explanation. We want to know what evil really is, why it’s there in the first place (or at least in the second place), why it’s been allowed to continue, and how long this will go on for. Well, these questions are there in the Bible, but frustratingly they don’t receive very full answers, and certainly not the sort of answers that later philosophical traditions would consider adequate. Taking the questions in reverse order: the Psalms regularly ask how long this wretched state of affairs will go