Satan

The Curious Career of Satan

The Curious Career of Satan

by

Robert Oerter

©2009

 

Was the Christian view of angels, devils, and the afterlife influenced by pagan views?

Throughout the gospels Jesus battles the powers of evil. He resists the temptation of Satan and casts demons out of people. He has seen Satan fall from heaven. He predicts that the Son of Man will triumph and sit in judgment over all people.[1]

Then he will say to those on his left hand, “Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”[2]

The conflict between the powers of good and the powers of evil is central to mainstream Christianity. Through Adam and Eve, Satan subverted all humankind; only Jesus’s self-sacrifice could redeem us.

The Old Testament presents a starkly contrasting picture. Here we find no cosmic struggle between good and evil; God is in charge, and if bad things happen it is for his own mysterious reasons. Satan appears only as a minor character. He has no angels under his command, nor does he fall from heaven. His name is never even mentioned in the tale of Adam, Eve, and the apple.

How did Christianity end up with such grossly divergent beliefs? In the traditional view, both Judaism and Christianity come from God. If there are differences between their teachings, it is because Jesus himself introduced the new views and taught them to his followers. As we will see, that is simply not true. When it comes to good and evil, heaven and hell, all of the elements of the Christian view were around before Jesus was born. Where did they come from, and how did they become part of the Christian religion?

The process was long and complex, so it may be helpful to outline it here before gong into detail. The centuries between the Babylonian exile and the time of Jesus were a time of political and social turmoil for the Jews, during which they came into close contact with the surrounding cultures. These contacts, especially those with Greece and Persia, influenced how Jews understood their own religion. The influences can, to some extent, be traced through Jewish writings of this period. Some of those writings became part of the Christian Old Testament, but many others did not and are consequently little known. The Dead Sea scrolls that were discovered in the mid-20th century provide a crucial window into the Judaism of the last centuries BC. These writings show an intricate interplay between Jewish and pagan ideas. Jews resisted some of these foreign concepts but absorbed others into their own world view, so that by the time of Jesus they were accepted by at least some groups of Jews. The cosmic conflict between God and Satan had its origin in Zoroastrianism, a Persian religion that taught there are two fundamental spiritual powers, one wholly good and one wholly evil. Greek myths about the afterlife helped mold Christian ideas about heaven and hell. Christian dogma, we will see, is deeply rooted in Judaism. But it was a Judaism that was already profoundly influenced by the surrounding cultures.

 

Ancient Israel

The basic documents for any investigation into the beliefs of the ancient Israelites are the Jewish scriptures, which is to say the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. We do not come to these texts free of preconceptions, however. Two thousand years of Jewish and Christian theologizing has produced an overlay of interpretation that, consciously or unconsciously, influences the way we read these books. If we want to uncover ancient beliefs it is necessary to set aside these preconceptions and learn to read the texts for what they actually say. If we are doing history, it makes no sense to interpret an ancient document in terms of theological ideas that were developed a thousand years after that document was written. I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with reinterpreting ancient texts in terms of modern ideas: that is a perfectly valid theological enterprise. But it is not the same as doing history - it gets us no nearer to the actual thoughts of the ancient author.

An example might help to understand this point. Anyone raised in a Christian milieu knows that the snake that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden was Satan. If we look at the story in Genesis 3, however, there is no mention of Satan whatsoever.

The story begins

 

Now, the snake was the most subtle of all the wild animals that Yahweh God had made.[3]

 

The snake is described simply as a wild animal; its ability to talk is unusual but not unique in the Old Testament.[4] The snake convinces Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and Eve gives some to Adam. When God learns what has happened he says to the snake

Because you have done this, accursed be you of all animals wild and tame! On your belly you will go and on dust you will feed as long as you live. I shall put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; it will bruise your head and you will strike its heel. (Genesis 3:14-15)

And that’s it, as far as the snake is concerned. It is described as a creature and given a creaturely punishment: crawl, eat dirt, get stepped on. There is no suggestion that the snake is anything more that this, certainly no thought that it is the source of all evil and the archenemy of God. There is no indication that it is a spiritual power or that it will play any role (other than heel-biting) in mankind’s future. As we will see, the identification of the snake with Satan was not made until several hundred years after Genesis was written.

The God of ancient Israel is not just the supreme power in the universe, he is the only power. Logically, then, God is not only the source of everything good that happens, he is also the source of everything bad.

I am the Lord, there is none else,

I form the light, and create darkness:

I make peace and create evil:

I the Lord do all these things.[5]

That God “creates evil,” as the King James version has it, sounds shocking. Modern translations soften the blow. The Revised Standard Version has “woe” instead of “evil”; the New Jerusalem Bible has “disaster”; the New American Standard Bible uses “calamity.” Yet, “The Revised Standard Version’s choice of words, ‘weal’ and ‘woe’, sound nice, but are not accurate,” writes George F. Knight.[6] The Hebrew word used here (ra’) is the same word used in the phrase “tree of knowledge of good and evil” from Genesis 2-3.[7]

The view that one power is the source of everything that happens, good and bad, is known as monism. This view is found throughout the Old Testament. When Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelites go it is because Yahweh himself has made Pharaoh obstinate (Exodus 4:21). “Does misfortune come to a city if Yahweh has not caused it?” asks the prophet Amos (3:6). When someone needs to be deceived, God sends a lying spirit;[8] when someone is possessed by an evil spirit, it is from God.[9] And a bizarre passage in Exodus records a murder attempt by God.

On the journey, while they were encamped for the night, the Lord met Moses and would have killed him, but Zipporah picked up a sharp flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ genitals with it…So the Lord let Moses alone.[10]

All this rings so strangely in our ears because we think of evil as something completely separate from, and opposed to, good and God. To understand these passages as the ancient Israelites understood them we have to set aside our own conception of evil and learn to see it through the eyes of the ancient writers. Evil for them is not a spiritual force separate from God, for how can anything be separate from God? It is not the result of a being, a Satan, who opposes God, for God is supreme. Evil instead refers to disaster, disease, and destruction. In a sense, then, the modern translations are right to soften the language of Isaiah 45:7. It is not ultimate, cosmic Evil that Yahweh creates, it is merely that whatever happens happens because Yahweh wills it.[11]

Angels

In spite of Israelites’ strong monotheism, heavenly beings other than God are prominent in the Old Testament. These entities are called by a variety of names: “angels,” “holy ones,” “ministers,” “sons of God” (or “of the gods”). In some places they are even called “gods.” The relationships between these categories are not very clear, but there is some distinction between a being known as the Angel of Yahweh and a group of beings called “the sons of God.”

The term “angel” (Hebrew mal’ak, Greek aggelos) means “messenger,” and indeed that is often the role of the Angel of Yahweh. It is the Angel of Yahweh who tells Hagar she will have countless descendants (Genesis 16:10-12), who tells Abraham not to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22:11), who announces Samson’s birth (Judges 13:3-5). The angel can be a warrior who protects:

 

The angel of Yahweh encamps around those who fear him, and rescues them.[12]

 

In keeping with Jewish monism, the angel can also be a destroyer:

 

But when the angel stretched his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Yahweh felt sorry about the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough now! Hold your hand!”[13]

 

Although the angel occasionally acts independently of God, as in the passage just quoted, most of the time it seems to be little more than a personification of God’s power.

The second group of heavenly beings, the “sons of God,” is more clearly distinguished from God himself. They form the divine council, patterned after the royal court, where Yahweh sits in judgment.[14]

 

Who in the skies can compare with Yahweh?

