After reading the latest drive-by witnessing post, I had a thought. This witness held that the resurrection of Jesus proved he was the Messiah. I realize that it takes more than that based on Hebrew scripture to fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah. However, I am wondering if a resurrection would necessarily even mean a miracle of g-d? Could Satan pull off a resurrection if he wanted to?
According to Jewish belief, Satan works for God as sort of a troubleshooter. He isn’t evil, and he can’t bring anyone back from the dead - only God can do that. All divine power comes from God, even the power wielded by angels such as Satan.
Judaism is monotheistic in the strictest sense. God knows all, and no-one can do anything unless He allows it.
Well, Pharaoh’s magicians could turn their staffs into snakes (Exodus 7:12) so clearly God doesn’t have a monopoly in the miracle department.
You know these questions about Judaica really might get more complete answers from the most observant if posted on days other than Shabbat.
Meanwhile here is an entry on the evolution of the concept of Satan in an online Jewish encyclopedia.
Alesan, I’m not sure about the all-knowing part being so absolute. Afterall the God of Torah does get pretty angry and disappointed with the people’s actions on several occasions. If God knew all then why get so upset when it happens?
BTW, when does God of Torah bring anyone back from the dead?
Also BTW, the Jewish concept of Messiah was more of a political beast than the Christian one. According to the Jewish tradition the Messiah will be a descendent of David who will bring all Jews back to the ways of Torah and gather them in Israel, cause the Temple to be rebuilt, cause Israel to live free and without threat, and usher in an age of peace and prosperity across the world. No supernatural events need apply. Still the job of waiting at the village gates for the Messiah to come and call out to the town that he was on his way was a desired job; you were pretty sure of steady employment.
The sun will set here in a few hours, and long has set in Israel. It ain’t like I demanded “And I want an answer NOW!!!” 
Really, I’m quite patient. If observant Jews prefer to wait until Monday to reply, I have no problem with that. 
Nah, that was just magic - mothing divine about it. Magic is just a part of the natural world. Witches, demons and giants exist in Jewish scripture and folklore, and they are just as mundane as us mortals.
Judaism is not deterministic: people have free will, they make choices, and those choices affect them and the world around them. Sometimes the choices they make wre wrong, in which case God gets angry at them so they mend their ways (or, in extreme cases, to make an example). God is constantly testing His people, and He’s not the kind of researcher to tamper with His results.
You may infer from this that God cannot see the future and is thus not omniscient. I disagree - this implies that there’s only one possible future, or that the future isn’t constantly in flux, or that such a thing as a future exists in the first place… but that’s a matter for anothe thread. A basic belief of Judasim is that the future isn’t set in stone, and any one of us can help change its course. After all, we were made in God’s image.
Satan is a servant of god, a.k.a. an angel. His role is to be “The Devil’s Advocate” in the “Heavenly” court." However, I do not know how much power he actually has. One tradition has Angel’s being totally powerless, and unable to do anything, save till god tell 'em to. Another has them wandering all over the place, doing what ever the hell they, and/or Wizards tell them to. I don’t recall a formal list of powers, save for in Occult literature (“the Powers of the Angels”), and that isn’t really Jewish, but medieval Christian.
Strange that the Egyptians couldn’t develop this mundane ability. It might’ve come in handy when the Assyrians invaded 600 years later. By then, the Egyptians should’ve learned how to turns grains of sand into warriors, or something.
You’re not working under the assumption that what you quoted was my personal opinion, right? Because what the OP asked for is Jewish belief, not the beliefs of individual Jews.
Plus, the Assyrians could field some pretty kickass magic-users. An a lammassu beats a sphinx any day of the week.
2 Kings 13:21
Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.
That’s the only exmaple of specific ressurection I an think of, though there are probably others.
<geek>Not by 3rd Edition rules!</geek>
Alessan
Is this a whoosh?
Otherwise how is a god creating an entire universe and various miracles etc. not magic?
Well Blake, that’s actually not Torah …
Really, I didn’t know that.
If I may quote Leviticus
‘Those who play by third ed rules, have transgressed against Me and My laws. Cast them out. Stone them with stones. You shall stab them with old pizza crusts. Ye shall smite them with dice bags. Ye shall torment them until they fail their saves and die. Then, you shall search out there character sheets and destroy them. They are anethema. Let their names be forgotten.’
Besides, Alessan didn’t say if it was a Cryosphinx, Hieracosphinx, Gynosphinx, or Androsphinx.
Re Giants
Outside of Apocrypha and folklore, it’s one sentence ‘The Nephilim were in the earth in those days.’ Combined with a different translation of another passage ‘the sons of heaven neglected their duties and fell for the daughters of men’, you get a long tradition that a group of angels, Watchers or Grigori, abandoned their posts to have sex with human women, producing a race of giants. This tradition holds that Goliath was a descendant of such a giant.
Re Demons
There was a Jewish sage who said ‘If we could perceive all the demons in the world, existence would be impossible. They are far more numerous than we.’
Re Magic
Balaam was hired as a magician to curse the Jews. In folklore, Solomon and other righteous wonder workers often come up against evil magicians who derive their powers from other sources.
Forgot to adress this.
Even a master of Kabbalah is tapping into the merest fraction of G-d’s power. Creating golems, foretelling the future, exorcising demons, or creating wards to keep houses safe are tiny accomplishments. A magician getting power and knowledge from some other source can’t even do these things, and their magic is easily overcome by a Kabbalist. Sticks to snakes? A pitcher of water into blood? No biggie. Creating a universe is orders of magnitude beyond any human magician. It’s not magic in the same way the space shuttle is not a paper airplane.
When the Anti-Christ, possessed of the Beast (Satan’s revelation alias) comes to pass, he is given the power to resurrect.
He is also given a power that Jesus would have never found a reason to use, the Power to call down fire from heaven.
This power is considered by many of Bible faith to be the most powerful of God’s miracles.
I personally like the idea of feeding the multitudes with two fish and five loaves of bread myself.
Even better yet, to sit and listen to unadulterated truth for hours on end would be a welcome relief from the gas of today’s noise.
Tomorrow’s Sunday School lesson will include a look at Genesis. We will be discussing:
"Why Marijuana should be the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and other fascinating reasons you should be smoking…
Take another look at the title of the thread.
And search the bodies. Can’t ever forget to search the bodies.
Doesn’t “hear the lamentations of their women” come into it somewhere?
Idunno. For they are unclean and may be infested with rot grubs or olive slime.