One of the factors that favoured the development of Gnosticism was the prevalence of dualistic and pessimistic beliefs underlaying much of popular religion of that period, whether pagan or Jewish: "If God was Goodness, how could one explain the existence of evil except that the matter whence the world was created was evil?" The Greek distinction between flesh and spirit and the destinies awaiting each was paralleled in Judaism by speculation concerning the two ways of life and death set before Israel (in Deut. 30:15 ff). To these tensions on the metaphysical level were added conflicts over moral obligations of the individual under the law resulting from Gnostic-type speculation.