+ Bible Study- Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church + Satan ... come to know him, as the leader of an “evil empire,” an army of hostile spirits who make war on God and humankind alike

Satan - NDfDc (STN)The Old Testament and the

Inter-testamental Period (Apocrypha)•Devotion

• John 12:31, Jesus said, “Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

• + Prayer +

Questions: • Who is Satan? Devil? Prince of Darkness? • What are some things that you think about when you hear about Satan? • Where do you remember hearing about Satan in the bible? New Testament? Old

Testament?

Bible• Genesis 3:1-7

+ Bible Study: Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church + Satan - Session 1 +

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• Is the snake/serpent Satan? The devil?

• Numbers 22:22-35• 1st reference to the satan in the bible. • satan as a celestial being.• The term satan is used to describe somebody in an adversarial role and so this is

not limited to a particular character. The word cDfDN is translated to mean adversary, obstacle, opponent, stumbling block, accuser or slanderer, and this word usually appears with the definite article meaning that it is describing a function or office, rather than being a proper name.

• What is meant by the word the satan is “a messenger sent by GOD for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The messenger is not necessarily evil. He/she is a messenger from God sent to perform a specific assignment, even if the human beings he is sent to do not appreciate it. Humans have a limited view of the future, so we see what we can see.

• “If the path is bad, an obstruction is good.” • Number 22:22 - “adversary” is literally translated “the satan”

• how does the “adversary/the satan” function in this narrative? • Is he acting of his own volition, or is he carrying out God’s orders?

• Job 1-2• This is the most developed and sustained appearances of the satan in the Hebrew

Bible.• “son of God,” or “one of the divine”

• There seems to be a bit of wordplay here between the sounds of the words NDfDÚcAh

and f…wv (sut) which means to go or rove about. S. D. Luzatto suggests that “the title satan is derived from this root and that the satan is was a kind of spy roaming the earth and reporting to GOD on the evil he found therein.

• “quality assurance tester?”• Does Satan act outside of what God allows him to do?

• Zechariah 3• The prophet depicts the satan as disrupting the unity of the people by inspiring

dissension and factions among the people. • Zechariah’s account comes from conflicts that arose from within Israel after the

Jews returned from the babylonian captivity to Palestine. Cyrus, king of Persia, had recently conquered Babylon and wanted the Jews to his allies, so he helped them reconstruct the Temple in Jerusalem which the Babylonians had destroyed.

• Those returning from exile were seen as agents of the Persian king.


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• Zechariah’s candidate for high priest has gone through a hearing of some kind, and it seems that the satan’s role must have been to probe and test once again, to see if this candidate is worthy of the office (Joshua).

• Zechariah 3:3 says, “Now Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood before

the angel.” The word MyIawøx translated here “filthy,” means specifically a filth consisting of human excrement. This is the same word that is used in Deut. 23:14 instructing the people of Israel to bury their human excrement. Considering this, it seems that at face value at least Joshua was unfit for the job of high priest and the argument of the satan is justified. At his current state, Joshua would be unfit to assume the office of high priest. Also in verse 4 it says “See I have taken your guilt away.” The word NwøDo translated “guilt” which also could be translated “iniquity,” also confirms that Joshua would not be a viable candidate for high priest.

• Was the satan simply reacting to this situation as he understood it? • Put another way, could Joshua be high priest if he was covered in excrement?

• 1 Chronicles 21:1-2• Taxation and census

• The census implies a serious infringement of the divine power, which calls forth the wrath of God, because it serves human interests. It makes the king conscious of his power by putting into his hands an estimated value of his current military strength.

• 2 Sam 24? In the text of 2 Sam., the writer attributes the stimulus for David’s census to God while, as was stated above, the Chronicler attaches blame to satan.

• Why the discrepancy between two like accounts?• Development of how Hebrew Scriptures understand evil.

•Isaiah 14:12-15 and Luke 10:18• Notes on Isaiah 14:12-15

• The poem, vv. 4b-21 describes the ignominious death of an Assyrian monarch of Isaiah’s time, probably Sargon II, who was killed in battle in 705BC. It was later reinterpreted as predicting the death of a Babylonian monarch. vv.12-15 The king’s vain aspirations to god-like status are mocked. Isaiah refers ironically to the king as Shining one, son of Dawn, applying to him the name of a character from ancient Canaanite myth (from Canaanite texts). This character seems to have attempted to join the head of the pantheon, whether this was El (Canaanite God), or Baal;


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Isaiah seems to mix the characteristics of these two Canaanite deities in his allusion to the myth.

