THE ORIGIN OF EVIL: MANKIND, SLAVE OF YAHWEH

SNELLING

Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION

What is evil? The definition in The Oxford Modern English Dictionary states:

adj. 1. Morally bad; wicked. 2. Harmful or tending to harm sep. Intentionally or characteristically. 3. Disagreeable or unpleasant (has an evil temper). 4. Unlucky, causing misfortune (evil days). N. 1. An evil thing; an instance of something evil. 2. Evil quality; wickedness, harm.

This explanation I find somewhat unsatisfactory, almost bordering upon tautology. Things such as unlucky, disagreeable or harm are hardly ‘evil’ in the sense usually meant in common usage and are just part of the vicissitudes of Life. Very often ‘bad’ things happen to people that result in intense suffering, such as when a pedestrian is knocked down by a car whose brakes failed, a car that was serviced regularly. Did the driver of the car commit evil? I think not. But suppose the driver was drunk. The resulting accident would have been caused by carelessness on the part of the driver, but it was not necessarily their intent to run the pedestrian down. But let us suppose that the driver saw the pedestrian, could have braked but instead accelerated, aiming their car at the pedestrian with the intent of hitting them. But here we have brought in a new factor; intent, or motive. But then we have to ask ourselves ...’why did they have such motive’. ‘Where did it come from?’. Perhaps the motorist recognised the pedestrian as someone who had fraudulently stolen money from them, and wanted to exact revenge. Whilst wrong in the eyes of the law and also according to Society’s normal conventions, was the act actually ‘evil’ rather than just wrong, even although there was motive? In the latter case one could understand the action of the motorist, perhaps sympathising with them, although not necessarily agreeing with their actions. But suppose the motorist was not themselves emotionally, possibly unbalanced, or even insane. The intent might still have been there but it would not have been based upon the process of cool reasoning. A court of law might find the motorist guilty of the action whilst in a state of unbalanced mind, and might sentence them to be incarcerated for a spell in a psychiatric institution rather than serving time in prison. Now let us suppose that the driver was the subject of a demonic possession. Was it then the indwelling dark entity that took over the driver’s mind that was evil, and not the driver himself ? But now we are introducing the idea that ‘evil’, as an entity and not just an hypothetical concept, can be external to a human being, and human consciousness. At what point can someone be considered no longer responsible for their own thoughts, feelings and actions?

Human tribes that became settled agrarian societies, eventually building up a network of interconnected cities, towns and villages, soon establish codified religious and state codes and laws for the governance of their peoples. And in human civilization this process has taken place over many millennia. But these codes and laws have invariably been influenced by a society’s acceptance of a spiritual dimension to life and the existence of hidden powers or gods that ruled over or influenced material life, but were not part of it. Often such belief systems gave rise to the concept of duality, such as light and dark, good and bad. This gave rise to the concept of Divine forces or beings that were ranged against evil gods or spirits, actual or imaginary. It is interesting to note that many religions, current or superseded, had a concept of a ‘Supreme God’, creator of all there is. Hence in the Judeo-Christian religions there is the idea of a creator god as ‘I am that I am’. In other words, an ‘absolute’ that defies definition. This absolute power is certainly not the Yahweh of the Old Testament, or even the Elohim. In Hinduism we have ‘Brahman’, from which the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva devolve. In the old Germanic / Norse religion we have the concept of the ‘All-Father’, who was the parent of the other gods, including Odin / Woden, who himself was called the Chief of the Gods. And in the Greek religion the chief of the gods, Zeus, was himself born of Chronos. The Hittites had their ‘Sky-God’ who was the source of all their other gods. If there was (and is) an absolute being that has created all the other powers, the Universe, and also Man, was it then not perfect? Would it have created evil beings, or even the concept of evil? How can something that is good create that which is bad, something that is perfect create that which is imperfect? Is the idea of evil a human moral construct that does not exist in the cosmos?

