Satan: from Judaism to Christianity

[CG Didymus]

I hate being the last one to post. Hello? Anybody out there? This is a really important subject. Come on? Anybody?

 

[crossfire]

I've got no answers for you, just more questions. I quoted your post because I thought it was worth putting back into the mix. I was shocked when I learned that "the devil" was not from Judaism. Christianity clearly needs their Satan to make sense. Without him, Jesus, salvation, Revelation, the whole New Testament is a lie. It sounds like the dualistic concepts were present at the time, but they were never accepted into mainstream Judaism? Wow, this is a monumental mystery how the devil got to be so important in the Jesus story?

To bring up Isaiah 14:12, but in the negative way, I think is important. It shows how early Christians had to force Satan/the devil into the Hebrew Bible. They can't say they got it from non-canonical books or from pagan religions. They need it to be present in the Hebrew Bible. It's strange how that verse is used to come up with the name Lucifer. One place, one verse and an evil star is born. Is it all superstition? I hope so. But then, without Satan who is Jesus?

Phosphoros/Lucifer is not evil according to Peter--symbolizes understanding

2 Peter 1:19 (blue letter bible concordance)
We have 2192 also 2532 a more sure 949 word 3056 of prophecy 4397; whereunto 3739 ye do 4160 well 2573 that ye take heed 4337 , as 5613 unto a light 3088 that shineth 5316 in 1722 a dark 850 place 5117, until 2193 3757 the day 2250 dawn 1306 , and 2532 the day star5459 arise 393 in 1722 your 5216 hearts 2588:

Day star: Strong's Greek #5459 φωσφόρος, phōsphoros Greek term for Latin Lucifer

1) light bringing, giving light
2) the planet Venus, the morning star, day star
3) metaph. Christ

second picture can be found here
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[Ingledsva]

It's poetry. It's imagery, not a legal handbook. I believe that Isaiah is suggesting in the hyperbolic imagery of his poetry that just as God could punish and overwhelm the heavenly hosts (q.v.) if they displeased Him, He can and will bring low the mighty of earth, including kings and princes of Israel, of Assyria, and other nations of that area, when they displease Him.

Yep! Yhis is how I translated Isaiah 24:21.

Isaiah 24:21 And shall come to pass a day in which YHVH shall judge over the people/gathered host, the high/haughty/mighty in position, and the kings of the earth accordingly.

 

[Ingledsva]

I've got no answers for you, just more questions. I quoted your post because I thought it was worth putting back into the mix. I was shocked when I learned that "the devil" was not from Judaism. Christianity clearly needs their Satan to make sense. Without him, Jesus, salvation, Revelation, the whole New Testament is a lie. It sounds like the dualistic concepts were present at the time, but they were never accepted into mainstream Judaism? Wow, this is a monumental mystery how the devil got to be so important in the Jesus story?

To bring up Isaiah 14:12, but in the negative way, I think is important. It shows how early Christians had to force Satan/the devil into the Hebrew Bible. They can't say they got it from non-canonical books or from pagan religions. They need it to be present in the Hebrew Bible. It's strange how that verse is used to come up with the name Lucifer. One place, one verse and an evil star is born. Is it all superstition? I hope so. But then, without Satan who is Jesus?

And in fact, Isaiah 14:12 isn't about some devil either.

Isa 14:4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

 

[gnostic]

Nevertheless, Judaism don't accept that angels could disobey and rebel against god, nor do they believe Satan is God's enemy.

Any Jew here, would point that out to you.

Judaism is not monolithic in belief.

I didn't say it is.

Nevertheless a number of Jewish members state quite clearly that they don't believe in rebellion in heaven, nor Satan as God's enemy and they don't believe that angels could possibly "fall", because they have no free will.

Why don't you look at my thread - Jews only: Is there or was there a war in heaven?

A fair number of them had contribute there, giving us their thoughts on Satan and angels from several different Jewish perspectives.

 

[CG Didymus]

Nevertheless a number of Jewish members state quite clearly that they don't believe in rebellion in heaven, nor Satan as God's enemy and they don't believe that angels could possibly "fall", because they have no free will.

Why don't you look at my thread - Jews only: Is there or was there a war in heaven?

A fair number of them had contribute there, giving us the thought on Satan and angels from several different Jewish perspectives.

