The Christian Dogma on Satan

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I’m very into Apologetics yet the hardest topic that i have problems trying to get is Satan. His origin.

The popular belief of Christians concerning Satan is that he is a fallen archangel, who now is known as the king of evil. Thing is, where does this belief come from? I find no solid scriptural basis for it. Sure, the NT gives the information of this evil being known as Satan, however it seems very unsupported in the OT. And i think OT support is needed because it helps in seeing if some indications in the NT could be metaphorical, for some reason, Satan was entirely different in concept in the NT. In the OT,such as the book of Job, Daniel, Zacariah… Satan seemed more of an agent. Just like that of a lawyer, while God is the judge. Satan does mean the Accuser/obstacle after all. In the book of Job, he was part of the heavenly court. So this eliminates another popular belief of Satan being the serpent in the garden of Eden.

I’ve talked to a couple of intelligent Jewish people and according to them, none of them believe in the Satan that Christians do because of it being absent in scripture. They think Satan is a servant/angel of God and is used to test others in order to drive them towards God. Not the hell-king devil. They think it’s illogical to think Satan is a fallen angel because of the phrase “nothing stays dry in the ocean”; they believe Angels can not work on their own free will because they are surrounded by the holyness of God (which is like the ocean). Next, if Satan is the person who turns man evil then who turns angels evil? Clearly, someone had to tempt Satan and the rest of his squad to decide on their own free will to leave/rebel against God.

So why is it that his whole image is changed? Since when did Orthodox Jews develop this belief/dogma on Satan? Are the writings of the NT concerning Satan literal or just figurative or a translation error?
 
I am more concerned about overcoming his temptation and detraction. 😃

Knowing his origin does not really concern me as much as overcoming him, as Jesus said,

“Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you.”
 
catholic1seeks said:
As usual, the online Catholic Encyclopedia is handy:

**“Devil” **
(newadvent.org/cathen/04764a.htm)
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link but it doesn’t really clear things up. They used verses from Isiah, Zach, etc and these verses are not actually about Satan but the current king in those books. I know it is not important but it’s an interesting thing to get down because what if the christian dogma about Satan is one of those old-pagan myths that was accidentally evolved to have the masses convert with out any cultural shocks?
 
C_Del86, short answer is you won’t ever find a satisfactory answer unless you stop looking for an answer and embrace Faith. And yes, I’m an Atheist, and you heard my last sentence right.

I’ve been very interested with a number of Apologetic topics, one of which is the Christian view of Satan versus what’s actually in the Bible ( which much more closely resembles the Jewish הַשָּׂטָן , ha-Satan, the Opposer or Adversary). There is precious little in Scripture that paints a portrait of a fallen angel bent on ruling hell, corrupting humans, and waging a war with God. All of that actually comes from works of fiction like Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost. What’s really in the Bible is another one of God’s angels doing His work with His permission and never straying outside the bounds of what He tells him to do. By far the best example is the Book of Job, where he is doing his job by testing Job’s Faith.

Looking for Scripture to support Christian Dogma on Satan either leads you to bad translations, like what you saw in Isaiah and such where it’s actually talking about contemporary Kings, or a lack of firm evidence for the Dogma. The only recourse to maintain a unity with Catholic teachings is to abandon your search for facts, and embrace Faith. Good luck in wherever your searches take you.

PS: I think it’d be a great cosmic irony if your search for the origin of Satan was actually caused by Satan testing -your- Faith. Not that I believe he exists, but I can’t resist noting such an irony.
 
C_Del86 said:
Thanks for the link but it doesn’t really clear things up. They used verses from Isiah, Zach, etc and these verses are not actually about Satan but the current king in those books.
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The entry affirms that the verses refer most directly to kings, but the prophetic books of the Old Testmanent often have more than one meaning (especially dealing with the future Messiah and Savior, for example). Especially telling, like the article notes, is Christ’s saying that he “saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven” (Luke 10:18), which parallels the Devil interpretation of the Isaiah text.
I know it is not important but it’s an interesting thing to get down because what if the christian dogma about Satan is one of those old-pagan myths that was accidentally evolved to have the masses convert with out any cultural shocks?
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Well, it’s obviously important to you, and I hope others more knowledgeable than me will come along to help you out. The fact is, though, the belief in demons was not as developed in the Old Testament as the New Testament—but* nothing was*. That Jesus Christ came as God and Savior meant that he would have a lot to say about the Devil; that’s why we have so much more info on him, nevermind the fact that the period of Divine Revelation ended with Christ anyways.

