Jews observe Hanukkah; Christians observe Christmas -- both holidays are full of traditions that have little or nothing to do with the original events they are intended to commemorate. This week's Tzemach Institute program looks at the origins and traditions of these two festivals and discovers, when you strip away the myth that surrounds them, a common theme: God intervenes in human history. Click on the picture of snow in Jerusalem to watch the video; or click here for dialup.
Tzemach Institute Excerpt: God Limits Evil
The following "article" is class material taken from the Torah 1 course of the Tzemach Institute. New classes for this unique, two-year Bible Study begin every September...
CLASS 3: GOD LIMITS EVIL IN THE EARTH
A. Evil is Loosed in the Earth
People often ask the question, "Why did God destroy everything during the flood" (except that which was preserved in the ark)"? The answer to this question comes when one considers what was taking place in the earth and what God wanted to do. Evil had gained an inroad into the earth through Adam. Thereafter it spread rapidly throughout the world and increased to an alarming degree. Evil was so fully manifested that God's first impression was to destroy everything, presumably, in order to begin again. Of course He decided otherwise.
At any rate, God chose to limit the degree to which evil was manifested by three specific acts:
1. He purified the race by destroying all mankind except Noah and his family, these He preserved in the ark, as a righteous remnant;
2. He confused the languages of man at Babel; and
3. He decreased the life span of man by an order of magnitude from approximately 900 years to about 70 years.
In this way the extent of the manifestation of evil was limited as God implemented specific redemptive steps.
Almost immediately after man's original sin, the results of sin became evident. Murder occurred in the first generation after Adam. Evil working in man simply blossomed. The devil and his angels were corrupting mankind in a wholesale manner. Man evidently gave himself completely in fulfilling the lust of the flesh and, in the process, he gave his heart over to evil. Due to expert spiritual knowledge he probably knew how to sin more boldly than is known today.
It appears that the most gross forms of demonic possession occurred in this era. From Genesis 6:2-4, it is apparent that the manifestation of evil in man proceeded a great deal further than has ever been known since that time. It is stated quite abruptly that "The sons of God (Ben Elohim) came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them" (Genesis 6:4). Now the only other specific references to the "sons of God" in the Hebrew Scriptures occurs in Job 1:6, 2:1 and 38:7. Satan is numbered among the sons of God in the first two of these references. These references are always taken to mean angelic beings and the reference in Genesis 6 should be taken to mean angelic beings if we allow the Scriptures to act as a commentary for all other Scriptures.
This means then that angelic beings, really demons and possibly Satan himself, somehow fertilized the eggs carried by women. Now we know that this is conceptually possible because it is exactly what happened in the birth of Messiah Jesus. The Holy Spirit of God overshadowed Mary and she conceived (Luke 1:35), and brought forth Jesus the unique Son of God. Thus we conclude that this phenomenon is not foreign to Biblical revelation, even though we may be unaccustomed to thinking about it in these terms.
The beings brought forth in this manner were giants (tyrants and bullies). They were men of renown, meaning specifically that they were of a unique creation. They were in a definite and conspicuous position. It is difficult to imagine the appearance and the wickedness of these creatures. They most likely are the strange beings of mythology common to essentially all ancient cultures.
This type of union between demons and women has evidently not occurred since these early times. In all likelihood, there will be a recurrence of this phenomenon in the end times. Perhaps, the man of lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2:3) will be the product of such a union. Occult practices are rapidly multiplying today as people attempt to experience spiritual phenomena. As large numbers of people seek this type of encounter, this type of phenomenon could occur. Also, men's imagination of this sort of thing has emerged recently. Movies like "Rosemary's Baby" are based on this theme. As soon as this concept is well established there will undoubtedly be numerous foolish women who will attempt such an encounter.
In addition to the strange creatures resulting from the union of demons and women, demon possession in more common forms was undoubtedly present also. As men and women yielded themselves to evil, they committed every form of sin. It is written that "Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5).
One reason for the Flood was to destroy the strange demon-sired creatures. All were destroyed.
B. God Acts to Limit Evil
God took action against the spread of evil with the Flood. Another purpose of the Flood was to destroy the knowledge of the spiritual universe that early man possessed. Contrary to popular concepts, early man was extremely intelligent, probably much more so than today. Popular concepts would envision early man with a slowly developing intellect. For example, man in the era we are studying here might be envisioned to have a mental capacity of a modern child of 8-10 years of age. We only have to look at Adam and his level of understanding to see the inconsistency of these concepts with Biblical Revelation.
