Kelly

The devil is specifically identified as "Beelzebub" in the New Testament, i.e. the entity worshipped as Baal. His symbol was the golden calf and he was the entity being worshipped in the desert of the Sinai when Moses came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments in hand. There is a lot to support the position that Baal was the first Yahweh-Jehovah god of the Old Testament. Baal was the national god of the Phoenicians and the Canaanites and he was also worshiped by Solomon, as Baal and Ashtoreth were considered the heads of that pantheon.

Here is a pretty good site detailing Baal worship.

http://phoenicia.org/pagan.html#anchor365635

There is a lot of confusion over the identity of the Devil, and it takes a little explaining, so please bear with me. Prior to the year 2000 BC, Yahweh, meaning the "God most high" of the Anunnaki ruling class was the Baal-El pantheon. In the Sumerian texts Baal is called "Adad" (also Hadad) and he is considered the son of Enlil, who is called "Ellil" by the Babylonians and "El" by the Canaanites. The word "Yahweh" is not a personal name, it is the title, like the word "President" is a title, and the word applied to whichever god was considered "the God Most High" in the Anunnaki god system of the Middle East. The Baal-El pantheon was very warlike and that group was responsible for making some decisions that ultimately resulted in the destruction of Sumer as it was taken over by the Babylonian system. As a result, the Baal-El pantheon was ousted from the position of Yahweh, "God Most High", and Marduk (who was called Ra in Egypt) replaced him. This event is clearly documented in the Code of Hammurabi.

"When lofty Anun, king of the Anunnaki,
And Enlil, lord of heaven and earth,
The determiner of the destinies of the land,
Determined for Marduk, the first-born of Enki,
The Enlil functions over all mankind,
Made him great among the Igigi,
Called Babylon by its exalted name,
Made it supreme in the world,
Established for him in its midst an enduring
Kingship…

(Pritchard, James B., Editor, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, Third Edition with Supplement, Princeton University Press, 1969 p. 164)

At this point, the position of Yahweh goes to Marduk, who is one and the same as Ra in the Egyptian pantheon. It is at this point (circa 2000 BC) that the henotheistic concepts of monotheism may have first been adopted by the Heliopolitan priesthood of Egypt, and Ra was declared the Great Aten. While most people believe Atenism began with the Pharaoh Akenaten, the name "Aten" appears in Egyptian texts long before Akenaten attempts to make Atenism Egypt's national religion.

Many Hebrews were radically against Ra/Marduk and the Hebrew word for "Satan" undoubtedly came from the Egyptian phrase "Sa Aten." "Sa" was the Egyptian word for "Son of" and "Aten" was merely one of the known 75 different names that Ra was referred to in Egypt. Ra/Marduk also assumed 50 different names in the Babylonian texts. This was ultimately the act of Ra/Marduk claiming all the different names and previous acts of multiple deities and claiming them for himself. His priesthood traditionally gave all other priesthoods the option of being "absorbed" into Atenism and those who did not choose this option were apparently killed off and absorbed anyway. Ra/Marduk might be realistically called the "father of all identity thieves."

As far as I can tell, the term "the Devil" is specific to the Baal-El pantheon of gods, as "Satan" is specific to the Egyptian pantheon of gods, but each pantheon was a part of the "Anunnaki" and were considered the descendants of Anu, who was one of the five sons of the Vedic king Yayati and came to the Middle East out of India.

http://www.indiaforum.org/india/hind...an/page17.html

The Anu clan (Anunnaki) raided the Middle East and ultimately took over all the lands from Mesopotamia to Egypt.

Ultimately, the title of Yahweh-Jehovah (God Most High of the Anunakki) was held by two different sides of the Anunnaki pantheon. Prior to 2000 BC, the title was given to the Baal-El pantheon called "the Devil" in the New Testament, and after 2000 BC the Yahweh title went to the Ra/Marduk pantheon of Egypt and Babylon who was called "Satan" (Sa-Aten) in the Bible.