RE: Who has killed more - Satan or God?
November 5, 2011 at 2:03 pm
(This post was last modified: November 5, 2011 at 2:03 pm by Minimalist.)
The flood was too early in the story for "satan." He hadn't been invented - or should I say imported from Zoroastrianism - yet.
http://www.adath-shalom.ca/Satan_dvim.htm
Scholars argue a 6th to 4th century BC date for "Job" which puts it solidly in the Persian period and therefore not much of a surprise that Zoroastrian ideas have been introduced. In fact, we have nothing other than the bible itself to indicate that Judaism existed at all prior to the Persian period and the bible is useless as history.
http://www.adath-shalom.ca/Satan_dvim.htm
Quote:Let’s start with the Hebrew Bible, the Tanach as it is called in Jewish literature. What role does Satan play in our Bible? The first appearance of the root word s-t-n (ןטש) is not as an individual at all, but as a verb meaning to hassle or oppose. In the story of Bilaam and the talking donkey, which we read a couple of weeks back, the donkey keeps shying away from the path because he can see an angel with a sword in the path to oppose him – “le-satan-lo.” The word is used elsewhere, most commonly as a noun “meaning an adversary who opposes and obstructs” (Ency. Jud; Satan) but in some places as a verb with respect to prosecution in a court of law (Ps. 109:6).
There are only three times where Satan as an individual turns up in the Tanach, and all are late in the Biblical period. Satan’s most famous appearance occurs in the the story of Job. If you recall that wonderful book, Satan appears to act as God’s prosecuting attorney with the role not just to look for misdeeds on earth but to try to see if people (not just Jews; there is no indication that Job was Jewish) could be tempted into cursing God. However, and this is a big “however,” Satan did so only with God’s permission.
Satan’s other two appearances are a bit ambiguous. In one instance, the prophet Zechariah refers to the satan (השטן) as creating divisions between the Jews who had returned to Eretz Ysrael from Babylon and those who had never left (Zech: 3:1-2). In another, the author of Chronicles laid blame on the satan for inducing King David to take a census of the people when it had not been authorized by God (1 Chron. 21:1). In these two cases, Satan seems to have some independence of action, but he is still an angel and certainly no match for God. To quote from Elaine Pagel’s wonderful book, The Origin of Satan (New York Random House, 1995; p. 39): “As he first appears in the Hebrew Bible, Satan is not necessarily evil, much less opposed to God. On the contrary, he appears . . . as one of God’s obedient servants.”
Scholars argue a 6th to 4th century BC date for "Job" which puts it solidly in the Persian period and therefore not much of a surprise that Zoroastrian ideas have been introduced. In fact, we have nothing other than the bible itself to indicate that Judaism existed at all prior to the Persian period and the bible is useless as history.