The REAL ISSUE, I think, is to evaluate who Christ is. The Catholic/Christian doctrine on the Devil is found in the New Testament, and much of it comes from Christ’s words as recorded in the Gospels. How is your faith in Him? He existed. Do you have problems with his claim to Divinity and authority? What is your understanding of the gospels? Their reliability? There are more foundational issues–issues that have been dealt with. We can help you with those.
 
C_Del86 said:
I’m very into Apologetics yet the hardest topic that i have problems trying to get is Satan. His origin.

The popular belief of Christians concerning Satan is that he is a fallen archangel, who now is known as the king of evil. Thing is, where does this belief come from? I find no solid scriptural basis for it. Sure, the NT gives the information of this evil being known as Satan, however it seems very unsupported in the OT. And i think OT support is needed because it helps in seeing if some indications in the NT could be metaphorical, for some reason, Satan was entirely different in concept in the NT. In the OT,such as the book of Job, Daniel, Zacariah… Satan seemed more of an agent. Just like that of a lawyer, while God is the judge. Satan does mean the Accuser/obstacle after all. In the book of Job, he was part of the heavenly court. So this eliminates another popular belief of Satan being the serpent in the garden of Eden.

I’ve talked to a couple of intelligent Jewish people and according to them, none of them believe in the Satan that Christians do because of it being absent in scripture. They think Satan is a servant/angel of God and is used to test others in order to drive them towards God. Not the hell-king devil. They think it’s illogical to think Satan is a fallen angel because of the phrase “nothing stays dry in the ocean”; they believe Angels can not work on their own free will because they are surrounded by the holyness of God (which is like the ocean). Next, if Satan is the person who turns man evil then who turns angels evil? Clearly, someone had to tempt Satan and the rest of his squad to decide on their own free will to leave/rebel against God.

So why is it that his whole image is changed? Since when did Orthodox Jews develop this belief/dogma on Satan? Are the writings of the NT concerning Satan literal or just figurative or a translation error?
Click to expand...
C_Del86 said:
catholic1seeks;9423945:
As usual, the online Catholic Encyclopedia is handy:

**“Devil” **
Click to expand...
(newadvent.org/cathen/04764a.htm)

Thanks for the link but it doesn’t really clear things up. They used verses from Isiah, Zach, etc and these verses are not actually about Satan but the current king in those books. I know it is not important but it’s an interesting thing to get down because what if the christian dogma about Satan is one of those old-pagan myths that was accidentally evolved to have the masses convert with out any cultural shocks?
Click to expand...
I’m confused. I took your OP to mean that you wanted to know how we know that Satan was an angel who fell from Heaven. It’s right there in Scripture:
And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: [8] And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. [9] And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. [10] And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying: Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: because the accuser of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night.
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Revelation 12:7-10.

True, the passage in Revelation doesn’t actually call Satan an archangel, simply calling him the “great dragon,” but Job answers the question of whether Satan was an angel:
[6] Now on a certain day when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them. [7] And the Lord said to him: Whence comest thou? And he answered and said: I have gone round about the earth, and walked through it.
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Job 1:6-7.

I don’t read Job the way you do; I saw nothing of God appointing Satan to attack Job, but lots of Satan scheming to hurt Job. Similarly, in Genesis chapter 3 his tempting of Adam and Eve is certainly not presented as a test on behalf of God, but rather as his own scheme to hurt them. Finally, in Matthew chapter 4 Satan shows up to tempt Jesus; how could that possibly be the work of an agent of God? Was God tempting God? Was God testing God? That makes no sense; rather, it seems to me, the devil in his imperfect understanding of the situation was trying to tempt Jesus for the devil’s own purposes.
 
C_Del86 said:
I’m very into Apologetics yet the hardest topic that i have problems trying to get is Satan. His origin.

