ROMER 2014 1SDB2019

Thomas Römer

„The Origin and the Status of

Evil According to the Hebrew Bible”, în

Die Wurzel allen Übels.

Ratio Religionis Studien III

Ed. F. Jourdan and R. Hirsch-Luipold

Tübingen. Mohr Siebeck, 2014, pp, 53-66. (pdf.)

Fragment

„Within the framework of a polytheistic worldview, where the fate of the universe hinges on the actions of a multitude of deities, evil and suffering can easily be attributed to malicious deities or demons. Man has to try to appease them, or he seeks to protect himself from them by means of talismans or other objects. In a polytheistic worldview, it is perfectly acceptable that the gods are unpredictable and that their actions towards humans can be calamitous, even if they are not guilty of any wrongdoing before the gods. In the different Mesopotamian versions of the Flood story, for instance, the Flood is brought about by the assembly of gods, either completely at random or for very minor reasons (noise caused by humans). Before the outbreak of the Flood, a “good” god appears, Ea/Enki, who is a friend of mankind and manages to save the human race. The reconciliation between the gods who had caused evil and man is reached through a sacrifice. The biblical narration of the Flood (or rather, the biblical narrations, given that Gen 6–9 constitutes a compilation of two different versions) exhibits some interesting modifications. To begin with, the authors give an ethical reason for the coming of the Flood: YHWH realizes that the “wickedness” (evil) of humankind had become “great on the earth” כִּי רַבּהָָ רעַת הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ) , Gen 6:5), or that, according to the second version: “all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth” (Gen 6:12) (p. 54).