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Please describe for me how, on any day in your life when everything was great and nothing bad was happening, you managed to enjoy the experience.
Please explain how god's purpose could not be the happiness and security of his beloved creatures, and to create an environment where they can enjoy him continually. Oh, wait ... that is conveniently in the future and beyond the veil, it's called "heaven". Where, by your line of reasoning, we will all be mindless robots, unable to have free choice, and unable to enjoy anything because of the absence of evil.
So ... that means THIS life is heaven, right?
Exactly! Christians say that if there was no evil then we would all be mindless robots worshipping God... really? If God has the power to create the universe as it is now then couldn't he have decided to create a perfect world with no evil that can function perfectly...
They say we would be robots on Earth then they say there's no evil in Heaven and everything is perfect... how is that any less robotic? They even say that we will forget our loved who ended up in Hell instead of Heaven, so that means we won't really be the same person in Heaven.
They even say that we will forget our loved who ended up in Hell instead of Heaven, so that means we won't really be the same person in Heaven.
Yeah, that little chestnut never made sense to me even when I was a Christian. It has no basis in scripture at all, it is simply a hand-waving dismissal to plug a logical hole. Believers are adjured to love unconditionally, and thus they care about people, especially their loved ones, and most particularly if they think their loved ones are bound for hell. Yet God does not consider it important enough to "open the eyes of their understanding" (might violate their free will to be willfully ignorant, and of course willful ignorance or hard-hearted rebellion are the only possible explanations for unbelief).
And now suddenly we're in heaven and we have to think for eternity about these loved ones roasting on a spit in a pool of boiling oil, taunted by sadistic imps. Kind of ruins the idea of heaven! A truly loving family member might even do what Robin William's character did in the movie What Dreams May Come, and descend into hell in search of their loved one, even take their place to set them free! Might bring a lot of rabble into the heavenly neighborhood, and what would that do to property values?
So someone at some point, confronted with some aging or ailing hand-writing parishioner concerned about some loved one that just wasn't coming around, must have said to themselves, "surely, heaven can't be anything less than perfect bliss, so since god has turned his back on those rebellious sinners, he will surely just wipe them from our memories too". And thus is born a new doctrine constructed from whole cloth (more so than most are!) to avert this existential problem.
HaSatan is an Angel that works for HaShem...Also metaphorical for desires of the flesh...IOW, you tempt yourself...
Very good post, Richard - especially in regards to the Satan's role as God's servant.
I wonder why you call "the Satan" (haśśāṭān) angel, however. Is this a reflex of Jewish tradition? He is never referred to as such in the Hebrew Bible. He is instead counted among the "sons of the gods" (bənê hāʼĕlōhîm) in the prose framework of the Book of Job - which is a formulaic way of classifying a type of thing, translatable as "gods". Elsewhere in Job (38:7), the definite article is missing so "sons of God/Elohim" (bənê ĕlōhîm) is appropriate. Psalm 29 has the rare variant "sons of Elim" (bənê ēlîm).
In the Book of Job, where we have our most explicit picture of the character and subservient role of "the Satan", his numbering among the gods is explicit:
The day arrived when the gods come and present themselves before Yahweh, and the Satan also came with them.
(Job 1:6, AB Pope)
The divine nature of the bənê hāʼĕlōhîm in Job is paralleled in Ugaritic literature by the "sons of El" (bn 'il) who are gods in their own right, having been explicitly descended from El as his physical sons (the term also applies to female deities, as gendered language favors the masculine as default). Whether this same common ANE usage applies to the bənê hāʼĕlōhîm of the Book of Job as explicitly "sons of God/Elohim" is mitigated by the usage of the definite article before ʼĕlōhîm, and what we most likely have here is a classifying phrase similar to "sons of the prophets" (used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible to mean "prophets") in which a group of beings are specified by kinship terminology, but with no actual physical kinship explicitly meant. Thus the translation "gods" in the Anchor Bible quotation above.
David J. Clines lets his theological assumption that the author of Job was explicitly a strict monotheist bias his translation and he forgets the definite article before ʼĕlōhîm and favors "sons of God":
Now there came a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh, and the Satan also came among them.
(Job 1:6, WBC Clines)
Whether one favors "the gods" or "the sons of God" depends on their point of view, I suppose.
Now, whether or not "gods" (bənê hāʼĕlōhîm) are among the category of "angel" (Greek ángelos, Latin angelus) of later Jewish tradition depends on whether one is willing to overlook the fact that whenever an "angel" is referred to in the Hebrew Bible, the normative and frequentive Hebrew term "messenger of God" (mal'āk̠ 'ĕlōhîm) or "messenger of Yahweh" (mal'āk̠ yhwh) is used. That this suits their role in mediating between humanity and the Divine is clear from both the phrase used and the actions they performed. But an ángelos could be any mal'āk̠ 'ĕlōhîm/yhwh, "messenger of God/Yahweh" - no matter the messenger's divine or non-divine status. The term can be used for both divine and human envoys.