Who among the sons of god can rival him?

 

God, awesome in the assembly of the holy ones, great and dreaded among all who surround him…[15]

 

With one very important exception the sons of God are not named or differentiated in any way.[16]

 

The Satan in the Old Testament

One day when the sons of God came to attend on Yahweh, among them came Satan.[17]

What in the world (or in heaven) is Satan doing here among the sons of God? Satan’s role in Job is very different than in the New Testament.

The root meaning of the Hebrew word satan is “opponent” or “obstacle.” It is occasionally used in that sense in the Old Testament. For instance, in the strange tale of Balaam, God at first tells him not to go with the messengers of Balak, then says he should go, and then gets angry when Balaam goes. At this point Yahweh sends his angel as a satan, an obstacle, to bar Balaam’s way. Here satan is not a name, it is just a common noun.[18]

In Job, too, the word is used as a common noun, “the satan,” contrary to most translations.[19] He is not the opponent of God, he is a member of the divine council and acts as a prosecutor or accuser in court. We see him in this role in Zechariah.

He then showed me the high priest Joshua, standing before the angel of Yahweh, with Satan standing on his right to accuse him.[20]

Here again the Hebrew has “the satan” – it is a title, not a name.[21]

The role of the satan in Job should be understood in the same sense. First, the satan comes before Yahweh and suggests that Yahweh deprive Job of his possessions. Notice that it is Yahweh, not the satan, who will do this. When this fails to incite Job to curse God, the satan returns and suggests that Yahweh inflict Job with a disease. This time, Yahweh gives the satan permission to do the dirty work.[22]

There is nothing here to suggest a great cosmic conflict between good and evil, between God and his Adversary. The satan is one of the sons of God and, like them, is subject to God’s authority: he may not act against Job without God’s permission. Far from opposing God, the satan carries out God’s will.

After Job 2 the satan is not mentioned again. There is no sense that Job’s faithfulness is a humiliating defeat for the satan, or that God has vanquished a mighty adversary. One gets the feeling that the satan is merely a narrative device, an excuse for God to rain misfortune on a good man in order that the question of why bad things happen to good people can be explored. The answer given in Job is completely in keeping with Jewish monism: God is responsible for the good and the bad, for reasons incomprehensible to mere mortals.[23]

One passage in the Old Testament hints at the direction Satan is headed. The books of Chronicles are to a large extent a re-writing of the books of Samuel and Kings, often following verbatim. But when the author tells the story of David’s census from 2 Samuel 24, he modifies it in a small but significant way. In 2 Samuel 24:1 it is Yahweh who incites David to take a census, something Yahweh had forbidden. As rewritten in 1 Chronicles 21:1, it is Satan who incites David. This is the only place in the Old Testament where Satan appears without “the.”[24] Here, too, Satan acts “against Israel” and without explicit permission from God. Satan is beginning to be seen as an independent being, one who is in opposition to Israel and to God.

Sheol

Not surprisingly for a group of writings composed over a span of 800 years or more, the Hebrew scriptures contain a variety of views on what happens after death. The central concept is Sheol. Literally “the grave,” Sheol can be used as a way of referring to death or as a term for the place of the dead. Ecclesiastes tells us

This is another evil among those occurring under the sun: that there should be the same fate for everyone…The living are at least aware that they are going to die, but the dead know nothing whatever. No more wages for them, since their money is forgotten. Their love, their hate, their jealousy, have perished long since, and they will never have any further part in what goes on under the sun.[25]

Here is a view that is found frequently in the Old Testament. Death is simply non-existence: no memories, no passions survive, nor is there any hope of a future resurrection. Moreover, everyone suffers the same fate; there is no distinction between the good and the bad, the faithful and the faithless.[26]

In other places the dead have a shadowy existence, much as in the Greek Hades. The king of Babylon is greeted by all the dead kings.

“So you too are now as weak as we are!

You, too, have become like us.

Your pride has been flung down to Sheol…

under you a mattress of maggots,

over you a blanket of worms.”[27]

The dead can even be conjured up, as when Saul has a necromancer conjure up the ghost of Samuel. The first thing the ghost says is, “Why have you disturbed my rest?” Here death is seen as extended sleep.[28] Clearly there is no single orthodox understanding of the afterlife in the Old Testament.

In the spectrum of ancient Israelite beliefs about the afterlife one option is conspicuously absent. There is no conception of a postmortem judgment of those who have died. When God’s judgment is mentioned it usually means a collective judgment. Israelites looked to the Day of Yahweh, when God would defeat their enemies and restore Israel to a powerful position among the nations. It is nations, though, not individuals, that will be judged on that day.[29] It is Israel, not individual Israelites, that will be saved.

On that Day, I shall rebuild the tottering hut of David…

 

I shall restore the fortunes of my people Israel…

 

And I shall plant them in their own soil

and they will never be uprooted again

from the country which I have given them,

declares Yahweh, your God.[30]

The punishment meted out to the unbelieving nations is destruction, to unfaithful Jews it is death.

But as for those of you who abandon Yahweh, who forget the holy mountain…

you I shall destine to the sword

and all of you will stoop to be slaughtered,

because…you have done what I consider evil,

you chose to do what displeases me.[31]

A violent death is punishment enough; there is no thought of torment, eternal or otherwise, beyond the grave.

Occasionally in the Old Testament there is a glimmer of something more than the darkness of Sheol.

Enoch walked with God, then was no more, because God took him.[32]

This brief line is all we are told about Enoch’s fate. The case of Elijah provides only a little more detail.

Now as they [Elijah and Elisha] walked on, talking as they went, a chariot of fire appeared and horses of fire coming between the two of them; and Elijah went up to heaven in the whirlwind. Elisha saw it and shouted, “My father! My father! Chariot of Israel and its chargers!” Then he lost sight of him…[33]

Of all the great and honored patriarchs of Israel, only these two meet a fate other than the normal fate of mortals. Perhaps the psalmist had hopes of a fate similar to that of Enoch and Elijah when he wrote

But my soul God will ransom

from the clutches of Sheol and will snatch me up.[34]

But the idea is not developed, either here or elsewhere in the Old Testament, apart from the book of Daniel. (Daniel is thought to have been written later than the other Old Testament books and will be dealt with later in this essay along with other writings of the second and first centuries BC.) There is no doctrine of the immortality of the soul to be found in ancient Judaism.[35]

Ancient Judaism, we see, contained nothing like the Christian concepts of heaven and hell. The dead simply ceased to exist, or were asleep, or had a kind of vague existence in Sheol. The same fate came to all, regardless of virtue or vice in life. There are some similarities between the Christian Last Judgment and the Day of Yahweh, but the latter is never seen as a judgment of the dead individuals, resurrected or otherwise. Rather, it is the day when Israel will be restored, Jerusalem, the holy city, will be rebuilt, and Israel’s enemies will be destroyed.

In order to understand how Jewish thought evolved during the last three centuries BC, we consider first the beliefs of two cultures that were in close contact with Jews: Greece and Persia.

Greece

Around 800 BC Greek civilization began to expand around the Mediterranean, spreading its language, literature, philosophy, and religion. When it reached its peak under Alexander the Great, Greek influence extended from Spain and North Africa to the borders of India. Although the empire fell apart rapidly after Alexander’s death in 323 BC, Greek remained the language of the educated, and Greek culture dominated the region for centuries. Not only were all the books of the New Testament written in Greek, but Josephus, a Palestinian Jew writing for a Roman audience, either wrote in or had his work translated into Greek.

