Speak of the Devil!

Factual Questions
1

Think of all the Biblical stories from the Old Testiment. While bad is mentioned, Man is to blame for his short-coming. There is no mention of a Devil, IIRC So, I ask you…

Does the Old Testiment mention the Devil? To the best of my knowledge, the Jews do not believe in the Devil, but rather man’s conscience shall be his/her guide by following all the laws of the Old Testiment. And, that God shall be the Sole Judge to pass sentence on your personal Judgement Day. ;j

If I am correct, how does the story of Job fit into the Old Testiment? Could this be the first mention or suggestion of a ruler of the underworld? Or, is it perhaps just a personification of evil in the story of Job?

  • Jinx
2

This Staff Report, Were there originally two endings to the book of Job?, touches on the issue somewhat; you might find that interesting reading if you haven’t come across it already.

3

Slow down a second.

In Jewish mythology, Satan isn’t the enemy of God, or the ruler of the underworld. Satan is an “employee” of God, charged with testing people to ensure that they really are righteous.

Someone will be along with a more detailed answer, but this is a start.

4

Sometime after the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century B.C., there arose in Judaism the notion of a supernatural adversary.

1 Chronicles 21:1. And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

Our word “devil” comes from the Greek word for slander, diabolos.

5

Even in Chronicles, the satan is not yet a “supernatural adversary” of God. He is more of an angel provocateur, one who does some of God’s dirty work (like the destroying angel in the Exodus story who kills the Egyptians’ firstborn sons.)

Sometime between the OT and the NT, the book of Enoch was written. (Bits of Enoch are found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.) It took the story of the “sons of God” from the Flood story in Genesis as a starting point: the “sons” (also referred to as Nephilim, a word of uncertain origin) come to the human women and have sex with them. Enoch interprets the “sons” as angels who have “fallen” (the word Nephilim sounds like the Hebrew verb “to fall”) and become rebels against God. The leader of these fallen angels is given different names, Sammael (the blind god), Mastema, Belial, in different versions of the story. Eventually this story got connected with the Satan of Job and other OT stories, and Satan got the job as head of the rebel gang. The NT picks up more or less at this point. The force of evil is still referred to as Belial on occasion, but mostly it’s now Satan.

The tendency towards dualism (a good god and an opposing force of evil) moved Judaism away from its earlier monism (one God who is responsible for both good things and bad things). The push may have come from contact with the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, which was powerfully dualist.

Christians took the new dualism and ran with it; Judaism in reaction returned to the old monism (more or less).

6

ultrafilter:

No need, that’s a good, accurate description of the Judaic concept of “Satan.”

7

OK, thanks.

8

For more info, see Straight Dope Staff Report: What’s the deal with angels?

At the end of the (very long) report, there’s a section describing Sammael (Satan), the fallen angel. No, it’s not in the Old Testament.