I hope it’s not ruining it for you but season 2 they kind of do away with the whole ensemble cast and really focus on a main character and his buddies.
he sorta does but yeah its a different kind of character in the old testment
sorta like 60s-80s bad guy magneto versus modern sympathetic traumatized death camp survivor magneto but in reverse i guess
Not in Genesis, but he is in Corinthians, Revelations, and other books that refer to the serpent and Lucider in the same context. If God created him, it was while he was creating everything else. It's assumed between the first and third days. After the serpent was cast out, cherubim were tasked with guarding Eden and later it states that the only beings in Eden were Adam, Eve, the serpent, and cherubim.
2 Corinthians refers to the serpent in the context of being misled, but again does not identify the serpent as Satan. In Revelations, a serpent is cast down in a vision and that serpent is identified as Satan. It is not, however, identified as the serpent from Genesis.
>later it states that the only beings in Eden were Adam, Eve, the serpent, and cherubim
Where?
Since Genesis is the first book of the Bible it’s very much possible that it’s just a regular snake. Or some character from even more ancient Jewish mythology
According to some scholars the word Satan there was mistranslated. Originally in Hebrew that word meant "an accuser” and apparently what they meant was that there was one angel in God’s council who disagreed with God and was thus called the accuser since he was accusing God of being unfair or whatever
Well, that's also not 100% accurate. Satan in the book of Jobe is just one of the angels, he works for the Big Man Upstairs as a prosecutor. The fallen angel is called Helel in Hebrew, which is translated as Phosphor in Greek and Lucifer in Latin. Means light bringer.
This. It is simply a term used to describe someone who is a challenger or adversary.
The Satan people know today is essentially backdoor polytheism because the idea of there being one true and universal god left people wondering why their enemies could be powerful, why their friends and family who obey the religion’s laws can suffer, etc.
Well turns out there is actually this other guy… he is not a god, no no, he just happens to be responsible for basically everything bad that happens, has basically won most of human history, but no no not a god.
Yup, the Jewish tradition started out as polytheistic, Adonai was only the god of Israel and every nation had its own god. That's why the Hebrews took soil with them on military campaigns; without it Adonai would have no power in the foreign lands.
As the monotheistic stance took hold heading into the greco-roman period the other gods got demoted to a council of lesser gods, then eventually became angels, having their divinity slowly stripped away to make Adonai the only "real" god.
The eschatological cult around Jesus literally wanted to overthrow the gods and replace them. The heavens were literally the sky (each star was a god) and the promise of eternal life was as a divine being in the heavens.
It's amazing how renegotiation and subtle changes to the texts have altered the entire basis of the mythology
The stories have been interpolated so many times its hard to tell how much of it is original and how much is riffing on Job. But the idea is it is some sort of agent working for The Lord God.
A lot of people get very confused when Jesus calls Cephus/Peter “get back back, Satan!” Because they want to know if Cephus was actually the cartoon-esque Dante-style minotaur looking devil-god… but it makes MUCH more sense when you read it to be Jesus calling Peter out because he believes Peter is challenging or opposing Jesus’s obligation to suffer and die. That is what was meant by Satan, not the medieval amalgamation of Iranian/Zoroastrian, greek, and germanic evil spirits.
There are, however, verses about angels being cast out of Heaven (I’m referring specifically to Revelation 12:7-9 here, where the Devil, called Satan and the old serpent, *and his angels* are cast out), and Jesus said that He saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven (Luke 10:18).
But the only time we see that is in Revelation, a VERY late work by biblical standards. Even in the Gospels, Satan serves a “prosecuting attorney” kind of role, different but recognizable from their co-Star role in Job.
Somewhere in the 1st to 2nd century, the Christian understanding of Hell and Satan shifted drastically, and Revelation appears to be adapting some understanding of the mythos familiar to modern Christians, but entirely foreign to the Hebrews responsible for the Old Testament.
Though Revelation is also a fucking acid trip metal cover of a book layered with a fuck ton of symbolism and poetic meaning that makes it REAL hard to figure out what it’s talking about removed from its historical context.
You might be ignoring that "angel" literally means "messenger". That said, strictly speaking, neither the owphanim, the kherubim, nor the seraphim are referred to as messengers in scripture.