Greek gods were neither good nor evil. Through devotion, an individual could gain a god’s favor and aid. Anyone who ran afoul of a god was in for a hard time. Odysseus angered Poseidon by poking out the eye of Polyphemus the Cyclops, Poseidon’s son, and might never have been able to return home if not for the intervention of the goddess Athena.[36]

Greek thought made room for a range of lesser divinities as well. Demons (daimones) were not necessarily evil in early Greece. They meditated between gods and humans, carrying prayers to the gods and messages to men. They were thought to be the sons of gods or the offspring of gods and lesser beings. Heroes were a sort of superhuman: offspring of a god and a mortal.

In the oldest writings the Greek afterlife is portrayed as a shadowy half-life much like that of Israel’s Sheol. Hades, the place of the dead, is located across the world-encircling Ocean or else underneath the earth. Odysseus’s visit to Hades is portrayed in graphic detail in Book 11 of The Odyssey. Odysseus fills a pit with the blood of two sheep, whereupon the souls of the dead rush forward so that Odysseus must fend them off with his sword. The dead souls must drink the blood in the pit in order to speak. Without blood, they “grow remote again and fade.” As in Sheol, there is no separation of the dead – all end up in the same place. Nor is there any indication of reward or punishment for actions in life.[37]

Later on in Book 11, Odysseus sees King Minos, before whom the dead come to plead for justice. This is not a final judgment of the dead; rather, it is a depiction of the royal court of the land of Hades, where the former King and lawgiver of Crete is legislates for the dead.[38]

After this episode Odysseus witnesses a series of superhuman figures in torment. Orion the hunter is brought to bay by the animals he hunted in life, vultures rip at the liver of Tityos for his rape of Zeus’s mistress, Tantalus and Sisyphus suffer their unending torments for no specified reasons. Here, indeed, punishment is inflicted for offenses in life. But it seems that only mythic characters, gods and sons of gods, guilty of mythic offenses, are deserving of this retribution.[39]

Around 500 BC a new view of the afterlife arose. This doctrine, known as Orphism, centered on the myth of Dionysos, a son of Zeus. Zeus’s enemies, the Titans, trap the young Dionysos, dismember, and eat him. Athena rescues his heart, which is eaten by Zeus. Zeus then has intercourse with Semele, and Dionysos is born a second time. Zeus blasts the Titans with thunderbolts, and from the ashes humankind is born.

Humans thus have a dual nature. The body, the material part, comes from the Titans. But because the Titans had eaten Dionysos, humans also have a spiritual part, the soul. The duty of humans is to nurture the Dionysian side and avoid the Titanic side. After death a divine ruler passes judgment: the good enjoy a pleasant life of music and recreation in a sunlit meadow while the others are forced to “endure labor that none can look upon.”[40]

Plato vividly describes a related vision of the afterlife in Book 10 of The Republic (380 BC). Socrates is relating the experience of Er, who died in war, only to revive on his funeral pyre twelve days later.

He said that after his soul had left him it traveled with many others until they came to a marvelous place, where there were two openings side by side into the earth, and opposite them two other upward into heaven, and between them sat judges. These, when they had given judgment, ordered the just to go upward through the heavens by the opening on the right, and they attached signs of the judgment on them in front. The unjust they ordered to travel downward by the opening on the left with signs of all their deeds on their back.[41]

This scene of judgment after death sounds more like New Testament teaching[42] than does the Sheol of the Old Testament. Next, Er sees souls returning via the two remaining openings. Those returning from beneath the earth are covered in dust and tell of the 1000 years they spent suffering ten times the pain they had inflicted on others while alive. The others were returning from heaven, clean, where they had enjoyed a reward of ten times whatever good they had done. The souls guilty of the worst deeds were not allowed to return through the opening, but were grabbed by “some savage men, all fiery to look at” and thrown into Tartarus, never to emerge. Plato elsewhere describes Tartarus as a deep pit into which flow streams of fire, water, and mud.[43]

The souls that have returned from heaven or from the underworld must then choose the life into which they will be reincarnated. The choice, Socrates warns, should not be influenced by considerations of wealth and power. Rather, “He will call the worse that which leads the soul to being more unjust, the better that which leads it to being more just; for we have seen that this is the best choice for a man, both in life and after.”[44]

There is thus no “orthodox” view of the afterlife among Greek writers, any more than there was among Old Testament writers. Plato himself describes different versions in different writings. The location of the good and pure souls, for example, is described as being under the earth, above the earth, or with the gods. In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates admits his uncertainty about these matters.

 

I do not mean to affirm that the description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true – a man of sense ought hardly to say that. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal [something Socrates has “proved” earlier], he may venture to think…that something of the kind is true.[45]

The advantage to such beliefs is that the one “who has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth – in these arrayed she is ready to go on her journey to the world below…”[46] Death can hold no horrors for one so prepared.

According to some, what was required to escape the punishments of the afterlife was not a virtuous life but initiation into “the mysteries” by a secret ritual.[47] Others held that virtue could eventually release one from the cycle of death and rebirth, and one would dwell with the gods in the Isles of the Blessed.[48] Many, perhaps most, rejected the afterlife entirely. The epitaph “I was not, I was, I am not, I care not” was so common that it was often reduced to the (Latin) abbreviation NFFNSNC.[49]

According to the Greeks, the world has a cyclic nature. In Plato’s The Statesman we learn that at the end of the cycle there is a reversal that causes great destruction; “few survivors of the [human] race are left.”[50] Those few who are alive begin to age backwards, growing younger in mind and body.

After the return of age to youth, follows the return of the dead to life; simultaneously with the reversal of the world the wheel of their generation has been turned back, and they are put together and rise and live in the opposite order, unless God has carried any of them away to some other lot.[51]

The Jews saw the dawn of the new age as a time of restoration; the Greeks saw it as a time of great destruction. The resurrection described by Plato is not a raising of all the dead to judgment. Judgment of the dead takes place at the time of death, as we have seen. The process described here is completely unrelated to the normal cycle of death and reincarnation except that the cycle is reversed, along with all other natural processes.

The Greeks were also aware of the Babylonian Great Year. This, too, was cyclic view of history. At the end of the winter “season” (which lasted some thousands of years) the world is destroyed by flood, and at the end of the summer “season” it is destroyed by fire.[52]

Many similarities between Greek thought and later Christian ideas can be detected. Judgment of the dead, reward and punishment in the afterlife, and a future destruction of humankind are concepts which were almost completely absent in early Judaism. In other respects Greek views differed greatly from Christian views: the reincarnation of souls and the cyclic view of time, for example. Before the connections can be investigated further, though, we need to consider another potential source of ideas, the Persian culture.

Persia

In 539 BC the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylon. The Jews, who had been in captivity in Babylon for 50 years, were released and allowed to return to Palestine. The Persians allowed them free practice of their own religion and even assisted in the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple. The Persians remained in control of Palestine for 200 years, until the conquest of Persia by Alexander.[53]

Cyrus’s successors, and possibly Cyrus himself, practiced a religion known as Zoroastrianism. Although little known today, Zoroastrianism played a critical role in the development of Christian beliefs.