When examining the concept of evil we have to consider whether evil originates within Man or is external to Man. If external then whence did it come? Some external entity or perhaps an aberration of the Cosmos in the process of creation? This now causes us to look at two other factors related to evil; Original Sin, and also the ‘Fall’ of Man. The Oxford Dictionary defines sin as:

"n. 1 (a) the breaking of Divine or moral law, esp. By a conscious act. 1 (b) such an act. 2 an offence against good taste or property etc.

The e-book version of the above puts it like this:

1. an immoral act considered to be a sin in the eyes of God. The human capacity for sin. 2. An act regarded as a serious or regrettable fault, offence, or omission.

But this now introduces two new concepts. What is ‘God’, and is there a ‘Divine-Law’ which has some how come into being with God’s creation of the Universe that is not of Man’s formulation? But then we have to consider the possibility that there was one fundamental sin in the early evolution of Man that has given rise to all the other sins and evils in the World. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘Original Sin’ as:

the innate depravity of all Mankind held to be a consequence of the Fall.

The e-book version expresses it this way:

the tendency to evil supposedly innate in all human beings, held to be inherited from Adam in consequence of the Fall. The concept of original sin was established by the writings of St, Augustine.

The idea of original sin and the Fall of Man are religious concepts inherent in the teachings and beliefs of the ‘Peoples of the Book’ (Jews, Christians and Muslims).

In the following chapters we will need to examine the religious concepts of original sin and the Fall of Man. But we will be looking at a wider scenario than just this as we intend to be quite thorough in our search to able to come to a final definition of evil that will make sense to the modern Western reader. We will therefore be exploring possible sources such as Society’s conventions, psychological theories, religious ideas, concepts of malignant entities external to humanity, extra-terrestrial interference and esoteric / mystical concepts. By the end of the book I hope to be able to give the reader a pointer in how to have a better understanding of their own psyche and its relation to the collective, and how they can relate better to ‘Life’ and all its meanings.

I should however warn the reader of one thing. Every author of a literary work always infuses something of their own wisdom and prejudices, knowledge and ignorance, into their work. This cannot be helped as no human is infallible or perfect. Even great scholars of well-known academic works, respected by their peers, scholars with doctorates in their area of study, even professorships, are prone to error as Western Academia is itself a shifting sand of growth and re-adjustment. And in respect of the latter it has to be realised that Academia, generally speaking, as at 2017 does not accept that there are other dimensions to this Universe of more subtle matter manifesting on higher bands of frequencies than that of this material World that we sense through our five physical senses. And in an attempt at literary honesty, sometimes lacking in works of scientific rationalists, I have to inform the reader that this author has spent the whole of his adult life studying metaphysics, esotericism and mysticism quite deeply. The content of this book therefore is so influenced.

PART I

WORLD RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS, PAST AND PRESENT

Chapter 2 THE PEOPLES OF THE BOOK

The term ‘Peoples of the Book’ was first mentioned in the Qur’an by the Prophet Muhammad, referring to the three religions following a continuous tradition of revelation through prophets, with a belief in one god. These are the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Qur’an mentions the earlier prophets as Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Jesus. The Qur’an stresses that all these prophets preached the same message and that the Qur’an, through Muhammad, was sent to confirm the earlier teachings. There are at least six suras (verses) in the Qur’an where the prophet urges his followers to have respect for true Jews and Christians, although he does take issue with certain Jewish, and Christian Church, interpretations of the teachings of their prophets. The term ‘Peoples of the Book’ is now beginning to be accepted by Western Society, particularly in the inter-faith sense.

We will now look at each of the above religions in turn, examining how they thought of evil, sin, the ‘Fall’ of Man and the Devil.