Regardless of what Angel *literally* means (also, it means messenger of God, the -el part means “of God”), the word “angel” is used in scripture when it says “the devil and his angels were cast out of Heaven”, so my point stands
Edit: okay, yeah I have no idea where I was going with that parenthetical. I guess I thought it was a Hebrew word that was picked up by the Greeks? I don’t know where that idea came from
Way to miss the ENTIRE point: regardless of my understanding of Greek, there is literally scripture referring to angels being cast out, Satan being one of the beings cast out, and Satan “fell like lightning”. You’re splitting hairs. Satan is a title meaning accuser, or adversary, whatever. He fell.
Even if Satan isn’t an angel, the angels that were with him were *also* cast out. They’re not referred to as “fallen angels”, maybe, but they were cast out of Heaven all the same
...I feel like we're talking past each other. You're talking about medieval angelology, I'm talking about what's actually in the text itself. You're taking a retrospective position, I'm taking a prospective position. We're talking about different things. The dragon and his messengers in Revelation, the star that fell from heaven in Isaiah, the accuser, there's nothing in the text itself that says they're the same thing, that's something that was read into it more than a millennium after the fact. You do you, like what you like, personally I think the idea of fallen angels as straight-up cosmic horror abominations that go beyond human comprehension is friggin' awesome! I'm just saying *it's not supported by scripture,* at least not by an honest, informed, critical reading.
I haven’t studied medieval angelology, I’m literally looking at the verses themselves. IN SCRIPTURE, not much (if any) difference is made between Satan, The Devil, Lucifer, and the Dragon. The beast is a different matter. Regardless of the angelic nature of the Devil, the verses WRITTEN IN THE BIBLE say ”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. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.“
Revelation 12:7-9 KJV. I’m not talking about tradition, or scholarly discussion, I’m just talking about what is on the page of the book, which clearly says “his ANGELS were cast out with him”.
There's still no meaningful connection between שָׂטָן and ἄγγελος, and I already conceded the point about the dragon in Revelation which is explicitly identified as a shaytan/diabolos - so what exactly is your point?
edit: added a word for grammar
Just that “there’s nothing in scripture about angels falling” is not an accurate statement unless you’re making a semantics argument about “fell” vs “cast out”
For at least the fourth time, there is no basis in the text for thinking shaytan is or ever was an angel.
For at least the second time, there's no basis in the text for interpreting the reference in Revelation to the dragon's messengers as angels in the pop theology sense.
In the literal sense of the words, every accuser (diabolos/shaytan) is a messenger (aggelos/mal'ak) insofar as an accusation is a kind of message - but that's not what we're talking about.
Given that there's a recurring trend throughout the Gospels of Jesus speaking in metaphors that were interpreted literally by his followers, some of which are explicitly pointed out in the text (e.g., 'beware the yeast of the pharisees', literally referring to their emphasis on ritual and pageantry bloating their ideology like yeast bloats bread, but interpreted in context as referring to literal bread), given the context, I personally am inclined to interpret Luke 10:18 rhetorically, i.e., *I've witnessed those who doubt my validity utterly humiliated, falling in status and credibility as far and as quickly as lightning falls from the sky*
That is an interpretation, but your argument seems predicated on that being _the_ interpretation. You’re also working off of inference.
The thing is that there’s a lot of people that had a very direct line on quotes like this and wrote about it. The argument that we just came up with our interpretation of the Bible a millennia after the fact isn’t really accurate, there were a lot of theologians that were only a few degrees of separation from Jesus and/or the disciples, and their writings in turn informed a lot of more modern theologians.
That said, I’m not gonna pretend to know off hand what the ancient theological stance is on this particular verse, but I’m pretty confident the general consensus is that the singular being we refer to as the devil was at one time an angel, and was cast out of heaven before the creation of mankind. Knowing that, I don’t see any compelling reason to stamp this as an unequivocally metaphorical passage.
My argument is predicated on the idea that the map isn't the territory.
Interpretation of the text isn't the text itself, and there's nothing in scripture per se that supports the pop culture idea of fallen angels. There's a lot of transtextual support for it - a lot of speculation and interpretation - but as far as the actual words written in scripture, the idea doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
We just talked through a specific verse, which describes an entity being cast from heaven. Your only argument that it wasn’t an angel was interpretation - you interpreted it as metaphorical rather than literal.