The religion is said to based on the teachings of Zoroaster, but much is uncertain about this man and what he taught. Dates for Zoroaster range from 600 BC to as early as 1200 BC. Most of what is known of this religion comes from texts that were written only in the fifth century AD or later. Portions of these texts are thought to be very ancient, but separating the original teachings from later developments is by no means simple.[54]

Zoroastrians believed in a supreme god, Ahura Mazda, who was the creator of everything good. However, there was another uncreated being, Angra Mainyu, whose name, “Evil Spirit,” indicates his nature. Zoroastrianism is thus fundamentally dualist. These two beings, one completely good and one completely evil, stand utterly opposed to each other.

Ahura Mazda is the father of six celestial entities or powers, the Amesha Spenta. Below these in rank is a host of angelic beings, the Yazata. Angra Mainyu correspondingly has six archdemons and a host of lesser demons.

Paralleling this cosmic dualism is an ethical dualism. Ahura Mazda is the father of Truth, while Angra Mainyu is the father of the Lie. Humans must choose between two paths and become truth-followers or lie-followers.

And when these two spirits came together in the beginning, they established Life and Notlife, and that at last the Worst Existence shall be to the followers of the Lie, but the Best Thought to him that follows Right.[55]

When a human dies his good deeds are weighed in a scale against his bad deeds. If the good prevails his soul is met by a beautiful female and is led across the Bridge of the Separator into Paradise. If the bad deeds outweigh the good, the soul is met by a horrible hag who grasps him and drags him off the Bridge and down to hell. In Paradise the good soul will sit on a throne and eat “the sweetest of foods,” and “for ever and ever will he dwell in a plenitude of bliss together with the spiritual gods.” The damned soul is greeted by Ahriman (Angra Mainyu) and his demons who give him poisonous and rotten food to eat. “And until the Resurrection and the Final Body he must remain in hell suffering much torment…”[56] In early Zoroastrianism this punishment was unending. Later beliefs allowed the souls of the wicked to be purified during the end times and to achieve salvation.[57]

Zoroastrians saw history as taking place in three distinct epochs, the Three Times. During the Time of Creation, Ahura Mazda created the primordial Man, a Bull, and a Plant. It was a perfect world, static and unchanging. But then the evil spirit, Angra Mainya, attacked the world, sullying the water (by making it salty), the land (by making some of it desert), and fire (by mingling it with smoke). He killed the Man, the Bull, and the Plant. Ahura Mazda and the Amesha Spenta fought back, and from the remains of the original creatures they created all living things. This began the Time of Mixture in which we now live, a time when good and evil coexist in the world.

The final period, the Time of Separation, will be unending. It will begin with the Frashkart, the “making wonderful” of the world. A savior, the Saoshyant, will appear and resurrect the dead, reuniting souls with bodies. There follows a second judgment:

After Saoshyant comes they prepare the raising of the dead… First, the bones of Gayomard [the first Man] are roused up… then those of the rest of mankind… Then is the assembly of Sadvastaran, where all mankind will stand at this time; in that assembly every one sees this own good deeds and his own evil deeds… Afterwards, they set the righteous man apart from the wicked; and then the righteous is for heaven, and they cast the wicked back to hell.[58]

Then the world is covered in molten metal and all humanity must walk through it, but to the righteous it feels like warm milk.

Finally there is a great battle and the forces of evil are destroyed forever. The molten metal purifies the earth and hell, restoring the original perfection. Humans live eternally in happiness in the purified world.[59]

Unquestionably there is a tremendous amount of material here that parallels Christian veiws. Remember, though, that existing Zoroastrian texts were not written until 500 years or more after the birth of Christianity. Did Zoroastrian views influence Christian beliefs, or was it the other way around? Before considering the extent of Zoroastrian influence on Jewish and Christian beliefs, we must determine which of these ideas predate Christianity.

Some ancient inscriptions prove that the Persian kings did indeed worship Ahura Mazda. One fragment from the time of Darius (522-485 BC) reads

A great god is Ahura Mazda, who created this earth, who created yonder sky, who created happiness for man, who made Darius king…[60]

 

Another fragment suggests that the ethical duality of Truth versus Lie was already established.

Saith Darius the king: For this reason Ahura Mazda bore aid, and the other gods who are, because I was not hostile, I was not Lie-follower, I was not a doer of wrong…[61]

For early Greek writers, dualism was the most remarkable facet of Persian religion. Eudemus of Rhodes (300 BC) relates that the Magi (the Persian priests) spoke of Zurvan (Time), who

…becomes differentiated into a good god and an evil spirit, as some say. According to others this is not the first stage, but the primal duality is one of light and darkness.[62]

A viewpoint closer to classic Zoroastrianism is evident in a passage of Plutarch (40-120 AD). Although Plutarch wrote at a much later time, he based his description on early sources. The Theopompus he mentions lived around 400 BC.

The great majority and the wisest of men hold this opinion: they believe that there are two gods, rivals as it were, the one the Artificer of good and the other of evil. There are also those who call the better one a god and the other a demon, as, for example, Zoroaster the sage, …He called the one Oromazes [Ahura Mazda] and the other Areimanius [Angra Mainyu]…

 

Oromazes, born from the purest light, and Areimanius, born from the darkness, are constantly at war with each other; and Oromazes created six gods…But Areimanius created rivals, as it were, equal to these in number.

 

Theompompus says that, according to the sages, one god is to overpower, and the other to be overpowered, each in turn for the space of 3000 years, and afterward for another 3000 years they shall fight and war, and the one shall undo the works of the other, and finally Hades [that is, Areimanius] shall pass away; than shall the people be happy, and neither shall they need to have food nor shall they cast a shadow.[63]

Long before Christianity, therefore, Persians believed in two fundamental powers, one good and one evil, who, along with their supernatural allies, are locked in a battle for the world. The good god is identified with Truth and symbolized by Light; the evil power identified with the Lie and symbolized by Darkness. Humans face a fundamental decision: to follow the Truth or the Lie. The good god is destined to destroy the evil one and initiate a blissful age.

 

Jewish Developments

After the return of the Jews to Palestine, the Jewish mood was optimistic. The Jerusalem Temple was rebuilt with Persian assistance.

Cyrus king of Persia says this, “Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem, in Judah.”[64]

The author of Isaiah 45:1 even goes so far as to call Cyrus God’s Messiah, meaning “the anointed one.”

Eventually, though, the Persian Empire fell to Alexander’s onslaught. Palestine was subject to Greek rule from 331 BC until 160 BC, first under the Egyptian branch of the empire (the Ptolemys), then the Syrian (the Seleucids). In 167 BC the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes pillaged and burned Jerusalem, killing many of its inhabitants. He prohibited the practice of the Jewish religion and placed a pagan altar in the Jerusalem Temple.[65]

This religious oppression sparked a rebellion, led by the men called the Maccabees: Mattathias and his sons. By 160 BC they had taken control of Judea. For the first time since the Babylonia captivity, Jews had a Jewish king.

The restored kingdom was not the peaceful realm many had hoped for. It was split by infighting among the descendants of Mattathias (known as the Hasmoneans), by power struggles between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and by civil wars in which the various parties enlisted the aid of neighboring states. This strategy backfired when in 63 BC the Roman general Pompey, who had been called in to help in one such struggle, seized Jerusalem and made Palestine a Roman province.[66]

The last two centuries BC were a time of political and religious turmoil. Several books of the Old Testament are thought to have been written during this time, including Daniel, the Wisdom of Solomon, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. The last three of these (and parts of Daniel) appear in Greek versions of the Jewish scriptures but not in the Hebrew versions. They are accepted as canonical by Roman Catholics but not by Protestants, and are referred to as deuterocanonical.[67]

The Dead Sea Scrolls, too, were produced during this period. Sometime between the founding of the community of Qumran around 150 BC and its abandonment in 68 AD, these documents were copied, stored carefully in jars, and hidden in eleven caves located on the northwest corner of the Dead Sea about 13 miles from Jerusalem. Accidentally discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947, the first of these finds electrified the scholarly community. More discoveries followed in the 1950s, eleven caves in all, containing an astonishing variety of documents.