If there is a spirit world filled with spirit beings that have free will? Yikes! They could choose to be as bad as us. They could come down and lead us all astray and deceive us into believing false religions, have sex with us and create monsters, and all sorts of evil. But, without free will, then what? Without the "fall" and without "the devil", where is Christianity?

 

[gnostic]

If there is a spirit world filled with spirit beings that have free will? Yikes! They could choose to be as bad as us. They could come down and lead us all astray and deceive us into believing false religions, have sex with us and create monsters, and all sorts of evil. But, without free will, then what? Without the "fall" and without "the devil", where is Christianity?

The religion - Judaism - was evolving from the time of Babylonian Exile and the Return, right throughout the Second Temple Period, which ended in 70 CE.

The Second Temple Period, the returning Jews have encountered a number of foreigner religions, influencing their own religion, like the dualism of Zoroastrianism, the Hellenistic Greek mystery cults and the Egyptian cults.

By the time of Jesus and co, the books of Enoch and book of jubilees, and other Hellenistic apocryphal literature were to influence 1st century Christian thinking. And satan underwent similar change, going from a servant and agent of god to god's archenemy ( the devil).

 

[Shermana]

There's no reason to believe that Enoch was "Hellenistic", and there's no reason to believe that such ideas were not "Judaic", or that the ideas of the later Talmudic Rabbis regarding such were necessarily in conformity to the ideas before that time.

 

[CG Didymus]

Why don't you look at my thread - Jews only: Is there or was there a war in heaven?

A fair number of them had contribute there, giving us their thoughts on Satan and angels from several different Jewish perspectives.

For me, this is one of the most important threads here at the Forum. Thanks for doing it. And a brilliant move to make it a "Jewish only" question. When Christians talk about people being deceived by the devil, who is really being deceived? They could very well be following a myth.

 

[gnostic]

There's no reason to believe that Enoch was "Hellenistic", and there's no reason to believe that such ideas were not "Judaic", or that the ideas of the later Talmudic Rabbis regarding such were necessarily in conformity to the ideas before that time.

The books of Enoch were written in the Hellenistic period.

And with Judaea-formerly-Judah being a province of several foreign occupiers/invaders, as well as being a stop in trading route for east and west, it would be more than understandable that Jews would borrow and adapt ideas into their stories.

Pre-Exilic Judaism never had story of angelic rebellion, and dualism between good and evil, so these ideas had to come from somewhere.

In these foreign beliefs, there are conflicts between good and evil. In Zoroastrianism, there were Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. With the Greeks, there were the Olympians vs the Titans, or Zeus vs Kronos, or Dionysus vs the Titans. And with Egyptian cults, there were Re vs Apophis, Re vs Seth, Osiris vs Seth, or Horus vs Seth.

The Book of Enoch (or 1 Enoch) provide us with the first literary evidence to support the "rebellion" in heaven (without Satan), prior to the start of Christianity. By the time the gospels and revelation were written, Christianity have had their new fall guy in place - the modified Satan aka the Devil.

You don't have to COPY a myth, but you can borrow or adapt new idea to modify current belief. With God having no counterpart in earlier Judaism, and instead of creating a completely new character, Christians had modified one of the angels, to be God's (and Jesus') enemy.

The only direct evidences in the NT, to support this rebellion in heaven, comes from Revelation (chapter 12 or 13 or something, I can't remember; it morning here, and I am too lazy to look it up; it's the ones about Michael overthrowing the great dragon). This is only part in the entire bible (both OT and NT), which explicitly identified Satan with the dragon, and Satan's involvement with the fallen angels. But the question is - can we take anything written in Revelation seriously?

 

[CG Didymus]

The Book of Enoch (or 1 Enoch) provide us with the first literary evidence to support the "rebellion" in heaven (without Satan), prior to the start of Christianity. By the time the gospels and revelation were written, Christianity have had their new fall guy in place - the modified Satan aka the Devil.

...can we take anything written in Revelation seriously?

In Enoch, the rebellion didn't include Satan? What about Peter's apocalypse? Anything significant in it? And, why did it get rejected from getting into the Bible? And, I didn't read all of the thread yet, but it was getting into demons as being part of Jewish beliefs but different from angels. What's going on there?

 

[gnostic]

In Enoch, the rebellion didn't include Satan?

