Essenes, Rabbis, and Christians
For we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, more than once—and yet Satan hindered us.1 Thessalonians 2:18 NASB
Satan– What was the first century Jewish view of “Satan”? Why does Paul refer to Satan when he writes to the Thessalonians? Where did the idea come from?
For most contemporary believers, Satan is as real as it gets. He and his cohorts rule the world, interfere with God’s purposes all the time and are intent on preventing human beings from being saved. In fact, in Christian circles Satan is often treated as a being virtually equal to God in power and persistence. He is responsible for all kinds of bad things and even if he loses the war in the end, he is a considerable adversary now.
Dante added a lot to our view of Satan (and Hell) but his character and power were also enhanced by centuries of pagan syncretism in the Church. I often take photos in Catholic churches of fantastic creatures, fertility goddesses, and demons painted up and down the walls, all incorporated into the “Christian” message. As Camille Paglia said, “ . . . Judeo-Christianity never did defeat paganism, which still flourishes in art, eroticism, astrology, and pop culture.”[1] And we might add, in the Church itself.
The problem with Satan is that the Tanakh never really treat ha-satanas a uniquely identifiable being. In the Tanakh, ha-satanis more like an office in the divine court, an adversary whose job is to raise questions about human loyalty and obedience. In fact, the word is used of real human persons, not just divine figures. But by the time Hellenism had penetrated the thinking of the Mediterranean world, all of this changed. In the Qumran documents, “The angel of darkness is the same as Belial elsewhere, whom God has created, with whom he is in conflict, who oppresses the righteous, and who will finally be judged. The term stn occurs in the Scrolls only three times in obscure connections.”[2] In later Judaism, “The rabbis suggest that the devil is a fallen angel, although Qumran finds no place for this view.”[3] In the Gospels, Satan has a role much like the accuser in Job (an office). It’s worth noting: “In general, the NT does not refer to a primal fall of Satan. Thus Jn. 8:44 speaks of lying from (rather than in) the beginning (cf. 1 Jn. 3:8). Rev. 12:9 equates Satan with the serpent, but the NT does not relate Satan to the angel of death or the evil impulse.”[4] We also find that “Satan” is referred to by a host of Greek terms: ho peirázōn, sataná, ho diábolos, ho echthrós, and ho ponērós.”[5] “John uses ho diábolos, ho satanás, ho ponērós, and ho árchōn toú kósmouas terms for the devil.” [6]Furthermore, “No explanation of the origin of Satan is present in the Synoptists but they portray a single force that seeks human destruction and that is broken, although not yet completely eliminated, by the work of Jesus.”[7]
With this background we discover that “Satan” isn’t quite the uniform idea that the Church presents. Additionally, until we trace the development of “Satan” in early Christian and Medieval theology, we are probably left with a conglomerate idea rather than a clear picture of some essentially morally corrupt, powerful being.
Makes you wonder why the West put some much emphasis on Satan and his minions, doesn’t it? Maybe C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien did more damage than good.
Topical Index: Satan, 1 Thessalonians 2:18
[1]Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickenson, p. xiii.
[2]Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament(1007). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
“A rose is a rose is a rose”, or so said Gertrude Stein and Satan is Satan under any nomenclature. The etymology of the word Satan is discussed briefly by church father Justin Martyr.
“… is addressed as Satan, showing that a compounded name was acquired by him from the deeds which he performed. For ‘Sata’ in the Jewish and Syrian tongue means apostate; and ‘Nas’ is the word from which he is called by interpretation the serpent, i.e., according to the interpretation of the Hebrew term, from both of which there arises the single word Satanas”.
Another name which sheds light ( pun intended) on this adversary appears in Isaiah 14:12, KJV
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”
In Latin, Lucifer means “light bringer.” The Hebrew is heylel and means “light bearer, shining one, or morning star.” Other translations translate this as “star of the morning” or “morning star.”
