# Was the Devil ever in hell? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 1999, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-devil-ever-in-hell/17047 "1999-12-10T20:35:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Esprix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprix/32/7899_2.png) [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2000, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-devil-ever-in-hell/17047/81 "2000-06-12T16:43:29Z")
Who the hell is reviving threads that are 6 months old? šŸ˜• Esprix ---
**Author:** ![El\_Guapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/82dd89/32.png) [@El\_Guapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Guapo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2000, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-devil-ever-in-hell/17047/82 "2000-06-12T21:54:26Z")
Esprix: In your best Church Lady voice ā€œCould it be . . . Satan?!ā€ Couldnā€™t resist. I donā€™t know about any 6 month old posts, just this one. Lucifer being the Latin word, just kind of stuck in all the translations. I donā€™t know if itā€™s because the literal translation is day star, the same nomenclature used for Jesus in Revelation (22:16). If, as some have supposed, the early NT writers were using the Septugant (sp?), then the literal translation may have slipped by them. Oops! Same problem with the virgin birth translation dilemma. But the Isaiah refernce is seen as refering to the Babylonian king in Judaism, and Christianity puts it into a dual meaning of the king and the fall of Satan. Why is beyond me, maybe because of the poetic nature of the verses in Isaiah. A good explanation that Iā€™ve found for the Judaic belief of who Satan is can be found at [http://www.outreachjudaism.com/satan.html](http://www.outreachjudaism.com/satan.html) Here is a snipet from the site, the whole topic is more lengthy. > [@](#): > > Isaiah 45:7 and Deuteronomy 30:15, however, pose a serious theological problem for Christians who maintain that God did not create Satan, the angel of evil. According to Christian doctrine, Satan was the highest-ranking angel who, through his own act of spiritual defiance and outright disobedience, became the chief adversary and slanderer of God and the embodiment of evil in this world. In Christian theology God never created evil; He is only the author of righteousness and perfection, as you maintained in your question. Therefore, God could never create something as sinister as the devil himself. Rather, Satanā€™s unyielding wickedness is the result of his own spiritual rebellion. > > Although this well-known Christian doctrine has much in common with the pagan Zoroastrian Persian dualism out of which it was born, it is completely alien to the teachings of the Jewish faith and the words of the Jewish scriptures. In fact, the Christian teaching that Satan was originally intended by God to be a good angel but, in an act of outright defiance, ceased to function as God had intended him to, suggests that God created something imperfect or defective. > > For the Jewish faith, Satanā€™s purpose in seducing man away from God poses no problem because Satan is only an agent of God. As a servant of the Almighty, Satan faithfully carries out the divine will of his Creator as he does in all his tasks. > > Satan is one of the many angels mentioned in the Bible. It is worth noting that the Hebrew word for angel is malach, meaning ā€œmessenger.ā€ The same is true for the English word angel, derived from the Greek word angelos, which also means ā€œmessenger.ā€ Throughout the Bible, an angel is a messenger of God who carries out the divine will of the Almighty. There is not one example in the Jewish scriptures where any angel, Satan included, opposes Godā€™s will. At least that is the good rabbiā€™s take on things. That was one of my problemā€™s with Christian theology. If Satan is the source of evil, the fallen angel, and God can not have sin in his presence under any circumstances, than what was Satan doing up in heaven talking with God in the book of Job. ---
**Author:** ![Esprix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprix/32/7899_2.png) [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2000, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-devil-ever-in-hell/17047/83 "2000-06-13T14:26:42Z")
> [@](#): > > I donā€™t know about any 6 month old posts, just this one. The last post in this thread was 12/22/99, until **foolsguinea** revived it. Anybody know why? Esprix ---
**Author:** ![El\_Guapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/82dd89/32.png) [@El\_Guapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Guapo)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2000, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-devil-ever-in-hell/17047/84 "2000-06-13T16:06:25Z")
Some of us may have not been here that long, or may have not read it, or have problems with short term memory. Or, in my case, all three šŸ™‚ Can you post the link? I know Iā€™d be interested in reading it. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2000, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-devil-ever-in-hell/17047/85 "2000-10-25T21:22:31Z")
I had read that the ā€˜reformed Egyptianā€™ on the plates Joseph Smith found was actually variations on Roman letters and Arabic numbers, turned upside down, mirror images, etc., and had nothing to do with any Egyptian language. Wasnā€™t there something about magic golden spectacles that were provide to read it with? Weird stuff. Iā€™m surprised the Book of Mormon has held up as long as it has, with all the historical inaccuracies in it, i.e. elephants and sheep in the pre-Columbian Americasā€¦ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-devil-ever-in-hell/17047.md?page=4)