While not a one-to-one equivalent, do note Moroni 7:16-19 and everybody having the “light of Christ in light of the following discussion of the book of Sirach:
Sir 15.11-20 is devoted to
theodicy, as the introductory phrase, ‘Do not say . . . ‘ indicates. The
objector accuses God of leading him astray (vv. 11a, 12a). Ben Sira opposes
such a viewpoint with two arguments. First, God hates all abominations, so to
lead people astray is inconsistent with God’s own character (vv. 11b, 12b-13).
Second, each person is free to choose (vv. 14-17). On these two bases Ben Sira
concludes that God observes all sin but refuses to give permission for it (vv.
18-20).
The foundation of Ben Sira’s
second argument, a defense of free will and individual responsibility, is
15.14. Verse 14a is reminiscent of Gen 1.27 coupled with the first word of
Genesis, בראשׁית. The reference to יצר in v. 14b is taken from Gen 6.5 and 8.21.
The whole of vv. 15-17 is inspired by Deut 30.15-20. Ben Sira begins with the
words of Genesis but adapts them to function his own arguments in several
interesting ways.
Ben Sira adds εξ/מן to αρχης/בראשׁית, changing the temporal
reference from a point at the beginning of time to a process which has
continued ‘since the beginning’. His concern is with each creation, each
‘Adam’, not the first father of the face. The reason for his concern with
people rather than with Adam is evident in v. 14b. Because he wishes to
demonstrate that all people are responsible for their evil, he removes the
reference to יצר from the flood narrative (a context which permits the
interpretation that originally not all people had this יצר) and places it into
the context of creation. God implants a יצר into teach person since the
beginning.
This transposition requires a
transformation in meaning. If God places an inclination in each person, then it
must not be an evil inclination. If it were evil, then Ben Sira would be
capitulating to his opponents who assert that God is responsible for evil. Once
Ben Sira has removed the idea from its context in the introduction to the flood
narrative, he is free to remove its original connotation of ‘evil inclination’.
For Ben Sira it is a neutral capacity which enables people to choose morally:
‘ . . . the stress is laid upon man’s autonomy and power of decision . . .’(R.E.
Murphy, ‘Yēṣer in Qumran Literature’, Biblica 39 [1958], 337)
This combination of Genesis 1 and
6 expresses Ben Sira’s main response: wisdom, the choice to fear God, is
universally accessible to all people. The יצר as a neutral capacity is the
ability with which God endows all since the creation. To express this solution
cogently, Ben Sira transforms Gen 1.27 by combining words and phrases
anthologically, independent of their original contexts. In this way statements
culled from Genesis 1 and 6 become distant allusions despite nearness of
wording. (John R. Levison, Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism: From Sirach
to 2 Baruch [Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series
1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988], 34-35)
Continuing on this topic, as well as addressing the Satanology/Demonology
of Sirach (cf. Sirach 21:27), Levison writes that:
Elsewhere the translator of Sirach understands the yeṣer as a neutral faculty In 17.6 he mistranslates the Hebrew verb, יצר, with διαβουλιον. In that context he understands the verb as a noun, which he translates as the faculty of choosing good and evil. In 44.4, in the course of his laudatory descriptions of Israel’s heroic fathers, he describes the fathers as ηγουμενοι . . . εν διαβουλιοις. This is an evocative description, the source of which ‘thought’ is the Jewish literature which provides correct knowledge. In contrast, the word יצר is translated by πονηρον ενθυμημα in a negative context (37.3). On the negative connotations of this word in the LXX, see Murphy, ‘Yēṣer’, p. 337, Murphy also suggests (p. 335) convincingly that the Hebrew words which explains the yeṣer as a principle of evil which dominates a person are a later gloss. These words are missing from the Greek, Latin, and Syriac versions, and the meaning of the Hebrew lies in tension with the context. Finally, the Syriac is similar to the Hebrew (without the gloss) except that it once again uses the plural: God set them in the hand of their yeṣer. Ben Sira applies this passage to humanity, not to Adam. (Ibid., 197-98 n. 13, emphasis added)
