Was the idea of predestination or providence (God's control of the world) thought up in the Reformation by Martin Luther or John Calvin?
From The Jewish Encyclopedia:
In this controversy the real point at issue was the question of divine providence. As followers of Epicurus, the Sadducees, according to Josephus, held that all the phenomena of this world are due to chance and they denied the existence of a divine providence.
The Essenes attributed everything to the will of God, and, exaggerating the conception of divine providence, denied to man any initiative. The Pharisees, fully aware that predestination precludes free-will, adopted a middle view, declaring that man is subject to predestination in his material life, but is completely free in his spiritual life.
This view is expressed in the teaching of R. Akiba (Abot iii. 15): "All is foreseen, yet freedom is granted"; and in the similar saying of R. Ḥanina, "All is in the power of God, except the fear of God" (Ber. 33b; Niddah 16b). Another saying of Ḥanina's is, "A man does not hurt his finger in this world unless it has been decreed above" (Ḥul. 7b). Similarly it is said, "The plague may rage for seven years, and yet no man will die before the appointed hour" (Sanh. 29a; Yeb. 114b).
The most striking example of predestinarian belief found in the Talmud is the legend concerning Eleazar ben Pedat. This amora, being in straitened circumstances, asked God how long he would suffer from his poverty. The answer, received in a dream, was, "My son, wouldst thou have Me overthrow the world?" (Ta'an. 25a); the meaning being that Eleazar's poverty could not be helped, he having been predestined to be poor.
Somehow these ideas have gotten put on Calvin as if he invented them out of thin air.
From The Jewish Encyclopedia:
In this controversy the real point at issue was the question of divine providence. As followers of Epicurus, the Sadducees, according to Josephus, held that all the phenomena of this world are due to chance and they denied the existence of a divine providence.
The Essenes attributed everything to the will of God, and, exaggerating the conception of divine providence, denied to man any initiative. The Pharisees, fully aware that predestination precludes free-will, adopted a middle view, declaring that man is subject to predestination in his material life, but is completely free in his spiritual life.
This view is expressed in the teaching of R. Akiba (Abot iii. 15): "All is foreseen, yet freedom is granted"; and in the similar saying of R. Ḥanina, "All is in the power of God, except the fear of God" (Ber. 33b; Niddah 16b). Another saying of Ḥanina's is, "A man does not hurt his finger in this world unless it has been decreed above" (Ḥul. 7b). Similarly it is said, "The plague may rage for seven years, and yet no man will die before the appointed hour" (Sanh. 29a; Yeb. 114b).
The most striking example of predestinarian belief found in the Talmud is the legend concerning Eleazar ben Pedat. This amora, being in straitened circumstances, asked God how long he would suffer from his poverty. The answer, received in a dream, was, "My son, wouldst thou have Me overthrow the world?" (Ta'an. 25a); the meaning being that Eleazar's poverty could not be helped, he having been predestined to be poor.
Somehow these ideas have gotten put on Calvin as if he invented them out of thin air.