Other names for Satan include “ancient serpent” and “serpent of old” (Revelation 12:9), “Beelzebub” (Matthew 12:27), “Belial” (2 Corinthians 6:15), and “tempter” (Matthew 4:3). Satan is also referred to as the “god of this world/age” (II Corinthians 4:4), “father of lies” (John 8:44) and “prince of this world” (John 12:31). Satan is called “dragon” in Revelation 12:9 as well as “the evil one” in several places.
For those of us who take an apocalyptic supernatural world view where evil is personified in the present physical realm by forces from the unseen realm, the reality of Satan/Devil/Lucifer/ is as real as real can get. Demons, angels, or as Paul declares in Colossians 1:16
” …all things that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers…” are not archetypes, literary symbols or fairy tales.
Yeshua, 2nd Temple Judaism and the early church not only believed in the existence of Satan and his minions, but that they actively opposed them is incontrovertible. One can explain Satan and demons and the Underworld away or even wish them away, but that may not be the best strategy. Just ask the ostrich or the Gadarene Demoniac.
I have found that just trying to explain Satan away does not get rid of the problem. I think it just buries the chain we are tied with; therefore I don’t find it very useful. In fact, I have found it quite damaging. Heaven seems to treat us humans as victims of sin: not originators of it, too. If you only have the human heart as the motivator (tempter) of itself to blame for not only the lies but for falling for them, too. I say this is a particularly cruel version of blaming the victim, and modern couches (as well as modern religions, such as the New Age) are full of varying species of blaming the victim. This has been the single biggest headache for me in trying to deal with folks who have to believe that it’s all their fault. I say, if God does not treat us as if we were to blame for our problem, then neither should we.
Further, if we are the only ones to blame for being in our ditches: if we not only do not inherit the subsequent damage of the choices of those who went before us, as well as the damage we end up with as a result of our own wrong choices being the result of lies WE DID NOT KNOW WERE LIES, then there is no remedy, for even Hebrews 10:26 distinguishes between what are ignorant sins and willful sins (“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins.”). Our Kinsman Redeemer treats us as if we got cheated out of our inheritance by somebody else, and He BUYS US BACK from somebody (“the god of this world”?) that IS NOT US. If we were responsible for our own sin, then not only would He have to had to negotiate with us on that buyback, He would have had no basis for the buyback because neither Old Testament or New had an allowance for “deliberate” (“known”) sin. In other words, sacrifices only worked for people who sinned as a result of believing something that was not true: they were still looking for love.
Most sin happens because we are already stuck by previous fallout from bad choices: we are stuck in automatic reverse, and I think most sin occurred in the first place NOT because we were openly defying heaven but because we didn’t know how to tell the difference between heaven and hell, and, further, lacked the motive power of love to power up into better choices. Also, God treats us more like stupid sheep being devoured by an adversary than as His adversary. In fact, not once in the Bible have I found it calling us the adversary. It seems to think we (along with heaven) have one: not are one.
The other thing I think we need to look at is how the rest of the planet views the adversary. All false religion in some way puts the adversary on the throne: they worship a force field of some sort not of God that they consider as the reigning local power that must be bargained with before their choices will ‘work’ (be enforced). If there is, in fact, no alternate force not of God, then the rest of the planet suffers from delusion along with folks who straight up think the devil is messing with them. But if we go look at what the top initiates in all these “secret” religions (all false religion has not only a hierarchy of initiation into the ‘mysteries’ of that religion (in other words, the top knows stuff the bottom does not know) we see an open admission of understanding of what they know they are serving, and NONE of them (except the modern church of humanism: I do mean atheism in all its flavors) worship self as its own motivational force. If the devil does not exist, however, then the atheists are the only ones who have this right. Are we supposed to agree with them, then? Even the Church of Satan, who tells all its lower levels that self is supreme, bows down at the top to something (or someone) other than self. People who worship angels (species of devil worship) will tell you it is not all in their heads (self generated) either: the angels manifesting are quite real and ‘other’ than themselves.
