LogicandReason

When assessing the validity of Christian Theology, I sometimes think it is better to consider the peripheral characters and ideas versus the existence regression. So let’s consider the silly concept of Satan. Where does he come from and why does God allow him to exist? During the Noah epic (Gen 6-9 and earlier from Mesopotamian legend), God kills every living thing on Earth save Noah and his family and sets of animals (long before the genealogical effects of incest are understood); yet Satan (the instigator) is saved. Why? Who invented the concept of Satan?

Carl Sagan says many cultures share belief in such a figure. Parallels to incubi include Arabian djinn [jinn], Greek satyrs, Hindu bhuts, Samoan hotua poro, Celtic dusii... (Sagan 1995, 124).

Let’s begin with his possible first appearance in the Bible, Gen 3. Scripture describes the serpent as the “most cunning” beast of the field. Notice this serpent is never described as a devil, Satan, or anything beyond a talking snake. But for the story's sake, somebody needs to “tempt” Eve. Wouldn’t the story be better if Adam and Eve had to take responsibility for their decision? It almost appears that from the first bad behavior, humans are seeking someone else to blame.

Satan, AKA Baal-Zebub, makes a brief appearance in dialogue in 2 Kings 1:2-4. He is referred to as the “god of Ekron” (in Canaan). He is given no attributes in this passage but is used only for rhetorical reference to Israel’s lack of a God.

You have to go deeply into the OT to finally get some idea as to who this Satan is and his story (Isaiah 14:12-24). Here the name Lucifer is used (same guy, why so many pseudo names?). It seems that Satan was the Morning Star who decided to ascend into heaven (see that angels don’t normally live there) and usurp God. Satan is removed and sent to Sheol (the pit). This tale does not go on to describe a sinister character that is out to upend the world.

Ezekiel 28:13-17 uses the fallen example of Satan (who thought he was God) to admonish the prince of Tyre). Again notice that there is not much more than a reference to Eden and the fall from God’s mountain. We never get any background on Satan’s motivation. The OT writers would never have made it on primetime TV.

The final mention of Satan (in all of the OT) is a brief two-liner from Zachariah 3:1-2 where the Angel of the Lord rebukes him. This passage says nothing more than Satan was there at the right hand of Joshua to oppose him.

Look at this. Above represents all the reference to Satan in the OT. If Satan is the arch enemy of God, why do we not constantly see him? Maybe the Jews had very little concept of such a fallen angel. Maybe they were simply echoing other cultures and legends? I posit that Judaism was changing in the Diaspora of the 1st century Greco-Roman world and was morphing into the Christ Cult that Paul preached. The tenor had changed to end-times, apocalypse. Such times require the perennial bad-guy and sure enough, Satan is a big figure in the NT.

Since Paul actually wrote his epistles decades before the gospel fictions were penned, let’s see how he presents the concept of Satan. In 2 Cor 4:4 Paul calls him the “god of the age (world). In 2 Cor 6:15 Paul simply refers to Satan as Belial (yes another AKA). Later, in Ephesians 2:2, Paul describes Satan as the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.” Paul’s final mention of the supreme adversary of God and Jesus is a veiled reference in Col 1:13 to “the power of darkness.” Notice that in all of Paul’s references to Satan none are direct and give any background on him. Surprising? Not really. Paul gets all of his materials from the OT…he never once quotes Jesus’ sayings from the gospels, he has no clue about any historical facts or places surrounding the earthly ministry of Jesus, and spends most of his time debating Jewish piety and law. It takes the creation of the gospels and acts to truly give Satan a role in out lives today. Without the gospel fictions, we might not even know about Satan. Let’s see what Mark’s novel creates.

One verse! That’s it, one verse, Mark 1:13 laconically describes the story that Matthew and Luke embellish about Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13). Notice the naivety of the writers. Are these really temptations? Turning a stone into bread? Jump of this roof and see if God catches you? Here is the world if you worship me? I wonder what the devil (as he is called in these passages) would have temped Jesus with had any of the authors had some more worldly experiences in Alexandria, Babylon or Rome? Gabby Matthew seems to lack imagination here.

Matt 12:24, Mark 3:22 and Luke 11:15 all begin that quaint little story about the casting our of demons (controlled by Beelzebub…yes another alias) and the question about how a house can be divided against itself because some think Jesus is working for the devil when he is exorcising. I think these passages tell us a lot about the presupposition of devils and how many residents of the Levant in the 1st century were suffering from delusions or heat exhaustion. Today people go see a psychiatrist, not a charlatan.

Matt 12:43 calls Satan an unclean spirit and 13:19 the evil one. Luke 10:19 calls him the author of evil. Nobody goes into any detail as to why he exist, why God created him or allows him to rule the world. Why is this not a problem with there exegesis of God's plan and God's love?

Finally, who but cosmic John can tell us more about the evil one? John goes crazy telling us about Satan. John, the most apocalyptic of the gospel writers, uses Satan as the intentional object of his cosmic world war of evil versus the Son of man…and it was not intended to be a farce. I’m simply going to list the references and let the reader go see all that John has to say: John 8:44, 12:31, 13:27, 14:30, 16:11, 1 John 2:13, Rev 9:11 (ominous, isn’t it), 12:3, 12:9-10, 20:2. I just have to wonder how many mushrooms John ingested in his daily diet.

