Is evil a noun or an adjective?

Here's the problem. Sombody set this thing to 'Evil' !!

It's both, depending on the context.

Evil is some of my old supervisors at work. Evil definitely exists in the vile, beige, ugly workplaces of the world.

Glad they are your old supervisors and not your current ones.

I think it's only an adjective, in that I believe it is a real thing only insofar as people's behavior makes it so. I don't believe in any independent force of evil at work in the universe. However, I probably use it as a noun on occasion for the sake of rhetoric.

"Evil, pure and simple, from the eighth dimension!" (noun)
"Mum, Dad, it's evil. Don't touch it!" *boom* (adjective)

Is the "evil" in "axis of evil" a noun or an adjective? I think it's a noun, but I'm not 100% sure.

I said adjective. That seems more disciplined.

I regard evil as only an adjective, not something that exists independently.

Satan, as the personification of evil, does not appear in the Hebrew Scriptures until after the Jews had been exposed to the dualism of the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. Zoroaster taught that there were two gods, Ahuramazda, the good god and his adversary (shaitan, in Farsee, the Persian language) Ahriman. Isaiah was preaching against what he viewed as the contamination of the pure Hebrew monotheism with Persian dualism in the 45th chapter of the book he wrote:
"I am the Lord, and there is none else, beside me there is no God; I have girded thee, though thou hast not known Me; that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none beside Me; I am the Lord and there is none else; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil; I am the Lord that doeth all these things." Isaiah 45:5-7

Isaiah viewed God and God alone as the sole source all good and all evil in the world.

Well, fortunately I have no current ones since I took early retirement from the long succession of temp jobs I had for several years after I got downsized in '98 due to a merger between 2 large insurance companies.

'Evil doings' suffices for noun contexts, as opposed to a noun 'evil' which suggests some free floating force.

Not too many folks here know about that stuff. It heavily influenced Jesus with his separate spiritual plane teachings, as well as probably formed the basis of kaballism with it's basis in the pillars of positive and negative creation. You had two branches of Zoroastrianism, good vs evil, and creation vs void, both stemming from light vs dark. Even the pure monism at the the mystical core of hinduism is based on this duality of light shaped by darkness.

Besides shaitan (which I was unfamiliar with), you also have the limited Hebrew vocabulary in which words like unripe served metaphoric purposes. The word interpreted centuries later as 'hell' was 'sheol' which is the word for 'dirt', and there is no evidence that a higher metaphoric meaning was even originally intended.

The lord as both the source of good and evil is of critical importance, but as I understand it, not the sole concern of Isaiah. I believe the Hebrews went back to a time of pantheism nature forces evolving to become many singular tribal deities, and the rudiments of tribal unification involved claiming all these tribal deities were the same god. You also had the popular contenders Baal and Moloch to deal with.

Most of the hell stuff comes from the Revelation of Saint John 70 years after Christ, and from 200-400 A.D. catholic musings.

It's pretty buried to all but a few cryptic and mostly ignored passages, but Christ makes allusions to both Zoroastrian concepts which probably made their way through his parents cross-roads adult home turf of Nazareth, and to the Dead Sea scrolls teachings of the Essenes whom he hung out with which held a near pantheistic view of God communicating through nature and human voice as it's vehicle.

'Desire of the Everlasting Hills' is an excellent biography of the Apostles which dissects all the cultural events and writings to determine what the writings originally intended. It seems to be written by a man of faith adopting the perspective of an atheist, and mostly concludes that Christ was a feminist communist, relative to the context of his day. It doesn't particulary get into anything mystical, but what it does examine, it does quite well. It's very balanced, in that it rather casts doubt about the motivating circumstances of the authors, while still praising the underlying force of their accomplishments. The writing style itself is rather compelling, colorful, drawing well structured conclusions, and leaving room for any personal conclusions. He does not conjecture anything which a blatant case can be derived for unless he clearly prefaces material as being his personal guess or opinion, which he mostly does sparingly and separately. He gives a pretty solid picture of things said in context, pointing out for instance that whatever Paul had to say about natural gender beauty was said in the context of one of the first Christian churches being The House of Chloe, run by a cross-dressing couple. This makes the writing worlds apart from lofty biblical scholars who leave out such context. I think the authors name is Thomas Cahill, who also wrote 'How the Irish Saved Civilization' which is an excellent account of the fall of the Roman empire and it's transition into and returning from the dark ages.

I definitely don't believe in evil as a noun, as though it is some controlling, pre-existing force - I think that's just a way to avoid addressing the real sources of problems in the world. As for an adjective... evil is such an absolute term which is why I would never use it to describe people - people are never absolutely one thing or another and certainly never so absolutely wicked as to deserve to be called evil. I could (though don't think I ever have) describe certain actions as evil, but even that seems escapist. What one person might call evil, another person might call desperation, or ignorance, or fear. It's a difficult term and one that I largely choose to avoid. "There is no evil" probably best describes my feelings.

> "Mum, Dad, it's evil. Don't touch it!" *boom* (adjective)

I always took that to be a noun - with a capital E no less! A long time since I've seen that film though.

