Shortly after beginning this blog I came upon an online community where Christianity is discussed and debated. Believers and non-believers go there to ask questions and to join in conversation over various issues related to Christianity and God.

There are many new Christians there who are asking questions and seeking advice, there are also atheists, some who want to learn and some who want to disrupt, and there are definitely some false Christians there who are looking to deceive new Christians. There are also many Christians there who are honestly trying to help others to learn the Gospel, or to learn more about the Gospel themselves.

It’s a tough road to navigate between those who are just trolling, those who are honestly trying to spread the Good News, and to help other people, and those who are either intentionally or unintentionally distorting the Gospels and possibly leading new believers astray.

All denominations are represented in the various groups and it is interesting to read some of the different opinions and interpretations, but I was surprised at how many people believe that God admitted he is the author of evil.

God as the Author of Evil

The notion that God created evil is something I tried to dispel in this post, but there are Christians out there who claim that not only does God create evil, but that he admitted creating evil and that he still creates evil today. This mostly seems to be coming from the KJV Onlyists,¹ and they point to a single Bible verse to back up this claim.

Here is Isaiah 45:7 from the KJV:

⁷ I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

What are we to make of this? We believe that God is good and God is love, but does God create evil after all? That’s what this verse seems to say, but we need to look at the word being translated as evil, and put it in context with the other verses in this passage. The Hebrew word here is רַע, ra, and according to the ESV Key Word Study Bible among its meanings are evil, bad, misfortune, malice, calamity, danger, and the list goes on.

Other Bible Translations

So I decided to look at other Bible translations to see how they interpreted רַע. Out of all the other translations I looked at, only the Douay-Rheims Bible translated the word as evil. Here are some of the other translations:

• The CSB, HCSB, NIV, the Amplified Bible, and NASB translate it as “disaster”
• The NLT translates it as “bad times”
• The NRSV translates it as “woe”
• The ESV, LSB, NASB, NKJV, and the KJV 2000 translate it as “calamity”

Which Translation is Correct

That’s a total of twelve modern Bible translations with four alternative translations of the word רַע. So which of these translations is correct? Or are the KJV and the Douay-Rheims Bible correct?

Did you catch the last two Bible translations on that list? The NKJV and KJV 2000, both updated versions of the KJV, translate רַע as “calamity.” So even the updated versions of the KJV have opted for an alternative interpretation.

Having looked at the word being translated, we now need to look at the context of the verse to see which translation works best in this situation. Let’s look at Isaiah 45:5-7 from the ESV:

I am the Lord, and there is no other,
    besides me there is no God;
    I equip you, though you do not know me,
⁶ that people may know, from the rising of the sun
    and from the west, that there is none besides me;
    I am the Lord, and there is no other.
⁷ I form light and create darkness;
    I make well-being and create calamity;
    I am the Lord, who does all these things.

God is talking about his sovereignty, how he is the Alpha and the Omega. You will notice he uses pairs of opposites throughout these 3 verses, the rising and setting of the sun, light and darkness, and finally well-being and calamity.

And now lets look at the same three verses in the KJV:

 I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

⁶ 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.

⁷ I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Again we see opposites being used in the first two instances, but then you get to peace and evil and it certainly looks as though that is not the best possible translation for this context. The context of this verse is within the framework of rewarding and punishing, and with that being said it would appear that in this case the KJV does not have the best interpretation of the word רַע. Calamity, woe, and bad times all appear to be much better translation options than evil.

Conclusion

While God does not create moral evil, he has allowed evil rulers to cause calamity at various times in history, and that would appear to be the context behind this verse. There are literally dozens of verses that proclaim God is good, to think a good God would create evil is a contradiction which could not be rectified.

The KJV Onlyists, who believe the only true word of God can be found in the King James Bible, use this verse as an example of how modern translations cannot be trusted because they are watering down God’s word, but that is not the case.

This is a case of modern translations better capturing the meaning of the original language while using language as it is spoken today, and in this case it looks like the modern translations got it right.

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1. KJV Onlyists believe that the only true, valid, and acceptable English Bible translation is the King James Bible. In their opinion all other translations should never be used and cannot be trusted to accurately portray the word of God.
   Many KJV Onlyists believe newer translations are purposely distorting the Word of God for various ideological reasons.
   KJV Onlyists should not be confused with people who just prefer the King James Bible over other translations. ↩︎