(i) JUDAISM

The prophet from whom the first written books appeared was known by his Egyptian name of Moses, who is thought to have brought the Israelites out of Egypt within the reign of Ramses II (1270 – 1213 BCE). What we know of the ancient Hebrews is to a large extent what is written in the first five books of the Jewish Bible, the Torah (Pentateuch), although there is some anecdotal evidence from the written records of other civilizations in the Middle East. The first people to be known as the Hebrews migrated out of the land of Sumer, at the head of the Persian Gulf. They left this land around 2,300 BCE under the leadership of the Patriarch Abram (later Abraham). The land of Sumer(Chaldea) was originally a colony of the Indus Valley Civilization, and was hence Indo-European and not Semitic. Although later generations mixed with the surrounding Semitic peoples they, and Abraham’s people, would still have much of the original Aryan culture and dna within them. The Abrahamic exodus followed a route around the Fertile Crescent north, west then south into Palestine, where they settled. An academic and mystical examination of the Torah seems to show that it included teachings of both Sumerian and Egyptian origin. Subsequent teachings taken from the Torah comprise a codification of the opinions of early scribes and learned men making commentaries on the Torah, known as the Mishnah. Together with the Books of the Prophets and the later Apocrypha, these make up the Jewish Bible. Teachings from Jewish academics in Babylon, known as the Talmud, were also added to the Bible and are generally accepted by the majority of Jews today as part of their religious heritage.

We will now examine Jewish teachings in relation to what was considered evil, sin, the Devil and the ‘Fall’ of Man. Many of the teachings of what is right and wrong, and one’s duty to God, is said to have been given to Moses on Mount Sinai. 613 commandments covering every area of daily life from civil law to personal hygiene and diet. They included what we know as the ‘Ten Commandments’, which the Christian Church has adopted, despite Jesus of Nazareth’s admonition about the true law. Many modern liberal Jews no longer adhere to all the commandments, although some branches of Orthodox Judaism will follow all the laws to the letter. But to understand the origin of evil and sin etc. We have first to go back to the myth of the ‘Fall of Man’ from the Garden of Eden.

The Book of Genesis, chapters 2 and 3, deals with Adam and Eve, supposedly the first Man and Woman, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden (which overlooks Adam’s first wife, Lillith - Author). God having formed a human being from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, the human became a living creature. God then planted a garden in Eden in the East, within which he set the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So we have a male God, a male human and two special trees. The Tree of Life of the Qabalah and its reverse Tree, the Primary Qliphoth. God told the man that he could not eat from the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, or he would be doomed to die. Presuming that Eden was on a spiritual plane, die to what? God then made woman from one of Adam’s ribs. A human being has twelve ribs in the thorax, two of which are ‘floating’. The upper ten are attached to the sternum, the central pillar. (There are ten Sephiroth on the Quabalah Tree of Life – Author). But then the serpent, which was the most cunning (alt. Or wise) of all the creatures God had made, asked the woman if it was true that God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat from any of the trees in Eden and she told him (her ?) about the Tree of Knowledge. (In some translations ‘cunning’ is translated as ‘wise’, which in Greek was ‘Sophia’ – Author). But the serpent said that they would not die, that their eyes would be opened and they would become like God himself, knowing both good and evil. So they ate from the Tree and God put a curse on the Serpent (on Sophia ? – Author). The Man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living beings. ( The name ‘Adam’ comes from the Hebrew ‘Adam-Kadmon, or ‘Adamus’, which is a group name for humanity, i.e. with the potential for both gender. It is quite literally a female singular noun with a male plural ending. Eve comes from Ea, Gaia, the Earth Mother. Only as such could she be the mother of all living beings – Author). God said ...’The Man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. (us? Plural? This suggests that ‘God’ is part of a group of spiritual beings – Author). What if he now reaches out and takes fruit from the Tree of Life also, and eats it and lives for ever? ...’ They were driven out of Eden and settled to the east of Eden. God then stationed Cherubim and a whirling, flashing sword to guard the way to the Tree of Life. In other words, Adam, Man, was disempowered.