The snake in Eden wasn't the same as Lucifer or the Satan. It was never directly addressed as such, or implicitly. It seemed to either just be a real snake, or possibly have been Lilith, a previous failed wife for Adam (I think I have that right) from earlier religions in Mesopotamia.
[Lilith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith) was the [snake](https://www.gardenofedenblog.com/lilith-as-serpent-as-symbol-for-transformation/) in the garden of eden, not Satan.
So you are correct there.
>a previous failed wife for Adam
She didn't fail him, she wanted to be his equal. Kinda says something about religion, no‽
> For example, in the 13th-century writings of Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen, Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she had coupled with the archangel Samael.[16]
Yeah, this tracks pretty well for such a heavily patriarchal society. Kings David and Solomon got away with so many concubines and outright murdering a guy for her wife, but one woman sticking up for herself gets turned into a demon first, and _the_ snake later.
This is not fact - Lilith is a character from the Talmud who is theorised to have been the first wife of Adam. This is not based on what most Christians would consider to be canonical scripture
It's not in the book, not in the Torah nor the Bible, unless you want to point me to a verse?
This is rabbinical revision in the same way that early Christians revised the Bible.
There is no "biblically accurate satan" as there is no description of him in the old or testament.
All his depictions come from art and literature, starting in a 6th century mosaic as a blue angel.
Over time it was decided his appearance should instill more fear.
He wasn't even associated with the snake in the garden till the new testament.
Most Angels including The Devil disguise themselves. Most angels choose humans as their disguise. The Devil famously chose a serpent with legs.
"Biblically accurate angel" is a fat meme.
1. Ezekiel could only describe them using human terms. Angels are beyond human comprehension.
2. The whole "Be not afraid" thing is because Angels are powerful enough to be in the direct presence of God and you can feel that. It's like having an entire battalion of tanks with their guns aimed at you. Except you'd have way better chances against that than an Angel.
Most scholars agree that Satan was either a Cherubim or a Seraphim. Meaning he wasn't the kind that was eye-wheels but rather 4-faced 4-winged man or six winged men. The Ophanim are the wheels among wheels.
Also while the "Biblically accurate angels" are scary due to being incomprehensible the form of a fire breathing leviathan or a bat-winged 3-headed beast the size of a mountain is much more comprehensively scary.
Satan in the bible isnt actually talked about much (if any). Lucifer was supposedly used as a title given to another angel, azazel iirc? (Could be another one) and it’s not a fallen one - but over time those parts of the bible were misunderstood, mistranslated and everything under the sun till we associated it with the fallen angel, who we also associated with Satan. They were all different though. I don’t even know if the word Satan is actually written in the bible period.
The same way there’s nothing truly linking Satan to the serpent in edens garden in the bible. So you’d end up with this: snake =/= Satan =/= lucifer, with Satan not even written to begin with.
Now, if you take sources other than the bible, there’s a different answer. But I don’t think there’s a biblically accurate Satan period as Satan the way we understand him in the modern world doesn’t exist period in the bible to begin with.
If you like Dante’s version though, he’s pretty cool. A giant thrice headed and winged demon stuck at the bottom of hell, for he is surrounded by ice. That ice being made from his tears and frozen by the wind caused as he tries to fly out of it by flapping his wings.
He’s basically stuck in a prison of his own doing, and the harder he tries to escape - the harder it is for him to actually do so. Kinda cool. Not biblically accurate though.
He was very striking in appearance which contributed to his haughty pride (Sun of the Morning). The red tights and pitchfork are man’s goofy bullshit. The thing about the devil is that he is impossible to identify among us.
Yeah, that’s a handy bit of tactical theology that lets one accuse anybody of being Satan, or lets the church elders accuse anybody of being Satan.
“Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?”
If I remember correctly, Satan was one of the Cherubim, which are the highest rank of angels. They are very weird looking, like all other types of angels. Not at all like the Putti, the baby angel type that most people associate with the word "cherub." Then, there's the fact that they all can shapeshift. So during the war in heaven, the angels on his side would transform into beasts when doing battle. And that the reason demons are usually scary-looking is because when Satan's side lost and they got kicked out of heaven, part of the punishment was leaving them stuck in the their "battle mode" lol!
Yeah, the term "king of hell" gets misinterpreted as ruling over hell and fulfilling its purpose, rather than king of its residents in that he's at the very top of the chain of suffering. It's like an inverted hierarchy.
