Reddit reviews The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics
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If you're genuinely interested, I recommend either The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels. Or if you want something a little less dry and academic, then check out A History of the Devil by Gerald Messadie.
But briefly, I would say that the "Christian cults got the notion that he's the 'enemy of God'" through the New Testament. 2 Corinthians 11 and Mark 3:25 are two quick examples of this.
John is the most emphatic about blaming the Jews. Matthew and Luke tend to spread the blame between the Jews and the Romans. Mark gives nearly all of the credit to the Romans. Essentially, the later the gospel was written, the more likely it is to excuse Pilate and the Romans for their part and to provide more reason to blame the Jews.
Most of this information, btw, comes from Elaine Pagels' [The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics][1] and, to a lesser degree, Harold Bloom's Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine. Pagels attributes the shift to the changing fortunes of the Jews in Imperial Rome and the growing rift between Judaism and Christianity.
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized-Heretics/dp/0679731180
If you want to read extra-biblical sources, you can start with something like Old Testament Parallels., which has excerpts arranged by their possible similarity with the OT canon. For more comprehensive coverage, look at Outside the Bible (3 vols).
Heiser has his defenders on here, but from a historian's perspective my view is that his approach to those ancient texts has been unduly shaped by his theological agenda. You can compare his approach with the work of some others, including David Penchansky, Twilight of the Gods, Mark Smith, The Early History of God, Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan, Adam Kotsko's The Prince of This World, and Thomas Römer, The Invention of God.
On Enoch and the Apocalyptic tradition in particular, look at John Collins's The Apocalptic Imagination, and Anathea Portier-Young, Apocalypse Against Empire.
Now that I type this out, these would make a kick-butt course syllabus. Hmmm...
I'd encourage them to look up the history of the pentacle, and where else it can be found outside of Wicca/Witchcraft. For example, the shape is a representation of Venus' orbit as viewed from Earth. I reckon it gets its cultural and religious significance originally from astronomy and study of geometry.
Also, you can explain that when Christians sought to take over Pagan cultures, they demonised a lot of their traditions and branded them as demonic. Is the devil horned because Christians decided that anyone worshipping the Pagan Horned God was worshipping the devil? This book might be a good resource.
On a similar note, if you are interested in how the concept of Satan has evolved during Christianity's history, see The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics.
> In the Hebrew Bible, as in 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. As he first appears in the Hebrew Bible, Satan is not necessarily evil, much less opposed to God. On the contrary, he appears in the book of Numbers and in Job as one of God’s obedient servants – a messenger, or angel, a word that translates the Hebrew term for messenger (mal’ak) into Greek (angelos). In Hebrew, the angels were called ‘sons of God’ (bene’elohim), and where envisioned as the hierarchical ranks of a great army, or the staff of a royal court.
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>In biblical sources the Hebrew term the satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century B.C.E. occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any one of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root stn means ‘one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.’ (The Greek term diablos, later translated ‘devil,’ literally means ‘one who throws something across one’s path.’)
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>The satan’s presence in a story could help account for unexpected obstacles or reversals of fortune. … Some, however, also invoke this supernatural character, the satan, who, by God’s own order or permision, 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… Thus the satan may simply have been sent by the Lord to protect a person from worse harm” (Pagels 39-40).
A great book, very highly recommended: http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized-Heretics/dp/0679731180/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463457841&sr=1-1&keywords=the+origin+of+satan
You might want to check out this book by Elaine Pagels about Satan: https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized-Heretics/dp/0679731180
I remember reading that post on r/AcademicBiblical as well. My guess is that the people who remain Christian do so out of a fear of hell. This is actually something I've noticed among some theologians. You don't see the same phenomenon among Jews. Most Jews don't believe in eternal torment so it's much easier for them to stop believing once they learn all the back history.
Also, keep in the mind that few non-Christians have an interest in studying the Christian Bible anyway.
The Satan we know was not in the OT. Satan as we know him is an invention of the early Xians.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized/dp/0679731180
Epic thread discussing origin/meaning of Satan is missing this book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized/dp/0679731180
(Origin of Satan, Elaine Pagels)
If you're looking for historical view, I personally like Elaine Pagels The Origin of Satan.
actually the concept of Satan is a very late invention (post exhilic Judaism, at the earliest) whose purpose was to demonise the enemies of the jews. you can read more about it here
http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized-Heretics/dp/0679731180
You may also be interested in seeking out the gnostic gospels. One claims to be from Mary and provides a direct female succession. I'm not a catholic myself, but I gained that nugget of info recently while reading The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels. She's written a couple books on the gnostic gospels that I intend to pick up next.
