There seems to be a shift in how Satan is portrayed and understood in the Old Testament to the New Testament. What do you think about this?

I started reading (and am about half way through) an interesting book called The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagels. I thought I would raise some of the issues Pagels presents in her book.

Bellow are some (lengthy) quotes from Pagels, with my emphasis indicated by bold font, and some of my own (brief) comments.

Satan in general

“In the Hebrew Bible, as in mainstream Judaism to this day, Satan never appears as Western Christendom has come to know him, as the leader of an ‘evil empire,’ an army of hostile spirits who make war on God and humankind alike. As he first appears in the Hebrew Bible, Satan is not necessarily evil, much less opposed to God. On the contrary, he appears in the book of Numbers and in Job as one of God’s obedient servants – a messenger, or angel, a word that translates the Hebrew term for messenger (mal’ak) into Greek (angelos). In Hebrew, the angels were called ‘sons of God’ (bene’elohim), and where envisioned as the hierarchical ranks of a great army, or the staff of a royal court.

In biblical sources the Hebrew term the satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century B.C.E. occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any one of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root stn means ‘one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.’ (The Greek term diablos, later translated ‘devil,’ literally means ‘one who throws something across one’s path.’)

The satan’s presence in a story could help account for unexpected obstacles or reversals of fortune. … Some, however, also invoke this supernatural character, the satan, who, by God’s own order or permision, blocks or opposes human plans and desires. But this messenger is not necessarily malevolent. God sends him, like the angel of death, to perform a specific task, although one that human beings may not appreciate… Thus the satan may simply have been sent by the Lord to protect a person from worse harm” (Pagels 39-40).

Some comments

Pay particular attention to Pagels’s emphasis on the lack of the satan’s inherent malevolence. In the early Hebrew literature, the satan is under God’s control, working for him as the other angels do. Notice, for example, satan’s urging God to “stretch out your hand and touch all that he has” (Job 1:11), where satan functions precisely as God’s hand (i.e. the way by which God achieves his will). Thus, God remains ultimately (though usually indirrectly) responsible for death or calamity in most situations (as far as the authors observe, whether correctly or incorrectly). For example:

“For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth” (Exo 9:14-15).

“The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up” (1Sa 2:6).

“I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Isa 45:7).

Now compare the major shift from the Hebrew Scriptures to the intertestamental literature:

“For God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. … Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it” (Wis 1:13, 2:24).

On the other hand, the book still maintains God “hast power of life and death: [leading] to the gates of hell [Sheol], and [bringing] up again” (Wis 16:13). However, I’m pretty sure this half of the book is regarded as penned by a different author.

Nevertheless, a shift appears, already having been developed in the intertestamental literature, in how satan is viewed by the time the New Testament comes into being. Thus:

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven” (Rev 12:7-8).

One can see the influence of books such as 1 Enoch in this instance. More significantly, we see a satan emerge who is against, rather than obedient to, God. It is slightly more dualistic than in the Old Testament; there is more of a dichotomy between good and evil.

Satan in Numbers

“The story of Balaam in the biblical book of Numbers, for example, tells of a man who decided to go where God had ordered him not to go. Balaam saddled his ass and set off, ‘but God’s anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as his Satan’ [le-satan-lo] – that is, as his adversary, or his obstructor. This supernatural messenger remained invisible to Balaam, but the ass saw him and stopped in her tracks … [22:23-25 follows] The third time the ass saw the obstructing angel, she stopped and lay down under Balaam, ‘and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he struck the ass with his staff.’ Then, the story continues [22:28-30 follows] … Then ‘the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, with his drawn sword in his hand, and he bowed his head and fell on his face.’ Then the satan rebukes Balaam, and speaks for his master, the Lord:

‘Why have you struck your ass three times? Behold, I came here to oppose you, because your way is evil in my eyes; and the ass saw me. … If she had not turned away from me, I would surely have killed you right then, and let her live’ (22:31-33).

Chastened by this terrifying vision, Balaam agrees to do what God, speaking through his satan, commands” (Pagels 40-41).

