God and Satan in the Hebrew Bible - Essay Example

SATAN Looking at the development of Satan in the Old Testament Bible, or Hebrew Bible, one can see early in the text less of the polarizing that exists in Christian (New Testament) additions, and more of a close relationship between the entities Satan and God. The reader primarily gets to know Satan thought the Old Testament in the Book of Job, as Satan’s first appearance is as a sort of helper to God, who is able to test Job’s relationship with God. In other words, in this section of the Bible, we see God and Satan acting not like enemies, but rather like old friends who are carrying out a friendly wager about a disagreement. This is far from the beastly and prophetic visions of Satan that come later in the additional Christian texts, for example in Revelations, in which Satan is effectively demonized or polarized, to represent the extreme side of evil, versus the extreme side of good. Satan in the Old Testament is more simple and straightforward, and also has a more direct relationship with God. There are cues about Satan in Genesis and other Old Testament books. “In Genesis, God not only promises consequences for disobedience but that a battle will be fought-at great cost to God-to set all free from the destructive power of evil and human sin” (Weissenmuler, 2002). However, in terms of explicit mention of Satan by name, to represent an alternate side of God, the book of Job is the book of focus. In the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, there is not really much explicit mention of Satan before the book of Job. As mentioned above, of course, in Genesis, there is the portrayal of evil, and the representation of evil through the snake which tempts Eve with the apple, but even here the snake is not explicitly identified as Satan. It is a more symbolic meaning. And, although there are occasional uses of “satan” as a verb or noun to mean terrorize or enemy, respectively in the Old Testament before the book of Job, Job is the first book in which the reader is introduced to Satan as a personage with a direct relationship to God. The reader sees that Job is a man who “feared God, and eschewed evil” (KJV,Job,1,1), who has been given a bountiful and prosperous life by his God. Satan is introduced early in the book through a series of tests by which God is to measure Job’s faith by taking away the abundance that he has given him; Satan acts as an agent of God in carrying out the disruption of Job’s plenty and the corruption of his body. In this way, the reader can see that, rightfully so in a book which is more philosophical than it is polarizing, Satan in the book of Job is the agent of God’s instructions, and is not necessarily portrayed as an enemy of God and humanity, or a symbol or representation of evil. Satan is introduced in Job as a nuisance, a sort of sarcastic gate-crasher of God’s gathering of his sons, but he also acts in the book as a servant of God who obediently carries out his instructions. “The book of Job has been called the greatest of the wisdom books, but it goes far beyond the practical and prudential advice of much wisdom literature. It probes the mystery of undeserved suffering and the existence of evil” (Old, 2005). These concepts of evil and suffering are seen often in the Bible in terms of a trope of explanation attempts. The transformation that Satan makes in the Bible from the Hebrew texts to newer additions is basically a transformation from an agent of God to a symbol of evil. In the book of Job, however, it is more of the agent of God role that is on display from Satan. The first time that Satan appears in the gathering of God’s sons, and afterwards in repetition, God asks him, “Whence comest thou?” and Satan responds, “From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it” (KJV,Job,1,7). The dialogue between God and Satan is almost like a sort of bantering. The first and second times that God and Satan speak, their dialogue is almost identical: after responding wryly to God’s question, Satan listens while God extols the virtues of his servant, Job. God considers Job to be unique among the rest of humanity and an exemplary example of a God-fearing man who is upright and does not do evil. During their first conversation, Satan asks God why Job should do otherwise, considering that he has been given everything by God. Satan defies God to take away what he has given Job, and God willingly allows Satan to take away Job’s wealth, family, and friends. Here the reader begins to get a notion of the dynamic between God and Satan regarding power, which is something that then repeats itself in both the Old and New Testaments as a theme: Satan’s power is seen to be ultimately derived from and inextricably linked to God’s (unless it is being used in an obscurely symbolic way), as he is being ordered by God to take away Job’s fortunes, family, and friends. In some way, God can be seen to be absolved of responsibility, since Satan is doing the deed, but the ultimate authority of destruction comes from God. Job loses all of his servants, livestock, family, and property, and proves Satan wrong by not consequently renouncing God, sinning, cursing, or blaming God for his suffering and misfortune. In the second conversation between God and Satan, the scene is set in much the same way as in their first meeting: God has called his sons, and Satan comes among them and again banters with God about his point of origin. God again asks Satan to look upon Job, who has proven himself to be loyal, perfect, and free of evil, despite the hardships which Satan pressed God to make him undergo. Satan is still not satisfied, and ups the ante, claiming that since Job still has his health and vitality, nothing has really been taken away from him when it comes down to it. Again, God commands Satan to take control of Job, stipulating (the first stipulation was that Satan not touch Job) that Job’s life must be preserved. Satan’s last act in this book is the smiting of Job with all-consuming boils. The reader sees that Satan is