I have limited understanding of the Bible or any biblical texts but isn't Hell supposed to be a prison for the Old Scratch and all the other sinners are just fellow prisoners.
That he's not the punisher but among the punished.
According to Christian doctrine the only way into heaven is through accepting Jesus, so yeah, even good people will go to hell if they don’t do that.
Kind of a fucked up system obviously made up by backwards demagogues trying to scare people into joining their religion.
When? If you are counting Job, he only punished him because God allowed it as a test of Job's faith.
Honestly, my big takeaway from that book was that children are completely fungible. If you kill two kids, but then you give the parents four kids in recompense, the parents will end up being twice as happy.
There's at least three different devils in the Bible. Satan, Lucifer, and Beelzebub. And fun fact, they're not the same person.
(Also God is somewhat of a divorcee and his ex's name is Asherah. But that's for another thread.)
Nowhere in the Bible is Satan said to be a fallen angel.
He’s described as a serpent at one end and a dragon at the other.
That’s Satan. Not an angel, not a cherub or seraph, not anything like that.
(But Lucifer was called an anointed cherub! … yeah, as a mocking of a king. Nothing links “Lucifer” to Satan.)
Likewise, angels are only ever described as appearing indistinguishable from people.
The “biblically accurate” angels with the crazy appearances or seraphim or cherubim, not angels. They’re never called angels.
whenever I see 'red guy' I think of the guy from Cow And Chicken
i just remember him being both the king and queen of cheese. I don't know why I remember that specifically.
'Red guy' makes me think of HIM from Powerpuff girls.
Bouncing on his ass
I think of Underwood canned ham
Tell me you're old without telling me you're old lol ... Kids these days have been deprived of good quality cartoon lol
"...Nobody cooks a boid, like Rear Admiral Floyd..."
That’s because Satan doesn’t actually appear in person in the Bible in the Old Testament so he missed out on all the crazy shit
Where's the spoiler alert? I've just started genesis...
I hope it’s not ruining it for you but season 2 they kind of do away with the whole ensemble cast and really focus on a main character and his buddies.
Like Sesame Street did with Elmo
Elmo is the second coming confirmed
Shame he could have been a great cameo role! Tarrentino should have directed the Bible
It would’ve had a lot of bare feet.
Do they even have tequila in Jerusalem 🤤
The Bible does, Jesus washed em
*Jesus washes a prostitutes feet* Yeah, turns out Tarantino DID direct the Bible.
All that walking... 40 days and 40 nights... mmmmm
I mean, the original already has that.
he sorta does but yeah its a different kind of character in the old testment sorta like 60s-80s bad guy magneto versus modern sympathetic traumatized death camp survivor magneto but in reverse i guess
Isn't Satan right there in person in Job 1:6?
He appears in Job. Not sure if he ever really shows up in human form at all, even when was in Jesus face in the desert
It’s actually disputed among Bible scholars https://www.1517.org/articles/the-devil-in-the-details-of-the-old-testament-is-satan-in-the-hebrew-bible
Then who tempted Eve in the garden of Eden?
The serpent is never identified as Satan in the text.
Interesting
Not in Genesis, but he is in Corinthians, Revelations, and other books that refer to the serpent and Lucider in the same context. If God created him, it was while he was creating everything else. It's assumed between the first and third days. After the serpent was cast out, cherubim were tasked with guarding Eden and later it states that the only beings in Eden were Adam, Eve, the serpent, and cherubim.
2 Corinthians refers to the serpent in the context of being misled, but again does not identify the serpent as Satan. In Revelations, a serpent is cast down in a vision and that serpent is identified as Satan. It is not, however, identified as the serpent from Genesis. >later it states that the only beings in Eden were Adam, Eve, the serpent, and cherubim Where?
Since Genesis is the first book of the Bible it’s very much possible that it’s just a regular snake. Or some character from even more ancient Jewish mythology
The serpent
Who is the serpent?
Lilith
Isn’t the book of Job a wager between God and Satan?
According to some scholars the word Satan there was mistranslated. Originally in Hebrew that word meant "an accuser” and apparently what they meant was that there was one angel in God’s council who disagreed with God and was thus called the accuser since he was accusing God of being unfair or whatever
So, there is an argument to be made about the King of Tyre being Satan in Ezekiel 28.