Many of these documents were previously unknown. Others, like 1 Enoch, were known only from very late copies. There were also copies of numerous Old Testament books. Some of these documents were translated and made available shortly after their discovery, but the bulk of the material was very tightly controlled until the 1990s. In many ways, the investigation of these texts is just beginning.[68]

The writings of the last centuries BC evidence a dramatic shift in Jewish thought regarding angels, devils, and the afterlife. Although many of these innovations were later repudiated by the rabbinic Judaism that arose in the first centuries AD, they are crucial for understanding the development of Christian doctrine.

A most curious work from this time period is the book known as 1 Enoch.[69] The book reports the dream of the patriarch Enoch.[70] The visions Enoch sees are based on the introduction to the Flood story in Genesis 6, in which the “sons of God” come to human women and have children by them.[71] It is this strange and obscure passage, not the garden of Eden story, to which the author turns to explain the origin of evil on earth.

According to Enoch’s vision, some of the angels, called Watchers, were tempted by the beauty of the human women. Incited by their leader, Semyaza, they abandoned heaven and came to earth, where they corrupted humans by teaching them the secrets of weapon-making, magic, astrology, plant lore, metal-working, and cosmetics. The Watchers seduced the women, who gave birth to giants. When the giants could no longer be fed, they turned on the humans and began to eat them. This, according to the author, is the origin of evil spirits on earth.[72]

Of the holy angels that remain in heaven, seven are named.[73] When they report on these events to God, he determines to send a flood to cleanse the earth and warns Noah to prepare for it.

As for the Watchers, they will be bound under the earth

…until the eternal judgment is concluded. In those days they will lead them into the bottom of the fire – and in torment – in the prison where they will be locked up forever. [74]

Enoch is shown a mountain containing four hollow places where the souls of the dead await the final judgment. The souls of the righteous rest beside a spring of water, while those of sinners are bound and in pain. When the great day of judgment comes the souls of the sinners will go

…down to Sheol; and they shall experience evil and great tribulation – in darkness, nets, and burning flame.[75]

The earth will be cleansed of all unrighteousness and all pain, and all nations will worship God. But to those sinners who say, “As we die, so do the righteous die. What then have they gained by their deeds?”[76] Enoch has a startling answer. It is a “mystery,” he says, which he has read in the “heavenly tablets.”

The spirits of those who died in righteousness shall live and rejoice; their spirits shall not perish, nor their memorial from before the face of the Great One unto all the generations of the world.[77]

The promise of immortality is a new doctrine, hence the appeal to divine revelation through the heavenly tablets.[78] It explains why righteousness sometimes goes unrewarded in this life: it will be rewarded in the next. The new doctrine rapidly gained popularity among Jews. Daniel writes

Of those who are sleeping in the Land of Dust, many will awaken, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace.[79]

Yet this doctrine remained controversial. Josephus (1st century AD) reports that two Jewish sects, the Pharisees and the Essenes, believed in the immortality of the soul, but the Sadducees did not, nor did they believe in any postmortem rewards or punishments.[80]

Some parts of Enoch’s vision parallel ideas from Zoroastrianism – the double judgment of souls (immediately after death and on the day of judgment), the resurrection of the dead, the final victory over the forces of evil and the cleansing of the earth – albeit ideas which may or may not have been current in Persian religion at the time. But many elements correspond more closely to Greek ideas.

Hesiod (eighth century BC) reports that, “upon the bounteous earth Zeus has set thrice ten thousand spirits, watchers of mortal men…”[81] Plato explains the origin of demons: “Demons are either gods, or the children of gods, spurious ones, either by nymphs or by some other mothers.”[82] The Titans, like the Watchers, rebelled against God and were punished for it. The story of Prometheus is very similar to the Watcher story. Prometheus (son of a Titan) brought to humans not just fire but also the knowledge of metals, of medicines and herbs, and of prognostication, among other things.[83] As punishment for this act of rebellion, the gods chained Prometheus to a cliff. The stories were so alike that in later traditions Asael (one of the leaders of the Watchers) and Prometheus were considered one and the same.

The conception of the afterlife in 1 Enoch, too, comes very close to Greek ideas. Not only in the separation of the souls of the sinners and the virtuous after death: many other details of the descriptions match closely. Enoch’s description of heaven mentions mountains of beautiful stone, fragrant trees, and fruit, all of which appear in Plato’s description of the ethereal regions.[84] The punishment of the sinners, too, reflects Orphic ideas, and the fiery pit in which the Watchers are imprisoned resembles Tartarus with its river of fire.[85]

The leader of the fallen Watchers, Semyaza, is not yet the Satan of Christian theology. True, he rebels against God, leads the fallen angels, and tempts humans to evil deeds. But the responsibility for all this lies with the Watchers as a group. Semyaza does not have the central and symbolic significance that Satan will acquire. Another Watcher, named Asael (or Azazel) sometimes acts as the leader and instigator. In other writings from the first centuries BC, the leader of the forces of evil is called Belial (“worthlessness”), Mastema (“hostility”) and occasionally Satan – there is as yet no uniform conception of God’s enemy among Jews. But the Jewish view of evil is changing.

The Community Rule, part of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection, exemplifies just how much the Jewish standpoint has evolved (for this group of Jews, at least) since the days of captivity.

From the God of Knowledge comes all that is and shall be… For it is He who created the spirits of Light and Darkness and founded every action upon them and established every deed upon their ways. And He loves the one everlastingly and delights in its works forever, but the counsel of the other he loathes and forever hates its ways.[86]

This sounds at first like a reaffirmation of monism: God created both the darkness and the light. In contrast to the God of Genesis who sees that all he created is good, though, God hates the spirit of darkness.

Humans are faced with a choice: the Two Ways.

He has created man to govern the world, and has appointed for him two spirits in which to walk until the time of His visitation: the spirits of truth and injustice. Those born of truth spring from a fountain of light, but those born of injustice spring from a source of darkness. All the children of righteousness are ruled by the Prince of Light and walk in the ways of light, but all the children of injustice are ruled by the Angel of Darkness and walk in the ways of Darkness.[87]

The Two Ways doctrine was influential among early Christians and shows up in a similar formulation in two Christian documents, Barnabas and the Didache.[88] The ethical dualism here is far from the tone of the Old Testament, but astonishingly close to Zoroastrianism. Not only are there two paths for humans to follow, not only is there a ruler for the good and a ruler for the evil, but even the symbolism of Light and Darkness is identical. As the passage continues the parallels accumulate.