In Exodus chapter 20, after the Hebrews were taken out of Egypt, God says to the Hebrews ‘...... You must have no other God besides me........ I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me............You must not make wrong use of the name of the Lord your God; the Lord will not leave unpunished anyone who misuses his name...........you are to sacrifice on it (the altar of the earth) ............. your sheep and goats and your cattle ............ when you purchase a Hebrew as a slave he will be your slave for six years........... when a man sells his daughter into slavery, she is not to go free as male slaves may............’ (In other words, God supports the idea of human beings existing as slaves and not living in freedom – Author). In Psalm 90, which is attributed to Moses speaking to God, Verse 11 states: .......... it is said .......’who feels the power of your anger, who feels your wrath like those who fear you .........’ Ezekial 7:19 – ‘ .......their silver and gold will not avail to save them on the day of the Lord’s fury.....’ Zaphaniah 2:1 & 2 – ‘........Humble yourself, unruly nation; be humble, before you are driven away to disappear like chaff, before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger comes upon you............’

‘God’ in the Jewish Bible is referred to by many titles. It is suggested that these do not always refer to the same being, They could not possibly refer to the Cosmos as the ‘Absolute’, the ‘Great Unmanifest’ of the Qabalists, as it would be beyond all such negative human attributes.

From Exodus through to Numbers there are frequent references to ‘God’ helping the Israelites to overthrow the people of the lands that they invaded, destroying their towns and massacering their populations, as the Israelites were presumed to be ‘God’s chosen people’, an expression of racial superiority similar to that of the German Nazis from 1933 to 1945. With the Zionists among the Jews justifying their assumed superiority amongst mankind through quoting relevant texts from their Bible, it has to be remembered that ‘history’ is often written by the victors of a conflict, not the vanquished. Some esoteric authorities are of the opinion that the above quotations relate to a spiritual being of a lower order, sometimes referred to as the ‘Demiurge’, that has deliberately misled humanity to gain power over part of it. This aspect of the Old Testament God will be dealt with in more detail in chapter 7 – ESOTERIC AND MYSTICAL CONSIDERATIONS.

Before we go further we first have to look at the nature and origin of what is called the ‘Devil’, or ‘Satan’. In both the Christian and Jewish Bibles the names are taken as being synonymous, although in chapter 9 – PSYCHOLOGICAL INSIGHTS – we have shown that Man can be its own Satan, whereas we might have to look at the Devil as some external agency. At the same time we will look at references to giants, Nephilim and the Anunnaki. It is interesting that the only reference to the word ‘Devil’, in the English translation, is in the Christian New Testament, where it is confounded with Lucifer. We will show in chapter 7 – ESOTERIC AND MYSTICAL CONSIDERATIONS – that Lucifer might in fact have nothing to do with the Devil, and that his function has been grossly misunderstood. The usual rendering is with the Archangel Lucifer, whose name means ‘Light’, being involved in a battle in Heaven with the Archangel Michael, and then, having lost, is thrown out of Heaven with his angels,.

The first reference in the Jewish Bible to the Devil, or Satan, is in Job, chapter 1, verse 6 onwards. ‘ .......... The day came when members of the court in heaven took their places in the presence of the Lord, and the Adversary, Satan, was there among them. The Lord asked him where he had been. ‘Ranging over the Earth’ said the Adversary. ‘From end to end’. The Lord asked him ‘Have you considered my servant Job?’. You will find no one like him on Earth, a man of blameless and upright life, who fears God and sets his face against wrongdoing.’ ‘Has not Job good reason to be god fearing?’ answered the Adversary. ‘have you not hedged him round on every side with your protection, him and his family and all his possessions? Whatever he does you bless, and everywhere his herds have increased beyond measure. But just stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and see if he will not curse you to your face’ It is intriguing that God needs a court to advise Him. But we do not know at what level on the spiritual planes this ‘God’ is. Also that Satan could sit in this court. With our cultural acceptance of what we think Satan is, something does not make sense here. The term ‘Dragon’ for the Devil is not used in the Jewish Bible, only in the Christian Testament. The term ‘Snake’ comes up in Numbers Chapter 21, verse 9, but only in respect of Moses who made a bronze serpent to protect any Israelite bitten by a snake.

