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Excellent for the MainStream ReaderReviewed by Anne Rice, 2009-10-10
Russell has been writing brilliant and very readable books on the problem of evil for quite some time. Many reviews here go into depth about his theological or philosophical points. I'm signing on only to recommend him to mainstream readers who might welcome a profound yet highly accessible scholar writing about evil in a responsible and compelling fashion. I also recommend Russell's Paradise Mislaid. This is a first rate thinker who is discussing complex metaphysical problems in deeply felt and provocative books.
Interesting History, Not So Interesting PhilosophyReviewed by Randy Stafford, 2009-05-23
How evil was personified in the lands of India, the Middle East,
and the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome is the subject
of this book.
I suppose Russell thought the opening chapter, "The Question of
Evil", was formally necessary so we know what needs to be
personified. His answer, that evil is "deliberate violence done to
a being that can feel pain", leaves something to be desired.
Besides the obvious question of war and police violence, it defines
as evil violence committed to deter or punish. It doesn't help
matters when we cite that great work of 70's pseudoscience, Peter
Tompkins' and Christopher Bird's The Secret Life of Plants, as
bringing up the idea of evil committed against the vegetable
kingdom. More forgiveable, given the age of the book, is the short
shrift given to evolutionary psychology's (labeled sociobiology
when this book was written) explaination of evil.
Once Russell leaves that behind and gets into the history of the
devil, things become more interesting the further you go though
Russell repeats himself more than necessary for such a short
book.
"The Devil East and West" is the broadest ranging chapter in the
book . Looking at myths and the beginnings of religion throughout
the world, Russell finds that good and bad qualities are often
mixed into the same figures, that deities are often twinned to an
opposite, and that generational wars in heave abound with one side
judged evil. He even gets into specific, common attributes to these
diabolical figures, e.g. black, red, and horned. Nor are these
attributes, at this stage in humanity's religion, confined to a
single demonic figure. Often legions of lesser demons are
affiliated with various evils of disease, death, and the
weather.
Zoroastrianism in 600 BC essentially added a new development. To
make its deity Ahura Mazda completely good, to rid him of the evil
qualities found in other gods, to make him more worthy of worship,
the evil qualities were assigned to the evil Ahriman. Of course,
this scheme raised other questions. If Ahura Mazda was all
powerful, why let Ahriman roam free? If he could defeat Ahura
Mazda, why let his evil continue unabated until sometime in the
future. And, as Russell details, Zoroastrianism went through many
heresies and evolutions.
"Evil in the Classical World" delves into the demonic aspects of
Greek religion, the mysterious Orphic cult and the many Greek gods
which exhibit good and bad tendencies. Russell also has a concise
section (at least to my untutored eye) about Greek thought on the
soul and what evil was.
The highlights of the book are the chapters on the Hebrew
development of evil and the devil of the New Testament. Russell
traces how the Old Testament god, most blatantly on display in Job,
has many troubling aspects. If he is not evil, he certainly seems
to employ demonic figures and the Devil as servants and advocates
in a celestial court judging individual human worth. Gradually,
probably under the influence of Zoroastrianism, Yahweh's most
fearsome aspects -- his treatment of Job, hardening Pharaoh's heart
and provoking others to sin just to punish them -- were assigned to
a diabolical figure. In theological terms, evil in the Hebrew
cosmos when from monism, a deity uniting good and evil, to dualism
with supernatural beings for each moral quality. He supports his
argument with reference to apocryphal books as well as the
traditional Bible.
When talking of the Devil in the New Testament, Russell talks not
only of the specific animals that came to be associated with him,
but the questions the Devil raises in Christian thought. Some are
the same questions Zoroastrianism had: what is the exact
relationship of the good and evil deities? Is one subordinate to
the other? (In a valid aside, Russell notes that atheists
frequently use the question of evil in their arguments against God,
but the logic of those arguments implicitly assumes that a supreme
being must have the qualities of a Christian God.) Russell looks at
how the iconography of the devil - where he is said to live, what
his relationship is to Hell (prisoner or administrator?), what
animals are associated with him - developed.
The final chapter, "The Face of the Devil", ends with Russell's not
very interesting attempt to bridge his scholarship of the Devil to
his personal experience with evil.
I can't judge the worth of Russell's religious, philosophical, and
historical scholarship, but I found a couple of the chapters
interesting enough, in this short book, to make it worth reading.
This edition also has some interesting black and white photos of
religious art. Those with a more spiritual or philosophical bent
will probably find the question of evil's definition more
interesting and practical than I did.
Assiduous, but not without flaws.Reviewed by The Old Wise Man, 2008-11-02
Though I find myself having many negative things to say about this
book in this review, a few pervasive aspects of Russell's assiduous
research and writing inevitably atones for these negative
aspects.
Russell opens his four volume series spending ¾ of this book
discussing evil in ancient cultures other than in Israel. Only in
the last quarter does Russell discuss anything relating to the
Biblical Satan. Though this is defiantly interesting material, it
left me wondering what it had to do with the stated purview. This
material would make a fine piece of literature outside this series,
but it had nothing to do with the Biblical devil. Not even Russell
discusses its relevance. The first ¾ could have been cut from the
book without any consequence, Russell would have just as easily
make his case without it. When Russell does occasionally mention
outside influences on Old Testament he admits that there are only a
few at most, and what few that do exist are tentative and
speculative anyway. The only influences that are mentioned seem
only to be on the apocryphal texts any way.