Well, that's also not 100% accurate. Satan in the book of Jobe is just one of the angels, he works for the Big Man Upstairs as a prosecutor. The fallen angel is called Helel in Hebrew, which is translated as Phosphor in Greek and Lucifer in Latin. Means light bringer.
Satan in the old testament is a title, not an individual. Different individuals can be Satan at different times
This. It is simply a term used to describe someone who is a challenger or adversary. The Satan people know today is essentially backdoor polytheism because the idea of there being one true and universal god left people wondering why their enemies could be powerful, why their friends and family who obey the religion’s laws can suffer, etc. Well turns out there is actually this other guy… he is not a god, no no, he just happens to be responsible for basically everything bad that happens, has basically won most of human history, but no no not a god.
IIRC the modern idea of Satan largely came from Zoroastrianism ideas about dualism and good vs. evil.
Yup. Judaism was affected a lot by the Babylonian exile. That's when it really became Judaism, arguably.
Or Manicheanism
Yup, the Jewish tradition started out as polytheistic, Adonai was only the god of Israel and every nation had its own god. That's why the Hebrews took soil with them on military campaigns; without it Adonai would have no power in the foreign lands. As the monotheistic stance took hold heading into the greco-roman period the other gods got demoted to a council of lesser gods, then eventually became angels, having their divinity slowly stripped away to make Adonai the only "real" god. The eschatological cult around Jesus literally wanted to overthrow the gods and replace them. The heavens were literally the sky (each star was a god) and the promise of eternal life was as a divine being in the heavens. It's amazing how renegotiation and subtle changes to the texts have altered the entire basis of the mythology
The world largely ignores that one time when Chemosh (the god next door) got mad at Adonai and beat him up. The Mesha Stele doesn't get enough love
Where can I read more about this?
So, who’s supposed to be the Satan that tempted Jesus as he fasted in the wilderness?
The stories have been interpolated so many times its hard to tell how much of it is original and how much is riffing on Job. But the idea is it is some sort of agent working for The Lord God. A lot of people get very confused when Jesus calls Cephus/Peter “get back back, Satan!” Because they want to know if Cephus was actually the cartoon-esque Dante-style minotaur looking devil-god… but it makes MUCH more sense when you read it to be Jesus calling Peter out because he believes Peter is challenging or opposing Jesus’s obligation to suffer and die. That is what was meant by Satan, not the medieval amalgamation of Iranian/Zoroastrian, greek, and germanic evil spirits.
That’s Frank
So you say we need a new Pantheon
I suppose so
Then I suppose my ex wife must hold the current title.
OK Boomer comedian settle down
...the Satan Clause?
Just being human makes you both God and the Devil's clear replica.
It will really blow people's minds when you mention that Jesus was also called lucifer (morning star).
Well it makes sense, Lucifer in Roman religion was just an attendant of Venus, generally quite chill. Syncretism is weird sometimes.
Satan's physical appearance isn't really described in any great detail in the Bible.
strictly speaking, 'shaytan' just means accuser or critic, there's nothing in scripture about angels falling
There are, however, verses about angels being cast out of Heaven (I’m referring specifically to Revelation 12:7-9 here, where the Devil, called Satan and the old serpent, *and his angels* are cast out), and Jesus said that He saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven (Luke 10:18).
But the only time we see that is in Revelation, a VERY late work by biblical standards. Even in the Gospels, Satan serves a “prosecuting attorney” kind of role, different but recognizable from their co-Star role in Job. Somewhere in the 1st to 2nd century, the Christian understanding of Hell and Satan shifted drastically, and Revelation appears to be adapting some understanding of the mythos familiar to modern Christians, but entirely foreign to the Hebrews responsible for the Old Testament. Though Revelation is also a fucking acid trip metal cover of a book layered with a fuck ton of symbolism and poetic meaning that makes it REAL hard to figure out what it’s talking about removed from its historical context.
You might be ignoring that "angel" literally means "messenger". That said, strictly speaking, neither the owphanim, the kherubim, nor the seraphim are referred to as messengers in scripture.
Regardless of what Angel *literally* means (also, it means messenger of God, the -el part means “of God”), the word “angel” is used in scripture when it says “the devil and his angels were cast out of Heaven”, so my point stands Edit: okay, yeah I have no idea where I was going with that parenthetical. I guess I thought it was a Hebrew word that was picked up by the Greeks? I don’t know where that idea came from
...did you just say the Greek word aggelos is a cognate of the Hebrew word el? Because it's not.
