Question about Satan
- Thread starter Renus
- Start date
The idea of struggle of good v. evil came into Judaism via Hellenistic influences and... was rejected during the Second Temple period and there after. That doesn't mean that that notion died altogether as it appeared in the early Christian source that were actually Jewish. To make the claim valid, proof text from Isaiah was misunderstood on purpose.and taken out of context and further expanded
by turning the Garden of Eden serpent into satan as well. However, the idea of G-d having an actual rival is and was foreign to the Judaism of the time and the present as the understanding of the nature of the deity was that of an almighty being without limits. Therefore it cannot be a biblical interpretation based on the context of the original text nor the plain meaning of the text. The translators made a "mistake" turning a poetic description into a proper name to fit their particular theology. Which, btw, is one of the fundamental differences between the Judaism and Christianity as Judaism never did and still does not have the belief in hell or the evil Satan- those are part of the Christian theology developed for its own need to justify the existence of their Deity.
Sure, he made the most famous bet with G-d in the Book of Job.
I agree with this except for the idea that this is due to a bad translation.
The move to a more dualistic approach with the Devil as a rival is one that predates Christianity (although, as you say, it is ultimately rejected in the Jewish tradition). Reading those ideas back into earlier texts isn't the cause, it is an effect. Like I said, the Hell tradition evolves outside of the Bible texts.
The King James translation choice is reifying a tradition that already exists, it doesn't cause it.
(I don't think we are actually all too far apart here.)
I don't think so, either. And I even think that the idea of an entity who opposes G-d and plagues humans was accepted in part to make the Jewish G-d all that greater- all good in two words. It was a misguided attempt, if it indeed happened, because it clearly violates the nature of G-d as described in the Torah- a being that is responsible for everything- good and evil.
I think there are a bunch of influences floating around at the time that kicks some of this off. But the Gnostic tradition (used broadly) shows up not long after Jesus and is clearly in the zeitgeist a that time. A number of those elements and approaches keep living on in the fringes of Jewish mysticism with the Kabbalah. So it's "out there" but the two religions end up dealing with it in very different ways. Like you say, Satan's role in the Hebrew Scriptures is wildly different from The Devil/Lucifer/Satan in the New Testament, let alone who the Devil becomes in later the later Christianities.
