood pagan literature seems to be at least partially aware of all this and reflects certain common assumptions about reality. Each nation and each land has its own "deities". From the biblical standpoint, some are better than others at cooperating with Jehovah, but none of them is in the same class as Him.
Thus, sin and evil are not viewed as a conceptual absolutes. It varies somewhat around the issue of either an orientation or the effects of that orientation. It's a question of what's appropriate to the context. Some kinds of human behavior are always wrong because such are always contrary to God's decreed order or "law" (inappropriate for humans). Some things are wrong because they don't fit God's agenda at that time and place, but may well be right in another setting. However, the issue is eternally rooted in the moral character of the Creator.
The solution is to get to know God and His priorities. All beings with an eternal component to their souls, in the end, go to stand before God. Being in His Presence as an enemy will be unspeakably unpleasant. Being there as a friend and family member is equally marvelous beyond words.
Comments
DarkMirror
I'm always reminded of the Megadeth lyric "Do you kill on God's command?" which is a quote of a quote in one of their songs. Most people in the west would hem and haw at giving an answer, but I'd say, "Uh... of course!"
Catacomb Resident
Raising up a standard of good and evil outside of God's will is the crux of the Fall. Nor can you complain God never commands us to kill; that's the same category of failure as the Pharisees promoted. It's deciding for the rest of the world what God has said, quite contrary to what God said.
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