Satan and the Forces of Chaos

Executive of God

"The prologue of 'Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Underworld' may contain the predecessor to the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This tree not only contains a crafty serpent, but also Lilith, the legendary first wife of Adam. The huluppu tree is transplanted by Inanna from the banks of the Euphrates to her garden in Uruk, where she finds that:

...a serpent who could not be charmed
made its nest in the roots of the tree,
The Anzu bird set his young in the branches of the tree,
And the dark maid Lilith built her home in the trunk.

     - Christopher Siren, "Sumerian Mythology FAQ" (Version 1.5html)

The Hebrew word for serpent is nahash. The root of the word are the Hebrew letters Nun, Het and Shin - "to guess". These letters are translated as "satan," which is often given the meaning of "enemy."

"The Aramaic satana (Satan) is derived from sta, which means to slide, to slip, or to miss the mark; and applies to one who causes these results."
     - George M. Lamsa (translator), The Four Gospels : According to the Eastern Version (1933) p. 192

"As the arch-enemy of God and man who strives to thwart the purpose of God in the noblest of His works, we are familiar with Satan, the devil of the New Testament, Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno and Goethe's Faust , or Beelzebul ('prince Ba'al'), parodied as Beelzebub ('Lord of Flies') of Jewish apocalypic. As the fallen angel Lucifer of Paradise Lost , which is derived from 'the Bright One, Son of the Dawn', he is cast down from the zenith to the underworld."
     - John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology

"Satan gained an established place in late Jewish and Christian thought to explain the sinister reality of sin and suffering in a world which faith believed to be under the wise and beneficent guidance of Almighty God. The conception of him in his dual aspect of the enemy of God and man and fallen angel may be traced back to origins in mythology."

"I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I Yahweh do all these things."
     - Isaiah 45:5

"Satan, in this character, is a late development in Judaism, not appearing until the Books of Chronicles in the third century B.C."

"Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel."
     - 1 Chronicles 21:1

"In the monarchic period in Israel (c. 1000-586 B.C.) in fact such a figure as a rival to God is intolerable. Suffering and calamity were considered to be directly sent or permitted by God. From her emergence as a distinctive sacral community committed to the worship of her God alone, Israel had come to terms with the current polytheism of the Near East. While not worshipping other gods, she recognized their worship by other peoples."

"When the Most High assigned the peoples their portion,
When He separated the sons of men,
Fixing the bounds of the peoples,
According to the number of the sons of "These gods, however, are regarded in Israel as inferior to the God of Israel. The conception of a divine assembly, or council, is borrowed from Mesopotamia and Canaan..."

"God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the 'gods'."
     - Psalm 82:1

"...But only to serve as the scene for God's formal indictment of the moral ineffectiveness and injustice of the other gods. This process reaches its logical conclusion in the condemnation of other gods as useless images..."

"The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. "
     - Psalm 135:15-18

"...mere stocks and stones..."

"All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit him nothing? He and his kind will be put to shame; craftsmen are nothing but men. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and infamy.
"The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.

"It is man's fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, 'Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.' From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, 'Save me; you are my god.'
"They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, 'Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?' He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, 'Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?'"
     - Isaiah 44:9-20

"...and in the overthrow of 'the host of heaven' with 'the kings of the earth' in the day of God's advent as King and their consignment to the pit in the eschatological passage:"

"Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the sins of their forefathers; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities. 'I will rise up against them,' declares the LORD Almighty. 'I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors, her offspring and descendants,' declares the LORD. 'I will turn her into a place for owls and into swampland; I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,' declares the LORD Almighty."
     - Isaiah 14:21-23

"On the other hand, the conception of the divine assembly was developed in the conception of the heavenly court composed of the God of Israel and other celestials as His assessors and executors."

"The heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness too, in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies above can compare with the LORD? Who is like the LORD among the heavenly beings? In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared; he is more awesome than all who surround him."
     - Psalm 89:5-7

"In the Book of Job God in His celestial assembly reviews mankind."

"One day the angels [Hebrew - 'the sons of God'] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan [Satan means accuser] also came with them.The LORD said to Satan, 'Where have you come from?' Satan answered the LORD, 'From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.'
"Then the LORD said to Satan, 'Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.'
"'Does Job fear God for nothing?' Satan replied. 'Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.'
"The LORD said to Satan, 'Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.' Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD."
     - Job 1:6-12

"One of this assembly is 'the satan', who questions the disinterested character of Job's righteousness and is given leave to put it to the test. Here, in spite of English translations, the figure is not yet Satan the inveterate enemy of God and man. He is an executive of God, one of the 'sons of God', who combines the office of an intelligence agent, with a suggestion of agent provocateur and public prosecutor, as in the vision of the prophet Zechariah where the only suggestion of a sinister role is his excess of zeal."

"Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The LORD said to Satan, 'The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?' Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel."
     - Zechariah 3:1-3

"This contrasts with the more positive role of executives of God in His purpose with man, which is played by personal angels who intercede for men in what we regard as a secondary elaboration of the Book of Job"
     - John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology

"His soul draws near to the pit, [or grave] and his life to the messengers of death [or to the dead]. 'Yet if there is an angel on his side as a mediator, one out of a thousand, to tell a man what is right for him, to be gracious to him and say, "Spare him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom for him'"- then his flesh is renewed like a child's; it is restored as in the days of his youth.
"He prays to God and finds favor with him, he sees God's face and shouts for joy; he is restored by God to his righteous state. Then he comes to men and says, 'I sinned, and perverted what was right, but I did not get what I deserved. He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light.'

"God does all these things to a man-- twice, even three times-- to turn back his soul from the pit, that the light of life may shine on him. 'Pay attention, Job, and listen to me; be silent, and I will speak. If you have anything to say, answer me; speak up, for I want you to be cleared. But if not, then listen to me; be silent, and I will teach you wisdom.'"
     - Job 33:23

"...Satan reappears in the Christian scriptures, but even in Mark's gospel (the earliest to be composed) he is initially presented merely as one who comes test Jesus (Mark 1:12-13), much in the same way as he tested Job. Matthew though presents a different picture. In a passage parallel to Mark's brief allusion to the 'tester', Matthew clearly speaks of Jesus being tempted by 'the devil' (Matthew 4:1-11). Matthew's gospel continues to present the figure of the devil as one whose goal is to frustrate the divine plan and seduce humanity away from God, and here can see a much clearer resemblance to the Zoroastrian figure Ahriman [Angra Mainyu]. Towards the end of the gospel, in the passage known as the 'eschatological discourse' (Matthew 25:31-46), the evangelist writes the absolute separation of good and the evil people ('sheep and goats'.) The Greek term he employs in this passage suggests a physical separation rather than an ideological one. In the Gathas Zarathushtra had used a term which carries the sense of physical separation, as well as of judgment and discernment, as in the phrase Bridge of the Separator. The suggestion in Zarathushtra's hymns is that those who have followed the evil path will languish for ever in the House of Lies, having chosen to follow the hostile spirit."
     - Peter Clark, Zoroastrianism, An Introduction to an Ancient Faith, pp. 154-155


Day Star, Son of Dawn

"The Satan's identity presented a problem. The logical choice was Asheroth [or Asherah, consort of the chief Canaanite god El and represented by a natural or stylized tree (Hebrew ashera)], but her femininity was a disqualification....The Satan became a male. And since Yahweh's primary antagonist had long been the fertility goddess identified with the planet Venus, so the Jewish Venus, Khazazel (Jewish planetary gods were all male), became the Satan. Satan's planetary origin was clearly recognized by the mythologians who gave him the alternative name of Lucifer ('Bringer of Light'), the Roman name for Venus as Morning star."
     - William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!"
     - Isaiah 14:12

"The theme of a revolt of an astral deity against the high god seems to go back to Ugaritic myth (CTA 6.1.48-65) and is found in the Hebrew Bible in Isa 14:12-20. In this passage the king of Babylon is pictured as the deity 'Day Star, son of Dawn' (the translation of the RSV) who attempted to ascend to heaven and overthrow the Most High, but who instead was cast down from heaven into the underworld. The story of the fall of Satan from heaven in later literature seems to be derived from this myth, which, like the theme of the dragon, is projected into the apocalyptic Endzeit in the book of Revelation."
     - James Davila, "Melchizedek as a Divine Mediator"

"LUCIFER: ('light giver') - erroneously equated with the (supposedly) fallen angel (Satan) due to a misreading of Isaiah 14:12...an apostrophe which applied to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon It should be pointed out that the authors of the books of the Old Testament knew nothing of fallen or evil angels, and do not mention them, although at times as in Job 4:18, the Lord 'put no trust' in his angels and 'charged them with Folly', which would indicate that angels were not all they should be. The name Lucifer was applied to Satan by St. Jerome and other Christian Fathers."
     - Gustav Davidson, Dictionary of Angels

(Fallen angels were mentioned in the Apocrypha, however, particularly the Book of Enoch.)

