Evil in Genesis

Been meaning to get back to posting some academic work for those interested. Here's one I wrote for a 400 Level course on Wisdom in the Bible.

Evil in Genesis

In interpreting and discussing the meaning of the word and concept of evil in a biblical context, two things must first be determined. First, the meaning of the word. Second, its root cause. Both of these can be determined from Genesis, and it is reasonable that one would start at the beginning when determining the meaning of a word used throughout the remainder of the Bible.

To begin, we must define what evil is. The term “evil” is used in the bible over one hundred times. It is used to describe actions, beliefs, and thoughts. There is no single, inscribed definition of the word within the text, and there are both the translation and the etymology to consider. Thus, evil, as a biblical concept, is extremely difficult to define. In the common vernacular of modern English, it is simply a word for “bad” or “ill intentioned”. The English word evil is Germanic in its etymology, synonymous with words such as “wicked”. The word from which it is translated, in the KJV at least, is not synonymous with these same terms. Ra, the Hebrew word most commonly translated to evil, is more of a synonym for “bad”, although this too is dubious. Instead, the more apt translation of this term in the Hebrew texts of the old testament is “dysfunctional”, and it is with that definition that we should seek to explore biblical concept of evil (Benner). With this in mind, it is then necessary to determine the root cause.

In Genesis, we are granted several stories of “beginnings”. There is the beginning of the universe, then that of man, of sin, and of murder. Cain slays Abel. This action, which we would today consider evil, is not taken in such a manner when it occurs in the bible. In fact, murder has not always had a universally abhorrent moral value. In pre-Christian Germanic society, murder was not the capital offense it is today, but rather a civil offense. To keep a murder secret, however, was evil. When Cain kills his brother, we see something of the same; God comes to Cain and asks him “Where is Abel thy brother?” (Genesis 4:9). God, creator of the universe, is all knowing, and surely knows what Cain has done. Yet instead of admitting to his crime, Cain replies “I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?”. God becomes angry with Cain because of his lie, not because of his killing. As punishment, the Earth will grant him no bounty, and he is marked such that no man would dare to kill Cain (Gen 4:11-15). Is this then evil? It would appear not.

Following the tale of Cain’s transgression, we are given the generations which follow him. These men are simply named, and do not do service to God. In this they differ from the generations of Seth. We are introduced to Seth in Gen 5:1, when he is born to Adam, “For God...hath appointed [Eve] another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” The generations of Seth are then given, and these men “call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 4:26). And for the remainder of chapters four and five, this is all we know. Thus we come to a confusing part of the story - Genesis 6.

Genesis 6 is the first mention of evil in the Bible. We are told that “the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5). If this is traced back only through chapter six, it would seem that evil came into the world as a result of the breeding of the “sons of God” with the daughters of men. But what are the “sons of God”? Charles Ryrie offers three explanations. The sons of God are “possibly (1) the Godly line of Seth, (2) an ungodly line of kings, or, more likely, (3) a group of fallen angels,” the last of which would have bred with human women to create Nephilim (Ryrie 12). While this fantastical idea is the most interesting and exciting of the three, John Rice counters this in his own book on Genesis, in which he notes that “the godly men, including Enoch who walked with God and was translated, and Noah, were descendants of Seth. So we take it these were godly, righteous people...throughout the Bible and Christian literature, saved people are called “sons of God,” or “children of God,” (Rice 185). Thus it would seem that “sons of God”, as elsewhere in the bible, refers not to angels (which they are called throughout the text), but to the saved and faithful. Rice points out further that “Cain was a wicked man, and although his descendants are named in chapter 4, nothing is said about any of them serving the Lord”, further evidence that this title of “sons of God” applies to humans, not Nephilim.

So what does this have to do with evil? A great deal, but it’s easy to miss. It all happens in just four short verses, but the origin of evil here may be one of the most important concepts in the entire Bible, and it is the main cause of the Flood in the first place. Over the many years of the generations of Adam, “when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Gen 6:1-2). As a result of this mixing of the line of Seth with the line of Cain, God’s chosen people and servants become impure. They begin to do wicked deeds and befoul God’s creation.  Rice quotes a scholar, Dr. Scofield, who writes that the “interpretation has been that verse 2 marks the breaking down of the separation between the godly line of Seth and the godless line of Cain, and so the failure of the testimony to Jehovah committed to the line of Seth [ in Gen. 4.26]” (Rice 186). Rice provides more supporting evidence from Martin Luther and others, corroborating the claim that the immorality of man stems from the mixing of these two races, those committed to God and those uncommitted to him.

This means that God’s faithful, his chosen line, cannot and should not interbreed with those outside their own. The exact sequence of events which led to the wickedness of men is not stated, but it is quite clear upon inspection that it is a result of this mixing of cultures, such that the values of the one were eroded by the other. The lesson herein being that men should not be tempted away from their spiritual values by fairness of the flesh, but rather faithful to the wholeness of the spirit. Thus the origin of evil, or the dysfunctionality of man, is in the weakness of man’s spiritual fortitude. So we learn in Genesis that evil is not abhorrence of action or morality, but instead it is the act of breaking away from God’s grace for earthly desires - and that is a lesson which carries through for the entirety of the Bible.

Works Cited

Benner, Jeff A. “Good and Bad.” The Culture of the Hebrew Language, Ancient Hebrew Research Center, www.ancient-hebrew.org/articles_good.html.

“Genesis.” Ryrie Study Bible: King James Version, by Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Moody Press, 1994, pp. 10–13.

Rice, John R. Genesis: "In the Beginning ...". Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1975.