Does Genesis say where evil came from? [closed]

Question

The first hint of evil in the Tanakh seems to come in Genesis 3:1 (NJPS):

Now the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say: You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?”

The serpent is questioning God's instructions, which seems both unwarranted and irrational considering that everything in the world was created good. Genesis 1:31 (NJPS):

And God saw all that He had made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

The odd thing is that the serpent was himself a created thing and so must have been good on the sixth day.

Generations later, God is prepared to wipe out humanity and all living creatures with it. Genesis 6:5-7 (NJPS):

The Lord saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time. And the Lord regretted that He had made man on earth, and His heart was saddened. The Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the men whom I created—men together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I regret that I made them.”

What started humanity on a downward spiral from the "very good" of Genesis 1 to the "great wickedness" of Genesis 6? Was it questioning God's goodness?

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About closing this question:

I've come to the conclusion that as interesting as this question is, it's off topic here. In my opinion, Genesis just doesn't say. Many commentators have opinions, but it seems to me to be just that: opinions. Ultimately, how you might go about answering this question says as much about your doctrine as about the text.

If you are still interested in this question, I suggest doing one (or more!) of the following things:

1. Ask on Christianity.stackexchange.com
2. Ask on Jewish Life & Learning
3. Ask a more focused question here
4. Ask someone whose opinion you trust

I've been struggling with this question for a long time and I find it somehow appropriate that it is closed—not because I am done struggling, but because there is no easy or satisfying answer. As Job says:

Job said in reply to the Lord:

I know that You can do everything,
That nothing you propose is impossible for You.

Who is this who obscures counsel without knowledge?
Indeed, I spoke without understanding
Of things beyond me, which I did not know.

Hear now, and I will speak;
I will ask, and You will inform me.

I had heard You with my ears,
But now I see You with my eyes;

Therefore, I recant and relent,
Being but dust and ashes.
—Job 42:1-6 (NJPS)

Answer 1

Genesis does not directly address the question of where evil came from. (A certain tree in the garden led to knowledge of good and bad, which is different.) Here are several rabbinic interpretations:

Eitz Chayim, a modern commentary, cites Bereishit Rabbah 9:7 in saying that without the yetzer ha-ra, the bad inclination (which is balanced by the yetzer ha-tov, the good inclination), people would never build houses, start businesses, marry, and have children -- the yetzer ha-ra, while enabling evil, also provides some sort of "drive" that we need. Nor is death a punishment for evil; Rabbi Meir (in the talmud) says that death is inevitable and necessary for ongoing renewal of the world (people die and others are born), and he makes a play on "tov m'od" ("very good") and "tov mot" ("good death").

The following other positions are drawn from Finding God: Ten Jewish Responses by Rifat Sonsino and Daniel B. Syme. This is an excellent source for an overview of Jewish thought on several core questions, including "the problem of evil":

Philo: evil is a consequence of physical imperfection; things made of matter decay. God didn't create evil; God created a physical world.

Maimonides (Rambam): evil is the denial of good and has nothing to do with God.

Luria (a mystic): ok, this one requires some explanation first. Luria's mysticism (which led to what we know as kabbalah) holds that at the very beginning God filled the entire universe and had to "contract" a bit to make room for the world He intended to create. In the course of contracting some of God's God-ness was scattered through the world (the vessels that were to hold it shattered); part of man's job is to collect those bits of divinity. (This is kind of esoteric and I can't explain it better than that.) Anyway, Luria says that it was this event that allowed evil to enter into the world. It wasn't divine intent; it just happened.

Bottom line: Genesis doesn't say, and subsequent interpretations offer various explanations that do not involve God intentionally creating evil.

Edit: I wrote a lot about the question in the title but didn't address the question at the end of your post -- what set us on the downward spiral? My answer to this question about Gen 4:26 might help there. Evil entered the world, but what led it to get so bad that God wanted to wipe everything out was that men became more distant from God and began to (1) substitute the work of their hands and (2) mistreat each other.

Answer 2

Understanding evil requires that we understand the nature of sin.

Sin did not come into the world by the serpent or by Eve but by Adam [1].

What did the serpent do?

Ge 3:1 ¶ Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

Since the serpent was 'more subtle' than the other animals, the other animals must have been 'less subtle'. 'Less subtle' means 'more obvious'.

There is only one law, so there is only one temptation, to eat the fruit. How could the other animals be more obvious in tempting Eve to eat the fruit? One might imagine that they sang and danced an early rendition of Hakuna Matata.

But most likely, they were eating the fruit and not dying. [4] Eve would think to herself, why don't they die? Oh... THEY are animals, and WE are man.

But the serpent challenged the difference between man and animals, suggesting that they are the same. Both were created by God with instincts. When the animal lives by instinct, eating what looks and smells good, it glorifies God who created him that way. Wouldn't Eve glorify God also if she lived by instinct? Doesn't that fruit look and smell good? [2][3]

The essence of Eve's transgression was in putting the instinctive flesh before her 'image of God'. The flesh was good and her spirit nature was good, but they had to be in the proper perspective.

Whenever we live instinctively, like animals, we commit the original sin. We have not placed God's word foremost in our life. The flesh is good as long as it is second, in subjection to God's word.

The result is that God gave us many reminders that we are more than animals. He gave us clothing so that we are not naked like animals. He gave us marriage so we don't procreate like animals. Meal prayers so we don't eat instinctively like animals. Mezzuzas so we go and come through space mindful of God rather than instinctively like animals. The Sabbath so we don't pass time like animals.

Though Eve was deceived, her transgression did not warrant death. In a later time, she could have washed herself and been unclean until the evening. But Adam ate the fruit with his eyes wide open. His sin was direct rebellion against God. This was the moment that sin came into the world. This was evil.

Oh... and the golden rule is just the opposite of original sin. Rather than instinctively putting yourself first, you think of others first. This is the nature of love.

[1] Ro 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

[2] Ge 3:6 ¶ And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

[3] Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch restates the temptation:

God may have said to avoid the tree, but the question is: Do you want to eat from the tree? Do you desire it? And let's say you do desire the tree. Where do you think those desires came from? Who put them inside you? Wasn't God the one who put them inside you? Certainly He did... He is your Maker... I don't know about you, the snake says, but if I were in your shoes -- here's how I would see it: Even if God said don't eat of the trees, so what? It's not the voice that speaks to you in words that's primary. It's the voice inside you that's primary...

[4]They were not commanded not to eat the fruit. There is no reason to suppose that they would die by doing so.