The Angel of Darkness leads all the children of righteousness astray, and until his end, all their sin, iniquities, wickedness, and all their unlawful deeds are caused by his dominion in accordance with the mysteries of God… for all his allotted spirits seek the overthrow of the sons of light. But the God of Israel and His Angel of Truth will succour all the sons of light.[89]

The Angel of Darkness has dominion for a time, and leads a host of spirits that are at war with the sons of light. But God will come to their aid and the dominion of Darkness will end. [90] The cosmic war and eventual victory of the forces of Truth were part of Zoroastrian belief from very early times, as we have seen.[91]

The interrelations of Jewish, Greek, and Persian religion are complex and cannot be untangled completely. It would be a mistake to say that the Jews borrowed Greek and Persian myths, though. In no case do the Jewish writings show a wholesale adoption of a non-Jewish myth. Rather, the stories are deeply rooted in Jewish tradition and Old Testament scripture. Jewish writers didn’t merely adopt Greek and Persian ideas, they adapted them to their own worldview.

Christian Views

At the beginning of this essay we asked whether Christian ideas of supernatural beings and the afterlife were influenced by pagan religions. It should be clear by this point that there is no simple dichotomy between a Jewish origin and a pagan origin for Christian beliefs. Christianity arose out of Judaism, but it was a Judaism that had already absorbed many concepts from the thought-world around it. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures made in the third century BC, translated Sheol as Hades and the “giants” (Rephaim) as Titans. This was the version used by Paul and the other New Testament authors, all of whom were of course speakers of Greek. Greek religious terms and ideas that are found in Christian writings could come from either the Hellenized Jewish background or the general Greek social and intellectual milieu. In either case, the presence of such terms and ideas in Christianity should no longer come as a surprise.

Angels in the New Testament are often messengers as their name implies, just as in the Old Testament. An angel (Gabriel) announces Mary’s pregnancy, and an angel brings the news of Jesus’s resurrection.[92] Angels also appear in the role of opponents of the forces of evil, as in 1 Enoch. The only two angels named in the New Testament, Michael and Gabriel, both appear on Enoch’s list. In Revelation, Michael leads the heavenly forces in the final battle, as he does in Daniel 12:1 and in the War Scroll from the Dead Sea scrolls.[93] The letter of Jude quotes directly from 1 Enoch, accepting it as the words of the patriarch himself.

…Enoch, the seventh patriarch from Adam, made his prophecy when he said, “I tell you, the Lord will come with his holy ones in their tens of thousands, to pronounce judgment on all humanity…[94]

In the New Testament, as in the Dead Sea scrolls, God and the forces of good are opposed by “the devil and his angels.”[95] The devil, of course, is the leader of the powers of evil. The word “devil” (Greek diabolos), like the Hebrew word “satan”, means “opponent.” But in the New Testament, as in the Dead Sea Scrolls, he is called by many names: Beelzebub, the Evil One, Beliar, the tempter, Satan.[96] Paul never uses “Satan” as a name; for him it is still a title, “the satan,” as in most of the Old Testament.[97]

In the Gospels, the word “satan” can still be used in its original sense. When Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me, satan!” in Mark 8:33, he is not identifying Peter as the Prince of Darkness, he is merely calling him an obstacle. By the time Matthew wrote his gospel, he feels the need to clarify this statement, and so he adds, “You are an obstacle in my path.” Presumably the term “Satan” has, by the time Matthew was written, become more established as the personal name of the devil, hence the need for clarification.[98]

Christians also call Satan “the Prince (or God) of this world.” As in the Dead Sea scrolls and in Zoroastrianism, the forces of evil have dominion over the world in the present time. But the time of that dominion is ending.

Now sentence is being passed on this world; now the prince of this world is to be driven out.[99]

According to Luke, Jesus “watched Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” This passage seems to reflect the fall of the angels in 1 Enoch.[100] The connection is even more clear in other New Testament books: Jude, as we have noted already, quotes 1 Enoch explicitly and Revelation tells a closely related tale.

And now war broke out in heaven, when Michael with his angels attacked the dragon. The dragon fought back with his angels, but they were defeated and driven out of heaven. The great dragon, the primeval serpent, known as the devil or Satan, who had led all the world astray, was hurled down to the earth and his angels were hurled down to him. [101]

Later, an angel binds Satan and seals him in the abyss for a thousand years. [102]

When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to lead astray all the nations…and mobilize them for war…

But the fire rained down on them from heaven and consumed them. Then the devil… was hurled into the lake of fire and sulphur, where the beast and the false prophet are, and their torture will not come to an end, day or night, for ever and ever.[103]

As in 1 Enoch, Satan is imprisoned until the final judgment, then consigned to fire and everlasting torment.

The connection between Satan and the serpent that is made here in Revelation is mentioned nowhere else in the New Testament.[104] That connection arose from a different strand of Jewish tradition, as we will see.

Christians, like their Jewish predecessors and the Zoroastrians before them, saw an ethical dualism that paralleled the cosmic dualism of God and Satan. The epistle of Barnabas, a Christian writing from the late 1st or early 2nd century AD, lays out the Two Ways doctrine in a manner quite similar to that of the Community Rule.

There are two paths of teaching and authority, the path of light and the path of darkness. And the difference between the two paths is great. For over the one are appointed light-bearing angels of God, but over the other angels of Satan. And the one is Lord from eternity past to eternity to come; but the other is the ruler over the present age of lawlessness.[105]

Here again is the symbolic opposition of Light and Darkness. Here too are the supernatural powers, utterly opposed to each other, that rule over the two paths. And it is the evil power that has dominion in the present age.

This dominion ends, as we have seen, when Satan in overthrown and cast into the lake of fire. Then comes the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment.

Then I saw a great white throne and the One who was sitting on it… I saw the dead, great and small alike, standing in front of his throne while the books lay open. And another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged from what was written in the books, as their deeds deserved…

Then Death and Hades were hurled into the burning lake. This burning lake is the second death; and anybody whose name could not be found written in the book of life was hurled into the burning lake.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…[106]

This vision from Revelation is quite similar to the Jewish ideas in 1 Enoch and the Dead Sea scrolls.[107] The lake of fire here, as in 1 Enoch, is reminiscent of the river of fire that flows into Tartarus. Another New Testament author makes the connection explicit.

For if God didn’t spare the angels who sinned, but threw them down into Tartarus and delivered them to be kept in chains of darkness until judgment…[108]

Clearly some Christians were aware of, and influenced by, the similarities between Jewish and Greek myths.

Although 1 Enoch and the Watcher story were very influential among early Christians, their understanding of the origin of evil developed out of a different strand of Jewish tradition. In these writings the origin of evil is pushed even earlier than Noah’s flood – right back to the Garden of Eden.

The Life of Adam and Eve exists only as a late, Latin translation, but seems to reflect a view that originated as early as the first century BC.[109] Here God commands that the angels worship his new creation, Adam, but Satan refuses.

I have no need to worship Adam… I will not worship an inferior and younger being… It is his duty to worship me.[110]

God grows angry and banishes Satan from heaven, so Satan decides to get his revenge by tempting Eve in order to get her expelled from Eden.