If the devil and his minions are not real forces to deal with, then why did Yeshua constantly deal with them? Why didn’t He ever think that He (or those around Him) were just tempting themselves? Why didn’t He just tell the sick folks He healed that they needed to psychologically adjust themselves? Instead, He treated them as victims that had been defrauded. In our society, what would happen if we just punished everybody who fell for a lie instead of blaming the ones who lied to them? If you get rid of the devil, only the victims of sin are left, lying to themselves. I say, who taught them how to do that? If the adversary does not exist, then we have to believe that Eve was hallucinating, but even she didn’t act like she had just done all that to herself. If the adversary does not exist, then what was Yeshua doing in that wilderness? Tempting Himself? Then why doesn’t the text just say so?
If we don’t have another source of motivations not of God, then we are left motivating ourselves to sin instead of partnering with God and being powered with His love. But Yeshua NEVER treated anybody as if they were the sources of their own problems. He forgave them for falling for lies: not for openly defying heaven. Because, of course, by the time people know (have met) their alternate power source not of God, and signed on to the deal of denying love altogether, there is no forgiveness for that open defiance. The way I read it, both Old and New Testaments agree on that, but both of them seem to treat most of us as victims: not as mercenaries.
I think most of us are still looking for love in all the wrong places for all the wrong ‘reason’s (motivations), which is ignorance of both the real problem as well as ignorance of the real solution. This is the condition I think grace and mercy exist for. If we all were merely the sources of our own sin, none of us would be ignorant, and therefore, no sacrifice would be possible. I think perhaps folks of old time might not have caught on yet to the extent of the existence of their adversary or what power they were handing over in their lives to a force not of God, but heaven always knew, and there has always been a sacrifice that works for that.
@Laurita wrote… “But Yeshua NEVER treated anybody as if they were the sources of their own problems. He forgave them for falling for lies: …”
Jesus said forgive them for they know not what they do…
“In the Tanakh, ha-satan is more like an office in the divine court, an adversary whose job is to raise questions about human loyalty and obedience. In fact, the word is used of real human persons, not just divine figures.”
This is a bit ambiguous, Skip…did you mean to imply that ‘office’ is a function (rather than a created being)? Or, perhaps, the functional office performed/filled by a created being? (The context indicates the latter to me.)
While I agree that too much “creativity” has been applied in understanding the text of Scripture regarding ‘ha satan’, it seems clear that the biblical text conveys the understanding that there are created spiritual beings functioning in association with the sovereign Creator and at his disposition. Even so, the connections between the spiritual realm/(s?) and our experience of existence on planet earth are not explicit except one: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the (S)pirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born [‘conceived’] again [or, ‘from above’].’
And that, along with so many other texts in scripture that speak of spiritual reality, requires a proper guide…”How can I [understand] unless someone guides me?”…
…”I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now. But when he—the Spirit of truth—comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will proclaim to you the things to come. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and will proclaim it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he takes from what is mine and will proclaim it to you.”
Very interesting discussion. God does not expect us to understand but rather just do. That is faith.
Theology tries to get us to understand so that we can do… That is religion.
Through the eyes of religion I am doomed as I understand but do not… Serpent explains a truth Eve acknowledges and gets Adam to also try knowledge or rather understanding what we are busy with… bring light before our time is there…
God says he will call and guide. Religious view is be quick save the uninformed… From what becoming informed to judge and condemn themselves…
Salvation is in the anointing and empowering not in the measuring and doing.
Skip has brought us through revealing that we do not be like Solomon and ask to know and discern between good and evil. For this will give us wisdom but the understanding will bring us… Condemnation.
Our relationship with God is wait I will call and task until then keep yourself busy studying the will of God as shared by others he had called. Wait does that mean do evil. No it means practice the truth we know then wait for God to anoint.
Stanley, Lucifer the morning star. Is this not the same title originally earmarked for Yeshau as some refer to him as this.
