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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

 

Dr. Elaine Pagels and the biblical
development of the concept of Satan

 

 

 

return to the main-page article on "Satan" 

 

 

Preview and Summary: The original concept of the satan began as one thing and evolved into another. "Satan" originally referred to one of God's loyal angels, which, like the Angel of Death at Passover, according to the text, might be sent to do God's will in the world. However, over time, more and more vindictive-baggage was added to the "satan" concept until finally it became a symbol of cosmic opposition to God. As the term developed in scripture, in its final form, we discover true-believers literally "demonizing" a political adversary by calling him the satan.

 

 

Dr. Elaine Pagels of Harvard, one of my favorite scholars, does a thorough job in her research. I would recommend all of her books. Though a gentle and refined spirit, she has many enemies in fundamentalism's camp as she overthrows their myths.

 

 

 

How the Hebrew word 'satan' developed in the Old Testament

Some within Israeli society, Elaine points out, blamed its misfortunes on Israel’s own disobedience to God. Among this group we find the prophets Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.

However, others laid blame upon Israel’s enemies, depicted as

“the monsters of Canaanite mythology […] Jon Levenson observes, ‘the enemies cease to be merely earthly powers […] and become, instead, or in addition, cosmic forces of the utmost malignancy.”

At times, this mythological imagery might be employed against fellow Israelites, but, most often, the chosen images of reproach were “not the animalistic or monstrous ones they regularly applied to their foreign enemies [but] they identified their Jewish enemies with an exalted, if treacherous, member of the divine court whom they called the satan."

“The satan is not an animal or monster but one of God’s angels, a being of superior intelligence and status; apparently, the Israelites saw their intimate enemies not as beasts and monsters but as superhuman beings whose insider status could make them more dangerous than the alien enemy.

"In the Hebrew Bible, as in mainstream Judaism to this day, satan never appears as Western Christendom has come to know him, as the leader of an 'evil empire,' an army of hostile spirits who make war on God and humankind alike.”

“In the collection of documents … known to Christians as the Old Testament, the word [satan] never appears … as the name of the adversary … rather, when the satan appears in the Old Testament, he is a member of the heavenly court, albeit with unusual tasks.” (Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth)

 

"the satan" first appears in the Bible as one of God's loyal servants.

“As he first appears in the Hebrew Bible, satan is not necessarily evil, much less opposed to God. On the contrary, he appears in the book of Numbers and in Job as one of God’s obedient servants – a messenger, or angel… In Hebrew, the angels were often called ‘sons of God,’ and were envisioned as the hierarchical ranks of a great army, or the staff of a royal court.

“In biblical sources the Hebrew term the satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century BCE occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any one of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root [Hebrew, stn] means ‘one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.’ (The Greek term diabolos, later translated devil, literally means ‘one who throws something across one’s path.’)

“The satan [is one] who by God’s own order or permission, blocks or opposes human plans and desires. But this messenger is not necessarily malevolent. God sends him, like the angel of death, to perform a specific task, although one that human beings may not appreciate; as … Neil Forsyth says of the satan, ‘If the path is bad, an obstruction is good.’

“The story of Balaam in the biblical book of Numbers tells of a man who decided to go where God had ordered him not to go. Balaam saddled his donkey and set off, ‘but God’s anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as his [Hebrew, satan]’ – that is, as his adversary, or his obstructor…

[The satan speaks to Balaam:] “Behold, I came here to oppose you, because your way is evil in my eyes … if [the donkey] had not turned aside from me, I surely would have killed you right then.

“The book of Job too describes the satan as a supernatural messenger, a member of God’s royal court… the satan terrifies and harms a person but, like the angel of death, remains an angel, a member of the heavenly court, God’s obedient servant."

Elaine offers other Old Testament examples of this view of the satan. However, a time would come when this term would acquire a new meaning.

After the Babylonian exile, the returning Jews were eager to rebuild the Temple; however, these were not warmly received by those who had been left behind. A kind of civil war ensued, a struggle for leadership in what would be the new Jerusalem.

It was at this time (circa 600 BCE) that satan takes on new meaning in the literature.

“As the biblical scholar Paul Hanson notes, the line that had once divided the Israelites from their enemies had separated them from foreigners. Now the line separated two groups within Israel … [the returning exiles] regarded these [indigenous] brethren as essentially no different from Canaanites.’

“The prophet Zechariah sides with the returning exiles in this heated conflict and recounts a vision in which the satan speaks for the [local Jewish] inhabitants who accuse the returning high priest of being a worthless candidate…

 

 

Kevin Williams of near-death.com: "If the devil really existed, he would have appeared at least once in the thousands of near-death experience reports I have read. I have found none."

 

 

“Here the satan speaks for a disaffected – and unsuccessful – party against another party of fellow Israelites. In Zechariah’s account of factions within Israel, the satan takes on a sinister quality … and his role begins to change from that of God’s agent to that of his opponent.”

I will abbreviate Elaine’s discussion, but I would encourage you to read her work.

Four hundred years later, about 150 BCE, during the time of the Maccabean revolt, the inter-testamental literature employs the use of satan to speak of the foreign enemies of Israel.