> Besides shaitan (which I was unfamiliar with), you also have the limited
> Hebrew vocabulary in which words like unripe served metaphoric purposes.
> The word interpreted centuries later as 'hell' was 'sheol' which is
> the word for 'dirt', and there is no evidence that a higher metaphoric
> meaning was even originally intended.
>

It's important to note that the Farsee 'shaitan' was only a descriptive noun, not a proper noun. In other words, it was not a name for a being, as Satan is used by Christians today, but merely indicated an enemy, an adversary. Arabic probably pronounces it closer to the original Farsee (shy-TAHN) as opposed to the Hebrew (sah-TAHN). I'm not real fluent in Hebrew, but I did study it for a while and still do from time to time. I gained enough fluency to at least place an order for myself and Sharon when we stopped at a cafe for a glass of wine. I overheard our waitress conversing in Hebrew with another customer, so when she asked us for our order, I answered, "Achat kos yain lavan ve achat kos yain edom, bevakasha." (One glass of white wine and one glass of red wine, please.) She smiled, nodded and responded, "Lo raa, lo raa!" (Not bad, not bad!) My Hebrew dictionary only defines sheol as the underworld. The Hebrew word for 'soil' is 'aretz'. This word, with an occasional vowel shift here and there is also used for 'land', 'country' and 'Earth'. The official Hebrew name for Israel today is 'Eretz Yisrael', or the 'Land (country) of Israel'. If I look up 'dirt' I find 'lichlood', 'apar' and 'shikootz'. Of course, this is a modern paperback dictionary for conversational Hebrew, so contains little historical information. But, the ancient Hebrew conception of sheol was simply the place your soul goes when you die. No punishments or rewards were meted out. It was conceived as a gloomy, cavernous place under the earth. A kind of warehouse, if you will, for souls whose expiration date has passed.

> The lord as both the source of good and evil is of critical importance,
> but as I understand it, not the sole concern of Isaiah. I believe
> the Hebrews went back to a time of pantheism nature forces evolving
> to become many singular tribal deities, and the rudiments of tribal
> unification involved claiming all these tribal deities were the same
> god. You also had the popular contenders Baal and Moloch to deal with.
>

No, he also preached against idolatry and served as the conscience for four kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. Read chapter 44 of Isaiah if you get a chance. The way he rails against idol worship is eloquently hilarious, you can almost visualize it as a stand-up comedy routine. Overall I like Isaiah. He is a lot more upbeat than Jeremiah.

The Hebrews actually started as a kind of rag-tag collection of various peoples from around the land of Canaan. Abraham himself originated from the city of Ur of the Chaldees. The Chaldeans later grew into the Babylonian Empire, which captured Judea and then were themselves conquered by the Persians under Darius. Who precisely the Chaldeans worshipped in Abraham's time, I don't know, but they were idol worshippers of some sort, and Abraham rebelled against this and took to wandering about the Land of Canaaan and gathering followers from various tribal and clan groups. Worship of the Ba'alim was actually a kind of animism. It was thought by various of the Canaanite people that every tree, stream, hill or spring had its own Ba'al or animating spirit or genius. American Indians and ancient Greeks had somewhat similar conceptions, as do the Shinto of Japan.


> Most of the hell stuff comes from the Revelation of Saint John 70
> years after Christ, and from 200-400 A.D. catholic musings.
>
> It's pretty buried to all but a few cryptic and mostly ignored passages,
> but Christ makes allusions to both Zoroastrian concepts which probably
> made their way through his parents cross-roads adult home turf of
> Nazareth, and to the Dead Sea scrolls teachings of the Essenes whom
> he hung out with which held a near pantheistic view of God communicating
> through nature and human voice as it's vehicle.
>

The whole idea of Armageddon, the final battle between God and Satan (good and evil) is taken directly from Zoroastrian theology. About the only changes that were made in adapting it to Christian theology were the names.


> 'Desire of the Everlasting Hills' is an excellent biography of the
> Apostles which dissects all the cultural events and writings to determine
> what the writings originally intended.

I will try to read this sometime. I actually cut and pasted the title and author to a file so I won't forget.

(Correction: "evil" is an entirely acceptable way to describe examiners, although one might argue that they are not entirely human anyway...)

The 'Rabbi's Tarot' by Daphne Moore is an excellent mystical treatise of the hebrew alphabet.

I seem to recall a God named Ur, somewhat even more primal along the same concept as Zoroastianism, being half hippo and half crocodile.

The dead sea scrolls also contained an armageddon, probably before any Zoroastrianism arrived there, though not necessarily earlier.

The same tales of Ezekiel, Solomon's carpet and such (of interest to me because I'm resurrecting the thermal-solar powered parasail) are also found in the Koran. Stories travel around a lot.

The Encyclopedia of the Gods by Michael Jordan is another useful reference, although Ur is not amongst it's 2500 deities.

I've experienced geographic animism too. This trip of mine was particularly rich in it. http://www.ereiam.com/old/life/album/jenner.htm

Evil is only as real as the person naming it.

edit: what Enheduann said, sounds better

Perhaps it may even be the same Evil from the 8th dimension (from Buckaroo Banzai)...

I guess I enjoy Evil as a proper noun in fiction, but in real life I prefer it as an adjective only.

Can be both; it's not particularly interesting.

both

There's 'evil' in the same way that there is 'meanness' or 'generosity'

My boyfriend says he's half evil. It's ok with me. He still makes me laugh.

evil can be both. What is evil to one is good to another. What I think is evil is preaching about a loving god and then finding out that this so called god could care less if we live or die. Telling people there is a god and giving them false hope is what is evil...