There are in the Jewish Bible references to Nephilim, a race of giants. Different authorities have speculated as to whether they were the Neanderthals, or possibly the Anunnaki of Sumerian legend. In Genesis 6:4 it is stated – In those days, as well as later, when the sons of the gods had intercourse with the daughters of mortals and children were born to them, the Nephilim were on the Earth; they were the heroes of old, people of renown.   Numbers 13:32-33: Their report to the Israelites about the land which they had explored was discouraging: ‘The country we explored’ they said ‘will swallow up any who go to live in it. All the people we saw there are men of gigantic stature. When we set eyes on the Nephilim (the sons of Anak belong to the Nephilim) we felt no bigger than grasshoppers; and that is how we must have been in their eyes. (i.e. Anu – Anunnaki).  Deuteronomy 2:21:  They, (the Rephaim or Zamzummim) were a great and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim, but the Lord destroyed them as the Ammonites advanced and occupied their territory (i.e. Anakim – Anunnaki).

We will now look at what the Jewish Bible has to say about evil and sin. It first has to be said that Judaism, and many Christian Churches, would trace all evil and sin back to the ‘Original Sin’ committed in the Garden of Eden. There are several references to evil and sin in the Jewish Bible, but we will first examine the Ten Commandments that God was supposed to have inscribed on tablets of stone when Moses ended his ordeal on Mount Sinai, without food or drink for forty days and forty nights, for much of Jewish moral teaching, and indeed Christian teaching, stems from such. We present the Commandments below verbatim, in the English translation, as presented in the Revised English Bible – 1989:

1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to thousands who keep me and my commandments.

3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

4. Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (The word ‘day’ in ancient Hebrew did not mean ‘day’ in our normal sense of the word, i.e. twenty-four hours, it had a much wider meaning).

5. Honour your father and mother so that you may live long in the land of the Lord your God is giving you (someone else’s land ?).

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.

10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

The first four commandments are to do with the Jewish people’s relationship with God. The fifth is to do with the relationship between child and parents. The remaining five commandments are phrased in the negative tense ‘thou shalt not’ and relate to Man’s crimes against Man. It is interesting to remember that these were not the first tablets of stone that Moses brought before the tribes of Israel. When he brought down the original tablets of stone from Mount Sinai he found the people worshiping a golden calf that they had made for themselves, so he smashed those tablets at the foot of the mountain and then slaughtered 3,000 of his own people as punishment. We do not know what was on those original tablets, although some have suggested that they may have been the emerald tablets of Thoth, the Egyptian God of scribes and wisdom (Hermes to the Greeks). We must remember that Moses was an initiate of the Egyptian mystery religion of Osiris, that even the reigning Pharaoh had not been initiated into, worshiping the ‘old’ gods in a literal sense. But after Moses the Jews became very presumptuous about their covenants, a presumptuousness that was shattered after their exile to Babylon, when it seemed as if God had deserted them. Later prophets were less reticent about referring to the covenant of Moses. The supposed covenant between God and the Jewish people, the Ten Commandments, still has a central place in synagogues to this day.