Not unless all these fallen Watchers were Satan.http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...ates/144492-satan-judaism-christianity-3.html

 

[Shermana]

The books of Enoch were written in the Hellenistic period.

Which doesn't make it hellenistic per se. We actually don't know when Enoch 1 was written, the 300 B.C.-ish date is highly suspect, they've been trying to late date it as much as possible, and there's really no way of proving the dating. As if the Dead Sea scroll writers would just immediately incorporate it if it had no longstanding traction?

And with Judaea-formerly-Judah being a province of several foreign occupiers/invaders, as well as being a stop in trading route for east and west, it would be more than understandable that Jews would borrow and adapt ideas into their stories.

Which doesn't mean it was necessarily "Hellenistic". In fact, there's very little in the concept of Enoch that directly correlates to Greek culture. You could call the idea of the Giants being born from "gods" which is the earliest Rabbinical concept from what I understand relating to Genesis 6 a direct parallel to the Greek idea of the Titans ravaging the Earth.

Pre-Exilic Judaism never had story of angelic rebellion, and dualism between good and evil, so these ideas had to come from somewhere.

Good luck proving that's necessarily the case.

In these foreign beliefs, there are conflicts between good and evil. In Zoroastrianism, there were Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. With the Greeks, there were the Olympians vs the Titans, or Zeus vs Kronos, or Dionysus vs the Titans. And with Egyptian cults, there were Re vs Apophis, Re vs Seth, Osiris vs Seth, or Horus vs Seth.

So I take it you don't believe that early Judaism was considered more "Polytheistic" (Henotheistic) than it was later on?

The Book of Enoch (or 1 Enoch) provide us with the first literary evidence to support the "rebellion" in heaven (without Satan), prior to the start of Christianity. By the time the gospels and revelation were written, Christianity have had their new fall guy in place - the modified Satan aka the Devil.

You don't have to COPY a myth, but you can borrow or adapt new idea to modify current belief. With God having no counterpart in earlier Judaism, and instead of creating a completely new character, Christians had modified one of the angels, to be God's (and Jesus') enemy.

Or they took the idea from Job and incorporated it perhaps. But considering that the Gospel writers were mostly Jewish, I don't see them making up an entirely new Angelology altogether beyond what they had already known.

The only direct evidences in the NT, to support this rebellion in heaven, comes from Revelation (chapter 12 or 13 or something, I can't remember; it morning here, and I am too lazy to look it up; it's the ones about Michael overthrowing the great dragon). This is only part in the entire bible (both OT and NT), which explicitly identified Satan with the dragon, and Satan's involvement with the fallen angels. But the question is - can we take anything written in Revelation seriously?

Well it also says that Jesus saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky. Considering how vague that reference is, I'd say its more likely they were evoking an idea that was well in circulation along with everything else, like Philo's Logos Theology.

I think Revelation should indeed be taken very seriously because it involves concepts that early Jewish Christians were likely already well familiar with.

 

[CG Didymus]

Or they took the idea from Job and incorporated it perhaps. But considering that the Gospel writers were mostly Jewish, I don't see them making up an entirely new Angelology altogether beyond what they had already known.

What did they know and where did those notions come from? I was happy with believing that Satan/devil came into Judaism from Mithraism, Zoroastrianism and a little bit of Greek religious ideas and then into Christianity. Are you thinking something different?

 

[Shermana]

What did they know and where did those notions come from? I was happy with believing that Satan/devil came into Judaism from Mithraism, Zoroastrianism and a little bit of Greek religious ideas and then into Christianity. Are you thinking something different?

I don't see how this whole "Mixing" concept comes into play. Mithraism is a much later religion for one thing, there's no reason whatsoever to believe that these ideas didn't exist before Persian culture, let alone Greek culture were permeating the Jewish culture. If anything, there was a fierce reaction against Hellenization, and what Hellenization there was, was mostly just Greek philosophy as opposed to the actual religious concepts. Perhaps this notion that these ideas were totally foreign to early Judaism is a later Rabbinical perspective at best.

I'm not claiming what they DID know, but what I'm claiming is that it's just as baseless to say that the Jews got these ideas from later influences as it is to say that the Rabbinical view of Judaism was the same view of pre-exile Judaism. We simply don't know what they believed, and there's plenty of reason to believe that they DID believe in evil spirits at the time. It also seems that the idea of Genesis 6 of the Fallen angels was not necessarily a totally Greek invention, and if anything, the idea that it was just "The sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain" or something along those lines WAS the "Hellenistic" view that made it into Judaism. If there was a "Hellenist" mixing with Judaism, it was the more "Rationalist"/Aristotlean perspective, not the Hellenic Mythicist.

