Translation question/issue

Vajradhara

Vajradhara

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b'Shalom all,

i've been dialoging with a Christian concerning a particular bit of Biblical text.

i'll relate the relvant bit of the conversation so that you see what i'm asking.

the first post says:

No, God detests evil.

to which i responded;

are you sure? if so, how do you reconcile this verse:

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things].

i submitted that if one put forth the argument that this term "evil" doesn't mean "evil" then it's the fallacy of equivicocation.

to which the counter argument was given that it is a Hebrew word that has multiple meanings...

so... that is my question. how is this verse, in particular the term "evil" here, actually related in the Torah. what is this verse actually trying to communicate.

it was my take that this verse is actually an indication of the magesty and the scope of G!D's abilities.. i.e. there is nothing in creation, good, bad, or indifferent, that G!D is not Soverign of.

thanks in advance.
 
Hi Vaj,

the words used are shalom, which as you may be familiar with means peace, and ra which is used differently in different places to mean slightly different things. It could be badness or evil or, well just something that's not good. Sometimes it's opposite tov which means good. Here it's the opposite to shalom. I really don't think it matters how you translate it. The resulting meaning is going to be pretty much the same. I've seen it translated here as calamity as well as evil.

The parallel is also being shown between light and dark and peace and evil so it seems there's some relationship there in this particular usage. Whatever ra means here, it's some sort of badness counter to peace or tranquility that God is creating. And I'm not sure this has ever been understood as anything but a reference to God being the source of everything, good and bad, like you thought it meant.

Dauer
 
b'Shalom dauer,

thank you for the post.

i completely agree that the structure of the text is very much in a sense of communicating the parallels of good/evil, light/darkness and i've understood it to be a parable relating to the scope of G!D's domain, as it were.

(pardon the poor language, no offense is intended)

in a sense, this is similar to what we find in the Taoist texts where the emphasis is on realizing the complete harmony of both the extremes of the cycle and the middle of the cycle.

would you mind transliterating the verse in Hebrew so that i can see the lexical structure? it helps for me :) no rush, mind you.

i suppose that what the Christian was trying to say was that G!D had nothing to do with evil, per se.. so much so that He cannot stand the site of it. this was in relation to the serpent in the Garden and all of that sort of thing. in any event, it seems like a logical blind spot to posit a Creator of All and then somehow exempt a huge chunk of observable reality.

but that's just my opinion, of course. my view, as somewhat stated above, is that a Creator of All is just that.. a Creator of All... and it may not matter so much if humans think something is "evil" or "good".
 
would you mind transliterating the verse in Hebrew so that i can see the lexical structure? it helps for me :) no rush, mind you.
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I'm sorry. I can't translate a full line of biblical Hebrew. Some words I know because they're so common, but I do not know the grammar. As of this moment I'm only in my second semester of modern Hebrew.


but that's just my opinion, of course. my view, as somewhat stated above, is that a Creator of All is just that.. a Creator of All... and it may not matter so much if humans think something is "evil" or "good".
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I agree with you. I think the thing with Abrahamic religions is that there's also something saying "this is good" and "this is evil." So if there's something that's bad it may be for better that it exists but it's still not good enough to be good. The bad thing may have a purpose or function, but hopefully one day there won't be any bad to deal with. That's one of the things Isaiah is also dealing with, the idea of a future time where peace prevails. But I think there is an idea present that none of this should be forsaken. It's all from God.

Dauer
 
I am also looking for a way to translate hebrew to english. I am trying to learn some hebrew for enightenment and better understanding of texts. Is there an online translator available that has the hebrew characters to choose from?
 
didymus said:
I am also looking for a way to translate hebrew to english. I am trying to learn some hebrew for enightenment and better understanding of texts. Is there an online translator available that has the hebrew characters to choose from?
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What are you trying to learn right now, the letters or the meaning? I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for. Your best option, if you have the time and the money, is to just look for a Hebrew class around you. Whether it's modern or biblical, it will still be taking you in the direction you want to go. Since the language is so different from English sometimes there is no direct translation.

I'm sure you're familiar with Strong's Concordance. I've never seen it but I've seen quotes from it and I just don't think it's close enough to the text, but depending on what you're looking for that might be what you need.

Dauer
 
'm looking for a way to translate hebrew to english and vice versa on line. Do you know of free hebrew translation on line?
 
Sorry, what I read was:

I am trying to learn some hebrew for enightenment and better understanding of texts.
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and it seems a little difficult to do that just from the type of material you're looking for. It would be easier to order a biblical Hebrew textbook and begin there. Or pick up a lexicon. Nevertheless...