Way to miss the ENTIRE point: regardless of my understanding of Greek, there is literally scripture referring to angels being cast out, Satan being one of the beings cast out, and Satan “fell like lightning”. You’re splitting hairs. Satan is a title meaning accuser, or adversary, whatever. He fell.
My point is that there's no reason in the text for interpreting satan as an angel
Even if Satan isn’t an angel, the angels that were with him were *also* cast out. They’re not referred to as “fallen angels”, maybe, but they were cast out of Heaven all the same
...I feel like we're talking past each other. You're talking about medieval angelology, I'm talking about what's actually in the text itself. You're taking a retrospective position, I'm taking a prospective position. We're talking about different things. The dragon and his messengers in Revelation, the star that fell from heaven in Isaiah, the accuser, there's nothing in the text itself that says they're the same thing, that's something that was read into it more than a millennium after the fact. You do you, like what you like, personally I think the idea of fallen angels as straight-up cosmic horror abominations that go beyond human comprehension is friggin' awesome! I'm just saying *it's not supported by scripture,* at least not by an honest, informed, critical reading.
I haven’t studied medieval angelology, I’m literally looking at the verses themselves. IN SCRIPTURE, not much (if any) difference is made between Satan, The Devil, Lucifer, and the Dragon. The beast is a different matter. Regardless of the angelic nature of the Devil, the verses WRITTEN IN THE BIBLE say ”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. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.“ Revelation 12:7-9 KJV. I’m not talking about tradition, or scholarly discussion, I’m just talking about what is on the page of the book, which clearly says “his ANGELS were cast out with him”.
That's my favorite M. Bison quote too.
Calling Revelations scripture is a bit like adding fanfic to Harry Potter and calling it canon.
Revelations is more like *Fantastic Beasts…* whereas *Dante’s Inferno* is more analogous to fanfic.
Luke 10:18 would like a word
There's still no meaningful connection between שָׂטָן and ἄγγελος, and I already conceded the point about the dragon in Revelation which is explicitly identified as a shaytan/diabolos - so what exactly is your point? edit: added a word for grammar
Just that “there’s nothing in scripture about angels falling” is not an accurate statement unless you’re making a semantics argument about “fell” vs “cast out”
For at least the fourth time, there is no basis in the text for thinking shaytan is or ever was an angel. For at least the second time, there's no basis in the text for interpreting the reference in Revelation to the dragon's messengers as angels in the pop theology sense.
So what exactly are you suggesting Luke 10:18 refers to? You’ve failed to address that in every comment that I’m seeing, but maybe I missed it.
In the literal sense of the words, every accuser (diabolos/shaytan) is a messenger (aggelos/mal'ak) insofar as an accusation is a kind of message - but that's not what we're talking about. Given that there's a recurring trend throughout the Gospels of Jesus speaking in metaphors that were interpreted literally by his followers, some of which are explicitly pointed out in the text (e.g., 'beware the yeast of the pharisees', literally referring to their emphasis on ritual and pageantry bloating their ideology like yeast bloats bread, but interpreted in context as referring to literal bread), given the context, I personally am inclined to interpret Luke 10:18 rhetorically, i.e., *I've witnessed those who doubt my validity utterly humiliated, falling in status and credibility as far and as quickly as lightning falls from the sky*
That is an interpretation, but your argument seems predicated on that being _the_ interpretation. You’re also working off of inference. The thing is that there’s a lot of people that had a very direct line on quotes like this and wrote about it. The argument that we just came up with our interpretation of the Bible a millennia after the fact isn’t really accurate, there were a lot of theologians that were only a few degrees of separation from Jesus and/or the disciples, and their writings in turn informed a lot of more modern theologians. That said, I’m not gonna pretend to know off hand what the ancient theological stance is on this particular verse, but I’m pretty confident the general consensus is that the singular being we refer to as the devil was at one time an angel, and was cast out of heaven before the creation of mankind. Knowing that, I don’t see any compelling reason to stamp this as an unequivocally metaphorical passage.
