The History of Evil in Antiquity

The History of Evil in Antiquity would be a very useful volume to employ in a college course on the problem of evil. It should also prove of great interest to the many members of the general public who wrestle with the tension between the claim that the world is rooted in divine goodness and the existence of obvious and often horrendous evils. William J. Wainwright, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA Evil is a problem for everybody. As contributors to this book show, it's always been a problem. But explaining evil-its sources, what to do about it, who is to blame, and God's relation to it-has been done in various ways. These essays provide historical perspectives and explanatory options. Ironically, it's good to have this evil book! Thomas Jay Oord, author of The Uncontrolling Love of God We think we know what evil is, since we've all had some experience with the subject. Yet it has been understood in very different ways across various cultures and times. The History of Evil series bids fair to deepen our grasp of how various, and how variously conceived, evil is. The diversity examined in this first volume of the series is already enough to raise the fundamental question of whether we're really talking about the same thing when we talk about conceptions of evil in West and East, antiquity and modernity. It's a mind-expanding volume. Phillip Cary, Eastern University, USA