Russell does a marvellous job as a historian, but whenever he goes
off on excursions into theology one can see that he is out of his
depth. The mere fact that he goes on these excursions raised my
eyebrow when one remembers that the *very first* words of this book
state that "This is a works of history, not of theology".
It's not the actual excursions that disappoint me, it is the
combination of the two facts that 1) his explicit statements that
he isn't going to but does, and 2) his orate diatribes against
Yahweh (whether he believes God exists or not), most of which are
frivolous and at the very least invalid. Though it is inevitable
that one has to ask theological questions such as "why does God
allow evil" as Russell does, it makes me wonder why he asserted at
the beginning and the end that theology is untouched in this
book.
I was left a little bewildered by these theological excursions, on
the one hand he brings up many fine and well articulated arguments,
and on many occasions treats these points in authoritative and
impartial manner, but on the other hand he makes use sophistry,
intentionally or not I do not know.
On page 185 Russell asserts that the religion of the ancient
Hebrews was more polytheistic the monotheistic. Russell quotes a
passage from Psalms (82:1-7) as evidence. Russell quotes God as
referring to other angelic beings as "Gods", whereas the actual
passage uses only lower case `g'. To the uninitiated this may seem
negligible if not irrelevant, but as most educated readers will
know the upper case `G' denotes of the supreme Biblical god,
whereas the lower case `g' denotes a false god or idol. So contrary
to Russell's implicit assertion that God in the passages referring
to other `gods' the fact is that when the passage is not misquoted,
God in the passage is actually referring to the fallen
angels/demons who were commonly worshipped by humans as false gods'
or idols.
I refuse to believe that a learned historian such as Jeffery
Russell is ignorant enough make mistakes such as this and fail to
make the distinction between the 'God' and `god'. I think that this
is a deliberate misquote in order to deceive the readers and to
discredit the Bible and/or God himself, if not he has done this to
try and give this thesis credence. I hate to say it, but this is
what it seems.
On page 199 Russell attempts to portray God and Satan as `work
buddies', though Russell acknowledges Satan's obvious opposition to
God, but he still goes on to suggest that it is Satan's job to
persuade God for two taken morally wrong actions, this is but one
interpretation, and questionable at that. It is more likely that
God accepted Satan's challenge to prove how righteous Job and
actually was, and in doing so Satan's actions and intentions were
shown to be malevolent. This proof would be testament to the
angels/demons/Satan's and humans that God is omniscient and to be
trusted, but Satan is maleficent and devious. Without such proof
God's omniscience could be legitimately questioned. Job, as a
righteous man, would have been happy to go through such trials for
such an ends.
Russell asserts that as the social moral situation changed, then
the Torah writers suitably changed the nature of Yahweh. This
assertion is solely based on the assumption that Yahweh was
fabricated entity. Yet is it no less plausible to assume that as
the political and military/defence situation changed then Yahweh
changed his rules? Both are assumptions based on prior
thesis/prejudices, neither of which is any less valid, both are to
be taken on faith from one's world view.
Being a born and bred devout protestant, this book became an
assault on my prior inherent perceptions of demonology. It was
constantly giving me a reality check of where many of the ideas
about Satan came from; extrapolation from scripture, not scripture
itself. Though there are many instances where Russell's reasoning
is below par and invalid, he constantly recovers to deliver many
poignant arguments.
Russell makes it clear that the story of Satan has constantly
evolved. His impartiality is such that one cannot be sure whether
Russell believes that Satan himself has gone through this change or
if it is just the character/idea of Satan that has evolved, this is
a great credit to the clear and unbiased nature of this work.
But overall this book is quite good. Though if I was the editor I
would have cut out some rather large chunks that are interesting,
but ultimately have no impact whatsoever on Russell's thesis. And
on many theological points I would have referred him to a
theologian to correct many other parts of his theological
reasoning.
For these two above reasons I'm tempted to give this work a rather
low rating, but so many times in this book Russell picked himself
up and gave some five star material. And for this reason I am
somewhat reluctantly giving it a generous four stars.
the Devil emergesReviewed by Paul Vitols, 2008-04-14
Drawing on many different sources, the author suggests how the
concept of the Devil as used in the New Testament took shape.
Clearly, some of the reviewers of this book were very disappointed
with it. They did not find what they were looking for. Speaking for
myself, I pretty much did. Russell takes some pains early on to say
that his work is part of the history of concepts, and even spends
time distinguishing this from the history of ideas--a distinction
that I found to be a bit pedantic and, for me, unhelpful.
However, in the rest of the book I mostly found what I hoped to
find: an inventory and discussion of the ideas and images that
contributed to the concept of the Devil as he appeared in the
Judeo-Christian world by New Testament times.
