Book contents
- The Evil Inclination in Early Judaism and Christianity
- The Evil Inclination in Early Judaism and Christianity
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Reconsidering the Semantics of the “Inclination” (yeṣer) in Classical Biblical Hebrew
- 3 The “Inclination” (yeṣer) as Rendered in the Septuagint
- 4 “Fleshly Spirit” and “Vessel of Flesh” in 4QInstruction and the Thanksgiving Hymns
- 5 Theological Anthropology in the Enochic Tradition
- 6 The Perils of Philosophical Persuasion: Philo on the Origin of Moral Evils
- 7 The Evil Inclination (yeṣer ha-ra‘) in Tannaitic Literature: Demonic Desires and Beyond
- 8 Conflicting Intrapersonal Powers in Paul’s Letters
- 9 The “Two Inclinations” and the Double-Minded Human Condition in the Letter of James
- 10 An Evil Inclination in the Early Targums to the Pentateuch and Prophets?
- 11 “Gnostic” Theologies of Evil
- 12 The Rabbinic “Inclination” (yeṣer) and the Christian Apocrypha
- 13 Origen on the Origin of Sin
- 14 Augustine on the Diabolical Suggestion of Sin
- 15 Jerome and the “Inclination” (yeṣer): The Evidence of the Vulgate
- 16 Rabbinic Inclinations and Monastic Thoughts: Evagrius Ponticus’ Doctrine of Reasoning (logismoi) and Its Antecedents
- 17 “Inclination” (yaṣrā) in the Syriac Tradition
- 18 Evil, Sin, and Inclination (yeṣer) in Jewish and Christian Poetic Disputes between the Body and Soul
- 19 The Wizard of Āz and the Evil Inclination: The Babylonian Rabbinic Inclination (yeṣer) in Its Zoroastrian and Manichean Context
- 20 The Evil Inclination in the Targums to the Writings
- References
- Index of Names
- Index Locorum
2 - Reconsidering the Semantics of the “Inclination” (yeṣer) in Classical Biblical Hebrew
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2021
Book contents
- The Evil Inclination in Early Judaism and Christianity
- The Evil Inclination in Early Judaism and Christianity
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Reconsidering the Semantics of the “Inclination” (yeṣer) in Classical Biblical Hebrew
- 3 The “Inclination” (yeṣer) as Rendered in the Septuagint
- 4 “Fleshly Spirit” and “Vessel of Flesh” in 4QInstruction and the Thanksgiving Hymns
- 5 Theological Anthropology in the Enochic Tradition
- 6 The Perils of Philosophical Persuasion: Philo on the Origin of Moral Evils
- 7 The Evil Inclination (yeṣer ha-ra‘) in Tannaitic Literature: Demonic Desires and Beyond
- 8 Conflicting Intrapersonal Powers in Paul’s Letters
- 9 The “Two Inclinations” and the Double-Minded Human Condition in the Letter of James
- 10 An Evil Inclination in the Early Targums to the Pentateuch and Prophets?
- 11 “Gnostic” Theologies of Evil
- 12 The Rabbinic “Inclination” (yeṣer) and the Christian Apocrypha
- 13 Origen on the Origin of Sin
- 14 Augustine on the Diabolical Suggestion of Sin
- 15 Jerome and the “Inclination” (yeṣer): The Evidence of the Vulgate
- 16 Rabbinic Inclinations and Monastic Thoughts: Evagrius Ponticus’ Doctrine of Reasoning (logismoi) and Its Antecedents
- 17 “Inclination” (yaṣrā) in the Syriac Tradition
- 18 Evil, Sin, and Inclination (yeṣer) in Jewish and Christian Poetic Disputes between the Body and Soul
- 19 The Wizard of Āz and the Evil Inclination: The Babylonian Rabbinic Inclination (yeṣer) in Its Zoroastrian and Manichean Context
- 20 The Evil Inclination in the Targums to the Writings
- References
- Index of Names
- Index Locorum
Summary
It is widely acknowledged that the far-reaching development of yeṣer as a theological and anthropological concept has little to do with the use of this word in the Hebrew Bible. Still, it is often asserted that the link between the biblical employment of yeṣer and its demonized hypostases in later literature is anchored in a semantic change that took place already in Biblical Hebrew (BH). Following earlier Bible scholars, Ishay Rosen-Zvi has recently summarized the scholarly consensus at the opening of his comprehensive study, Demonic Desires: “The root יצר […] denotes [in the Hebrew Bible] the creating, fashioning, and designing of objects (mostly made of clay). … The noun indicates the result of this craft: an object or a creature (Hab 2:18).
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- The Evil Inclination in Early Judaism and Christianity , pp. 13 - 32Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021