Do you mean word by word? Like I said, I've seen some material related to Strong's concordance online. Just punch in the number. This is what came up on Google:

http://www.eliyah.com/lexicon.html

If there is software online for English-Hebrew translation of any phrase, I'm not aware of it. But I'm not aware of everything and someone else might be able to help you.

Dauer
 
would you mind transliterating the verse in Hebrew so that i can see the lexical structure?
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if it helps, it would usually be pronounced (not that i would pronounce it exactly like this)

yotzer or oo-borei khoshech
I Form light and I Create darkness"

"'oseh shalom oo-borei r'a"
"I Make/Do peace and Create evil"

"ani HASHEM 'oseh chol-eileh"
"I [am] G!D [who] Does all these"

the words are actually in this order as far as i can see, too.

like dauer says, G!D by definition Is and Does All - which necessarily includes "evil" - which is actually nothing but misplaced effort/intention resulting in an undesirable outcome. in other words, it doesn't make sense from our PoV for G!D to Be only Good, because then evil must be outside G!D in some way, which doesn't make sense. it's like having a parent who never tells you off - how would you know not to play in the road?

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
an update...

so.. i've presented my view and the translation information provided here in this thread... to which my Christian discussion partner asked "what form of Judaism do they practice?" and he disagreed with the view that this passage is speaking of G!Ds' scope.

i explained that i wasn't sure, but i would ask... hence.. the asking bit now :)
 
Vaj,

I am not aware of Jews who understand this differently. While I know there may be Jews who read it differently, I don't know of any and have never read anything about it. There is no duality of divinity, no devil, only the One. I am a reconstructionist/renewal Jew (trying to figure out which definition fits me better since there's some ambiguity, but I reject anything suggesting God interferes with the laws of physics(but not that God constantly sustains and works through all of them(although day to day my beliefs shift from that to something approaching monist deism or something altogether more similar to deism))) but an Orthodox Jew would tell you the same thing. Since he hasn't been posting lately, I'll mention that Bananabrain is sefardic but to your friend the answer Orthodox would be simplest.

I would wonder, if this is not speaking of the scope of God's power, what is it speaking of? After all, the "I" is paralelled in the last part of the line with the Tetragrammaton. So the "I" is unmistakably God. What else can it mean? I am trying in earnest to finagle this but it's just not working.


Dauer
 
I was thinking, if we weren't here on earth would there be evil? I imagine that if humans were not here to perceive evil and conceive it with our minds that it would cease to exist.
 
didymus said:
I was thinking, if we weren't here on earth would there be evil? I imagine that if humans were not here to perceive evil and conceive it with our minds that it would cease to exist.
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And if we were not here to perceive good, would it exist?

edit: I would say that since the prophet is the one speaking, this is God presented from the human perspective. God is presented here speaking in human terms of good and evil, while to God there might not be such a thing as good or evil. But without the specifics of the language the entire passage, not simply this particular line, is suggestive of God's creating everything.
 
I think good as well would cease to exist without us here to perceive it. If the universe was barren of human life what would be good or evil. It would just be
 
didymus said:
I think good as well would cease to exist without us here to perceive it. If the universe was barren of human life what would be good or evil. It would just be
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I agree with you, didymus. But from a human perspective, if God creates everything, does this not mean that God creates good and evil? At the very least with this assumption we can say that God created within us our ability to see the world as good and evil and the nature that we have to act in ways that we would deem as evil (because God gave us the capacity to view the world this way) and so I'm not sure how it can be said, from this perspective, that God did not create both good and evil. Am I misunderstanding what you were saying?
 
I think I'm having a "pondering my navel" moment here. I'm thinking that if we weren't here to contemplate God what would God be? Sure he would still be God but there wouldn't be a perception of Him. He would be. As humans we can contemplate God and identify aspects of His divinity and label them as good and evil.
 
didymus said:
I think I'm having a "pondering my navel" moment here. I'm thinking that if we weren't here to contemplate God what would God be? Sure he would still be God but there wouldn't be a perception of Him. He would be. As humans we can contemplate God and identify aspects of His divinity and label them as good and evil.
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There are some who have suggested that God created the world in order to experience Himself, but as I read it is said such that evolution is God(pantheist)'s attempt to create beings of a greater and greater capacity of recognizing His oneness up until us, humans, who are at the greatest level so far and through practice are capable of coming to know His oneness. But in this model it is a striving within God to know Himself, as He cannot be known without individual knowers. Within that model the answer would be that we are here because God wanted to be percieved by Himself.

But I do get what you mean. It's like the chicken and the egg or the tree in the forest.
 
It's like a labyrinth of thought that ultimatley leads back to the same conclusion, we don't really know.
 
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