Since the Devil came to be known as the source and personification
of evil in the world, Russell starts off very well by discussing
what he means by "evil": the immediate and unjust suffering of an
individual. For Russell this is an immediate and visceral
experience, not a philosophical conclusion or theological category.
We know evil when we see it, and there's no mistaking it.
Having set these terms of reference, Russell goes on to discuss how
evil and its related mythological characters were portrayed in
various ancient societies, from India to Iran to Mesopotamia to
Egypt, among others. Along the way he shows how various
characteristics were eventually echoed by the Biblical portrait of
the Devil. For example, in Egypt the god most identified with evil
was Seth, killer of Osiris. Seth was pictured as red, the color
eventually taken on by Satan. Seth was also "twinned" with Horus in
a close antagonism, as the Devil eventually came to be regarded as
the dark "twin" of the good God.
Russell is clear that these links are only suggestive. There is no
way of knowing exactly how ideas arrived at the minds of the
writers of the ancient texts, or how they combined there. Rather,
the ancient writers, having a need to explain or demonstrate
certain things, reached into the bank of images and ideas of which
they were aware, and made use of those that fit their purpose. Over
time the Devil gradually took shape, acquiring more definite
features as his role in the evolving theological system
developed.
Here and there Russell makes declarations or assumptions that are
not necessarily backed up by authority. He declares, for example,
that in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece there was one God who
manifested in the multifarious guise of the gods of mythology. It's
not clear to me how true this is, or in what sense.
He also refers to "the God" and "the Devil" as near-universal
concepts for many cultures, underlying specific figures such as
Yahweh and Satan. Again, it's not clear to me that there really is
a universal concept underlying these different
manifestations.
However, these ideas are not unreasonable, and I was certainly
willing to entertain them in order to engage with Russell's
argument. The author did a lot of homework and a lot of thinking in
preparing this book, and for me earned some credit. The idea of
gods' appearing as twins or doublets in the process of unconscious
contents' becoming differentiated en route to consciousness is
intriguing, plausible, and backed up by the thinking of Jung and
Erich Neumann, among others.
There is a certain diffuseness to the book that comes from the fact
that ideas usually cannot be linked with certainty. The process is
probabilistic. Russell assembles myths, images, ideas from various
places, and there is a feeling that he is preparing to launch into
a more definite account which never actually happens. Or maybe it
does happen--in the subsequent books of the series.
In this one, the outlines of the Devil appear gradually, as though
he were walking slowly toward us out of a fog.
The historical origins of the cosmic bad guyReviewed by Guillermo Maynez, 2007-01-15
In this rigorous and erudite work, Russell sets out to explore the
origins and early historical development of a concept. To make
things easy, he calls it "the Devil", but in fact this is the
history of the idea of evil incarnated in a character, as opposed
to an abstract concept of "Evil". Although he takes every care to
remind us that his is a work of history and not theology, it is
impossible not to entertain certain philosophical questions and
millenary debates: Why does evil exists? How has every civilization
dealt with this insoluble problem? Why are there so many bad
people? How is it possible that we humans inflict so much pain to
ourselves and our fellows? Is it not God supposed to be good and
omnipotent? Why does he allows for so much evil?
Before Christianity, there were two kinds of answers to these
questions: in Monism, the One included the totality of the cosmos.
God was a coincidence of contraries. God was truly One, and in him
were resolved the contradictions between Good and Evil. Ancient
polytheistic religions like the Egyptian and the Greek were Monist,
since the different gods were nothing but manifestations of the
One. According to Russell, these religions did not answer the
question satisfactorily, but they did resolve the problem for every
day life. The other answer, invented in the VII Century B.C. in
Persia, what is now Iran, by the prophet Zarathustra (and above all
his Mazdeistic followers), is Dualism. In Dualism, the cosmos is
divided in two: one principle of Good (God), and one principle of
Evil (which is not yet the Devil). In Persia these were Ahura Mazda
(or Ormuz), and Ariman, the lord of Deception. According to this
view, the history of Man is the story of the millenary struggle
between Good and Evil, and each myth defines the way in which Good
will eventually defeat Evil. For centuries on end, the Old World
religions influenced one another, until Christianity appeared. In
what side does Christianity fall? In neither one properly. It is a
hopelessly schizophrenic synthesis (for all its social virtues).
Christianity is not Monist because it rejects the assimiliation of
Evil into the One God. God is absolutely good and so it can not
contain Evil. So, is Christianity Dualist? No sir, there is nothing
outside God. So? Aha: God created many beings, including the
Angels. One of them rebelled against God, using the free will which
God gives us so that we can choose. The rebel angel became the
proponent and champion of Evil, in the enemy of God and his
creatures. And he is making progress with increasing speed, until
the Second Coming of God takes place, the Kingdom of this World
ends, Evil dissolves in Nothingness and the good go to Heaven. Very
good, but the question remains: If God is omnipotent, why does he
allows the presence of Evil? In order to prove us? Thanks so much.
So that we grow in the love of God? Thanks again.
Through a fascinating journey across ancient religions, Russell
forces us to revisit the primeval questions of civilization. This
book awakens sometimes forgotten doubts of our infancy and
adolescence, and we come out not with peace in our souls, but with
more enlightenment in our minds.