We also don't really know when Enoch was written. As Ethiopian orthodox scholars have pointed out, the late dating for the book has no real basis. It's been late-dated for some arbitrary, not well explained reason for a long time and even with the DSS discovery they want to believe that it was kept by the Qumran community immediately after its writing. We just don't know. We cannot make a claim that its a Hellenized/Persian/Canaanite concept whatsoever. It very well could have played a part in early Jewish belief, and I'd personally say that from what we know, the early Jews DID believe in the existence of more gods than just THE god, they were Henotheistic, and this concept may very well have included a concept of rebellious gods for all we know.

What we can see is that even in Job, the Adversary is still seen as a wicked figure who acts as a tempter and punisher. Job was most likely written before any of these events. The idea of a rebellion in Heaven could technically be somehow traced to even Canaanite views if we wanted to have some interpretations of the wars of the gods around then.

So the best position to take is that we have no idea of what exactly the ancient Jews believed, but we DO know that there's some kind of figure known by the time of the writing of Job, unless we assume that the author completely made up the concept on the spot and wasn't drawing on earlier traditions and themes, of some sort of accuser/punisher/tempter figure who is capable of drawing even the most high god into a situation where he has to prove people's hearts through trials of severe pain and distress.

In essence, it's not far removed at all from the Christian idea of Satan tempting people and being "the god of this world/age", as in the one who has the authority to test people and empower the wicked to test others.

 

[CG Didymus]

So the best position to take is that we have no idea of what exactly the ancient Jews believed, but we DO know that there's some kind of figure known by the time of the writing of Job, unless we assume that the author completely made up the concept on the spot and wasn't drawing on earlier traditions and themes, of some sort of accuser/punisher/tempter figure who is capable of drawing even the most high god into a situation where he has to prove people's hearts through trials of severe pain and distress.

In essence, it's not far removed at all from the Christian idea of Satan tempting people and being "the god of this world/age", as in the one who has the authority to test people and empower the wicked to test others.

Having been raised Catholic, I was taught that angels and demons were real. At about 6 years, on a Halloween night, I opened the curtains to a window and thought I saw evil spirits in the shadows. Another time, after a rainstorm, I saw little angels in the big puffing thunderheads. There's been times when I didn't see any angels or demons but felt either a dark, evil presence or felt an incredible power that felt like pure love.The thing is, it all depended on what I was taught and believed to be true.

Now, looking back, I can see a very superstitious aspect to it. I was told to pray to Mary or to wear a cross to make sure I was protected from the dark side. How different was this than a tribal society appeasing their gods? If they didn't make a good enough sacrifice, evil would befall upon them. If I didn't go to church or read the Bible, then I was open for attack by the evil spirits. Or, by neglecting them, I had put the negative things in motion for something bad to happen.

So as far as evil and evil gods go, hasn't it always been part of most of our religions? And don't most, if not all, religions have their rules, laws and commandments that must be followed to avoid "God's" wrath? If Judaism had some sort of malevolent god doing the bad things,that would make things easier. The devil is much easier to blame than God, and that would make a smooth transition into Christianity. But it sounds like God did his own dirty work. He did the testing and punishing. He sent the flood and the fire from the sky--except in Job, and then he authorized and delegated it out.

So I don't know. Evil is dark and empty and seems to have a spiritual reality to it. But so does love and doing good. Love fills the heart and seems bigger and greater than us. So is there a good God and an evil Satan? Or, does it only seem real, because that is what I was taught? But then, what about natural disasters and disease? Why would God need them? Does he cause earthquakes and floods? Does he throw lightening bolts from heaven? And if he's not doing it directly, would he put them under control of a lessor evil god? I hope not, but he did when it came to Job.

So really, how much different is Judaism and Christianity to the pagan religions? A Supreme God with all power that punishes his people for their disobedience. Or, a Supreme God that delegates power to an "adversary" to tempt and test them. Or, a Supreme God that has an opponent that he created but then rebelled--a being that is all evil but God allows him to torment and tempt humans for a time. For sure Christianity needs Satan--Judaism, not so much.