Book V - Snyder Bible

The Preaching of Simeon Kefa 105
paradise at all? But if that which he placed in paradise was
good, it is not the part of one that is good to restrain another
Chapter LIV: How Simon Learned from Torah What Torah
Does Not Teach
ccording
to what Torah relates, imperfect, we are given to understand,
without doubt, that there is another who is perfect.
For it is of necessity that there be one most excellent of all, on
whose account also every creature keeps its rank. Whence also
I, knowing that it is every way necessary that there be some
one more benignant and more powerful than that imperfect
Elohim who gave Torah, understanding what is perfect from
comparison of the imperfect, understood even from the Scripture
that Elohim who is not mentioned there. And in this way I
was able, O Kefa, to learn from Torah what Torah did not
know. But even if Torah had not given indications from which
it might be gathered that the Elohim who made the world is
imperfect, it was still possible for me to infer from those evils
which are done in this world, and are not corrected, either
that its creator is powerless, if he cannot correct what is done
amiss; or else, if he does not wish to remove the evils, that he
is himself evil; but if he neither can nor will, that he is neither
powerful nor good. And from this it cannot but be concluded
that there is another Elohim more excellent and more power-
Chapter bjections Turned Against Himself
Simon, they are liable to conceive such
absurdities against Yahweh who do not read Torah with the
instruction of masters, but account themselves teachers, and
think that they can understand Torah, though he has not explained
it to them who have learned of the Master. Nevertheless
now, that we also may seem to follow the book of Torah
according to your apprehension of it; inasmuch as you say that
the creator of the world is shown to be both impotent and evil,