“No longer one of God’s faithful servants, he begins to become what he is for Mark and for later Christianity – God’s antagonist, his enemy, even his rival.”

Essentially, "the satan" became a political term, a pejorative to be hurled at one's hated opposition. It was a way of saying, "You're not just wrong, you're evil, and against the will of God!"

 

Final thoughts on the research of Dr. Pagels

The original concept of the satan began as one thing and evolved into another. "Satan" originally referred to one of God's loyal angels, which, like the Angel of Death at Passover, might be sent to do God's will in the world.

However, over time, more and more vindictive-baggage was added to the "satan"-concept until finally it became a symbol of cosmic opposition to God.

As the term developed in scripture, as it neared its final form, we discover true-believers literally "demonizing" a political adversary by calling him the satan.

 

 

Editor's last word:

Fundamentalists will agree that Satan began as loyal angel of God, but will claim that later he turned away and became God's enemy, as pictured in the book of Revelation.

I would say this view is quite wrong. 

Zechariah, as we've seen, speaks of "the satan" in reference to political enemies, flesh-and-blood people, not disloyal angels. As the scholars point out, we find the evolving term "satan" employed as pejorative against mortals, not heavenly beings. This is how the term developed. We can see this in the biblical record.

Revelation, as we've discussed elsewhere, presents a blizzard of symbols and must not be taken literally; prime example: the number seven is used 57 times in the book, which surfeit of occurrence argues for symbolical meaning. Satan in that writing is an abstraction, and is sent to a fire that burns abstractions!

The writer of Revelation speaks in coded language so as to avoid persecution by oppressive powers of his day; which political-mindedness, historically, often served as basis for employment of the term "satan." Much of the writer's literal focus and intention is now lost to us, but one course is clear: we must avoid the book's surface-meanings, as the author's very purpose, by heavy use of symbolism, was to obfuscate literal, surface-meaning.

The scripture elsewhere is very clear on certain concepts, with no symbolism getting in our way: "The Eternal is One!" - God is a Singular Unity!

Everything is an expression of the Divine Will. There is no cosmic struggle between God and Satan; there was, or is, no war in heaven against God - that is an utter impossibility, a faithless and idolatrous conjecture. God has no competition. God is all and in all.

And we now possess, from many thousands of reports, empirical, scientific evidence of the unimpeachable harmony and happiness found in Summerland. There are no threats there of any kind; absolutely none. The bogeyman of Satan is just one more fable and fairy-tale of the ancient past used to control the fearful masses.

"The Eternal is One!" - God is One Pervasive Reality - and nothing, in the entire cosmos, exists as dualistic antagonism.

 

 

'the Eternal is One, there is nothing else': the parable of the two whirlpools

Elenchus. Our statements concerning “the Eternal is One, there is nothing else” are not easy to understand.

Kairissi. Which is why quantum mechanics’ assertions are also non-intuitive; that, consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all being in the universe, and that everything derives from Universal Consciousness.

E. It’s not intuitive because pretty much everyone is a materialist at heart. It’s really hard not to be; I mean, trees and tables, people and pineapples, all seem very solid to us. And not just solid, but they definitely seem to be “out there,” separate from ourselves.

K. It’s a hard sell to suggest, as the quantum experiments indicate, that everything is connected.

E. Moreover, mind does not live in a little house called the brain, but instead, the brain, the whole body, all people and the entire universe, exist within mind, within Universal Mind.

K. We’d like to report to our readers that we’ve encountered what is probably the best analogy to explain “the Eternal is One, there is nothing else”…

E. … and also that everything comes from, is made of, consciousness, Universal Consciousness. Let’s introduce Dr. Kastrup:

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, PhD philosophy, PhD computer science, for many years worked at CERN, the large hadron collider in Geneva.

E. Given Dr. Kastrup’s credentials, he’s probably the leading spokesman in the world today in terms of explaining the fraudulent doctrine of the primacy of matter.

K. He’s very hard to argue against. His erudition and sharp angle on logic reminds me of this:

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944), On The Art Of Reading: "A very well-informed person is an object of terror." 

E. This quote makes me smile, and readers will want to get Kastrup’s books for the full account, but for our purposes here let’s focus on his brilliant analogy of the two whirlpools:

K. Each human being corresponds to a different whirlpool; each person with his or her particular points of view and field of personal consciousness.

E. But here's where the fun begins. The whirlpools are not exactly stand-alone entities. These "bodies" are not substantive at all but only apparently so. And they might seem to exist "separately" in a vast ocean but, in reality, are connected, as each merely expresses, in a unique way, the underlying medium which is the ocean.

K. Each whirlpool is made of the same water, comes from the same source; so it is with apparently individual human minds.

E. Kastrup points out that these whirlpools-as-people are neither truly separate nor substantive but are "just undulations - disturbances - of the medium," be it the ocean or Universal Mind.

K. His thought-provoking definition of reality is a collection of "excitations" of Universal Consciousness.

E. This "parable of the two whirlpools" helps us visualize the meaning of "brains exist within consciousness" rather than "consciousness existing within brains."