Credit: Gustave Doré, illustration to Paradise Lost, — image is in the public domain
I grew up in the church, not really ever devout to one denomination as my parents seemed to bounce between churches due to us moving a lot. Oftentimes staying with my grandparents due to the rockiness of my parent’s marriage at the time. It wasn’t until my adult years and meeting my wife and future in-laws that I realized how strong the dividing line can be between denominations.
This of course encompasses many various factors. A few of the largest ones in my opinion are the question of salvation, believing the Bible should be read literally or allegorically, and what interpretation is the correct one.
Being that I had bounced from Baptist, to Methodist, to Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, Pentecostal, and various non-denominational churches in my young life I had a very vague generalized view of Christianity. I definitely believed one could backslide and still go to hell, which goes against the Baptist belief of once saved always saved.
I guess if you end up in hell then you weren’t “really” saved? I had seen people “speaking in tongues’’ and attempted it as a child, but was never overwhelmed with the holy ghost and performed the act myself. So perhaps I wasn’t saved by their standards either.
Later meeting people in my wife’s church who believed only the KJV was the correct translation, and that all other denominations were different “religions’’, and thus misled, struck me. My mother, due to her upbringing and unique way of thinking, made me believe as a young child that the devil was very real, and essentially had a vendetta against all of us Christians, to try to trick us into sin, and drag us to hell.
This is not something I plan to pass on to my son, and would advise readers to also not subject their children to this. I tell readers all of this to give them an idea of why I began studying further into Christianity, and am here not as a comparative religious expert, but just as someone who is always curious and seeking answers, and to just be a communicator of what I’ve discovered. I do this in the hopes that my writing possibly spurs some of you to delve deeper into these topics yourselves, and share with those around you, so that all of us can have more of the full story.
So let’s get into it, who is the devil according to the Bible? Most Christians will tell you that he essentially is the dark side vs God’s light side, that he is the antithesis of all things good, that he has an army of fallen angels to fight against God’s good angels.
This of course brings in the question that if God is all powerful, and if angels don’t have free will (which most Christians believe), then how would the devil rebel against an all powerful God, and or why wouldn’t God just destroy him? This brings us to the Epicurean Paradox:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
When actually reading the Bible, rather than just listening to the pastor or priest teach the lesson, I began to realize not just that the name of the devil kept changing, but also the characteristics of the devil.
In Genesis 3, Christians believe the serpent represents the devil, and that the entire story is representing temptation brought to man, and the fall of man. However, the Bible never actually says the serpent is the devil, nor is there another reference to the devil being a serpent until Revelations, which is not part of the Torah aka Old Testament at all. This means that the Jewish Bible has zero reference again to the serpent being the devil. One of the most interesting parts of Genesis to me are the two following verses.
Genesis 3:4–5 “4 And the serpent said unto the woman: ‘Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.”
This seems to be true, considering the response from God once he returns and realizes what happened (Shouldn’t he already know?).
“22 And the LORD God said: ‘Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.”
It doesn’t seem like it was the serpent that was lying to Adam and Eve, but this in itself could be an entire article. So, was the serpent trying to trick man and foul up God’s plan? Or was he trying to free the newly formed man and woman from being essentially mindless automatons, or at least naïve childlike humans, seeing as how the serpent was eternally punished by God for his actions as a consequence of this.
The next instance we see is the devil in the book of Job. In this story God finds satan and other angels roaming about the earth, and calls them over to him and then just asks him what he thinks of his devout servant Job. Satan then pitches the idea of letting him mess with Job, and God takes him up on the wager, allowing Satan to kill Job’s sheep, servants and children. In addition to this satan also destroys his home, and afflicts him with sores. All of this as a test of his devoutness to God. In church, the pastor liked to play up how the devil was doing all of these things to Job, and praise Job for his faith in God to not break.
If we look at this situation without the blind faith aspect, you see an all powerful being essentially sending his henchman to torment his favorite pet, or a not all powerful being giving in to the temptation of an evil entity….neither one washes with what the pastor is trying to sell. Also, at this point in the Bible they are referring to the devil as satan, not as a serpent. Satan in the Jewish Bible here means “adversary”, and most Jews believe that satan is just another angel of God that God uses to tempt and test his people, or as an allegory of temptation to sin in general.
This actually makes a lot more sense than the Christian idea of him being a super powered evil that is at war with an all powerful God, who actually created him…but for some reason doesn’t destroy him. Essentially, the Jewish faith more so thinks of God as being both good and evil. All things that happen are done by God, and if the devil is involved, it’s because God sent him.
Isaiah 45:7 7 “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
So, why does the Devil become this larger evil character in the Bible? Well, we have to look to history for that. During the years of 598 BCE — 538 BCE the Jewish people were enslaved under the Babylonian Empire, until their eventual freedom was granted by Cyrus the Great. This act even earned him a mention in the Bible in the following verse.
Isaiah 45:1, “Cyrus is YHWH’s (Yahweh’s) anointed, his Messiah: Thus says YHWH to his anointed, to Cyrus whom I took by his right hand.”
That’s a lot of praise for a man who didn’t follow the Jewish faith, so what religion did he follow? Cyrus was a Zoroastrian.
An interesting side note, the three wise men who came to bring gifts to the baby Jesus were actually Magi, who were priests of the Zoroastrian religion. A number of books of the Bible were written either during or directly following the Babylonian Exile period, and the cross influence shows a lot. Zoroastrianism is a very small religion now, but it predates even Judaism. It wasn’t until this time period that you began to see more talk about a primary evil entity that is against God, and about a coming messiah. The Zoroastrians actually believe the messiah will be born of a virgin, and save the world during the end times. Their title for him is the Saoshyant.
The Zoroastrians believe in Ahura Mazda, who is the all good god of light who contains no evil; and Angra Mainyu who is the exact opposite, composed of darkness, corruption, chaos and evil. So, you can see where some of these themes possibly rubbed off on the developing Abrahamic religion, and helped to shape the eventual development of the subsequent religions of Christianity and Islam.
Ultimately, this has just caused me to delve even deeper into the origins of the Bible, and the Abrahamic religions in general. I have also began studying other religions from around the world to find the common threads and lessons that each has to offer. Doing this, of course, goes against all that I was taught as a Christian growing up in the United States. Essentially, all Christians I’ve met are closed minded towards other religions, and even denominations in most cases. They believe any thoughts of curiosity are the devil attempting to lead them astray, to harvest their souls. This type of thinking is incredibly dangerous and damaging to society as a whole. I believe we should all be open to learning new things, and adjust our views based on the information available to us, rather than developing rigid ideologies.