Satan שטן Σαταν Σατανας
No matter how you look at this particular god, you're probably in error according to somebody. The proper name Satan is in the English translation of the Hebrew common noun satan. The word itself has been etymologically related to a mish mash of geminate [A doubled or long consonant], as well as third weak hollow verbs not only in Hebrew but in the cognate languages. The verbs can mean anything from to stray, Arabic ŠTT, Hebrew STH, Ethiopian ŠTY, Akkadian sâtu 1 and Syrian ST, to revolt/fall away Aramic SWT, Mandaean SWT and Hebrew SWT, to be unjust Arabicr ŠTT), to burn Syrian SWT and Arabic ŠYT and to seduce Ethiopian ŠTY and Hebrew STH .
As with most pat answers, there is a serious problem that have to be overcame. These are proposals require discounting the nűn of the noun Satan as part of the root, and then at the attributing it to a -an suffix. At least two reasons stand in opposition to this concept, the first being that when the -an suffix is appended to a noun word base, it will normally result in an abstract noun, an adjective, or a diminutive. The noun Satan has none of these characteristics.
In Hebrew, -an is normally realized as -on. Granted, there are exceptions but among the standard conditions proposed to explain the atypical retention of -an, are not applied to this particular noun.
The workaround is to accept the noun as part of the root and analyze the word in context. This does not find favor with current Christian apologetics.
That the geminate, third, weak, and hollow verbs listed above can have meanings that are considered appropriate to the noun Satan are viewed as resulting from interactions between the popular use of the word & developing traditions about Satan. The root stn is not found in any of the cognate languages that are prior to or contemporary with the occurrences of the Hebrew Bible. There is one situation where the Akkadian satanu is conflated with that particular word root, but the majority opinion polls that that particular word is related to etemu/etenu (AHW, 260). This leaves the sole means of interpretation with accuracy up to context. In the Hebrew Bible, there are nine occurrences, nine contexts. Five refer strictly to humans, and four are divine beings. Bel dababi, bel dim and akil karsi
are the terms they can refer to either a human legal opponent, or to a god acting as an accuser in some legal contact. Which of course causes confusion because the noun Satan now has a celestial as well as a human parallel. But the concept is not unique in the Middle East, the deities Nanay and Mar Biti are charged with enforcing a treaty that was sworn in their names. (en mes di ni-su) the Hebrew Bible reflects this concept with the divine council of él & then yahweh.
The most well-known Satan is found in Numbers 22:22-35 where Baalam busted his ass. The other three, Σαταv and Σαταvάς (cf Kgs 11 14 23, Sir 21 27, are transliterations meaning adversary. So far, this seems to be the only common characteristic of the name.
When referring to humans, it is never a proper name but a common noun that means adversary, either in a political or legal context.
When referring to a celestial being, the Greeks by way of the [this is one I have never heard of] 8HevXIIgr and a more familiar LXX is always translated as Diabolos <>Devil. Here it means the slander Ho Satanas & is rarely used without the article. This designates an opponent of god & in the New Testament, Satanas and Diabolos can refer to the same supernatural individual. Therefore they can be interchanged. cf Rev 20:2. This supreme evil being can also be referred to as ho poneros, the evil one‚ (cf Matt 13:19) and ho peirazon, the tempter (cf Matt 43: 1 Thess 3:5)
It is a bit odd that in the Hebrew Bible, in the Garden of Eden episode, Satan is not named and yet xian's claim he was there.
The story of baalam, is the one of two usages of the noun as a proper divine name.
In Numbers 22:22-35 a strange story is told. Gather round children, and let your imagination run free.
It starts out with a seer, which strangely enough is not a Judaean, merrily making his way to Jerusalem town on his ass. Of course, that was the common mode of travel in those days. For some reason this managed to irritate the Judaic god yahweh, who decided to send him a not so friendly warning. To do this he appointed a divine celestial messenger, commonly referred to as a mal'ak yhwh who has the additional duty of being the Satan of the day. The Satan decide to occupy the road upon which this particular prophet is traveling, & just make things interesting he elects to play hide and seek so that our hero of the story cannot see him. This does not prevent the ass from seeing the Satan. Just to impress the ass, the Satan has a sword, and the ass not being totally foolish says hell no I won't go & lays down. A good move on its part, this happens twice & our hero is beginning to be more than a bit irritated. He therefore commences to beating his ass.
To make a long story short, the ass asked why she had been beaten, the Satan un-cloaks, the message of yahweh is delivered. Our hero continues on his journey a changed man, so to speak. In so far as I'm aware, this is the only direct intervention in human affairs other than the story of Job that involves a Satan.
With the saga of baalam, & the attending satan out of the way, we get to some of the less vile parts regarding the satan.