The popular belief of Christians concerning Satan is that he is a fallen archangel, who now is known as the king of evil. Thing is, where does this belief come from? I find no solid scriptural basis for it. Sure, the NT gives the information of this evil being known as Satan, however it seems very unsupported in the OT. And i think OT support is needed because it helps in seeing if some indications in the NT could be metaphorical, for some reason, Satan was entirely different in concept in the NT. In the OT,such as the book of Job, Daniel, Zacariah… Satan seemed more of an agent. Just like that of a lawyer, while God is the judge. Satan does mean the Accuser/obstacle after all. In the book of Job, he was part of the heavenly court. So this eliminates another popular belief of Satan being the serpent in the garden of Eden.

I’ve talked to a couple of intelligent Jewish people and according to them, none of them believe in the Satan that Christians do because of it being absent in scripture. They think Satan is a servant/angel of God and is used to test others in order to drive them towards God. Not the hell-king devil. They think it’s illogical to think Satan is a fallen angel because of the phrase “nothing stays dry in the ocean”; they believe Angels can not work on their own free will because they are surrounded by the holyness of God (which is like the ocean). Next, if Satan is the person who turns man evil then who turns angels evil? Clearly, someone had to tempt Satan and the rest of his squad to decide on their own free will to leave/rebel against God.

So why is it that his whole image is changed? Since when did Orthodox Jews develop this belief/dogma on Satan? Are the writings of the NT concerning Satan literal or just figurative or a translation error?
Click to expand...
I don’t think Lucifer has changed from the OT to the NT. Often it is said the God of the OT seems to have more wrath and less mercy than the God of the NT. But that is not really true, the difference is the NT had God in the flesh expounding upon his own humanity. Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”, that is the scriptual evidence for a fallen angel. There is a 1st, 2nd and 3rd level of heaven according to St. Paul. Lucifer may have been in a lower level when he was in the “heavenly court” affecting Job. The serpent was in the garden, he had to be, as a tempter.

As well, Judaism does not recognize Jesus as God even though the same God is in the OT. If the concept of God can be different in Judaism , why not Satan? I don’t see the necessity for Satan to be tempted. He had free will, and brought those who sided with him to hell, or a lower “abode”.
 
johnnyjones said:
I don’t think Lucifer has changed from the OT to the NT. Often it is said the God of the OT seems to have more wrath and less mercy than the God of the NT. But that is not really true, the difference is the NT had God in the flesh expounding upon his own humanity. Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”, that is the scriptual evidence for a fallen angel. There is a 1st, 2nd and 3rd level of heaven according to St. Paul. Lucifer may have been in a lower level when he was in the “heavenly court” affecting Job. The serpent was in the garden, he had to be, as a tempter.

As well, Judaism does not recognize Jesus as God even though the same God is in the OT. If the concept of God can be different in Judaism , why not Satan? I don’t see the necessity for Satan to be tempted. He had free will, and brought those who sided with him to hell, or a lower “abode”.
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The concept of God isn’t entirely different except involving the NT. Why is this important? Because we need something that shows us that the doctrine of Satan was still believed even before Christ came to earth. Satan is supposed to be an older belief than Jesus (God man) because Jesus was talking about him in the NT and the Jews understood who he was talking about, yet the problem is, when did Judaism actually get this belief as well. Why suddenly in the NT and not in the OT? Even bible scholars of today say that those verses of Satan/Lucifer in Isiah and Zeph are about the King of that story. So maybe the “i saw Satan/Obstacle fall like lightning from heaven” could be a mistranslated metaphore because it is odd for the Jews of that time to belief in the leader of evil.
 
C_Del86 said:
The concept of God isn’t entirely different except involving the NT. Why is this important? Because we need something that shows us that the doctrine of Satan was still believed even before Christ came to earth. Satan is supposed to be an older belief than Jesus (God man) because Jesus was talking about him in the NT and the Jews understood who he was talking about, yet the problem is, when did Judaism actually get this belief as well. Why suddenly in the NT and not in the OT? Even bible scholars of today say that those verses of Satan/Lucifer in Isiah and Zeph are about the King of that story. So maybe the “i saw Satan/Obstacle fall like lightning from heaven” could be a mistranslated metaphore because it is odd for the Jews of that time to belief in the leader of evil.
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He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have not seen this verse disputed or used metaphorically. 1Chronicles 21:1 has Satan standing up against Israel. One could question the opposing view of Judaism that no man can die for the sins of the world, yet we believe that and it is not metaphoric. My point is that not everything translates or is doctrinally the same from the OT to the NT as it relates from Judaism to Christianity. Some things are, but not all.