We will now look at various references to evil and sin, or iniquity, in the Jewish Bible. Genesis 4:7 – Cain was angry with the Lord for his preference for Abel’s offering. The Lord says...’sin is a demon crouching at the door; it will desire you, and you will be mastered by it’..............Genesis 6:5 – When the Lord saw how great was the wickedness of human beings on earth, and how their every thought and inclination were always wicked, he bitterly regretted that he had made Mankind on Earth. He said ...’I shall wipe off the face of the Earth this human race which I have created – yes, man and beast, creeping things and birds. I regret that I ever made them’ (It is my opinion that this is referring to the last days of Atlantis, leading up to the Noah-type leaders of the survivors – Author).............Genesis 39:9 – Joseph is troubled by his master’s wife who wishes to make love to him. Joseph says to her .......’How can you do such a thing? It is a sin against God’..........Numbers 14:18 – Moses is pleading with God for the suffering of the Jews on their migration from Egypt .......... ‘(The Lord) who forgives iniquity and rebellion, and punishes children to the third and fourth generation for the iniquity of their fathers, though he dos not sweep them clean away. You have born with this people from Egypt all the way here; forgive them their iniquity, I beseech you, as befits your great and constant love’.......Numbers 32:23 - ........ on the plains of Moab, as the Israelite men are drafted into battle to drive out the Lord’s enemies (so part of humanity is not of God? – Author) .......But I warn you, if you fail to do all this, you will have sinned against the Lord, and your sin will find you out..........Deuteronomy 5:9 – with reference to the making of carved images of other gods.......’You must not worship or serve them; for I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, punishing children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.’.................Judges 1:10-11 – When that whole generation was gathered to its forefathers, and was succeeded by another generation, who did not acknowledge the Lord and did not know what he had done for Israel, then the Israelites did what was wrong (evil in some translations) in the eyes of the Lord by serving Baalim.........Samuel 16:14 – The spirit of the Lord had forsaken Saul, and at times an evil spirit from the Lord would seize him suddenly. ..............First Kings 11:6 – Thus Solomon did what was wrong (evil in some translations) in the eyes of the Lord, and was not wholehearted in his loyalty to the Lord as his father David had been. He built a shrine for Kemosh, the loathsome god of Moab, on the heights to the east of Jerusalem, and one for Milco, the loathsome god of the Ammonites. ................ Second Chronicles 6:36 – Should they (the enemies of Israel) sin against you, and who is free from sin, and should you in your anger give them over to an enemy who carries them captive to a land far or near.................. Second Chronicles 7:14 - ... and then my people whom I have named my own submit and pray to me and turn back from their evil ways, I shall hear from heaven and forgive their sins and restore their land. ............ Job 1:1 – There lived in the land of Uz a man of blameless and upright life named Job, who feared God and set his face against wrongdoing. ............... Job 1:22 – (After loss and grief) throughout all this Job did not sin, nor did he ascribe any fault to God. .............. Psalms 4:4 – Let awe restrain you from sin; while you rest, meditate in silence. ........... Psalms 19:13 – Hold back your servant also from wilful sins, lest they get the better of me. Then I shall be blameless, innocent of grave offence. ............... Psalms 32:1 – Happy is he whose offence is forgiven, whose sin is blotted out................Psalm 51:3 – For well I know my misdeeds, and my sins confront me all the time. .............Psalms 51:4 – Against you only have I sinned and have done what displeases; you are right when you accuse me and justified in passing sentence. ............... Psalms 52:3 – You (David) love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than truthful speech. ................. Psalms 66:18-19 – If I had cherished evil thoughts, the Lord would not have listened; but in truth God did listen and paid heed to my plea. ................. Psalms 103:3 – He pardoned all my wrongdoing (sins in some translations) and heals all my ills. .................. Psalms 103:10 – He has not treated us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our misdeeds. ................. Psalms 119:11 – I treasure your promise in my heart, for fear that I might sin against you. .................... Proverbs 3:7 – Do not be wise in your own estimation; fear the Lord and turn from evil. ................. Isaiah 1:13 – To bring me offerings is futile; the reek of sacrifice is abhorrent to me. New moons and Sabbaths and scared assemblies – such idolatrous ceremonies I cannot endure. .............Isaiah 1:18 – Now come, let us argue this out, says the Lord, though your sins are scarlet, they yet may be white as snow; though they are dyed crimson, they may be white as wool. .................. Isaiah 5:20 – Woe betide those who call evil good and good evil, who make darkness light and light darkness, who make bitter sweet and sweet bitter. ................. Isaiah 6:7 – He touched my mouth with it (A Seraphim with a glowing coal) and said...’This has touched your lips; now your iniquity is removed and your sin is wiped out ............... Isaiah 53:2 – Therefore I shall allot him a portion with the great, and he will share the spoil with the mighty, because he exposed himself to death and was reckoned among transgressors, for he bore the sin of many and interceded for transgressors. ..........Isaiah 55:7 – Let the wicked abandon their ways and the evil their thoughts: let them return to the Lord, who will take pity on them, and to our God, for he will freely forgive. ............ Isaiah 59:2 - ...rather, it is your iniquities that raise a barrier between you and your God; it is your sins that veil his face, so that he does not hear. ............. Jeremiah 31:30 - ...for everyone will die for his own wrongdoing; he who eats the sour grapes will find his own teeth set on edge. ............... Ezekiel 18:20 – It is the person who sins that will die, a son will not bear responsibility for his father’s guilt, nor a father for his son’s. The righteous person will have his own righteousness placed to his account, and the wicked person his own wickedness. .................Habakkuk 1:13 – Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot countenance wrongdoing. Why then do you countenance the treachery of the wicked? Why keep silent when they devour those who are more righteous?