Here we start in Job, where a divine council is in session. Here we encounter hásśatan, which creates problems for those that demand satan is real. It's that pesky definitive article, which means that this will not be a person's name. It means that an office or appointment to an office is about to begin. It still translates as the accuser. It is noted that nowhere does is position found in the legal system of ancient Judea. Nor is this office to be found in the surrounding councils of the gods. It is a unique term.
What is important about this, is that it removes the satan from being anything but a deity under the direct control of the current senior god with the hairy chest. It has been argued that during the Persian period, there were professional accusers/informers, but thus has never been ascertained to date. This leaves the satan directly under the command of the senior god. A point that various apologetic writers try & gloss over.
Now, what we have here is grounds to absolve the satan from any guilt or wrong doing, for he is acting directly at the explicit commands of the senior god. This one is thought to be yahweh.
Here we have a god [didn't expect a goddess did you] that has been appointed to a position that requires it to ask questions. In this case, the question raised was, are people [Job in this case] pious for the rewards & blessings received by being pious. A very foundational question. The author then proceeds to do a dog & pony show that is ethically bankrupt, but drives home the point, some people will be pious whether they are rewarded or not.
Again, the title satan is not what is important, it is what that job requires, not the person that holds it, that makes it important in Jewish mythology. with the introduction of satan into the story, we have something that makes more sense for such legal parallels [an appointed accuser] can be found in some Judaic legal proceedings.
It is sad to note, in the context of the story, that when Job bent his knee to yahweh, it proved the satan wrong.
There are no historical references in the book of job, so accurate dating is not available. A majority of scholars read it as a response to the theological problems [dualism, who or what created evil, eternal life, etc] caused by the Babylonian vacation. Due to that, it gets dated to the later half of the -sixth century, Gregorian.
To continue the demonization of the satan office, we can read of the prophet Zechariah (Zech 3), wherein the high priest, one Joshua is attending a tribunal of the divine council, & is standing in front of yahweh's fetch daemon. Hásśatan is standing on his right, in order to accuse him. The fetch daemon is less than thrilled about Joshua's dirty attire, & rebukes the satan for it. He demands clean clothes for joshua, & gets them. No one notices that it is the daemon that apparently brought Joshua, for that would not have the effect that was being worked towards. This is a rather powerful daemon, for it promises that as long as Joshua is faithful [does he have a choice?] he will have direct access to yahweh.
It gets rather detailed here, much past the scope of these notes on usenet.
It is about this time that Satan becomes an independent agent & yahweh becomes a nice guy. You can find this in the Chronicles. It starts with the accusation of the Census that yahweh ordered being blamed on Satan. Yet, we know the Judeans had no problem with a census, for it's found in their legends.
Given that the Chronicler used the Deuteronomistic History as a source text, it is clear that the Chronicler has altered his source in
such a way as to take the burden of responsibility for the sinful census away from Yahweh Some scholars interpret this to mean that the Chronicler was striving to distance Yahweh from any causal relationship to sin, or to rid Yahweh of malevolent behaviour in general However, this explanation cannot account for passages such as 2 Chr 10 15 and 18 18-22, where Yahweh is clearly portrayed as sanctioning lies and instigating behaviour that was designed to cause harm Another explanation notes that, in comparison to the Deuteronomistic History, the Chronicler presents an idealized portrait oί David's reign In general, the Chronicler deletes accounts that cast David in a dubious light Contrary to this general tendency, the Chronicler was obliged to retain the story of the census plague because it culminated in the erection of what the Chronicler understood to be the altar of the Solomonic Temple, and David's relationship to the Jerusalem Temple is another theme of crucial concern to the Chronicler Given that the incident could not, therefore, be deleted, the Chronicler modified his source text so that the incident no longer compromised Yahweh's relationship with David, the ideal king The Chronicler also shifts blame for the sinfulness of the census from David to Joab by stating that the census was not sinful per se, but was sinful because Joab did not take a complete census (1 Chr 21 6-7, 27 24) It is important to establish why the Chronicler changed his source text because his motivation has implications for how we understand satan in this passage If the Chronicler was trying to generally distance Yahweh from malevolent behaviour and accomplished this by attributing such be haviour to another divine being, then we can see in this passage the beginnings of a moral dichotomy in the celestial sphere If Yahweh is no longer thought to be responsible for malevolent behaviour toward humankind, and another divine being capable of acting efficaciously, independent of Yahweh, is, then it would be quite appropriate to translate satan with the proper name Satan However, if the introduction of satan into the census story has the more circumscribed objective of portraying the relationship between Yahweh and David favourably, and not of ridding Yahweh of malevolent intent more generally, then even if satan in this passage is a proper name, the term is still a long way from connoting Satan, God's evil archenemy Although there is no consensus position regarding the dating of Chronicles, the most persuasive arguments favour dating the first edition of the Chronicler's history to ca 520 bce If this is correct, then there are two additional reasons against translating satan as a proper name Firstly, Zechariah, a contemporary, does not use satan as a proper name Secondly, the earliest texts that indisputably contain the proper name Satan date to the second century bce (Ass Mos 10 1, Jub 23 29, possibly Sir 21 27), which would mean that more than 300 years separate the Chroniclers text fiom the first certain references to Satan In summary, the four Hebrew Bible texts that mention a celestial satan are most probably dateable to the sixth century bce or later, and it is clear that the satan envisaged in Zech 3 is not the same divine being who acts as a satan in Num 22 Moreover, in none of the four texts is satan indisputably used as a proper name Given these data, it is difficult to maintain, as many scholars have, that we can see in the Hebrew Bible a developing notion of Satan First of all, if Satan is not mentioned in the Hebiew Bible, then the statement that the Hebrew Bible evidences a developing notion of Satan is obviously anachronistic Secondly, the statement is difficult to maintain because at least two of the texts clearly refer to different divme beings And thirdly, if the texts are relatively closely clustered in terms of date, then there is less likelihood that they would evidence conceptual development.
