Did Eru bring about evil?

[Boffer Balsashield]

Well, the King James Version was done by a committee in the early 17th century. It deliberately mistranslated things people were squeamish about, mainly by using (now) obscure euphemisms in relation to sex, sexual organs, and slaves. It also deliberately fudged some wording to make the KJV look more like it supported royal authority. So it was not what we would consider a scholarly translation and it very much had an agenda, or perhaps a couple of agendas, as we would say today.

 

[Olorgando]

Hypocrisy rampant - why does this not surprise me in the least? (Not that the KJV was the worst mistranslation, I would guess).

 

[Elthir]

With respect to Isaiah 45:7, like many things, it depends upon translation/interpretation. Sorry, forgot to jot down all the sources below, but a quick search on the web can unearth the following and more (with respect to similar commentary). First, a bit of context:

Isaiah 45:7 "these words are directed to Cyrus king of Persia, and must be understood as spoken in reference to the Persian sect of the Magians; who then held light and darkness, or good and evil, to be the supreme Beings, without acknowledging the great God as superior to both;''

[the next four quotes hail from the same source, noted below]

Isaiah 45:7 in the King James Version says, “I make peace, and create evil.” One of the fundamental rules about understanding the Bible accurately is to read a difficult-to-understand verse in its immediate context, as well as in the broader context of the rest of the Scripture. Another rule is to consider other possible translations of the verse.

Many Hebrew words have a broad range of meanings. While the Hebrew word translated “evil” in the King James Version usually refers to unethical or immoral activity, it can also mean times of distress (Amos 6:3) and is sometimes contrasted with shalom (peace). The New International Version renders the passage, “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster.” Similarly, the New Living Translation offers, “I am the one who creates the light and makes the darkness. I am the one who sends good times and bad times.” Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text confirms this understanding with, “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe—I the Lord do all these things.”

Barnes’ Notes, a Bible commentary, has this helpful additional comment: “The parallelism here shows that this is not to be understood in the sense of all evil, but of that which is the opposite of peace and prosperity. That is, God directs judgments, disappointments, trials, and calamities; he has power to suffer the mad passions of people to rage, and to afflict nations with war; he presides over adverse as well as prosperous events. The passage does not prove that God is the author of moral evil, or sin, and such a sentiment is abhorrent to the general strain of the Bible, and to all just views of the character of a holy God” (notes on Isaiah 45:7).

Although God allows moral evil and sin, He does not create this kind of evil. The rest of the Bible is replete with evidence of His goodness and His marvelous plans for mankind. James 1 17 assures us that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (NIV). Satan is responsible for much of the evil of this present world. And unfortunately, people have brought many evil things on themselves by their own actions.

Beyond Today
published Jan 5th 2011

And another couple of examples:

"light … darkness—literally (Ge 1:1-3), emblematical also, prosperity to Cyrus, calamity to Babylon and the nations to be vanquished [Grotius] … Isaiah refers also to the Oriental belief in two coexistent, eternal principles, ever struggling with each other, light or good, and darkness or evil, Oromasden and Ahrimanen. God, here, in opposition, asserts His sovereignty over both [Vitringa]. create evil—not moral evil (Jas 1:13), but in contrast to "peace" in the parallel clause, war, disaster (compare Ps 65:7; Am 3:6).

Why does Isaiah 45:7 say that God created evil? | GotQuestions.org

Why does Isaiah 45:7 say that God created evil? Did God create evil? What is the interpretation of Isaiah 45:7?

www.gotquestions.org

 

[Boffer Balsashield]

“I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster.”

That would tie in nicely with the practice of labeling natural disasters "Acts of God"! (Again, probably a better translation of the original.)

 

[pippin le qer]

When an omnipotent being: Eru or just God creates a world it/he/she creates in equal amount creation and destruction, they are as the opposite poles of a magnet and cannot go without eachother.
exemple: when a song is created, silence is broken. As long there is balance there is no trouble - and no story either - when on side goes aacting on its own, you get a Morgoth or Satan.
We can call creation Good and destruction Evil, therefore both have there source in Eru.

 

[Elthir]

As long there is balance there is no trouble - and no story either - when on side goes aacting on its own, you get a Morgoth or Satan.
We can call creation Good and destruction Evil, therefore both have there source in Eru.

And/or we can say that creation is good and destruction -- if we are going to call it "evil", is the choice of a Morgoth or a Satan or others -- which to me negates (or at least amounts to "not necessarily") your therefore about "source" -- the very word Tolkien, in his poem (see page one of this thread "not in the source . . ."), uses.

 

[Olorgando]

It's the problem faced by every theodicy.

And thus unsolvable. As are all circular "arguments".
The problem is assumptions - unquestioned ones (by "believers").
Nothing gets me riled as much as the statement I've heard far too often, that there are "assumptions that may not be challenged".
"Shove it where the sun don't shine", is the only comment that may be fit to be posted here.
Or perhaps not, I do not care …

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Now, now...

 

[Olorgando]

There's a hypothesis that one mellows with age ...
some may, I didn't, for darn good reasons.

 

[Elthir]

Hi. Ando here. And I'm surprised no one has argued that JRRT's poem (quoted in part by that handsome cat, Elthir) is not part of the world of Middle-earth, and thus, it doesn't necessarily follow that whatever it has to say about evil and God (however it is interpreted) pertains to Eru.

From one of Tolkien's draft letters, dated 1958 (also published in Morgoth's Ring):

"I suppose a difference between this Myth and what may be perhaps called Christian mythology is this. In the latter the Fall of Man is subsequent to and a consequence (though not a necessary consequence) of the "Fall of the Angels": a rebellion of created free-will at a higher level than Man; but it is not clearly held (and in many versions is not held at all) that this affected the "World" in its nature: evil was brought in from outside, by Satan.

In this Myth the rebellion of created free-will precedes creation of the World (Ea); Ea has in it, subcreatively introduced, evil, rebellious, discordant elements of its own nature already when the Let it Be was spoken. The Fall, or corruption, therefore, of all things in it and all inhabitants of it, was a possibility if not inevitable."

I read this as: Creator Eru creates Free Will = allows the possibility of evil. Evil is now possible (not inevitable) and is introduced by Subcreators.

What?
Oh Yeah.
Ahem.

Elthir coloured some words red
and wants me to add that he thinks
this fits nicely with the part of JRRT's
poem he quoted earlier.

I am not surprised that Elthir thinks this