I don’t see a difference in the depiction of Satan from the old to the new. In Job 1:7 God askes Satan, “from where have you come?”. Satan answers, " From ROAMING about on the earth and walking around on it." That sounds very close to 1 Peter 5:8, “Your enemy the Devil PROWLS around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

As you said may OT verses can refference Satan as an accuser. I think the Jews always saw him as an enemy, but the actual nature of Satan became more detailed in the NT. As far as being a king, I’m not that familiar with that view. Possibly it is like Melchisadeck (bad spelling on that) who was a king and a type of Christ. Satan may be the evil king because most things of Christ the devil tries to emulate.
 
johnnyjones said:
He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have not seen this verse disputed or used metaphorically. 1Chronicles 21:1 has Satan standing up against Israel. One could question the opposing view of Judaism that no man can die for the sins of the world, yet we believe that and it is not metaphoric. My point is that not everything translates or is doctrinally the same from the OT to the NT as it relates from Judaism to Christianity. Some things are, but not all.
Click to expand...
Well, an explanation is needed on how the Jews believed/knew Satan when Jesus said he fell like lightning from heaven. It’s just when did their belief on satan start. What you read in 1Chronicles does not sound like the evil-satan of christianity, he does sound more of an Opposes and also works for God. It is also a possiblity that the Satan in 1Ch is not a spirit because the word could be a translation of Obstacle (which is what Satan means)… “obstacles rose up against Israel”. Somethings that should be relative are subjects that where known by man before Christ came which is God the father, the Prophets, Angels, and the devil should be part of that because in the NT it shows the jews knowing about Satan all of a sudden with out any indication as to how they believed in this dogma. Judaism claims that the Belief in the devil was never part of their dogma, ever, yet the NT has Jews knowing about it.
I don’t see a difference in the depiction of Satan from the old to the new. In Job 1:7 God askes Satan, “from where have you come?”. Satan answers, " From ROAMING about on the earth and walking around on it." That sounds very close to 1 Peter 5:8, “Your enemy the Devil PROWLS around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
Click to expand...
As you said may OT verses can refference Satan as an accuser. I think the Jews always saw him as an enemy, but the actual nature of Satan became more detailed in the NT. As far as being a king, I’m not that familiar with that view. Possibly it is like Melchisadeck (bad spelling on that) who was a king and a type of Christ. Satan may be the evil king because most things of Christ the devil tries to emulate.
Click to expand...
I do see a difference. Roaming does not mean Prowl, roaming means to move about without purpose or plan while Prowling is moving in search of prey. So 1st peter and Job1:7 is incoherent when a dictionary is brought in.
 
Also when you read 1 Chron 21, you also have to take into account 1 Chron 20. David and his army were fighting the Ammonites(spelling?) and Philistines. But yet there was something that arose that caused David to, in 1 Chron 21, take a census of his people and see how many able bodied men he had to call upon to fight if needed. Seeing as there is no account in the Bible I am aware of of David taking his armies on to the battlefield to combat Satan, the word Satan in 1 Chron 21 is far more likely to mean an adversary (non specific) then a specific named adversary called Satan.
 
C_Del86 said:
Well, an explanation is needed on how the Jews believed/knew Satan when Jesus said he fell like lightning from heaven. It’s just when did their belief on satan start. What you read in 1Chronicles does not sound like the evil-satan of christianity, he does sound more of an Opposes and also works for God. It is also a possiblity that the Satan in 1Ch is not a spirit because the word could be a translation of Obstacle (which is what Satan means)… “obstacles rose up against Israel”. Somethings that should be relative are subjects that where known by man before Christ came which is God the father, the Prophets, Angels, and the devil should be part of that because in the NT it shows the jews knowing about Satan all of a sudden with out any indication as to how they believed in this dogma. Judaism claims that the Belief in the devil was never part of their dogma, ever, yet the NT has Jews knowing about it.

