mikem

Book of Revelation speaks of the "lake of burning fire" which would nicely describe a hot molten lava flow. However this refers to "the second death", which appears to be a metaphysical state separate from hell, since death and hell also end up there. One could speculate that the writer of the Revelation might have had in mind the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE possibly. It was a pretty major catastrophe back then, and must have made an imaginative impact on the civilisation surrounding the Med. This is of course pure speculation. The New Testament overall is quite restrained in it's description of the punishment of the wicked, and some scholars have suggested that rather than suggesting conscious eternal torment, the references to Gehenna may suggest complete annihilation.

The fire and brimstone hell of popular imagination I think owes more to Dante and Aquinas than to the Bible.

robto

Satan = Adversary in Jewish

Lucifer = "Bringer of light" or "shining one" in latin: comes from Isaiah 14:12 "How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star (=lucifer), son of the dawn!" which actually refers to the King of Babylon (see Is 14:4), but was re-interpreted by Christians to be a reference to Satan, the "fallen" one.

Beelzebub = a god of the Philistines, but the meaning of his name is not so clear; some translate it "lord of the flies".

There don't seem to be any direct links to Persian nomenclature.
Much more to it. Jews at the time of Jesus were engaging in lots of speculation about the origin of evil. Surprisingly, much of this was centered, not around the Garden of Eden story, but around Genesis 6:1-4, where we read that the "sons of God" fornicated with the human women. This story is expanded in the book of Enoch, where the "sons of God" are taken to be fallen angels, from the word "nephilim" (=fallen ones?) in Gen 6:4. (Enoch is not part of modern Bibles, but it is actually quoted in the New Testament, in Jude 14.) The story was expanded still further in the Book of Jubilees.

THe leader of the rebel angels was variously called Semihazeh, Azazel, etc, but for Christians he was obviously the same Satan that was the enemy of Jesus and God. Somehow, all of this got combined with the dragon of Rev. and the snake of Eden.

Codec

Thanks - thats all very helpful. So basically any bad deity or thing going around at the time was pulled into the melting pot of what the devil was, and merged.

I find it fascinating that a topic talked about so authoritatively hardly appears in the cannon at all. Some are so sure they no where non-believers are going, you'd think there would be a bit more backup.

I know there is somewhat of a split between those who view Hell as anihilation, and those who lean more to Dante's view.

However, Jesus is alleged to have visited those in Hell during his time in the ground, which sort of implies its more real. How we know about that part I'm not sure, I guess he must have told one of those he met on his return.

Clivedurdle

Elaine Pagels

CaliNORML

The one story I like the best about Satan is as follows:

There were only God and his angels, and one angel loved God so much and was so devoted to him that when God made man and ordered the angels to work for them, Satan refused.

Satan saw how weak mankind truly was and realized that it was almost certainly a losing proposition to try and keep them in the ways of God, besides he had taken a vow to serve only God all ready and would not break his word, even for God. Thus he refused to kneel down to mankind.

Upon hearing this, God was so angry at Satan that he cast him out of his presence forever. Satan now lives where God so sent him when he said, "Satan get thy out of my world and go to Hell."

Hell is the place where one is seperated from the one that they love the most in the world. To never again see the one you held above all else and most dear, that is true Hell. That is how Satan now lives.

Soon Satan's feelings soon turned to anger and rage at mankind. He blamed us for his exile and as such he tries to also seperate us from God, just as he believes we did to him.

Now he tries to influence us away from God by temping us to do evil things, keeping us from Gods love that he himself so craves.

By loving God so much, Satan was Gods greatest lover. It was for the love of God that made him only want to serve God, this earned him a one way ticket out of God's love and into Hell.

This story of Satan is from Islam.

KMS

Codec

... and if that doesn't "bake your noodle" what will! :devil2:
It almost sounds like a plot for a soap opera!

Is this from the Quran - or other writings?

CaliNORML

I may be mistaken however I do believe that it was in Persha that this story first appeared among the muslim beliefs, much like the Christian bible there are other books of the Quaran as well. I shall look up the text I have for you and post it here when found.

I agree, very soap operaish but then again are not all the religious stories a wee bit dramatized to make their point? I do so love a good drama.

KMS

Magdlyn

Baalzebub (later, Beelzebub) means Lord of the Flies. It is a play on words on the actual name of the "God of Ekron," Baal Zebul, or Lord Baal.

Much later, the author of GMark has conflated this god with the adversary, and calls him the Prince of Demons.

The look of the medieval "Satan" with horns was based on the Celtic Horned God, who was seen, as was Lord Baal, as a demon, a representative of the dark side of a dualistic cosmos.

To this day, Jews get asked by "Christians", where are your horns? B/c if you are not Xtian, of course, you must be a demon.

Clivedurdle

I like this story about satan!

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainlfe.htm

Clivedurdle

And an awful lot of people got killed around languedoc because of a twist on that idea!