figuer

Interesting. Until reading this I did not realize that my quote from Malachi151 read "the word evil comes", I had understood "the word devil comes". Was that a mistake of leaving out the d? Would make more sense with the rest of the post.

Cege

In Young's Literal Translation, Matt 4, Jesus refers to his tempter (satan) as Adversary and it's how satan is described in Job, beginning with verse 6:
"And the day is, that sons of God come in to station themselves by Jehovah, and there doth come also the Adversary in their midst."

It seems to me that 1st century Judaism regarded Adversary/Satan as an entity whose job it was to tempt men (and women, if Eve's serpent tempter is the same Advesary) into sin. The book of Job describes Job, who was already blameless/perfect, resisting-- against all odds-- the Adversary's attempts. Satan seems less evil than agent of God in the OT.

Isaiah 14 describes "morning star, son of the dawn" (NIV) which has long been taken out of context by Christians as a description of an angel, Satan/Lucifer, falling from heaven in disgrace. But in context, the description is of an earthly king, once great but who will die and only end up in a grave in the earth like other great leaders before him.

This couldn't be the serpent of Genesis, because in that story only Adam and Eve have been created by God. Isaiah's description includes many generations of men who have died and gone to their graves.

Dante and Milton probably provided more grist for the Satan mill than the Bible has.

Malachi151

That was my mistake, I meant to say devil.

Malachi151

Depends on the translation then. Here is what the NRSV says on a search for everything in the Bible prior to Matthew:

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=42729433

Dean Anderson

[Pop Etymology]
Surely that's the other way around, anyway:

He's called the "Devil" because he's d'evil one...
[/Pop Etymology]

Joan of Bark

I am just re-reading The Origin of Satan (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Elaine Pagels. Basically she points out that there is little consistency on where Satan came from; different groups of Jews and Christians had different ideas about him.

Of course, this still begs the earlier question: how did Satan get into paradise? If he was there, it couldn't have been paradise ...

Godless Dave

I think that's very true.

mountainman

From here:

Larsguy47

Satan as "the woman"

The concept that Satan tempted Eve is based on the Bible in Genesis 3:15 where God is making pronouncements to the five principals involved: the serpent, Adam and Eve, Satan and Christ. Satan is called "the woman" and Satan's rebellion "the woman and her seed" because originally in heaven, Christ, who is Michael the Archangel was married to the "woman" who becomes Satan. It is Christ and Satan who are the two "covering cherubs" depicted on top of the Ark of the Covenant. Satan is replaced by the "church" as the second wife of Christ.

Here's the explanation:

GENESIS 3:

TO THE LITERAL SERPENT: 14 And Jehovah God proceeded to say to the serpent: “Because you have done this thing, you are the cursed one out of all the domestic animals and out of all the wild beasts of the field. Upon your belly you will go and dust is what you will eat all the days of your life.

TO JESUS/MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL: 15 And I shall put enmity between you and the woman [Satan] and between your seed and her seed.


TO SATAN, THE WOMAN: He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel.”

TO EVE: 16 To the woman he said: “I shall greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy; in birth pangs you will bring forth children, and your craving will be for your husband, and he will dominate you.”

TO ADAM: 17 And to Adam he said: “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. 18 And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”


LG47

gstafleu

Err, right. So if "the woman" is Satan, than where did Eve go? There simply is no Satan in Gen 3. There is God, Adam, Eve and the Serpent. There is nothing that indicates that any of the above should be seen as what is now called Satan. At best the Serpent plays the role of the Trickster. At best, because when God throws his snit, he comes up with this very literal interpretation of making snakes and human beings (Eve's offspring) enemies.

Your separation of a literal snake in 3:14 and a mystical one in 3:15 flows as smoothly as a lame snake on a bed of broken glass. If anything it is the other way around, but even that is unnecessary. Satan is completely superfluous in the story, so trotting him out is a lot like bringing a sheep to an orgy: it shows you don't quite get what it is all about while relying on a rather poor substitute.

Gerard Stafleu