I do see a difference. Roaming does not mean Prowl, roaming means to move about without purpose or plan while Prowling is moving in search of prey. So 1st peter and Job1:7 is incoherent when a dictionary is brought in.
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You are correct about “roaming” and “prowl”, I should not have highlighted those words. I think I was more impressed by the fact that in Job he (Satan) was moving around the earth (in charge of evil things in the high court). In 1 Peter he is moving around in the sense that he is prowling. You have to move around to prowl and he is doing it in an evil context. Look at the Jewish encyclopedia. The concept of Satan as a distinct being was not yet known. There was enough time between the old and the new testaments for a comprehensive view of Satan to evolve.

jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13219-satan
 
catholic1seeks said:
You may like this article by Fr. William Most on angels; he deals with demons, too:

catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=21
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From the link:
The word satan comes first in Numbers 22. 22. which speaks of an angel of the Lord who was sent to oppose Balaam, who was on his way to curse Israel. The word for oppose was *satan. *Now we can easily suppose it was an angel who was sent to block Balaam. But it is quite interesting to notice the word satan. At that time it had not yet taken on the meaning of an evil spirit. It begins to approach that meaning in Job 1. 6. The Book of Job, except for a prose introduction and prose conclusion, is largely high-flown poetry, and must be read with that in mind-for that is a major genre in which fanciful expressions are rather usual.

In that early occurrence of the word, satan seems to be a servant of God, who goes over the earth to check on things for God, and then reports. He was an opponent of Job as the story unfolds. (In Zech 4. 10 we see beings with the function of checking for God; similarly, in Persia, the king had "the eyes and ears"of the king, to check and report to him). It is only later that satan comes to mean an evil spirit. In Zech 3. 1-2 the satan stands near Joshua the High Priest to accuse him. And in 1 Chronicles 21. 1 the word satan seems to have become a proper name, and so seems to be an evil spirit. In Wisdom 2. 24, a later book, perhaps first century B.C., we read of diabolos, the Greek equivalent to satan, the accuser. The notion will be developed much more fully in the NT, as we shall see later on.

Some commentators today wish to say that the later development in Hebrew thought on angels and evil spirits was influenced or even brought about by contacts with the thought of the Near East.

It is especially, though not exclusively, after the return from the Exile that we find developments, more in the Intertestamental literature than in Scripture itself. Here are some of them: angels are in control of natural phenomena, of the four seasons, and of death – as we said above, it is quite reasonable to think that God instead of doing things directly Himself, would make use of the agency of created spirits, angels.
They are also considered, not strangely, as intercessors, to bring our prayers to God. In this connection the belief grows that they are guardians of men, both individually and collectively.

They also form a hierarchy, headed by Seven Archangels. Even their names begin to be used, e. g, Raphael in the book of Tobit.

It is especially in the development of the concept that there are evil spirits that some have proposed influence from Iran. We make two comments:

First, there is a vast difference between Scripture and Iranian concepts. In Iran there are powers independent of God, who are hostile, such as Ahriman versus Ahura-mazda. Scripture never thinks of evil spirits as competitors with God. They are subject to Him, and can do things only with His permission.

Secondly, it is not impossible that the development of the thought of the Jews was aided by contacts with the Near East. There is a parallel situation: It seems that for many centuries the Jews thought of man as a unitary being, i.e., composed of only one part, a body, which was given the breath of life. This has led some commentators to think they did not know of survival after death. But that thought is clearly erroneous, for we know the Jews also held tenaciously to a belief in necromancy, divination by the dead, which of course implies the survival of the dead. Three times in the OT we find laws forbidding necromancy, so strongly rooted it was: Lev 19. 31;20. 6; Dt 8. 11. But around the time of the great persecution by Antiochus IV of Syria, around 170 B.C. they did come to see that we have two components, body and soul. God providentially brought this about by two things: 1)contact with Greek thought, which did know of two parts, even though the Greek concept was not the same as our concept of body and soul; 2)The terrible deaths of the Maccabean martyrs, e.g., in 2 Mac chapter 7. Before that, since they seem not to have known of reward and punishment in the next life- even though they did know of a next life–they tended to think, as in Psalm 72, that somehow God would make things right before death. But the hideous deaths of those martyrs forced an agonizing reappraisal.