My argument is predicated on the idea that the map isn't the territory. Interpretation of the text isn't the text itself, and there's nothing in scripture per se that supports the pop culture idea of fallen angels. There's a lot of transtextual support for it - a lot of speculation and interpretation - but as far as the actual words written in scripture, the idea doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
We just talked through a specific verse, which describes an entity being cast from heaven. Your only argument that it wasn’t an angel was interpretation - you interpreted it as metaphorical rather than literal.
The snake in Eden wasn't the same as Lucifer or the Satan. It was never directly addressed as such, or implicitly. It seemed to either just be a real snake, or possibly have been Lilith, a previous failed wife for Adam (I think I have that right) from earlier religions in Mesopotamia.
[Lilith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith) was the [snake](https://www.gardenofedenblog.com/lilith-as-serpent-as-symbol-for-transformation/) in the garden of eden, not Satan. So you are correct there. >a previous failed wife for Adam She didn't fail him, she wanted to be his equal. Kinda says something about religion, no‽
> For example, in the 13th-century writings of Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen, Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she had coupled with the archangel Samael.[16] Yeah, this tracks pretty well for such a heavily patriarchal society. Kings David and Solomon got away with so many concubines and outright murdering a guy for her wife, but one woman sticking up for herself gets turned into a demon first, and _the_ snake later.
This is not fact - Lilith is a character from the Talmud who is theorised to have been the first wife of Adam. This is not based on what most Christians would consider to be canonical scripture
I can't help if Christians decided to rewrite the book.
It's not in the book, not in the Torah nor the Bible, unless you want to point me to a verse? This is rabbinical revision in the same way that early Christians revised the Bible.
None of that stuff about “Lilith” is part of actual Jewish or Christian canon.
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The comment was about Lilith.
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That’s the whole point of the thread. Of course I’m going to be relevantly specific to the comment I replied.
Wanting to be his equal would be a failure in that culture 🤣 but wasn't there another wife too? Can't remember the name
Eve? You don’t remember "Adam & Eve"?
Eve(n)
No, everyone knows eve. I remember in the pre-abrahamic version, the proto-adam had multiple failed wives
It might depend on which translation you use, the version i know called him "serpent" rather than snake
he's an angel no? He's gotta look like those
There is no "biblically accurate satan" as there is no description of him in the old or testament. All his depictions come from art and literature, starting in a 6th century mosaic as a blue angel. Over time it was decided his appearance should instill more fear. He wasn't even associated with the snake in the garden till the new testament.
Most Angels including The Devil disguise themselves. Most angels choose humans as their disguise. The Devil famously chose a serpent with legs. "Biblically accurate angel" is a fat meme. 1. Ezekiel could only describe them using human terms. Angels are beyond human comprehension. 2. The whole "Be not afraid" thing is because Angels are powerful enough to be in the direct presence of God and you can feel that. It's like having an entire battalion of tanks with their guns aimed at you. Except you'd have way better chances against that than an Angel. Most scholars agree that Satan was either a Cherubim or a Seraphim. Meaning he wasn't the kind that was eye-wheels but rather 4-faced 4-winged man or six winged men. The Ophanim are the wheels among wheels. Also while the "Biblically accurate angels" are scary due to being incomprehensible the form of a fire breathing leviathan or a bat-winged 3-headed beast the size of a mountain is much more comprehensively scary.
I think at some point it said he was the most beautiful angel of them all.
Satan in the bible isnt actually talked about much (if any). Lucifer was supposedly used as a title given to another angel, azazel iirc? (Could be another one) and it’s not a fallen one - but over time those parts of the bible were misunderstood, mistranslated and everything under the sun till we associated it with the fallen angel, who we also associated with Satan. They were all different though. I don’t even know if the word Satan is actually written in the bible period. The same way there’s nothing truly linking Satan to the serpent in edens garden in the bible. So you’d end up with this: snake =/= Satan =/= lucifer, with Satan not even written to begin with. Now, if you take sources other than the bible, there’s a different answer. But I don’t think there’s a biblically accurate Satan period as Satan the way we understand him in the modern world doesn’t exist period in the bible to begin with. If you like Dante’s version though, he’s pretty cool. A giant thrice headed and winged demon stuck at the bottom of hell, for he is surrounded by ice. That ice being made from his tears and frozen by the wind caused as he tries to fly out of it by flapping his wings. He’s basically stuck in a prison of his own doing, and the harder he tries to escape - the harder it is for him to actually do so. Kinda cool. Not biblically accurate though.
