Dr Christopher Rollston, "The Rise of the Satan in Early Second Temple Judaism"

[@timellison6854]

Excellent contribution regarding the rise of the literary figure ha satan.

[@shannonsedeq2093]

Thank you for this lecture - particularly the interpretation of Zechariah 3:1-5. It can be hard to see how someone bringing an accusation (and being rebuked by Yahweh for it) can be acting in a positive way, but I do like your reading of the text.

[@_scabs6669]

This interpretation holds up in Genesis, too, I think, even in the Adam and Eve myth. Satan is seen as the evil tempter (because that's how the Greek scriptures represent him) but things aren't so cut and dry in the Hebrew scriptures or the Jewish mindset. I actually realized this through a study of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (he was Jewish too). Which is that Satan was actually on the side of human development, where Elohim was against us. God wanted to keep us from the knowledge which would lead to the development of consciousness. Satan wanted to open up that knowledge to humanity. Essentially God wanted to leave us as peaceful animals, while Satan can be seen to represent the primeval understanding of processes of consciousness and evolution. Yes, it's through our development of consciousness that suffering and war is introduced into the world, it's consciousness of life which creates human existential suffering. So in the final assessment, maybe that was Satan's fault. But it wasn't just the tree of evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From consciousness stems both war and art, both beauty and terror. Without conscious will, we can't sin, but neither can we know the Divine or do mitzvah. So in the beginning, maybe the Creator was the Adversary

[@theobotchway834]

to the untrained eye Satan might be a transparent character, but evidently, he is disingenuous, making him a translucent character to a trained eye, meaning on the surface he may mean well, but looking in between the lines from the end and solving backwards, he is not.

[@_scabs6669]

@@theobotchway834 by "the end," you mean the Christian New Testament, right?

[@_scabs6669]

@@theobotchway834 the Greek New Testament is more of a loosely connected spin off than a sequel

[@amosmgz]

@@_scabs6669 Bad take all the way around from you. Ironically, when someone takes your view of the satan, you are doing what I think the story wants you to do... sympathize with your destroyer. You like Eve would have taken the fruit too. We all would. We all would think the satan was trying to help us evolve, or progress, or whatever you want to call it. The point of the story though is to draw you to the conclusion that we are frail free-willed creatures who need God (elohim), even though we may try to make our own way. Our way will lead to death. So Moses says in Deuteronomy "choose life!" "follow YHWH's instructions!"

[@_scabs6669]

Brian Godawa is the one who introduced me to this original interpretation of Satan as The Satan, or Adversary, essentially, God's prosecuting attorney or God's Lawyer

[@theobotchway834]

How then do we explore the concept of reward and retribution after death? I get it, in Job 1:9-11//Zechariah 3:1-2//Psalm 82 (Ps 82:1 doesn't explicitly pronounce Satan, but the idea of him is there). I think it's a fair assessment that Satan is a disingenuous character, and every individual has their own Satan befitting their situation on "true obedience in the absence of the expectation of a promise or reward". Now, having narrowed the idea of Satan down and setting him aside, how then, between man and God, do we dissect with clarity, the concept of reward and retribution after death?

[@Zukua_]

This is my friends dads cousin

[@alg11297]

In Hebrew, the prefix "ha" means "the". So when he keeps saying hasatan (which should be pronounced ha-satan) he is saying the devil or evil one.

[@B1G_ChUnG5]

alg11297 HaSatan does not translate to Devil, or evil anything. HaSatan is an agent OF God, not opposed to it/him (see the book of Job). HaSatan has no freewill. God tells him/it what to do. We also refer to it as the yesser hara(evil inclination). Which is something we all have. In the book of Kings God comes as “satan” unto king David. Does this mean that god is Satan? No, it simply means that god came as an adversary unto David. Shalom.

[@christopherdickinson5051]

It means accuser or adversary. It doesn’t mean devil in the Old Testament.

[@alg11297]

@@christopherdickinson5051 My mistake. But in Hebrew the word is Sah-tan, so it could translate as THE accuser or THE adversary, a definitive entity.

[@Wonyoungpower]

@@alg11297 DDD's entry about Satan is informative. Satan with a definite article means it is not the Devil in NT. The author didn't care about his identity but his role in the story.

[@boxfox2945]

Doesn't quite line up Jewish thought with later christainized rearrangement, but fills it in some-what.

[@neomosals3898]

Mom

[@Grayknickles]

Extraordinary that an otherwise seemingly intelligent fellow can waste so much of his life concocting this confused, imaginary, infantile nonsense.

[@downwiththezionistpsychopa9812]

Jew detected

[@petermibrahim]

@@downwiththezionistpsychopa9812 lol chill jewws are jsut another version of white people. according to the story of Abel & Cain.

[@BB-oz8oc]

@@petermibrahim jews are not white there middle eastern

[@petermibrahim]

@@BB-oz8oc look so are Palestinians and also they are both considered asian as well. My point is that they come from the same origins. hence another Cauc-asian race.

[@blastfromthepast7119]

@@petermibrahim we've existed in different regions, geographic and biologic, for a very long time, our conditions have changed us and as a result we are different and so are they, and them from others. People have become so infatuated with multiculturalism that they've gone beyond forgetting this, they see it as racist or problematic thinking.