(ii) CHRISTIANITY

The religion of Christianity has evolved from the spiritual and moral teachings of Yeshua ben Joseph, known to Christians as ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ (in the English language). Born to Joseph and Mary of Nazareth in the year about 4 or 2 BCE, the myth that he was born in a stable in Bethlehem, near Jerusalem, cannot be independently substantiated. He was born during the reign of Caesar Augustus of the Roman Empire, Herod Antipas Tetrarch of Judea, and Quirinius Roman governor of Syria and Judea. At the time of Jesus’ birth the Roman Governor held a census of all subjects in his Province so it was possible that Joseph and Mary were on their way to Jerusalem to register when Jesus was born. The census would have been held in the Autumn of that year, definitely not in December as the winter weather would have prevented many people travelling to Jerusalem to register for the Census.

To understand the cultural and political background in Judea at the time of Jesus’ life and mission we must first trace our steps back to the time of Alexander of Macedon (the ‘Great’). In his conquest of the Persian Empire he conquered Palestine – Judea in 332 BCE, and imposed Greek rule. Upon his death in 321 BCE Alexander’s Empire was divided between his four Macedonian Generals, Seleucus taking Southern Persia, Syria and Palestine-Judea. But with the expansion of the native Persian Kingdom of Parthia the Greeks were pushed back into Syria and Palestine – Judea. The Hellenisation of Judea caused resentment among the Jewish population which resulted in civil disturbances in 168 BCE. Antiochus IV, a descendent of Seleucus, attempted to end these disturbances by outlawing the Jewish religion. He even set up an image of Zeus in the Temple in Jerusalem. Judas Maccabeus, a Jewish revolutionary, led a revolt against Antiochus that developed into a full-scale war. In 165 BCE Antiochus was defeated and Judea was then ruled by the descendants of Maccabeus, until the Roman occupation under Pompey in 63 BCE. Yet further descendants of Maccabeus, the three Harrods who ruled before, during and after the time of the birth of Jesus, had, according to fundamentalist Jews, become corrupted by Hellenistic culture and life-styles. This, together with the Roman occupation, led to further insurrections by groups known as the Zealots, of which Judas Iscariot and another of Jesus’ disciples were thought to be members. At this time the Council of the Sanhedrin and the rule of Herod Antipas were treading a fine line in keeping their relative independence from direct Roman rule and keeping their populations under control. Despite the fact that Jesus was preaching a teaching of peace, and a kingdom of Heaven, not on Earth in conflict with Roman rule, (‘Render unto Caesar etc....’), the authorities probably saw him as another potential threat to the accepted order of things.