The close connection between Satan and the serpent shows up in another version of the story, related in the Apocalypse of Moses. Here Satan asks the serpent to “be my vessel” so that he can speak through its mouth.[111]

Paul may be drawing on some such tradition when he writes

It was through one man that sin came into the world, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned…

Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life…[112]

Although Paul looks to the Eden story for the origin of sin and death he doesn’t pin the blame on Satan. Revelation calls Satan “the primeval serpent,” but doesn’t connect this serpent to the Eden story. That connection between Satan and the Garden of Eden story to explain the origin of evil only comes in the second century AD in the writings of Irenaeus and Tertullian. They are the first Christians to use the Eden story to explain the origin of evil. And it is not until the third century that a Christian writer, Origen, explicitly identifies the serpent of Eden with Satan.[113]

These authors and the Christians who followed wove these myths into a powerful theological narrative. God created humans and angels perfect, but Satan rebelled and turned away from God. By yielding to Satan’s temptation Adam and Eve, too, fell from grace, and their original sin was inherited by all their offspring. To release humans from Satan’s dominion, God sent his son Jesus as a redeeming sacrifice. Jesus will return in the last days with an army of angels to defeat Satan and to be the judge of the living and the resurrected dead. This judgment brings either an eternity of bliss in heaven or an eternity of torment in hell.[114]

With the exception of the redeeming sacrifice, all of the major elements of this scenario derive from the Jewish traditions we have been considering: the Enoch literature, the Dead Sea scrolls, the books of Adam and Eve. But the Jewish traditions drew many of those same elements from Persian and Greek myth. The ethical dualism, Satan’s rebellion, the cosmic conflict of the powers of good and the powers of evil, the defeat of Satan in the end time, the judgment of the dead, afterlife in heaven or hell – all of these ideas have predecessors in Greek or Persian thought. Even the resurrection of the dead and the coming of a Savior during the end times may derive from Zoroastrian religion.

How much of this system was actually taught by Jesus is not so clear. Was Jesus a fiery prophet of apocalypse and doom or an ethical teacher concerned solely with how we live our lives on earth? Scholarly opinions vary widely.[115] There is no doubt, though, that the system did not originate with Jesus. On the one hand, most of these ideas were around, first in pagan religions, then in Judaism, centuries before Jesus. On the other hand, the whole package of ideas, connected and explained in this form, didn’t appear in Christian writings until centuries later.[116] Christians picked up the threads of (Jewish and pagan) tradition and rewove them into a new form, a form shaped by their understanding of Jesus the cosmic Christ and his role in the history of salvation and the future of the world.

Further Reading

For much more on Satan and the connections between Christian myth and ancient (especially Canaanite) traditions, see Neil Forsyth’s The Old Enemy. Another fascinating study is Alan Bernstein’s The Formation of Hell, which investigates the different forms of afterlife in ancient Middle Eastern societies.

Heaven, by contrast, seems to have been neglected by scholars, but Jeffrey Burton Russell’s A History of Heaven provides a brief overview.

For the history and doctrines of Zoroastrianism, a good place to start is The Zoroastrian Faith by S.A. Nigosian.

The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls and the history and religious beliefs of the Qumran community are discussed in the introduction to The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, by Geza Vermes.

 



[1] Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 5:1-20, Luke 10:18, Matthew 25:31-46.

[2] Matthew 25:41

[3] Genesis 3:1

[4] See Numbers 22:28-30.

[5] Isaiah 45:6-7 KJV

[6] [Knight 1965, 90]. See the Bibliography for details on the references in these endnotes.

[7] See Expositor’s Bible Commentary (1986) 2.50, 6.271.

[8] “You see, then, how the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets…” (1 Kings 22:23)

[9] “The following day, an evil spirit from God seized on Saul…” (1 Samuel 18:10), see [Forsyth 1987, 111].

[10] (Exodus 4:24-25 Revised English Bible)

[11] [Russell 1977, 177-180].

[12] Psalm 34:7

[13] 2 Samuel 24:16

[14] Psalms 82:1, 89:6-7, 29:1.

[15] Psalm 89:6-7

[16] See “Angels” by Carol Newsom, Anchor Bible Dictionary, [Forsyth 1987, 110-111], [Russell 1977, 184, 198]. In view of the strong monotheism that developed among Jews it is surprising to find these references to “gods,” “sons of God,” or even “sons of the gods.” This group is originated in Canaanite religion, where the father of the gods in El” and for the divine court. In Hebrew religion El means “God” and is identical with Yahweh. The phrase “sons of God” (“sons of El”) is thus the same in Canaanite and Hebrew. See [Cross 1973, 42-43]. [Smith 1990, 1-8].

[17] Job 1:6

[18] Numbers 22:12-22, see [Forsyth 1987, 113].

[19] [Forsyth 1987, 110].

[20] Zechariah 3:1

[21] [Russell 1977, 190].

[22] Job 1:11, 2:4-5

[23] Job 38-42.

[24] [Forsyth 1987, 118].

[25] Ecclesiastes 9:3,5-6

[26] See also Job 7:21, Psalm 31:17-18, and [Bernstein 1993, 133-156], [Brandon 1967, 57-60].

[27] Isaiah 14:10-11

[28] 1 Samuel 28:3-19

[29] See, for example, Amos 1-2 and [Brandon 1967, 56-60].

[30] Amos 9:13-15

[31] Isaiah 65:11-12

[32] Genesis 5:24

[33] 2 Kings 2:11-12

[34] Psalm 49:15

[35] [Segal 2004, 143]. A few other cases where a postmortem existence seems to be implied turn out to be metaphors for the fate of Israel of a nation. For example, the raising of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37:1-14 might appear to refer to a resurrection of the dead, but the interpretation is given in Ezekiel 37:11: “…these bones are the whole house of Israel.” They symbolize the exiled that have lost hope: “Our bones are dry, our hope has gone” (37:11). The resurrection of the bones represents the restoration of Israel as a nation: “I shall raise you from your graves, my people, and lead you back to the soil of Israel” (37:12). See [Brandon 1967, 63-63].

[36] The Odyssey, 1.63-104, see [Russell 1977, 123].

[37] The Odyssey, Book 11, see [Bernstein 1993, 21-38].

[38] The Odyssey, 11. 676-680, see [Brandon 1967, 83-84].

[39] The Odyssey, 11. 681-759, see [Bernstein 1993, 31-32].

[40] [Bernstein 1993, 43-46], [Russell 1977, 137-138], the quotation is from Pander, “Second Olympian Ode”, 65-68.

[41] Plato, Republic 10.614, trans. G.M.A. Grube, Hackett, Indianapolis, 1974.

[42] See, for example, Matthew 25:31-46.

[43] Plato, Phaedo 111.

[44] Plato, Republic 10.621, Grube trans.

[45] Plato, Phaedo 114

[46] Plato, Phaedo 114

[47] Plato attributes this view to the writings of Musaeus and Orpheus, according to whom, “…both for the living and the dead there are absolutions and purifications for sin by means of sacrifices and pleasurable, playful rituals. These they call initiations which free from punishment yonder, where a dreadful fate awaits the uninitiated.” (Republic 365) See [Bernstein 1993, 50-52].

[48] Pindar’s second Olympian Ode (fifth century BC) says this occurs after three successive virtuous lives. [Glasson 1961, 35].

[49] Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo. This is the Epicurean view: “The most terrifying of evils, death, is nothing to us, since when we exist, death is not present. But when death is present, then we do not exist.” (Letters to Herodotus) [Riley 1995, 37-38].

[50] Plato, The Statesman 270

[51] Plato, The Statesman 271

[52] [Glasson 1961, 74-80]

[53] [Clark 1998, 152-153], [Cohn 1993, 79].

[54] [Cohn 1993, 77-81].

[55] Yasna 30.10-11, quoted in [Brandon 1967, 152].

[56] All quotes are from the Dastan-i Menok-i Krat, cited in [Brandon 1967, 159-160].

[57] [Boyce 1975, 237], [Zaehner 1961, 57].

[58] Bundahishn 30, quoted in [Brandon 1967, 162].

