He makes a point that I had not thought of before. If Satan is in charge of hell and people are sent to hell because they did the kinds of bad things that Satan tempts them to do, why would he treat them badly? Surely rather than making them suffer, Satan would reward those who followed his teachings?
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
It’s not a good point; it’s a silly one, which utterly ignores the context.
He tempts them so that he can torture them, not so he can reward them.
(Personification of evil and all that)
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cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
Well, which Satan are we talking about? Seriously, it’s a question.
Modern Christians conflate a lot of disparate ideas that have little to do with the Bible. You’ve got the Serpent in the Garden of Eden (serpent, incidentally, in context, refers to any venomous creature, not necessarily a snake). You’ve got Lucifer (Helel, Lucifer is the Latin word for the same meaning, “Light Bearer”), the rebel. And you’ve got Satan. The Bible never explicitly identifies them as the same figure. In fact, “satan” isn’t used as a proper name most of the time, it’s used as a title. The literal meaning is “accuser”, and it’s a job. A job God has assigned to some angels, whose job it is to test mortals in various horrible ways to see if their faith is strong.
If their faith is strong… in the being that assigned this angel to come and screw up your life and torture you.
Plague in Israel? God sends Satan to spread it.
So, why would an angel torture you for listening to the advice of that angel? Because God told him to. Because God is love. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to let my cognitive dissonance relax for a bit because it’s quite tired.
Where do people keep getting these strange ideas? “Serpent” and “snake” both refer to the animal, but came into English from different languages, Latin and Germanic respectively. The etymology of “serpent” comes from its movement — serpo, meaning “creep, crawl” — not venom, which makes sense since even the Romans knew that not all serpents are venomous.
But I agree with the larger point that there is much confusion about who Satan is, according to the bible.
At least one concept, strongly supported by the book of Job, is that Satan is subordinate to God, and accepts this position, and does not act without God’s express command. Satan tempts people and then punishes them for being tempted because that’s what God wants him to do.
Another concept, from the Koran, is that the devil is jealous of and resentful of humans. God created humans, and wanted the angels to subordinate themselves to humans, and Iblis was too proud to do so. Iblis tempts humans out of spite, and God lets him do so. God is the one who ultimately punishes everyone.
But there is also the concept of the devil as rebelling against God; wanting to overthrow him. It’s not fully described in the bible, just a few references to Satan or unnamed angels fighting against God and being cast out of heaven. Given this concept, it could make sense to see temptation as being Satan’s recruiting tool, rather than something he would then punish humans for succumbing to. But that would require seeing humans as potential allies against God, which Satan might well be too proud for.
There are lots of different possibilities, and different writers have used different parts of the various mythologies at different times.
Maybe it’s just me, but I fail to see how the etymology of ‘serpent’ has anything to do with this at all. You do know that the Bible wasn’t written in English, right?
If you want to talk about the etymology of נָחָשׁ, I’d be happy to hear about that.
Where did this idea come from that Satan is “in charge” of Hell? He supposedly gets thrown into the Lake of Fire not to rule it, but to rue it.
Chris Whitehouse:
Pop culture, and probably Dante.
Yes, but that’s merely Biblical. (Isaiah 14:12-15). And that is his torment.
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Owlmirror makes a good point; Satan/Lucifer and whatsnot is mostly pop culture.
(Hey, there’s a Netflix thingy called “lucifer” (https://www.netflix.com/au/title/80057918), which treats the whole idea every bit as seriously as is its due.;))
(Biblically, God is a Mafia Don)
Well, the Hebrew term does seem to have some connection to nechoshet, (נְחוֹשֶׁת), meaning “copper” (probably because molten copper flowed in snakelike rivulets from the smelting furnace), and to that weird quasi-idolatrous snake figure made from copper or bronze, Nechushtan.
I seem to recall seeing an idea that YHWH was originally a god of copper-smelters…..
Ah, found the ref:
Amzallag, N. “Yahweh, the Canaanite God of Metallurgy?” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Vol 33.4 (2009): 387-404. DOI: 10.1177/0309089209105686
Something that Amzallag doesn’t mention, but that I thought of, is that malachite, a copper ore, is often banded with striking darker and lighter shades of green, sometimes reminiscent of the rings of a tree. Could the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and the snake, be a combined reference to smelting malachite ore into copper? Could copper smelting have released fumes that caused euphoria and a corresponding emotional crash, like the story of eating forbidden fruit and then feeling bad about it?
Who knows? Might be worth a follow-up paper.
Dante, Milton, Goethe, Seltzer, Gaiman. Probably others.
Thanks, Mano! That was hilarious and had me laughing until tears were streaming. Great way to start the day!
I am strongly confident that none of the writers you list have ever suggested that “serpent” means “any venomous creature, not necessarily a snake”.
Didn’t we just got the story of The Dump doing shit like asking his employees to do something impossible (like removing Braille from building signs) just to berate them for failing? And you’re asking why Satan would tempt people just to torment them?
People are dicks, and they invent gods in their image.
My favorite characterization is of the viciously charming and hilariously evil Lucifer in the long-running fantasy soap opera SUPERNATURAL.
Of course, the lesser demon CROWLEY was even more fun!