Instances where it is not possible to say definitively whether the "messenger" is human or divine can be found in several places:
Yahweh's envoy (mal'āk̠ yhwh) went up from The Circle of The Weepers and said....
...When Yahweh's envoy had proclaimed these words to all the Israelites, the people cried aloud and wept. The name of that place they called Weepers. There they sacrifice to Yahweh.
(Judges 2:1, 4-5 AB Boling)
Behold, I am sending My messenger to clear the way before Me, and the Lord whom you seek shall come to His Temple suddenly. As for the angel ["messenger" - same Hebrew as previous sentence] of the covenant that you desire, he is already coming.
(Malachi 3:1 NJPS)
The two messengers of Malachi 3:1 may be different beings, or one. The translators of the New Jewish Publication Society's version above use "angel" for the second instance of the word, belying a bias perhaps.
The point is that the mal'āk̠ 'ĕlōhîm/yhwh is not necessarily the same thing as the bənê hāʼĕlōhîm, which group haśśāṭān belongs to in the Book of Job.
Works Cited for those interested:
AB Pope: Anchor Bible Series 15: Job, by Marvin H. Pope (New York: Doubleday 1965)
WBC Clines: Word Biblical Commentary 17: Job 1-20, by David J. A. Clines (Dallas: Word Books 1989)
AB Boling: Anchor Bible Series 6A: Judges, by Robert G. Boling (New York: Doubleday 1975)
NJPS: New Jewish Publication Society TAANAKH Translation, Jewish Publication Society 1985, 1999)
And a site that sees people who disagree with its notions of morality and social justice as "proof" of a gathering end-time storm of just desserts on the ungodly ... is new and different how? And proves what? Other than that people tend to otherize, demonize and dehumanize people with whom they don't actually have any empirically defensible opposition to?
And a site that sees people who disagree with its notions of morality and social justice as "proof" of a gathering end-time storm of just desserts on the ungodly ... is new and different how? And proves what? Other than that people tend to otherize, demonize and dehumanize people with whom they don't actually have any empirically defensible opposition to?
Don't forget to eat your raw foods - people can beat terminal cancer merely by munching on a celery stalk or carrot (*crunch crunch crunch* Nyyaaaa, what's up, doc?)
Love their careful monitoring of natural disasters, too; even when a handful of pheasants die due to bird flu, it counts as a sign of the End Times.
Very good post, Richard - especially in regards to the Satan's role as God's servant.
I wonder why you call "the Satan" (haśśāṭān) angel, however. Is this a reflex of Jewish tradition? He is never referred to as such in the Hebrew Bible. He is instead counted among the "sons of the gods" (bənê hāʼĕlōhîm) in the prose framework of the Book of Job - which is a formulaic way of classifying a type of thing, translatable as "gods". Elsewhere in Job (38:7), the definite article is missing so "sons of God/Elohim" (bənê ĕlōhîm) is appropriate. Psalm 29 has the rare variant "sons of Elim" (bənê ēlîm).
In the Book of Job, where we have our most explicit picture of the character and subservient role of "the Satan", his numbering among the gods is explicit:
The day arrived when the gods come and present themselves before Yahweh, and the Satan also came with them.
(Job 1:6, AB Pope)
The divine nature of the bənê hāʼĕlōhîm in Job is paralleled in Ugaritic literature by the "sons of El" (bn 'il) who are gods in their own right, having been explicitly descended from El as his physical sons (the term also applies to female deities, as gendered language favors the masculine as default). Whether this same common ANE usage applies to the bənê hāʼĕlōhîm of the Book of Job as explicitly "sons of God/Elohim" is mitigated by the usage of the definite article before ʼĕlōhîm, and what we most likely have here is a classifying phrase similar to "sons of the prophets" (used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible to mean "prophets") in which a group of beings are specified by kinship terminology, but with no actual physical kinship explicitly meant. Thus the translation "gods" in the Anchor Bible quotation above.
David J. Clines lets his theological assumption that the author of Job was explicitly a strict monotheist bias his translation and he forgets the definite article before ʼĕlōhîm and favors "sons of God":
Now there came a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh, and the Satan also came among them.
(Job 1:6, WBC Clines)
Whether one favors "the gods" or "the sons of God" depends on their point of view, I suppose.