We now need to make a brief survey of Jesus’ life before we look at references to the devil, evil and sin in the Christian New Testament as we need to know something of Jesus’ spiritual background to see where and how the Christian belief systems arose. Jesus’ birth was taught by the Church as being a ‘virgin’ birth, and ‘immaculate conception’. But in reality this might just be symbolic. There have been other claims for births where no human father was responsible. In Genesis it is stated that ‘the sons of God mated with the daughters of men’. Woden/Odin and Zeus mated with human women to produce the heroes of old. Krishna, Zarathustra and Sakjamuni Gautama (the Buddha) were supposed to have had virgin births. Other than the odd reference in the Gospels, such as when he was a teenager who discoursed with the priests of the temple, who were amazed at his wisdom, very little was known, in an exoteric sense, about the life of Jesus before he started his mission at the age of thirty, after being baptised in the River Jordan by his cousin John. In an esoteric sense however it is known that his family spent some years in Egypt until the death of Herod Antipas. During that time he came into contact with priests of the secret mystery school of the Osirian Mysteries. In late life he was initiated into the Essene Order at Qumran, where it is thought that John the Baptist was his spiritual father and teacher. He is also supposed to have visited the West Country of England with his uncle Joseph of Arimethia, although this might be nothing more than a romantic West Country myth.

In examining the New Testament for Christian views on evil etc. we are going to have to look also at the Gnostic Gospels. There are certain tractates in the Nag Hamadi Library that could easily have been included in the New Testament, as the Book of Revelations could also have been a work of Gnosticism. During the first two centuries after the death of Jesus the early Church, through the various Councils, such as those at Nicaea, Constantinopolis, Alexandria etc., attempted to examine all of the large number of extant documents of alleged Christian teaching that were circulating in various parts of the Mediterranean World to select out those that could form the corpus of Church Christian teaching, to help consolidate their stand against the attacks by the pre-Constantine Roman State. Unfortunately, spiritually ignorant men, such as Ireneaus, Bishop of Lyon, condemned some of these Christian works, such as those of the Arians, Manicheans and Gnostics, as being heretical. In consequence of this some of the deeper more mystical teachings of Jesus have never formed part of the exoteric Church tradition. We will however examine the content of the Gnostic Gospels in Chapter 7 – ESOTERIC AND MYSTICAL CONSIDERATIONS.

We will now examine the New Testament references to the Fall, devil, evil and sin, in the order in which the books appear in the New Testament.

Adam and Eve, The Garden of Eden, The Fall:   Romans 5:12 – ‘What does this imply? It was through one man that sin entered the World, and through sin, death, and thus death pervaded the human race, inasmuch as all have sinned. For sin was already in the world before there was law: and although in the absence of law no reckoning is kept of sin, death held sway from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned as Adam did, by disobeying a direct command – and Adam foreshadows the man who was to come. But God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many, its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. It follows then, that as the result of one misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act is acquittal and life for all. For as through the disobedience of one many will be made righteous.   1. Corinthians 15:44 & 45 – If there is such a thing as a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. It is in this sense that scripture says, "The first man, Adam, became a living creature, whereas the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit.

Devil, dragon, serpent, snake, Satan, adversary, tempter:  Matthew 4:1 – Jesus was then led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  The tempter approached him and said, ‘if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered ‘Scripture says, Man is not to live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. The devil then took him to the Holy City and set him on the parapet of the Temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said ‘throw yourself down; for scripture says He will put his angels in charge of you, and they will support you in their arms, for fear you should strike your foot against a stone ‘. Jesus answered him, ‘Scripture also says You are not to put the Lord your God to the test. ‘. The Devil took him next to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory. ‘All these’ he said ‘I will give you if only you will fall down and do me homage’. But Jesus said ‘Out of my sight Satan! Scripture says You shall do homage to the Lord your God and worship him alone ‘. Then the Devil left him, and angels came down and attended to his needs.   Matthew 12:26 to 28 - "And if it is Satan who drives out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then can his kingdom stand? If it is by Beelzebub that I drive out devils, by who do your own people drive them out? If this is your argument they themselves will refute you. But if it is by the spirit of God that I drive out the devils, then be sure that the kingdom of God has already come upon you. (Jesus speaking to the priests amongst his followers who wanted to taunt and trap him).   Matthew 13:37 to 43 – The sower