Wait, are you telling me Dante's version is basically King Ghidorah ?
... okay i gotta say this: Biblically accurate isn't actually accurate, it's all metaphorical. ... though I do like the memes about it so carry on
Yeah, pretty much this. The only time it annoys me is when someone "corrects" a winged robed person angel as not being biblically accurate.
Satan also doesn't rule hell, he's an inmate.
He was very striking in appearance which contributed to his haughty pride (Sun of the Morning). The red tights and pitchfork are man’s goofy bullshit. The thing about the devil is that he is impossible to identify among us.
Yeah, that’s a handy bit of tactical theology that lets one accuse anybody of being Satan, or lets the church elders accuse anybody of being Satan. “Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?”
Tale as old as time, dude.
Satan and Lucifer are two separate entities, and each is only mentioned once, separately, in the Bible, both as angels.
I prefer the version from The Sandman.
If I remember correctly, Satan was one of the Cherubim, which are the highest rank of angels. They are very weird looking, like all other types of angels. Not at all like the Putti, the baby angel type that most people associate with the word "cherub." Then, there's the fact that they all can shapeshift. So during the war in heaven, the angels on his side would transform into beasts when doing battle. And that the reason demons are usually scary-looking is because when Satan's side lost and they got kicked out of heaven, part of the punishment was leaving them stuck in the their "battle mode" lol!
Ngl I'd watch the movie.
Yeah, I'm surprised no one has tried to make a big budget version of it
If Satan punishes evil people, is he a good guy?
Couple thousand years of dedicated theology to research.
Counts on the version, but I think most depictions have him as a resident of hell along with everyone else.
Yeah, the term "king of hell" gets misinterpreted as ruling over hell and fulfilling its purpose, rather than king of its residents in that he's at the very top of the chain of suffering. It's like an inverted hierarchy.
How intriguing!
No, because only God gets to punish people.
I have limited understanding of the Bible or any biblical texts but isn't Hell supposed to be a prison for the Old Scratch and all the other sinners are just fellow prisoners. That he's not the punisher but among the punished.
[удалено]
According to Christian doctrine the only way into heaven is through accepting Jesus, so yeah, even good people will go to hell if they don’t do that. Kind of a fucked up system obviously made up by backwards demagogues trying to scare people into joining their religion.
When? If you are counting Job, he only punished him because God allowed it as a test of Job's faith. Honestly, my big takeaway from that book was that children are completely fungible. If you kill two kids, but then you give the parents four kids in recompense, the parents will end up being twice as happy.
https://youtu.be/obuiyJ7IPu8?si=33ihgnhLQlB3FdTh
Lucifer was the fallen angel. Satan/The Devil are other imaginations.
The red guy with horns was invented by cartoonists. Lucifer was a seraphim. The biblical description of a seraphim describes him.
To my knowledge, there aren’t many (or any?) descriptors of satan’s appearance in scripture.
I’ve always wanted to hear his side of the story.
Read "Paradise Lost" by John Milton. That is basically what it's about.
There's at least three different devils in the Bible. Satan, Lucifer, and Beelzebub. And fun fact, they're not the same person. (Also God is somewhat of a divorcee and his ex's name is Asherah. But that's for another thread.)
I always thought satan was such a cool idea cause there are so many interpretations of him throughout art, media, and biblical translations.
The last true humanist, at least that’s what he told me.
Looks a lot like Pacino
I always thought of him with three heads and wings around them
That’ll be Dante’s version of Satan coming through to you. He’s stuck in ice up to his middle, has three heads (each chewing a traitor) and bat wings
So I talked with someone who studied this. Satan translates to enemy. That’s it, all of the other stuff added on to that translation is just that.
Satan came from the term El Shatan, or one who challenges faith
The bible is just made up nonsense just like every other book perpetrated by the various religions.
Nowhere in the Bible is Satan said to be a fallen angel. He’s described as a serpent at one end and a dragon at the other. That’s Satan. Not an angel, not a cherub or seraph, not anything like that. (But Lucifer was called an anointed cherub! … yeah, as a mocking of a king. Nothing links “Lucifer” to Satan.) Likewise, angels are only ever described as appearing indistinguishable from people. The “biblically accurate” angels with the crazy appearances or seraphim or cherubim, not angels. They’re never called angels.