[59] [Nigosian 1993, 92-95], [Boyce 1975, 229-245], [Brandon 1967, 162-163].

[60] [Nigosian 1993, 26].

[61] [Nigosian 1993, 26-27].

[62] Cited by Damascius, quoted in [Boyce 1991, 369].

[63] Frank Cole Babbitt translation. See [Boyce 1991, 457-458] and [Dhalla 1938, 258-259].

[64] Ezra 1:2-3

[65] [Boadt 1984, 495-497, 503-506], [Cohn 1993, 157-167].

[66] [Boadt 1984, 518-521].

[67] Other deuterocanonical books are Tobit, Judith, and Sirach.

[68] [Vermes 1997, 1-21].

[69] The books of Enoch have a long and convoluted history. The version known as 1 Enoch exists only in an Ethiopic translation, though fragments in Aramaic portions of this work date to the third century BC. Nothing from chapters 37-73 has been found among the Dead Sea Scroll fragments: this section is thought to have been written later, possibly in the first century AD. Two related but distinct works, 2 and 3 Enoch, were composed much later and exist in Slavonic and Hebrew respectively. [Bernstein 1993, 180-181].

[70] Genesis 5:21-23].

[71] Genesis 6:1-4

[72] 1 Enoch 6-8, 15.

[73] Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraqael, Gabriel, and Remiel (1 Enoch 20), “the seven holy ones” (1 Enoch 81.5).

[74] 1 Enoch 10.12-13].

[75] 1 Enoch 103.8

[76] 1 Enoch 102.6

[77] 1 Enoch 103.4

[78] [Boyce 1991, 433-434].

[79] Daniel 12:2.

[80] Jewish War 2.154-165, see [Bernstein 1993, 172-179].

[81] Quoted in [Glasson 1961, 69].

[82] Quoted in [Glasson 1961, 58].

[83] Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, see [Glasson 1961, 65] and [Forsyth 1987, 176].

[84] 1 Enoch 24.2-5; Plato, Phaedo 110 see [Glasson 1961, 20-21].

[85] [Glasson 1961, 22-25]

[86] 1QS 3:15, 3:25-4:1, from [Vermes 1997, 101-102].

[87] 1QS 3:18-21, [Vermes 1997, 101].

[88] Barnabas 18-20, Didache 1-5, see [Ehrman 2003, 1.406-408].

[89] 1QS 3.22-23, [Vermes 1997, 101].

[90] Other documents among the Dead Sea Scrolls reflect these views, too. “But in the present age, Belial is unrestrained in Israel…” (Damascus Document 4:12-13) “When the hand of the God of Israel is raised against all the multitude of Belial, the priests shall blow the six trumpets… and all the battle formations shall rally to them and shall divide against all the camps of the Kittim [the enemy] to destroy them utterly.” (War Scroll 18.3-5)

[91] [Forsyth 1987, 199, 206-207], [Boyce 1991, 422-427], [Russell 1977, 218-219].

[92] Luke 1:25-38, Matthew 28:1-7.

[93] Revelation 12:7, 1QM 17.6.

[94] Jude 14-15, c.f. 1 Enoch 1.9, Jude 6

[95] Matthew 25:41.

[96] Matthew 10:25, Ephesians 6:16, 2 Corinthians 6:15, 1 Thessalonians 3:5, Luke 10:18, for example.

[97] [Dunn 1998, 37-38].

[98] Matthew 16:23, [Forsyth 1987, 288].

[99] John 12:31, c.f. 2 Corinthians 4:4.

[100] Luke 10:18. Compare 1 Enoch 86, where the Watchers, represented as stars, fall from heaven. See [Forsyth 1987, 180].

[101] Revelation 12:7-9.

[102] Revelation 20:1-3. Jack T. Sanders notes that the millennium described here – the binding of the arch-demon for a preliminary period before his final defeat, the arrival of the savior, and the time of eternal salvation – is “replicated almost exactly in Zoroastrianism and nowhere else.” [Sanders 2004, 455].

[103] Revelation 20:7-10.

[104] [Forsyth 1987, 297].

[105] Barnabas 18

[106] Revelation 20:11-21:1, compare Matthew 25:31-46.

[107] [Brandon 1967, 102-104].

[108] 2 Peter 2:4, Holman Christian Standard Bible. This translation preserves “Tartarus” from the Greek: most English translations replace it with “hell.”

[109] [Forsyth 1987, 227-242].

[110] Quoted in [Forsyth 1987, 238].

[111] [Forsyth 1987, 233].

[112] Romans 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:22, see [Forsyth 1987, 277-278].

[113] [Russell 1981, chs. 3 & 4], [Forsyth 1987, 377]. Origen collects various Old Testament passages and argues that they all refer to the same adversary, Satan. Thus Lucifer, the “shining one” or “Day Star” of Isaiah 14:12, the Prince of Tyre from Ezekiel 28:12-10, Leviathan from Job 41:1, as well as the serpent from Genesis 3 are all claimed to be Satan himself. [Russell 1981, 130-132].

[114] Although this became the orthodox view, it was by no means universal among early Christians. Some Gnostic Christians of the second century AD gave a radically different interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve. To them, the God of the Hebrew scriptures was not the true God but an evil bumbler who thought he was the Supreme Being. The serpent, who tells Adam and Even (correctly, as it turns out) that they will not die if they eat the fruit of the tree but they will learn good from evil, is reinterpreted as the revealer of the true God. In one text, the serpent is said to be Christ! (See the Testimony of Truth 45.23-49.10 and the discussion in [Forsyth 1987, 328-331].) As late as the third century AD Origen, the most educated and influential mainstream Christian of his time, could claim that there is no eternal punishment: all souls will be corrected and return to God. Three centuries later Origen’s views were declared heretical [Bernstein 1993, 359].

[115] [Ehrman 2000, Chapter 16] argues for an apocalyptic Jesus, [Crossan 1998, Chapters 17-18] proposes a non-apocalyptic ethical teacher.

[116] On the development of Christian orthodoxy in the 2nd through 5th centuries AD, see [Russell 1981], [Segal 2004, Ch. 13], and [Forsyth 1987, Ch. 19-20]. Greek and Zoroastrian influence continued throughout this period. Justin, Lactantius and Clement of Alexandria, mainstream Christians of the second and third centuries AD, all cite the book of Hystaspes. This work has been lost, but it is said to have contained a series of visions attributed to an ancient Persian king. Ethical dualism, a Last Judgment, and a final destruction of the earth by fire are mentioned [Boyce 1991, 377-379]. The second century author of the Gnostic Apocryphon of John, after presenting a long list of demon names, writes, “But if you wish to know them, it is written in the book of Zoroaster.” (19.9-10)

Educated Christians were enamored of Greek philosophers, especially Plato, whose writings on life after death continued to influence Christian theology for centuries. Origen’s opinion of the immortality of the soul derives from Plato. “The first text that explicitly situates the original fall of the devil within the Christian narrative is thus a mixture of the primitive Christian myth and Platonic theory.” [Forsyth 1987, 383] The fourth-century Apocalypse of Paul owes much to Plato’s descriptions and mentions Tartarus and Lake Acherusia by name. (Apocalypse of Paul 18, 22.) This widely-read text describes the levels of heaven and hell and the rewards and punishments therein. It remained influential throughout the Middle Ages and formed the basis for Dante’s Divine Comedy [Bernstein 1993, 292-295].

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