Let’s talk about Satan. The devil is one of the scariest creatures in the whole Biblical story. The problem? Well, the Bible never describes the devil in the way the creature is portrayed today. The Bible rarely ever refers to Satan as a single figure or the chief of evil. The picture we are given from the Bible is far different. So, where did our modern understanding come from? Years of cultural influence and cherry-picking from other mythologies have given us a lord of the underworld that there is no Biblical basis for. This is the story of how Satan became a monster.
The Devil’s Name
The Satan described in the Bible is quite different from the satan we see in pop culture and even in today’s Christian teaching. Even his name is called into question. The Hebrew word satan means simply adversary or enemy. This is where many Christians get the term “the enemy.” However, there is no evidence that the Hebrew scriptures use this word as a proper name. Instead, biblical writers use the word to denote a role.
So what is the role of the biblical satan or enemy? Well, the oldest biblical book might have some answers for us.
Satan in the Book of Job
The book of Job opens with a very curious passage about the satan. It details a meeting of the creator, God’s heavenly counsel. In some passages of the Hebrew Bible, there are details of a group of godlike beings that make up a holy royal court of sorts. The satan, remember that word means adversary, is a member of this court with a role. His role appears to be to oppose humanity. A strange part for a member of God’s court, yes.
The Satan approaches God with a proposition to make Job’s life very difficult to test his faith in God. Surprisingly, God agrees with the satan’s plan and allows him to see it out. This differs from the often taught view that Satan is the ruler of an evil army of demons and opposed to God. In the book of Job, the Satan figure is in God’s inner circle.
The Devil for the Hebrews
Interestingly, the Hebrew Bible never refers to a chief of evil like we often understand the devil today. Instead, a conglomerate of evil figures tempt humanity and bring about evil by their actions. This is evidenced by the continual references to other gods and the evil that followed them. Notice the Old Testament makes a distinction between other gods and false gods. There was not a prince of darkness for the ancient Israelites, but rather many evil forces at work.
The Intertestamental Period and the Effect of the Exile
It is easy to assume that the Old Testament ended in the timeline of events, and then the New Testament picks up right where the previous had left off. However, there were roughly 400 years between the Old and the New Testaments. Within that period, often called the intertestamental period, there was an event of major significance for the Hebrews; the exile.
The Hebrews were invaded and exiled to Babylon. The temple was destroyed, the nation was nearly flattened, and the survivors were forced to start a new life not as Israelites but as Babylonians. The Israelites hated their captors, and their theology began to morph throughout their multi-centennial exile. Rather than many other figures of evil at work in the world, there was one, and for the Israelites, it was Babylon itself. The teachings of the sources of corruption began to be taught in that way, and by the time the writings of the New Testament were being penned, this theology had permeated Judaism.
Satan After the Bible
After the Bible was completed, the teachings about the devil morphed slowly over centuries. First, teaching from other faiths, including Zoroastrianism, Greco-Roman theology, and even Babylonian myth, influenced the early Christian understanding of the devil. Later the arts and theater influenced the physical attributes of satan. Eventually, works of literature like Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante’s Inferno provided foundations for the changes of who or what was Satan.
Conclusion
Satan, like many things in history, changed regularly over time. Even within the Biblical story, the description of the devil changed. The picture we see today bears little resemblance to what we see in the Bible. There is no evidence that any figure is at war with God and leads an army of demons within hell. Even if there was, there are no descriptions of this figure that could be ascribed to what we see in pop culture. While there are descriptions of some sort of enemy that opposes humanity, we see far more of the propensity towards evil that humanity has itself. Unfortunately, Christians have chosen to personify evil and avoid that character over the millennia of the faith rather than face the evil within themselves and root it out.
Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning, and laughing a whole lot while you do, then you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode right now!
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