Satan in Job

“The book of Job, too, describes the satan as a supernatural messenger, a member of God’s royal court. But while Balaam’s satan protects him from harm, Job’s satan takes a more adversarial role. Here the Lord himself admits that the satan incited him to act against Job (2:3). The story begins when the satan appears as an angel, a ‘son of God’ (ben’elohim), a term that, in Hebrew idiom, often means ‘one of the divine beings.’ Here this angel, the [i]satan, comes with the rest of the heavenly host on the day appointed for them to ‘present themselves before the Lord.’ When the Lord asks whence he comes, the satan answers, ‘From roaming on the earth, and walking up and down on it.’ Here the storyteller plays on the similarity between the sound of the Hebrew satan and shut, the Hebrew word ‘to roam,’ suggesting that the satan’s special role in the heavenly court is that of a kind of roving intelligence agent, like those whom many Jews of the time would have known – and detested – from the king of Peria’s elaborate system of secret police and intelligence officers. … [She continues to summarize the story and concludes with:]

Here the satan terifies and harms a person but, like the angel of death, remains an angel, a member of the heavenly court, God’s obedient servant” (Pagels 41-42).

Closing comments

I would like to close my post by pointing to Raphael (which means “god has healed”) from the apocryphal Tobit, an angel who appears to assume the satan’s role.

In the narrative, Tobit, by an ironic twist of fate, becomes blind. Hearing of someone who recently died, he leaves his dinner table, before he even gets the chance to taste his food, and buries the man, making himself ritually unclean. Staying outside according to the Torah, Tobit falls asleep, and, sadly, droppings from some birds above him fall into his eyes, and in combination with the treatments of the physicians of his time, he eventually becomes completely blind.

Toward the end of the narrative, Raphael, who, until this point, was assumed to be a normal human, reveals himself as an angel. Interesting for our study of satan, he declares:

“And that time when you did not hesitate to get up and leave your dinner to go and bury the dead, I was sent to you to test you” (Tobit 12:13-14, NRSV; the meaning is quite different in the KJV).

However, Raphael is not evil in this narrative; in fact, far from it. God sends Raphael also to heal Tobit, bind a demon afflicting a woman whose seven husbands had been killed by it, and give Tobit and his family a moral discourse.

Of course, the presence of a demon that can be dissuaded by human remedies (if that is what the story is suggesting) indicates the transfer taking place in the Israelite understanding of good and evil, angels, satan, and demons. Nevertheless, the role of satan remains relatively the same as the earlier, Hebrew literature describes it.

This passage from Tobit, in my opinion, indirectly parallels with Paul when he says, “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1Co 5:5), where Satan takes on a beneficial role (if Paul is even describing a supernatural being in this instance).

Discussion

I see many (usually non-academic) evangelicals blaming things on Satan; if something goes wrong, it is Satan’s fault. In the modern day context, Satan is inherently evil, out to persecute the people of God. No longer is God, nature, or just plain chance responsible for calamity; it is all Satan. Likewise, God’s chastening role is often completely ignored. People often look for the bad in their situations, rather than the good that often comes out of it. No longer does God send messengers of Satan to buffet his people to make them strong in weakness (2Co 12:7), as also in Tobit; it is either Satan out to get the people of God or the people of God invoking punishment for sins.

This modern image of Satan is very odd when compared with the Old Testament and perhaps even the New Testament. The result is a total shift away from the sovereignty of God, who, according to the ancient Israelites, brings both peace and calamity. Conversely, nature is completely ignored. Illness is no longer just nature running its course; it’s an affliction from Satan for some misdeed. Many ignore Jesus’ statement concerning those eighteen who had died when a tower collapsed on them, “think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?” (Luk 13:4). I don’t deny there are oftentimes circumstances science cannot explain, with illness, calamity, or vice originating in as mysterious a way as it sometimes disappears with prayer, but one should not be so quick to attribute everything that appears negative in life to Satan. In fact, one should be looking for the positive that comes out of the negative, or acknowledging the mystery of life and remain agnostic on the cause or significance of a bad situation (for not everything happens for an apparent or significant reason); rather than look for the hand of Satan, look for the hand of God, or leave wonder in its proper abode.

How do you think the emerging church should view Satan? Do you think postmodernism will affect this view and should it? If the church can acknowledge the difference between the Satan of the Old Testament and the Satan of the New Testament (if there is a difference; on this point, discuss), which one should the church prefer – the heavenly law-court prosecutor or the pure evil being that works on his own accord?

Feel free to discuss the biblical (or extra-biblical) images of Satan, the role of Satan in the church and the world, and how the emerging church should deal with Satan and the problem of evil.

Another very interesting topic that could perhaps be included in this thread is the role of exorcism and demonology in the emerging church. How far should we stray toward or away from Pentecostalism?

Lastly, forgive me for taking up so much space with quotes from Pagels. I thought the sections I quoted, which I could not do justice with paraphrase, may be of interest to some of you, and help fuel the discussions of this thread. By the way, this is my first book by Pagels, so I’m not exactly sure what I think of her and her methodology yet.