IV. In Hebrew texts from the Second Temple Period the use of satan is limited The sinner seeks forgiveness from Yahweh, who is asked to prevent the rule of Satan or an unclean spirit (cf 11 QPsa Plea 19 15) Satan's power threatens human beings Accordingly the time of salvation is marked by the absence of Satan and evil (4 QDibHam3 1-2,IV,12, cf Jub 23 29, 40 9, 46 2, 50 5) Satan is standing among the winds (3 Enoch 23 16) The council of the Qumran community had a curse in which they imprecated that satan with his hostile design and with his wicked spirits be damned (cf 4 QBerab) In the LXX 'Satan' as a divme name possibly occurs in Sir 21 27 "When the ungodly curses Satan, he curses his own life " i Being a transliteration from the Hebrew or Aramaic and almost lacking in the LXX, the Greek form of the name "Satan" is rarely used in Jewish literature of the Second Temple Period (cf. T. 12 Patr., T. Job and Life of Adam and Eve 17:1). Ho Diabolos (Devil), preferred by Life of Adam and Eve, Philo and Josephus, is more common. "Satan" and "BeliaΓ are used to refer to the same superterrestrial being (cf. the Dead Sea Scrolls; Mart. Isa. 2:1.4.7 [= Gk 3:2; 3:11] ) and "Satan" and "Devil" are synonymous in their reference (cf. T. Job. 3:3.6 and 16:2 + 27:1 with 17:1 + 26:6). The incidental use of Satanάs in some Greek texts, such as the NT, is a clear Semitism. According to the various NT authors Satan (in Q the Devil) rules over a Kingdom of darkness. Satan is thus depicted as major opponent of Jesus and tries to deceive him (Mark 1:13). As the opposing force to God, the Synoptic Tradition identifies Satan with Beelzebul, the principal of the devils (Luke 11:15-19 // Matt 12:24-27 // Mark 3:22- 23.26). Jesus defeats his power by exorcizing demons and curing the ill and thus inaugurates the reign of God which ends Satans' rule (Matt 12:28 // Luke 11:20). For Luke, Jesus' ministry is the time of salvation and thus puts a temporary end to the reign of Satan (10:18). The conversion of the gentiles leads them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18). Apostates are handed back to Satan (1 Cor 5:5; 1 Tim 1:20 cf. 5:15). As principal of the God-opposing forces, Satan poses a threat to the Christian communities (e.g. Rom 16:20; 2 Cor 2:11). He can still influence the daily life and thwart human plans (1 Thess 2:18). Through demons he causes illness (e.g. Luke 13:16; 2 Cor 12:7); he deceives humans (1 Cor 7:5; Rev 20:3) and is even disguised as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14). Grave errors of members of the community are ascribed to the influence of Satan. Peter is rebuked as "Satan" intending "the things of man" and thus opposing God (Mark 8:33; Luke 22:31). Judas' betrayal of Jesus (Luke 22:3; John 13:27) and Ananias' fraud (Acts 5:3) for instance, are understood to be caused by Satan. Opposing religiosity,such as the Jewish refusal to accept Christ (cf. Rev 2:9; 3:9), heresy (cf. Rev 2:24) or cults which endanger the Christian communities in Asia (cf. Rev 2:13) are seen as threats coming from Satan. In Jewish apocalyptic tradition, the eschatological fall of Satan is expected (Rom 16:20; Rev 20:7-10). In the post-NT tradition the Antichrist is very closely associated with the Devil and Satan. False teaching originates with them (Pol. Phil. 7:1). The "angels of Satan" control the dark way of false teaching and authority, opposing the angels of God, who are guiding to the way of light (Barn. 18:1. On the Apostolic Fathers, Apologists and Gnostics, see Russel 1981).