The Bible emphasizes the evil intentions of Ahab and Jezebel in acquiring the property of Naboth. But what about the people of Jezreel? Without their complicity the scheming of Jezebel would have come to nothing. Naboth’s neighbors, the ones who knew him, His fellow citizens—the elders and nobles who dwelt in his city— did as Jezebel had ordered them in writing, A philosopher, Hannah Arendt, in trying to understand how the German people who were well educated could have perpetrated the Nazi atrocities invented the phrase “the banality of evil.” People don’t decide to do an evil action but just go along with what others are doing, even when that action is wrong. Racism is a prime example of the banality of evil today.
JUNE152020
By Church Staff