God brought all the animals to Adam (Genesis 2:19,20) and he named them. In ancient times a name meant more than a simple identifier as we know names today. Names were descriptive of specific characteristics, functions, historical settings and the like. For example, the name of Jacob was chosen for the patriarch because he grabbed at his brother's heel as he was being born. Later when he wrestled with and overcame a spiritual being, his name was changed to Israel, meaning that he had striven with God and the spiritual being and had prevailed.
The significance of this is that Adam, in naming every living creature, did more than simply provide an identifier for each species. He, in fact, defined the function of each species and its interrelationship with all other species. If Adam were alive today he would baffle zoologists and ecologists. This thought may be pressed further to mean that Adam may have specified the function of each species and the interrelationship between species when he named them rather than simply recognizing their God-given function. In other words, since the animal kingdom was under man's authority, he may have had the latitude to determine their functions.
Adam's intellect and that of early man was well developed. They undoubtedly were not familiar with the specific technology of our age; however, their comprehension of the physical and spiritual universes and the limitations, potential interactions and relationships between these universes very likely went well beyond anything known to our society today.
Adam obviously had a very advanced understanding of the spiritual universe and its relationship to the physical universe. He walked and talked straightforwardly with God without the confusion resulting from sin. His knowledge was, without question, unsurpassed in human history with the exception of the knowledge possessed by Jesus of Nazareth, the unique Son of God.
Although the Bible does not specifically indicate it, Adam, in all likelihood, conversed with angels. He understood their nature, limitations, etc. Later this knowledge would lead mankind into the horrible demonic encounters discussed previously in terms of spiritual beings deriving offspring through human women. In addition, the degree to which evil grasped men was undoubtedly aided by man's knowledge of the spiritual universe. This is true because we must be aware of a phenomenon intellectually before we experience it spiritually. Thus, we understand a thing intellectually and then experience it spiritually. In Romans 10:8-15, Paul speaks of believing in the heart (a spiritual phenomenon) only after hearing from a preacher (an intellectual phenomenon). Thus, we understand a thing intellectually and then experience it spiritually. The resulting grasp of evil over men was greatly limited by the flood.
After the flood the generations of Noah began to replenish the earth. Although much evil had been destroyed in the flood, still men had a well developed understanding of spiritual reality. This was passed on through Noah and his sons. Evidently the evil which possessed the pre-flood generations, began to grasp the descendants of Noah. Eventually they decided to build a tower which would reach into heaven (spiritual universe). It is not likely that the builders of the tower had simple elevation in mind. Rather, with the knowledge that they possessed, they were most likely building a structure specifically suited for demonic encounter. The structures that we know today as ziggurats are probably replicas to some extent of Babel. Evidently the probability of success was great because God elected to intervene and halt the effort. He accomplished this through the confusion of languages. The result of this has been the retarding of "progress" in every human endeavor. Science has begun to overcome this in our day. Biologists have, for example, universally agreed on Latin as a language to use in identifying species. Various publications are regularly translated into numerous languages and thus knowledge is multiplied. Along these same lines, many nations of the world teach English as either the primary or secondary language and are tending to overcome the hindrances of confused languages. It is only reasonable to expect that evil will be multiplied as knowledge increases. God's limiting of evil in man is represented in Figure 3.
Note that in the end time evil will flourish once again.
With the events of the flood and the confusion of languages, God effectively limited the grasp of evil on mankind. He did this so He would be able to implement His plan of redemption. In addition He limited the life span of man. Figure 4 shows the overlap of life-span in the pre-flood period. Note that Noah's father, Lamech, could have known Adam personally. With such long lives, knowledge was much more easily preserved and passed on to succeeding generations.
This table also shows the decrease in life-span in the post-flood period. By the time of Moses, the expected life-span was of the order of 70 years (Psalms 90:10). The simple reduction in the life-span of man greatly limited the evil with which he might be involved. Have you ever considered the possibility that God may act again to limit evil in the earth? In fact, the Scriptures tell us that He will do so. At the return of Jesus, the Messiah, and the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom, Satan will be bound for a period of 1000 years. God will reign directly in the earth directly through Messiah. Therefore, evil will again be limited.