Now, whether or not "gods" (bənê hāʼĕlōhîm) are among the category of "angel" (Greek ángelos, Latin angelus) of later Jewish tradition depends on whether one is willing to overlook the fact that whenever an "angel" is referred to in the Hebrew Bible, the normative and frequentive Hebrew term "messenger of God" (mal'āk̠ 'ĕlōhîm) or "messenger of Yahweh" (mal'āk̠ yhwh) is used. That this suits their role in mediating between humanity and the Divine is clear from both the phrase used and the actions they performed. But an ángelos could be any mal'āk̠ 'ĕlōhîm/yhwh, "messenger of God/Yahweh" - no matter the messenger's divine or non-divine status. The term can be used for both divine and human envoys.
Instances where it is not possible to say definitively whether the "messenger" is human or divine can be found in several places:
Yahweh's envoy (mal'āk̠ yhwh) went up from The Circle of The Weepers and said....
...When Yahweh's envoy had proclaimed these words to all the Israelites, the people cried aloud and wept. The name of that place they called Weepers. There they sacrifice to Yahweh.
(Judges 2:1, 4-5 AB Boling)
Behold, I am sending My messenger to clear the way before Me, and the Lord whom you seek shall come to His Temple suddenly. As for the angel ["messenger" - same Hebrew as previous sentence] of the covenant that you desire, he is already coming.
(Malachi 3:1 NJPS)
The two messengers of Malachi 3:1 may be different beings, or one. The translators of the New Jewish Publication Society's version above use "angel" for the second instance of the word, belying a bias perhaps.
The point is that the mal'āk̠ 'ĕlōhîm/yhwh is not necessarily the same thing as the bənê hāʼĕlōhîm, which group haśśāṭān belongs to in the Book of Job.
Works Cited for those interested:
AB Pope: Anchor Bible Series 15: Job, by Marvin H. Pope (New York: Doubleday 1965)
WBC Clines: Word Biblical Commentary 17: Job 1-20, by David J. A. Clines (Dallas: Word Books 1989)
AB Boling: Anchor Bible Series 6A: Judges, by Robert G. Boling (New York: Doubleday 1975)
NJPS: New Jewish Publication Society TAANAKH Translation, Jewish Publication Society 1985, 1999)
HaSatan or The Satan, is not a name but a functional title...The Adversary or Tester is used by HaShem
as a prosecutor of sorts, when HaSatan is used metaphorically, in regards the flesh, it implies that our flesh is our adversary and that we must bring it under subjection to what we know is right...
HaSatan or The Satan, is not a name but a functional title...The Adversary or Tester is used by HaShem
as a prosecutor of sorts, when HaSatan is used metaphorically, in regards the flesh, it implies that our flesh is our adversary and that we must bring it under subjection to what we know is right...
Yes, you are correct. With the definite article, haśśāṭān is a title applied to the divine being who acted as God's "prosecuting attorney" in cases of testing the faithfulness of God's servants, akin to the "eyes and ears" of the Persian King who had spies who exposed secret rebels. As such, he served as a potent adversary against humans, in whom some sort of sin could almost always be found - except in the case of Job, of course. As a member of the Divine Council that Yahweh ruled over, he played an important role, and from the texts we have always acted with permission from God, and never on his own in a malicious manner.
At some point, however, the title haśśāṭān loses the definite article and becomes a Personal Name as seen in the case of the census taking of David and how later tradents interpreted the passage in the Book of Samuel. At this point we seem to be getting an evolution of the character (inline with books such as Jubilees and Enoch) that takes the blame off of God for the census and puts it on this new creature Satan in the Chronicler's retelling. The original tale has Yahweh, alone, responsible for the census:
The wrath of Yahweh was kindled against Israel again, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go count Israel and Judah!"
(II Samuel 24:1, AB McCarter, JR.)
A terrible plague follows. The later revisionist author of Chronicles was uncomfortable with attributing such an action to Yahweh, and took steps to rehabilitate his character by putting the onus of the plague onto this new diabolical character: Satan.
Satan rose up against Israel by enticing David to count Israel.
(I Chronicles 21:1, AB Myers)
Chronicles is a very late work, so the evolution of a diabolical opponent to God had taken root in the Jewish consciousness by that time. It also removed some hairy problems of theodicy and evil that came along with the advent of Monotheism and the diminishing of rival gods and the ability to blame evil on them. Yahweh was the only God, and the problem of evil needed a solution. The new character of Satan became a convenient scapegoat. Evil became something that came into being after Creation, and the innocent suffered precisely because of their innocence and faith in God. An evil being punished and afflicted them, but some day everything would be put to right. Apocalyptic writings were born.
The lack of the definite article is crucial in this passage in helping to catch one facet of the evolution of haśśāṭān as a title into a Personal Name - the Satan that the New Testament knew so well.
Out of curiosity, where do you get your metaphorical idea? The same place you get the idea haśśāṭān was an angel? I like it, it's interesting... personal theory?
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Prophecy