• In short, Isaiah is speaking about the death of a historical king, not Satan nor Satan’s fall to earth.

Milton’s Paradise Lost• Satan (Formerly called Lucifer, or “bearer of light,” former angel) is an angel who

“falls like lightning.” “Better to reign in Hell then serve in heaven.” • Satan tempts Adam and Eve to commit the first sin. • “Satan’s first sight of Adam and Eve: his wonder at their excellent form and happy

state, but with resolution to work their fall; overhears their discourse, thence gathers that the Tree of Knowledge was forbidden them to eat of, under penalty of death; and thereon intends to found his temptation, by seducing them to transgress…” pg. 55

• “So spake this Oracle, then verifi’d when Jesus son of Mary second Eve, saw Satan fall like lightning down from heav’n.” pg 64

Language


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• Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century BC occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they means was any one of the angels sent by God for a specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root means, “one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.” (The Greek term diabolos, later translated “devil,” literally means “one who throws something across one’s path.”)

• Intertestamental Period• In the 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.

• Hebrew storytellers often attribute misfortunes to human sin. Some, however, also invoke supernatural character, the satan, who, by God’s own order or permission, 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.

(For reference, the last book written in the Old Testament was Daniel in approximately 165 BC)• Maccabean War 150BC (1 and 2 Maccabees 134-104 BC)Warfare breaks out

between those who wish to be more like the dominant culture, thus not- ethnically Jewish, and those who do not, the Maccabees. Dissidents began increasingly to invoke the satan to characterize their Jewish opponents, in the process they turned this rather unpleasant angel into a far grander - and far more malevolent - figure. No longer one of God’s faithful servants, he begins to become what he is for the Gospel of Mark and for later Christianity - God’s antagonist, his enemy, even his rival.

• Names - Satan, Beelzebub, Semihazah, Azazel, Belial, and Prince of Darkness

• Far more influential in first century Jewish and Christian circles was a group of apocryphal and pseudepigraphic stories, which tell how lust drew the angelic “sons of God” down to earth. These stories derive from a cryptic account in Genesis 6, which says: When men began to multiply on earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair.”

• Genesis 6:4

• Pseudepigrapha/Apocrypha of Adam and Eve 14:3 (1st Century AD)• Angelic Rebellion


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• in the beginning, God, having created Adam, called the angles together to admire his work and ordered them to bow down to their younger human siblings. Michael obeyed, but Satan refused, saying, “Why do you press me? I will not worship one who is younger than I am, and inferio. I am older than he is; he ought to worship me.”

• Book of Watchers (300 BC)- division in heaven. It is a collection of visionary stories, is set, in turn, in to a larger collection called the First Book of Enoch (100BC). It tells how the watcher angels, whom God appointed to supervise the universe, fell from heaven. Starting from the story of Genesis 6, in which the “sons of God” lusted for human women, this author combines two different accounts of how watchers lost their heavenly glory. The first describes how Semihazah, leader of the watchers, coerced two hundred angels to join him an a pact to violate divine order by mating with human women. These mismatches produced a race of bastards, the giants known as nephilim, “fallen ones,” from whom there were to proceed demonic spirit, who brought violence to earth.

• Interwoven with this story is an alternate version, which tells how the archangel Azazel sinned by disclosing to human beings the secrets of metallurgy, a pernicious revelation that inspired men to make weapons and women to adorn themselves with gold, silver, and cosmetics. Thus the fallen angels and their demon offspring incited in both sexes violence, greed, and lust.

• Jubilees (100 BC) - tells of fallen angels as well, similar to Enoch.• All of the stories insist that every creature, whether angel or human, Israelite or

Gentile, shall be judged according to deeds, that is, ethically. • There is a movement from ethnic to moral prominence.


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+ Bible Study- Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church + Satan ... come to know him, as the leader of an “evil empire,” an army of hostile spirits who make war on God and humankind alike