One final NT reference to Satan comes from Peter in 1 Peter 5:8 where Peter calls him an adversary and describes him as a roaring lion come to devour. Satan, who controls the world, seems to lack a good PR guy.

In summation, the OT and Paul lack much of a concept of Satan. The Satan we all know and love seems to be the creation of the gospel writers and may have been simply a muse to fan the flames of apocalyptic thinking. I would be very interested to get some more background on where this legendary figure comes from. Is he simply there to provide us all with a psychological fall guy?

John Kesler

Actually, the Satan character became Yahweh's enemy and obtained an entourage of demons before the NT, primarily being developed during the intertestamental period. Read the books of Jubilees and Enoch for example. The Apocryphal book Wisdom of Solomon/Book of Wisdom mentions the devil as the tempter in the Garden of Eden:

candyfloss

You left out the most interesting mention of Satan in the OT--JOB! Which has the character hanging out in heaven making bets with God. A Rabbi once explained to me that in OT (Jewish) theology a "Satan" (literally "accuser" in Hebrew") was one of a class of angels whose job it was to go around reporting on the evil doings of men--a sort of heavenly prosecuting attorney. Satan as the devil is a Christian concept--developed in the NT and afterward.

The same Rabbi explained that the serpent in Eden was just that--a serpent. The Bible (OT) gives no indication otherwise. And the King of Tyre was the king of Tyre (not the devil), referred to with much Bombast and metaphor.

According to Rabbi Adler, the most blasphemous aspect of Christian theology is not Jesus as Messiah, but the invention of the Devil as God's adversary.

Interestingly, it seems that most of what Christians believe about Satan comes not from the OT or the NT, but from Milton's Paradise Lost.

Jeffrey Gibson

. :huh:


Actually, let's note that the question as you put it is unanswerable since you do not tell us what the concept of Satan whose origins you seek to have explained actually is.

Moreover, you have seemed to have engaged in petitio principii not only in assuming that there is only one concept of this figure and that whatever the undefined one is that you seek to have explained in terms of origins, is silly.

It also seems quite clear that you haven't checked to see whether what you say about what is supposedly stated about Satan in the OT and the NT is really what the NT & OT texts you adduce really say.

In any case, if you are really interested both in having your question answered and in seeing whether your claims about the meaning of OT and NT texts are correct, instead of trying to show, as appears to be the case, how stupid anyone is to believe in the particular view of Satan that some Christians entertain, I suggest you -- and John Kessler -- have a look at H.A. Kelly's "The Devil in the Desert," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 26 (l964) l90-220, his The Devil, Demonology, and Witchcraft: The Development of Christian Beliefs in Evil Spirits (or via: amazon.co.uk) (New York: Doubleday, l968), his 1987 Journal of Religion review (entitled "The Devil at Large") of the major and essential works on the Devil by Jeffrey Burton Russell (i.e., The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (or via: amazon.co.uk), Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (or via: amazon.co.uk), and Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (or via: amazon.co.uk) -- works you should also consult), his 1989 Journal of American Folklore review of Neil Forsyth's The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth and his recent Satan: A Biography

You may also, before you get to these, want to have a look at the excerpt from his The Devil, Demonology, and Witchcraft: that appears here and that the entry on Satan that appears in the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible.


Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Umm .. do Jubilees and Enoch actually speak of Satan having an entourage, let alone one that he leads in opposition to God. And are the portions of Jubilees and Enoch that you refer to pre-1st century CE?

[/QUOTE]

Actually Wis. 2:24 mentions only "an adversary" (the word is anarthrous) -- φθόνῳ δὲ διαβόλου θάνατος εἰση̂λθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον). So the assertion that what we have here is a reference to Satan, let alone to Satan acting in the garden of Eden -- of which BTW Genesis never speaks) begs the question. Indeed (and if memory serves -- no time now to look it up), a number of scholars have argued that the adversary spoken of here is Cain.

Jeffrey

John Kesler

Thanks for the references, but what is there in my reply that caused you to single me out for inclusion? Also, my last name is spelled with one "s."

ETA: Never mind. I just saw your response to me.

LogicandReason

Yes...I did forget the great story of Job. IMHO, that story is replete with caprice. Great post...especially Milton.

LogicandReason

Thanks for the references. I did ask my question ambiguously...I'm just curious about the development of the character we know as "Satan." I'm sure that there are many books and opinions on the subject. And yes, I think this figure is pure imagination and fills a psychological need to blame somebody else.

Jeffrey Gibson

But who or what is the particular character known as Satan that you have in mind? Is it "the Satan" of Job? The Satan of Milton? of the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live? of the television show Reaper? Until we know that, it seems imprudent to speak of "development".

Yes, indeed, as I just demonstrated, at least with respect to scholaly and informed books on the subject of Satan. Is this in doubt?

But that there are many (well informed) opinions on what the earliest concept of the figure designated by the term "Satan" was and how that concept developed, is not, as you seem to think, at all in evidence. Nor, I think, is it something that you really have any warrant to be "sure" of.

Except you fail to show that that function is what the earliest, let alone any of more modern, concepts of Satan actually (or at least regularly) do.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Care to explain what you mean by "replete with caprice", and what you take to be evidence of your claim?

Jeffrey