Laurita yes by implying we know God’s will in our lives we discern between right and wrong and this gives us a guilty feeling… Is the judge the deed salvation through anointing? No, Moses the law we rely on to save us. The process or understanding of what is right and wrong. It is wrong to have sex with a whore but God instructs to marry one yes that means have sex as well. Good is accepting and forgiving evil is continuing to judge… It is wrong to prepare food on the sabbath why is it not wrong to eat it? You said some time ago God sends us into the wilderness so that we can be equipped… Not become learned but rather to experience how we need to rely solely on God. Yeshua three temptations bring this message home not the adversary. A judge measures according to expectations based on understanding right from wrong. Function of morning star, light and enlightened hearts of understanding… Wait but Paul said God provides this. When? We need to ask? Paul answers that as well after we have done the will or executed the anointing not before.
If I remember correct God is introduced to us that do not understand as a function. Love, salvation or saving etc. Norms and standards set limitations not boundaries. Difference limitations refers to may not or may only… Boundaries guiding and protecting within the specific relationship… Not within own knowledge.
I have come to understand that the Rabbis teach by asking to clarify for ourselves they do not teach by providing answers. Giving direct rules and norms is the role of the adversary. Here is right and wrong do right be saved… God says here is good and evil choose good and have a joyful blessed life. Good is life. Evil is death…
Sorry just getting carried away or excited over a topic I read in line with Yeshua’s words to Simon Peter. Get thee behind me Satan as you think the will of man not the will of God..
The man/woman of God is lead by the spirit of God. Where they go they know not and why they go they understand not. Until after the fullness of the anointing has been established. 20 20 hind vision…
In my opinion, the issue is not so much with the satan, the issue is with demons and their obvious prevalence in the Gospel/Acts accounts. This leads us straight to the question of whether the Gospel accounts and Acts are “God-breathed.” How much of Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke-Acts are creative imagination in line with the Hellenistic Judaism and artistic license alive during the first century? Were the Gospel/Acts accounts actually written by “Apostles” or close associates? Even if they were, there is an obvious distinction/disconnect between the descriptions of “Satan” and demonic activity (or lack thereof) in the Tanakh and the New Testament. How do we account for this? How much of the accounts in the New Testament are descriptions of actual events, and how much are the events interpretations or interpolations of events? The “inspiration” of the New Testament is distinctly the creation of Christian church dogma. Inspiration is intricately tied to the selection of the New Testament Canon. This process was firmly within the grip of the early Hellenistic Church, which ironically destroyed all documents which it deemed “heretical.” We believe these accounts are authentic because they are a part of the accepted “holy” writings. But how did they become holy, inspired texts? Because the authors claimed that they were? No. They became such by the passage of time and the preservation of the documents by the initiates, just like the Koran and the Book of Mormon. If we think that the Gospel accounts were the only accounts of Yeshua’s ministry floating around during the time of the first century, then we are sadly ignorant (e.g., Nag Hammadi). Furthermore, are we prepared to address whether these accounts reflect the oral tradition of Yeshua or something else?
Assuming that the Gospel accounts accurately reflect the actual events which occurred in Yeshua’s ministry, how do we account for the burgeoning accounts of apparent demon possession in Yeshua’s day?
Thank you that is my conclusion Paul. I’m sad that this has gone from one extreme to the other and is now (yet one more) huge controversy among Messianics. Seriously?!?!! Do we think we have to succumb to the “either or” idea of whether or not there are demons? Can’t we affirm that yes there are evil humans and yes there is mental illness and yes there are demons. I have personal experiences with all of the above. Why is it that we feel the need to deny any of these things? I lived in central CA where the orchards are irrigated by canal systems. People actually swim in them from time to time. At one point some brilliant person decided that they no longer wanted their illegal piranhas so they dumped them in one of the canals. A fisherman happened to catch one of them and not knowing what the thing was took it to fish and game immediately for identification. An APB went out to the valley concerning what had been found. Can you imagine what would happen if a swimmer decided that there was simply no such thing as piranhas in the canals? That’s how I see denying the existence of demons. Our theology concerning the little varmints is totally weird but denying that they exist is no less weird and in my opinion dangerous. Is The Satan a demon or ???????????? Does it have to be either or?
