About the Book
Spring 2027
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If God is good, why would God create evil? Or is God not responsible for evil? Or is God not entirely good?
The Hebrew Bible, the earliest influential text of monotheistic culture, confronts these dilemmas in multiple ways. As Genesis opens, evil appears as primordial forces that predate God’s creation of only what is “good.” Elsewhere in Genesis, however, evil is understood as part of God’s own creation aimed at catalyzing human transformation. Still elsewhere, it emerges independently of divinity: from the evil inclination rooted in human nature.
In 2 Samuel, evil has a redemptive role. Even though King David’s census-taking triggers a devastating plague, this catastrophe leads to the sanctification of a site in Jerusalem later chosen for Solomon’s Temple.
The book of Job can be seen as offering unexpected explanations for why a righteous man devoted to God suffers grievously: God’s own weakness and our own imperative to reconceive of the human-Divine relationship.
From these and other stories, characters, and sources, including the literature of the contemporaneous ancient Near East (Canaanite, Assyrian, and Babylonian traditions), scholar Israel Knohl weaves a multicolored, multilayered tapestry of religious responses transmitted to us by the Hebrew Bible on arguably the most fundamental question to arise with the emergence of biblical religion.
“In this concise but penetrating study, Professor Israel Knohl again demonstrates his consummate textual skill and creative imagination. His study of traditions of evil in the Tanakh is an important contribution to biblical theology.”—Michael Fishbane, Nathan Cummings Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies, University of Chicago
“This book is brilliant, fascinating, and full of vitality. As always, Professor Israel Knohl raises great questions and weaves together precise textual analysis.”—Ishay Rosen-Zvi, professor in the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at Tel-Aviv University
