*scrubs the slow cooker*

[dreamer_easy]

Yet another podcast, this time about the personification of evil, in particular, evil spirits:

'...in eastern traditions the ambiguity and ambivalence of these figures is much more accepted. So that if your community were suffering from some type of terrible fever, disease, you would identify the demon of that disease and you would propitiate that demon. And this is why people in the western tradition are so amazed and awed by the religious art of Indonesia and Tibet because it seems to be so frightening and demonic. But this is because spirits of danger become spirits who can get rid of danger.

You don't have that in the western tradition. What happens in Christianity is that spirits of danger become uniformly evil, and they must be exorcised and chased away and bound and sent back to where they came from.'

I don't think that's an east vs west thing - it's a monotheism vs polytheism thing. I immediately thought of the ancient Greeks and the gorgoneions, Gorgon faces, they put on their buildings to ward off the evil eye - using a malign influence against itself, fighting fire with fire. But if you have only one all-powerful, all-good deity, then good can't flow from any other source.

Comments

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

For that matter, in true monotheism, neither good nor evil can come from any other source than God. (c.f. Isaiah 45:7 "[Praise God] who forms light and creates darkness, who make peace and creates evil").

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Does the Hebrew word rendered "evil" there mean "malice, sin, destruction", or "unlucky events"?

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

The word is ra, which has layers upon layers of meaning.

You hear of yetzer ha-ra, the evil inclination, as being the root of things like sexual desire - but then again, the yetzer ha-ra is why God described the creation of humanity as "very" good (as opposed to the rest of creation, which was merely good).

ra is clearly an exceedingly negative term: it's hard to find a more negative term without getting really specific - for instance, an "abomination" (toievah is related to specific forbidden practices, such as bestiality).

Mostly, though, I'd describe it as the absolute opposite of tov, "good."

There is a chiasmus in the verse cited between light/dark and peace/evil - so that can either show the relative importance of peace, or perhaps show how evil is the opposite of peace (by "peace," I mean shalom, which is actually more accurately translated "wholeness," "perfection," "completeness," or the like)

The use of "ra" to mean "unlucky" as in ayin ha-ra (generally pronounced by those who would use the phrase ayin hora) is an Eastern European thing - it's closely associated with the folk religion there which was very concerned with evil spirits, &c.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating - thank you! Sounds like shalom is a rough equivalent of the Egyptian ma'at - everything in its place, everything going along swimmingly.

[saltmarsh-again.livejournal.com]

You may find this article about jinn (http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8401289) to be of interest. The concept of a local belief that jinn 'whisper into the ears of suicide bombers' caught my eye. Linking of malign spirits with mental illness is featured in this review about Anglo-Saxon elves (http://www.forteantimes.com/reviews/books/549/elves_in_anglosaxon_england.html).

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

I've always thought following a monothesitic religion was a terribly limiting thing. Which is why I can it up in my teens.

[purplepooka.livejournal.com]

Don't gargoyles on cathedrals serve much the same purpose?

[purplepooka.livejournal.com]

That and drainage, of course.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Ha! You beat me to it! :-)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Good point!

That, and drainage. :-)