presented as a corruptive force in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, arguably from the very beginning, if we are to take into consideration that the snake in the garden is actually Satan. But although Satan is presented as a corruptive force in the Hebrew Bible in this and other examples, namely the story of Job told above, he is also portrayed as an agent of God in the book of Job. This first portrayal is very different from many later portrayals of Satan in the text, which polarize Satan as humanity’s warlike enemy rather than portraying him as God’s helper. In Job, he is a character who is placed there to test the bounds of the power of God, whom he serves. And before this point, although there were certainly acts of evil in the Hebrew Bible, they were not attributed to Satan by name. “So the temptation of Abraham, the slaughter of the first-born in Egypt, the brimstone and fire rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the evil spirit which came upon Saul, the pestilence to punish David-all these things are expressly said to have come from God” (Carus, 2009). Satan starts out in the book of Job as being like another side of God, which was perhaps the intentions of the Bible’s authors to make Satan less a symbol of pure evil, and more a symbol of God’s power and simply one of his assistants. This raises complicated questions about the polarization of good and evil intentions. In the Hebrew Bible, Heaven and Hell, God and Satan are met with what might be offhandedly called moral relativism if there were not such implied work behind the conclusion, since moral relativism now has semantic connotations of laziness, and perhaps may be seen untowardly as naïve criticism of the Bible as literature. The conscious negation of the two-sided paradigm helped to lead people towards a sort of divine pathway on which balance is stressed less than the ability to see two things as one. The result is a sort of transcendent intimacy without moral tagging, and this is portrayed in the early Hebrew Bible as a sort of dual divinity. One must ask at this point where the imposition of individualized personality enters into the picture: is it a base and returning- point, or is it exemplified in unity with an unconscious other/universe? Does personality even exist at that level? The result, ultimately, is a sort of suspended judgment in which the answer is not clear. “But throughout his ordeal, Job attributes many things to God that we do not consider accurate or pious. For example, Job claims that God mocks the suffering of innocent people; that God causes judges to make poor judgments” (Boyd, 2009). If all of God’s answers and actions were clear, the Old Testament would be a lot easier to read. The treatment of Satan in the Hebrew Bible also shows some of the differences between the early books. For example, the main difference between the conventional wisdom of some of the other books of the Old Testament and the speculative wisdom of Job and Ecclesiastes is that conventional wisdom looks back in time to preserve a status quo, while speculative wisdom is more philosophical and forward-thinking in its challenge of a status quo (perhaps the polarity of good and evil, in this case). Conventional wisdom stays with the basics and does not propose ground-breaking new ideas, stressing the practical over the abstract and relying on metaphor, aphorism, and truism. Other early books of the Bible are about common sense and the comfort that can be derived from seeing something that one already knows being reaffirmed. And overall in their conceptions of good and evil, God and Satan, the Old Testament books are slanted towards a common understanding of basic moral patterns and lessons that can be used to promote happiness and well-being in everyday life. Conventional wisdom is seldom surprising, and while it may provoke deep thought, this type of thinking can be likened to the re-treading of old ground. In Job, the conventional wisdom presented goes a long way towards the polarization of behavior into distinct and categorical imperatives of good v. bad. The stories in the Hebrew Bible are often repetitive in that they are seeking to stabilize and put forth the idea of a status quo. This status quo is not as staunchly maintained in the book of Job, however where speculative wisdom is used to call into question the truth of truisms. Especially in Job, where Job’s friends condemn him for sinning based on his physical and material disarray, the idea of suffering happening to those who follow conventional wisdom nonetheless is introduced as an affront to the status quo maintained by such conventions. Ecclesiastes and Job show that wisdom can be used abstractly to challenge the past instead of maintaining it. These texts are perhaps less positive than others in the Old Testament, but they are arguably more thought-provoking when it comes to determining the relationship between God and Satan in these early texts. In these texts, we see a character far from visions of Satan that come in later texts, in which Satan is effectively demonized or polarized, to represent the extreme side of evil, versus the extreme side of good. In the Old Testament, these polarities are less extreme. REFERENCE Boyd, G. 2008, “Did God use Satan to test Job?” Christus Victor Ministrie. Carus, P. 2009, “History of the Devil.” Retrieved 2009 from http://www.sacred-texts.com/evil/hod/hod08.htm Klein, R., 2007, “Defending God.” Currents in Theology and Mission. Pagels, E., 1992, “The social history of Satan, the Intimate Enemy.” Harvard Theological Review 105-8. Tate, M. 1992, “Satan in the Old Testament.” Review and Expositor 89: 461-74. Weissenmuler, W. 2002, “Serpent vs. Savior.” The Lutheran. “Old Testament: Job.” 2005, Monarch Notes. “Satan: Early history.” Retrieved 2009 from http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_sat2.htm “Study and reading—Job 42:1-17.” Retrieved 2009 from http://www.textweek.com/writings/job42.htm The Holy Bible. 1945, King James Version. New York: World Publishing Company. Read More