An earlier thread on a similar subject:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=21994
In Matthew 4, we are told that Jesus was offered various temptations in the desert by “the devil,” who is also called “the tempter.” There is only one passage, 4:10, which refers to this character as Satan–that’s the one in which Jesus says, “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
But the word “satan” does not necessarily signify someone’s proper name. It means something like “adversary.” So Jesus may be saying something more like, “Get outta my sight, asshole!”
Not even pretending to be an expert on scripture. I would like to know if anything in the canonical Bible refers to a particular person (or fallen angel) ruling in Sheol or the “outer darkness”. Even in cases like the above, which are translated to imply particularization of “the” devil–perhaps the original would be better rendered as “a demon” or “an evil one.” Comments, Hebrew experts?
I found this piece of information whilst doing a paper on Satanism last fall, the Christian version of Satan is nothing more than literary device for their fellow Jews (and later Christians, Pagans and anyone else that didn’t agree with them).
Elaine Pagels, in her book The Origin of Satan, 1995, makes the following argument (paraphrased):
The writers in Israel, during the sixth century B.C.E took to describing their enemies as great mythological beasts like Rahab, Leviathan and “the dragon.” What is surprising is that a vocal minority amongst the Israelites often voiced a dissident opinion, speaking out not against the enemies of Israel, but against their fellow Jews, blaming their misfortunes upon them rather than their external enemies. (Pagels 1995, 38) But the vocal minority used a different term to excoriated their fellow Jews, they used the term satan. (Pagels 1995, 39) These Jews saw their fellows as the intimate enemy and therefore more dangerous than the outsider, alien enemies. (Pagels 1995, 39 emphasis added)
Now, moving forward to the building of the Second Temple (c.687 B.C.E.), the Jews returning from the Babylonian Exile were met by the Jews who remained, the Samaritans. Thus began a battle for the control of the official institutions of Israel. (Pagels 1995, 43)
In 168 B.C.E, the Macabean Revolt began, where the Jews threw off the Seleucid rules, the descendents of Alexander the Great. The Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, suspecting resistance to his rule decided to eradicate every trace of the Jew’s peculiar and “barbaric” culture. During this time, the internal conflicts between even more acute. (Pagels 1995, 44-45)
Pagels describes it this way, “As told in 1 Macabees, the famous story shows how those Israelites determined to resist the foreign king’s orders and retain their ancestral traditions battled on two fronts at once- not only against their foreign occupiers, but against those Jews who inclined toward accommodation with the foreigners, and assimilation.” (Pagels 1995, 45)
The Jews expelled the foreign rulers but that intensified the internal conflict over who would control the Temple, the priesthood and government. (Pagels 1995, 46) Some ten to twenty years after the revolt began, the Hasmonean family gained control of the high priesthood. Some two generations afterwards, the Hasmonean family was challenged by the Pharisees party. The Pharisees party and their allies wanted to return to more traditional, rigorous religious practices. They were joined, over the decades by a variety of smaller, diverse groups such as the Essenes and even the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. (Pagels 1995, 47) To these rigorists, it didn’t matter who was a Jew;? that was a given. What mattered what was “who was really on God’s side.” (Pagels 1995, 47)
Here, the practice of identifying one’s fellow Jews as satan took a sinister turn. Pagels say, “More radical than their predecessors, the dissidents began increasingly to invoke the satan to characterize their Jewish opponents; in the process they turned this rather unpleasant angel into a far grander- and far more malevolent- figure. 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.” (Pagels 1995, 47)
Here we see Satan in the modern sense, the liar, the seducer, the tempter, the betrayer. All of these arise from the internal conflict of the Jewish state during the last centuries B.C.E. and into the first century of the Common Era. (Pagels 1995, 61)
if satan was smart wouldn’t he have taken over religion long ago? then he could start religious wars and get people hating each other and get more suckers into HELL. of course then he could punish them for being dumb enough to fall for his scam.
does hell sound like it was invented by people who lived near volcanoes? there are volcanoes in Italy where the Romans were, not in the Middle East where the Jews were.
Dal Timgar
Well dal_timgar, I don’t know who was the first to make hell, but the Romans did have an underworld and Pluto (Hades) was the god of the underworld I believe. It looks alot like hell I guess.
If God is perfection, perfect good, and created things out of this goodness – universes, angels, people, etc., then how can bad come from that. Even if He gave angels free will, unsure here, they would not understand anything evil, they would not know about control or the taking of it. If your world is all colored red, you can’t know what the color blue is, and probably wouldn’t know what color was period.
These stories about satan are just stories in my estimation. Satan exists only in the minds of those who believe in him.
There is no punishment meted out by God. God is unconditional love, He judges no one. He accepts all, loves all, and cares for all of us no matter what mistakes we have made.
Love
Leroy
I agree with MEBuckner that recent Christian thought views Hell as a separation from God and a self imposed punishment rather than God punishing us. However, there have been earlier thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas that have wrestled with this problem and come up with separationist views as well, so it’s not exactly a construct developed by moderns.
Here is how I understand modern Christians interpret the Scriptures on Hell as consistent with the separationist view or other less harsh views. When Jesus refers to Hell, the Greek word used is either Sheol, which is the same word for Hades in Greek mythology, or Gehenna, which was a dump outside of Jerusalem that was always on fire. It is argued that Jesus is saying that Hell is a bad place, like Gehenna, and we know that Hades is a bad place, but not necessarily a place of literal fire and torture. When Paul talks about Hell, he uses the word for “death,” which could imply an eternal death or an annihilistic view (we cease to exist). Then there’s the bit in Revelation about being tossed into the Lake of Fire. My thoughts (and hopes) on that are that like everything else in Revelation, this is meant to be understood metaphorically and not literally. And while we’re on Revelation, I’ve heard one reason why Satan wants to deceive humanity and bring them on his side, other than just wanting someone to torment out of shear meanness, is to get them on his side for the last battle between good and evil described in this book.
There are a lot of theories on Hell from a Christian perspective. As with most Christian apologetics, C. S. Lewis is a good one to check out. “The Problem of Pain” touches on Hell. Here is a link to a different theory: http://www3.baylor.edu/Philosophy/BAPT/vitae/Seymour.html
It basically deals with the problem of being punished infinitely for finite sins. His argument is that sinners continue to sin in Hell, and are then punished for those sins.
If anyone cares, here are my views on the subject. One day we will all face judgment for what we’ve done. God will be a fair judge. He will not judge us for our intentions, most people have good intentions, but for our deeds. We will receive whatever punishment that we deserve; whether we are annihilated after that, or continue to sin and receive further punishment, or just live on in a state where we are separated from God, or any other construct, no human brain can understand eternal things now. I do believe that Christ already bore all of our punishment for us and accepting/believing this grants us pardon from judgment and grants us eternal communion with God.
Clive wrote:
In fact, I don’t know how Jesus could have been more clear when He stated all of the following:
“Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.” — John 5:22
“You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one.” — John 8:15
“As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will judge him at the last day.” — John 12:47-48
How He could say all that and leave the impression that He or God will judge us strains credulity. Clearly, we examine His Word and decide for ourselves whether it suits us.