Demonic Desires: Yetzer Hara and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity

by Ishay Rosen-Zvi

In Demonic Desires, Ishay Rosen-Zvi examines the concept of yetzer hara, or evil inclination, and its evolution in biblical and rabbinic literature. Contrary to existing scholarship, which reads the term under the rubric of destructive sexual desire, Rosen-Zvi contends that in late antiquity the yetzer represents a general tendency toward evil. Rather than the lower bodily part of a human, the rabbinic yetzer is a wicked,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812243390
• ISBN13: 9780812243390
• Release Date: October 2011
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 9.1"