So then just as these processes, under the guidance of Divine Providence, were a means of the revelation of future retribution and a clearer notion of survival, so also the contacts with Iranian thought could have stimulated the Jews to develop their ideas on angels and evil spirits…
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Fr. William Most’s point is that there is legitimate development of the understanding of who Satan is and of the angels in general. Also, the ancient Jews could have very well gotten some of their notions from Pagan sources, but as I highlighted above, it would have been due to Divine Providence.

Also alluded to in this selection is the fact of doctrinal development concerning the notion of an afterlife. The point is BELIEF DEVELOPS. In the Old Testmant, the circumstances weren’t such that God suddenly revealed everything all at once. Yet nothing is contradicted concerning satan. Early on, the emphasis may have been that he is an “accuser,” yet it seems to be already meant that he is therefore an enemy of Man–in his way as an adversary. That some of God’s angels are truly evil (became evil) is indicated in the Old Testament. What else would the serpent be in Genesis? And in Job it says, " in his angels he found wickedness" (Job 4:18).
 
C_Del86 said:
I’m very into Apologetics yet the hardest topic that i have problems trying to get is Satan. His origin.

The popular belief of Christians concerning Satan is that he is a fallen archangel, who now is known as the king of evil. Thing is, where does this belief come from? I find no solid scriptural basis for it. Sure, the NT gives the information of this evil being known as Satan, however it seems very unsupported in the OT. And i think OT support is needed because it helps in seeing if some indications in the NT could be metaphorical, for some reason, Satan was entirely different in concept in the NT. In the OT,such as the book of Job, Daniel, Zacariah… Satan seemed more of an agent. Just like that of a lawyer, while God is the judge. Satan does mean the Accuser/obstacle after all. In the book of Job, he was part of the heavenly court. So this eliminates another popular belief of Satan being the serpent in the garden of Eden.

I’ve talked to a couple of intelligent Jewish people and according to them, none of them believe in the Satan that Christians do because of it being absent in scripture. They think Satan is a servant/angel of God and is used to test others in order to drive them towards God. Not the hell-king devil. They think it’s illogical to think Satan is a fallen angel because of the phrase “nothing stays dry in the ocean”; they believe Angels can not work on their own free will because they are surrounded by the holyness of God (which is like the ocean). Next, if Satan is the person who turns man evil then who turns angels evil? Clearly, someone had to tempt Satan and the rest of his squad to decide on their own free will to leave/rebel against God.

So why is it that his whole image is changed? Since when did Orthodox Jews develop this belief/dogma on Satan? Are the writings of the NT concerning Satan literal or just figurative or a translation error?
Click to expand...
The whole revealed Truth of God to the people was a very progressive process…
You might put that cap on when you attempt to compare the process which God chose to use in order to reveal what truths “When”…

One very good example would be… God told Abram to do one thing… Go, build an alter and make a fire, sacrifice, and when the people come out to see what you are doing and why…“tell them one thing”… “There is only one God”… this was the beginning of God revealing himself to those people, and after eight thousand years, we get the fullness of
this subject. by being informed there is not only one God but three God heads in one…

We have many prefigurements of the Salvation plan from God in the Old Testament to the New… The blood of the lambs, over the doors of the people so that when the Angel of Death came to claim the lives of the first males born in Egypt… we see the blood of Jesus being applied over us to save us from our deaths…etc…

And then Jesus said, it many times…“My hour has not come”… as this indicates that there was a fullness of time for certain events to take place…

Another great example of progressive truths from God…
is when Jesus said…"it was written but I say unto you … and he gives us
a progressive new level of truth…

Moses gave you a bill of divorce, but I say no divorce…

the sabbath was not for God but for man…

It was written "an eye for an eye, but I say turn the cheek…

This progressive form of revealed truths is common in the history of God revealing
His truths to us…

The idea of the Devil has been a progressive act of our intellect… from God…

The Devil is seen and reveaed through many different forms…

From the Fallen Angel… to the prince of principalities,…etc…

Some theologians claim that evil is the good that was not done… and the bad
which was done wrong…

Many ways to reveal to mankind that there is an evil and it can act out in our
world… through people who do and who do not…
 
400 years between the old and the new. More than enough time for the perceived non entity called Satan of the Hebrew scriptures to be fully manifested into what the Jews of the NT knew “him” to be.
 
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