Did you know the biblical God created evil?

Question

In Isaiah 45:7 it was written "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil, I the Lord do all these things."
The hebrew ra' refers to 'evil', some newer versions translated it as 'calamity', but in Isaiah 7:16 it says "For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good...", here, ra' was again used and all translations agreed that it means evil.

Words like ra' of course can have related meanings, but when it means calamity in verse 45:7 but the same word means evil in verse 7:16 then it's not convincing and assuming it is, then many versions including King James, American Standard, English revised, etc must have inaccurately translated verse 45:7 among others.
To consider the context of words is true, which also means that 'God is Love' doesn't really mean Love per se, instead it means God loves only those who believe him or else one has to suffer calamity..

Answer 1

do you know that the biblical god is the evil.... he tries hard not to rat on hmself... but nature who is larger than the sum of humanity changes things... nature can't help but evolved and has finally evolved into something that can beat man...

Ex: the bible says that Satan will call himself god of this earth... the truth is satan or evil is the only thing calling itself god... the bible also says that the masses will be deceived .... those masses are everyone living by that bible... so in the end nature wins because not even the devil could control the flood of information that just passed through us... much of the bible is the churches battle with nature... and it's coming to an end... look for changes in the plant life... that's a sign of the end of religious rule on earth... big changes like pine trees changing back into leaf trees... it is evolution... the pine trees evolved as they are for this battle... and now the time for healing is here.

http://www.gypsys-emporium.com

Answer 2

Hi Blazey, By selective reasoning it is possible to distort Scripture as you have managed to do.
One of the major traps that so many fall into is that they pick on a verse, isolate it from its context, and then give it an interpretation that the original inspired writer never intended.
You are correct that the Hebrew word ra' (7451 Strong's Concordance) can mean evil. But the Hebrew word has a much deeper meaning and depending on the context in which it is written it can also mean calamity, adversity, affliction or misery. It comes from ra'a (7489 Strong's) which means to spoil, afflict, break into pieces +.
Now in the first instance that you quoted from Isaiah 45:7 the context is that through the prophet Isaiah God has just named a heathen king over 100 years before he was born - Cyrus. God even says that this heathen king is His annointed. This term "annointed" means Messiah and this is the ONLY instance in Scripture where this term is used other than for Jesus Christ! God is pointing out that He, and only He could do this in verses 5 - 7 because He has the power to do it. Modern scholarship uses the word disaster or calamity as the better interpretations in this context because God cannot create evil in its raw form.
Your second quotation from Isaiah 7:16 the translation requires a different interpratation beause of the context. Is.7:1 tells us that 3 kings were about to attack Jerusalem and King Ahaz was beside himself because of the threat. God sends Isaiah and his son to tell Ahaz not to worry. Vv3-9, it's not going to happen. God then speaks to Ahaz and tells him to ask for a sign, but Ahaz refuses, Vv10-12. Isaiah then under inspiration foretells that God will give you a sign. "The virgin will be with child and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel. Before this child knows right from wrong (evil) the problem will be over. Vv 13-16. Paraphrase mine.
So you see how the same word can be properly translated in two different ways.
So your conclusion that God creates evil is unfounded.
I hope that this has been of some help to you.
H'chat.

Answer 3

I know that this is a hard concept for many people to understand, but try reading Bible verses in their entirety sometime. When you know what subject is being spoken about, who is speaking, who they are speaking to, and why, then the meaning of the words becomes clear. Lifting one sentence out of a 3.6 million word long document can easily lead to confusion, misunderstanding, and appear as a contradiction.

In Isaiah 45, God is talking about his lordship over all of mankind. Amoung several claims he makes about his lordship is that he makes both peace (not "good') and evil (ra). In verses 8 he explains what the peaces he makes is - the heavens opening to bless man, the skies pour down righteousness, the earth spring forth with salvation, and men grow together in righteousness. All blessing that come from the "peace" God makes with man.

In verse 9 he then explains the "ra". It is his anger against those who resist his will.

Nothing in the scripture, when read in context, indicates that this statement means that God is taking responibility for the creation of "evil" and "sin" in the word or the human heart. Rather it refers to the "calamity" that will befall those who resist him. A theme which is repeated multiple times throughout the scripture.

Do you own a dictionary? Try actually opening it sometime and looking up a few words. It might surprise you to discover that many (if not most) of the words in a dictionary have more than one definition listed for them. You often have to rely on the context of the word to know which definition to intended.

"Ra" is one of those words which has multiple meanings. You have to consider the context of the word to understand which meaning the word has. In the context of Isaiah 45, the word "ra" refers to the "calamity" that God creates within the lives of those who reject him, and not an initial creation of "evil" back at the beginning of time.

Answer 4

Yes, I was aware of that.

Proverbs 16:4 " The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil."

Answer 5

An old question deserves an old response.

"Fanatics torture this word evil, as if God were the author of evil, that is, of sin; but it is very obvious how ridiculously they abuse this passage of the Prophet. This is sufficiently explained by the contrast, the parts of which must agree with each other; for he contrasts 'peace' with 'evil,' that is, with afflictions, wars, and other adverse occurrences. If he contrasted 'righteousness' with 'evil,' there would be some plausibility in their reasonings, but this is a manifest contrast of things that are opposite to each other. Consequently, we ought not to reject the ordinary distinction, that God is the author of the "evil" of punishment, but not of the "evil" of guilt."

Answer 6

probable because of the fact he had to, yet... right this is an undemanding checklist of all perception structures: Unbelief: absence or loss of religious perception.[atheism] Disbelief: the shortcoming or refusal to have faith or to settle for some thing as genuine.[agnosticism] Misbelief: defective perception; fake opinion.[faith]

Answer 7

Frankly, that means nothing to me because I don't recognize the bible, torah, quran or The Book of the Dead as valid accounts of history so I ignore their contents as pure fiction. Sorry.

.

Answer 8

god created everything in the universe, including evil.

Answer 9

listen, you may disagree, but evil is mans creation, and mans creation alone. no god created it.
regards

Answer 10

I can agree to it, why is his realm and not mine. He is above me and I below him. One day he might allow me to understand.
Untill then, I will try to obey his laws.
allah is not apart of it.