This is an excellent study of Satan in the history of the Christian religion, and those that preceded it. I love this authors work, she has a way with history. Fun Fact, she is Hans Pagels wife. Jeff Goldblooms part in Jurassic Park was based on him. And I'm not religious, just enjoy the history of it all.
https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized-Heretics/dp/0679731180
Satan being God's #1 angel is actually based on later tradition, rather than from the Bible. A lot of "facts" about Satan that we pretty much take for granted nowadays are actually tacked on over time from various other sources. It's actually a pretty interesting topic, and you can read up a little about it here, and there's a pretty good book about the subject here.
There you go: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized-Heretics/dp/0679731180
As a "theistic" Satanist (whatever the fuck that means) I would suggest acquainting yourself with the following works, which IMHO I believe are or should be of general interest to all Satanists:
Elaine Pagels makes a good argument in her book "The Origin of Satan" for the idea that Christians (at least the earlier ones shortly after the death of Jesus) had a very different if non-existent notion of Satan, and that they never really believed in an ultimate evil incarnate, and that if you look closely, Satan doesn't even really appear in either the old or new testaments in the way that we think of nowadays. Instead, Satan is a derivation on Shaitan, or a force of opposition (someone or something that blocks). Shaitan was an angel sent to do God's bidding in preventing someone from accomplishing what they were originally intending. Supposedly, this was to prevent humans from accomplishing goals that would ultimately lead to greater misfortune. For example, the spirit of Shaitan would be send into a donkey that would prevent that donkey from climbing the hill, where a landslide would happen. Since God knows it would happen, he sends the Shaitan to keep that human safe. Over time, this developed into "Satan", and took on a more malevolent tone. An interesting read, if you want to look into this more.
There are so many awesome texts out there!
I'm really partial to the character of Enoch, and the more weird, apocalyptic sorts of books. I'll throw a few of those out there for your perusing pleasure.
I'm using two Wiki links to give a general overview of the two texts I'll talk about, but please
The Book of Enoch, or First Enoch - this book is regarded as canon by Christians in Ethiopia/Eritrea, but not by other churches. I think it is particularly interesting because Enoch is taken around on a grand tour of the cosmos: he sees the world, up into the heavens, and even down to Sheol. It's pretty cool to read how people reckoned the cosmos worked back then. There are weird visions of angels, a few parables and even an astronomical calendar text thrown into the mix.
Slavonic Enoch, or, Second Enoch is unrelated to First Enoch (i.e., different author, very different date and region) but contains a lot of the same sort of stories about good old Enoch. There's also some stuff about Melchizedek, whom you probably recognize since it seems you're interested in Gnostic stuff. (the Wiki link for this one isn't as strong as the first- please check out more sources for better analysis of the text)
More information on the books of Enoch:
Jewishencyclopedia.com
Detailed analysis by Andri Orlov
If you are looking for more fun Gnostic stuff to peruse, and haven't checked out Apocalyptic/Gnostic scholar Elaine Pagels yet, you're missing out:
Youtube Discussion about the Book of Revelation
I'd definitely check out her books on the Origin of Satan and Revelations
Great book about the Christian origins of Satan, and how different he is from the Jewish Satan:
https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized-Heretics/dp/0679731180
Interesting talk by the same author, 9 minutes: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/666/the-theme-that-shall-not-be-named/act-two-4
If you want something related, but not JW specific, these might interest you:
"The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics"
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679731180/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_WJCDDbMAJFDPK
And
"Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are"
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062012622/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_KMCDDbAAJ0GGN
I found them interesting and they do tie indoctrination, particularly since JW are big on the Satan Concept and Paul's teachings, most of Paul's books of the bible were not written by Paul. I might be biased in my enjoyment of these books. I do not believe in Satan, I think it is just a boogeyman concept to instill fear. I also think Paul/Simon was a sack of shit, but it seems as though most of the books attributed to him were written in his name well after his death. None of this is groundbreaking, it is pretty well established and accepted biblical history, but it is well written and easy to follow.
i read this ( http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Satan-Christians-Demonized-Heretics/dp/0679731180/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1302899963&sr=8-3 ) in an afternoon while working in a used book store one summer. i was already an atheist, but it definitely cleared up a lot of questions about satan and hell for me. you might find it useful - even comforting.
You should check out a book called The Origins of Satan by Elaine Pagels.