Hi Bob, good idea.
Gen 3:22 Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and
evil (Strong's H7451).
H7451 ra‛: bad or (as noun) evil (naturally or morally). This includes the second (feminine) form; as adjective or noun: - adversity, affliction, bad, calamity, + displease (-ure), distress, evil ([-favouredness], man, thing), + exceedingly, X great, grief (-vous), harm, heavy, hurt (-ful), ill (favoured), + mark, mischief, (-vous), misery, naught (-ty), noisome, + not please, sad (-ly), sore, sorrow, trouble, vex, wicked (-ly, -ness, one), worse (-st) wretchedness, wrong. [Including feminine ra’ah; as adjective or noun.]
The best way I know how to explain what evil is, would be the opposite/absents of love. Only God has love in it's absolute/pure/perfect form, He does not only show/express love, His very nature/personality is love.
1John 4:8 He who does not love does not know God, for
God is love.
Paul did very well in expressing what love is.
1Cor 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[1] but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
So we are born without knowledge, a clean slate, and this life is a process of experiencing/learning about good and evil, it is teaching us by comparison the difference between them. This knowledge of both good and evil is essential in the process of being shaped into His image.
Did God make circumstances such that people could make dangerous, selfish, disobedient choices and did God do that intentionally? If I willingly permit my son to play on dangerous equipment and "evil" befalls him and he suffers injury and pain, is that evil?
Evil comes from numerous sources and yes by ignorance would be one of them, but sometimes it's intended, and sometimes it's accidental or by mistake. But God created all the circumstances for evil to happen to us, because in this world we are learning/gaining a knowledge through experiences of evil and good, and that is the contrast we need. Quite a lot will end this life with a big accumulation of evil, but that's what the next age is for, to correct and purge people of their wrong characteristics, part of the process. God intends for us all to eventually be brought to the knowledge of truth, through the process we are now in. And the truth of what being in His image is all about, love.
1Tim 2:4 who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.
mercy, peace and love
Kat