Shabbat Shalom, Paul. History teaches us that Paul and all the disciples, with the exception of one, gave up their lives for the sake of their Messiah. The Gospels and Acts declare emphatically that God raised up His son. I do not believe God was holding His breath while the Gospels and Acts were written, and then distributed throughout different regions of the world. Your questions are old and stale, and doesn’t do justice to the explosive growth of the sect of the Nazerenes in the first century. Shmuel Safrai, a Jewish scholar, believed toward the end of the first century there were up to 10,000 believers of Messiah in Jerusalem. I heard this years ago, and I am researching to find this quote. He was one of the original founders of the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research. I do not believe he was a follower of Yeshua.
We find בְלִיַּ֗עַלl, ḇᵉlı̂aʿal, as “man of Belial”, or “son of Belial”, used over a dozen times in the Tanakh (starting at Judges 19:22, 20:13). Belial is defined in the HALOT variously as uselessness, wickedness, disorder, destruction, originally, demon [not so sure this isn’t wishful thinking], villain, good for nothing. The term is used by itself to identify a specific individual in the Second Temple period, including Qumran (as this TW states), ‘OT apocrypha’, and the pseudepigrapha, as the Wikipedia entry indicates: en dot Wikipedia dot org/wiki/Belial#Second_Temple_period.
Here’s a section from the pseudepigraphical work Testament of the Twelve Partriarchs, as found in James Charlesworth’s two-volume set: And now, my children, you have heard everything. Choose for yourselves light or darkness, the Law of the Lord, or the works of Beliar (Testament of Levi, the third son of Jacob and Leah, 19:1). “Beliar” is the Aramaic spelling.
Belial is found only once in the NT, but its context is telling, as it dichotomizes Christ with Belial (cf. anti-Christ in John’s first epistle), along with other related things by means of description:
Though Paul uses “Satan” in 1 Thess 2:18—as per this TW—the Apostle uses some verbiage in his 2nd letter which seems to come directly from the “son/man of Belial” of the Tanakh, though with the new definition of ‘lawlessness’ in the Second Temple era (as implied in the Testament of Levi above). In 2 Thess 2:3 we find “man of lawlessness” who “sets himself up on God’s temple.” Compare that with 2 Cor 6:16 above (“temple”). And just a few verses later we find “lawless one” (2 Thess 2:8-9). Again, the context is about a figure, a real individual, who is diametrically opposed to Messiah.
In Matthew 12:24 the Pharisees call Beelzebub “the ruler of the demons” (archōn ho daimonion), claiming this is the power by which Yeshua expels demons. In response, Jesus makes a statement about ‘Satan driving out Satan’ (ho satanas). Clearly this indicates that Beelzebub = Satan.
So, who is this Belial (Beliar)? Well, who was Yeshua’s adversary in the wilderness, as told by the Synoptics? The Devil (ho diábolos)—just as the individual identified by John (see TW) in John 13:2 as the one who put betrayal in Judas Iscariot’s heart. And, in the “Lord’s Prayer”, who are we to ask to be delivered from (Matt 6:13)? The Evil One (ho ponērós)—the same entity John asks the Father to protect the disciples from in John 17:15.
As Michael Stanley said above: a rose by any other name…
It is the comment that “the devil made me do it” that is most illustrative of the benefit of the christian view of the devil. He is a scape goat for bad decisions. Yet the adversary is still about us. The ever present accuser has no power of his own that I recognize, but accusations and lies “the father of lies” can do great damage still, for we are susceptible to them. Yehovah has all the power, he ceded authority over the creation to Adam, that was stolen through the wretched decision to eat of the tree “of the knowledge of good and evil”. Messiah recovered the authority and the key’s at the cross. Regrettably the fruit of that tree of knowledge I understand to be independent human reason, is still tasty, popular and leads to spiritual death. A mental or intellectual life is not true life, our minds are for processing life they are not a place to live, and they are full of deceptions. Don’t eat that nasty fruit it is very disappointing and disheartening. Let Yehovah inform all your thoughts with his grace and truth.