Evil in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

In ancient Israelite literature sustained intellectual reflection on evil occurs mainly in the wisdom literature, focused on the respective fates of the righteous and the wicked. These reflections can helpfully be brought into conversation with modern philosophy through the work of Susan Neiman, who frames the problem of evil in relation to the question of the intelligibility of the world. The Israelite wisdom literature takes a variety of positions on the issue, ranging from a relative confidence in the intelligibility of the world (Proverbs) to a tragic perception of moral rationality as central to human existence but not necessarily to God’s creation (Job) to an ironic despair that since the rationality that governs the cosmos cannot be grasped by humans, even the fundamental relationship between acts and their consequences is rendered unreliable, so that there is finally no clear difference in the fates of the righteous and the wicked (Ecclesiastes).