"Lucifer, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls? Doubt it not! for traditions are full of Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one Age nor of one Creed."
     - General Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma

"Before the sun revolves, a very large star named Venus, which varies its course alternatively, and whose alternative names in themselves indicate its rivalry with the sun and moon - when in advance and rising before dawn it receives the name of Lucifer, and being another sun and bringing the dawn, whereas when it shines after sunset it is named Vesper, as prolonging the daylight, or as being deputy for the moon..."
     - Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis

In the seasonal Canaanite rite of the dying god, "a substitute is sought for Ba'al in his eclipse, and Athtar the Fierce, originally the god manifest in the bright Venus star and secondarily associated with vegetation, is proposed since his brightness might be thought to quality him for the place of Ba'al, whose potent advent is signalized in lightning. But the attempt is abortive:"
     - John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology

"Thereupon Athtar the Fierce
Goes up to the crags of Saphon;
He takes is seat on the throne of Ba'al the Mighty.
His feet do not reach the footstool,
His head does not reach the top thereof.
Then Athtar the Fierce declares, '
I may not be king on the crags of Saphon'.
Athtar the Fierce comes down,
Down from the throne of Ba'al the Mighty,
And he becomes King over the whole vast underground."
     - Ras Shamra texts

"...In his taunt-song on the King of Babylon the prophet in Isaiah 14:12 ff applies the passage on the failure of Athtar the Fierce to fill the throne of Ba'al."
     - John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology

"How you have fallen from heaven,
Bright morning star,
Cut down to the ground (or underground),
More weak than all peoples!
You it was who thought in our own mind:
'I shall scale the heavens;
Above the stars of God
I shall exalt my throne,
So that I shall sit enthroned on the Mount of Assembly,
In the utmost recesses of Saphon [the North].
I shall rise above the cloud-banks,
I shall be like the Most High!'
Nay, but you shall be brought down to Sheol,
to the utmost depths of the Pit."
     - Isaiah 14:12-15

"Sheol is the underworld as the abode of the dead. Ancient Near Eastern though conceived the world as structured in three levels: the heavens, the earth, and the underworld. The underworld consists of the subterranean ocean, beneath which is Sheol, the abode of the dead. The picture is not entirely consistent, for Sheol is often mentioned parallel with the 'pit', the grave; when the earth is opened for burial of the dead, the grave is an entrance to Sheol..."
     - John L. McKenzie in Endtime: The Doomsday Catalogue

"The dead do not live; shades do not rise - because you have punished and destroyed them, and wiped out all memory of them."
"Your [the Lord's] dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead."
"Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations."
     - Isaiah 14:9, 26:14, 19

The early Christian community used the image of the morning star in a more positive sense.

"And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."
     - 2 Peter 1:19

"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."
     - Revelation 22:16

The Power of Evil

"The concept and term devil are derived from the Zoroastrian concept of daevas and the Greek word daibolos ('slanderer' or 'accuser'), which is a translation of the Jewish concept of Satan. As a singular demonic force or personification of evil, the devil's chief activity was to tempt man to act in such a way that he would not achieve his supraterrestrial destiny."
     - Encyclopaedia Britannica

"But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia."
     - Daniel 10:13

"The development of the conception of Satan as the personal power of evil, who had his counterpart in the archangel Michael, the angelic champion of Israel, God's people, and so of God's purpose of creation, was probably developed after c. 500 B.C. under the influence of Persian Zoroastrian belief in the two conflicting spirits of good and evil, respectively Ahuramazda and Angramainyu, and their angelic hierarchies. The Manual of Creed and Conduct of the Sect of the New Covenant [from the Qumran community] by the Dead Sea, possibly as early as the latter part of the second century B.C. suggests that the sect considered itself involved in an imminent war between the two angelic forces.
"While Persian influence cannot be denied, the continual conflict of God and the forces of evil in nature and in history and the forces of moral chaos was of course long familiar in Israel, being the theme of the New Year festival. In this supreme conflict for the Kingship, or government, the antagonists of God are often spoken of in the Hebrew liturgy as 'the kings', or 'kings and nations', and the association of 'the kings of the earth' in Isaiah 24:21-23 with 'the host of heaven' to be punished 'on that day' indicates that the heathen gods are treated as the powers of Chaos."

"In that day the LORD will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below. They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished [or released] after many days. The moon will be abashed, the sun ashamed; for the LORD Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously."
     - Isaiah 24:21-23

"In the Canaanite version...the forces of Chaos which threaten the Kingship of Baal are sometimes identified with the Primeval Serpent, as they are in the liturgy of the New Year festival in Israel.

"...Lotan the Primeval Serpent,...the Tortuous serpent,
The Close-coiling One with Seven Heads."
     - Ras Shamra Texts

"On that day the Lord shall punish
With His great and strong sword
Leviathan the Primeval Serpent,
Leviathan the Tortuous serpent,
He will slay the dragon (tannin) in the sea.
     - Isaiah 27:1

"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hands. He seized the dragon, that serpent of old, the Devil or Satan, and chained him up for a thousand years, he threw him into the abyss, shutting and sealing it over him, so that he might seduce the nations no more till the thousand years were over. After that he must be let loose for a short while."
     - Revelation 20:1-3

"This is the basis for the identification of Satan, or the Devil, with the serpent which tempted Eve and deceived the whole world and with his angels was thrown down from heaven by the great archangel Michael and his angels."
     - John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology

"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
"Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: 'Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.'

"When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent's reach.
"Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring--those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. "
     - Revelation 12:7

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