The Devil

[mistermack]

The devil is an interesting topic.
The Jews NEVER had a devil in their lore, or in the Jewish Bible. In any case, it runs against the idea of a single god, which was the essence of Judaism.
The words in the Jewish Bible, which were translated as a devil for the Old Testament, merely referred to an accuser, or tester, who was usually just another human, or on just two occasions, an animal. Once a talking snake, in the garden of Eden, and once, a talking donkey.

So it's very unlikely that Jesus would have actually told people that he was tempted by the devil, in the wilderness, during the 40 days and nights as reported in the new testament.
Jesus was a Jew, and the concept of "the Devil" as an entity would not have meant anything to him.

There were angels, who were either human or supernatural messengers of god, but there were no demons. (although there were probably non official legends of demons around, which were not part of the jewish faith).

So the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil has to be wrong. Jesus would never have said it, and even if he did, he'd have been mocked as superstitious.

Without an evil devil, you come up against the problem of evil. (and even WITH the devil, there is a problem)
Why is there evil? Even if there was a devil, God is more powerful. So why does he allow evil? Why did he CREATE evil?

[cronus]

Why does anything religious have to make any sort of sense? It's all invention...talking snake and devil and all of it.

[Svartalf]

Actually, the Jews had at least two devils

a) the Serpent that tempted Eve
b) Satan, who did such a nice job on Job and is also mentioned in 1 Chronicles

Jesus would have said he was met by Satan in the wilderness... Satan means "Ennemy", while the Greek "diabolos" means "accuser" and is used as equivalent in the Septuagint.

There's evil because Man is imperfect and because God (supposedly omnicient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent) does not live up to its definition and tolerates it to happen.

[Rum]

The 'temptations' could also be seen as the 'base self', the broken/fallen soul being offered the pleasures and empty rewards of this life as opposed to the rewards of paradise, offered to you if you overcome those nasty animal desires. As ever Judaism and Christianity are death cults and anti-life as far as I am concerned.

The devil offers a simply binary solution I always thought. A way to symbolise good and evil.

[Svartalf]

I get your defining Chretinity as a death cult, it's all about the afterlife, and the flesh is to be mortifiad and all that...
but what of a death cult do you find in judaism, even though, with all the mitzvot to observe, it's just hell to go through life without breaking them.

[Rum]

I think Christianity I a bit more death-culty - I agree. Judaism doesn't necessarily even talk about any sort of afterlife. But it is hardly life affirming. I would say if fears life and the passions and appetites of human nature rather than projecting all of life's problematic issues into an afterlife as a solution.

[mistermack]

Actually, the Jews had at least two devils

a) the Serpent that tempted Eve
b) Satan, who did such a nice job on Job and is also mentioned in 1 Chronicles

Jesus would have said he was met by Satan in the wilderness... Satan means "Ennemy", while the Greek "diabolos" means "accuser" and is used as equivalent in the Septuagint.

There's evil because Man is imperfect and because God (supposedly omnicient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent) does not live up to its definition and tolerates it to happen.

Satan, in the Jewish language, meant "accuser" and was used in the sense of a modern prosecutor.

Hebrew Bible
The original Hebrew term satan is a noun from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose", as it is found in Numbers 22:22, 1 Samuel 29:4, Psalms 109:6.[6] Ha-Satan is traditionally translated as "the accuser" or "the adversary". The definite article ha- (English: "the") is used to show that this is a title bestowed on a being, versus the name of a being. Thus, this being would be referred to as "the satan".[7]

It wasn't used in the context of Satan, as a Devil, as we think of it today.
And the serpent that tempted Eve wasn't portrayed as a devil in the Jewish Bible. It was just a talking snake, not a devil in snake form.

The 'temptations' could also be seen as the 'base self', the broken/fallen soul being offered the pleasures and empty rewards of this life as opposed to the rewards of paradise, offered to you if you overcome those nasty animal desires. As ever Judaism and Christianity are death cults and anti-life as far as I am concerned.

The devil offers a simply binary solution I always thought. A way to symbolise good and evil.

I wouldn't criticise a death cult, personally.
Religion was a way to try to rationalise life and death, and life was short and brutal thousands of years ago, so death was a constant occurrence, far closer and less sanitised than it is today.
Any religion that ignored death, or didn't have a story that somehow explained life and death, would be an irrelevance.

[laklak]

Everybody needs a tight-buttocked Beast Master. Could it be.....

[Svartalf]

funny, I tried to find the actual meaning of "satan" in Hebrew, via google translate... and it was "devil" which yielded the desired "shin-teth-noun sofith"... a secondary meaning was not "accuser", but "adversary"

as for death cults, any cult that encourages suffering and tells you to hope in recompense beyond death is, if not actually evil, at least pernicious and hostile to living. let's not even mention death cults like islam that actually encourage suicide, "for the faith" while the sheikhs and amirs and other fat cats are living it easy and monopolizing all the fuckable girls.

[cronus]

All meaningless. The world is full of nasty things happening and folks invented a nasty 'spirit entity thing' to explain it. Satan has a long tail of irrelevance on account of telly not existing through much of recorded history throwing all the crap happening in the world in your face. Where is the mystery?

[mistermack]

funny, I tried to find the actual meaning of "satan" in Hebrew, via google translate... and it was "devil" which yielded the desired "shin-teth-noun sofith"... a secondary meaning was not "accuser", but "adversary"

as for death cults, any cult that encourages suffering and tells you to hope in recompense beyond death is, if not actually evil, at least pernicious and hostile to living. let's not even mention death cults like islam that actually encourage suicide, "for the faith" while the sheikhs and amirs and other fat cats are living it easy and monopolizing all the fuckable girls.

I think google is probably giving the common modern derived meaning of satan, even though the concept of a devil is still not part of Judaism.
As far as religions being exploitative, yes of course they are. It's human nature that's actually exploitative. But the gullible are just as much part of the problem, as the exploiters.

[devogue]

There's always St Augustine's explanation.

Personally, I think cancer and volcanoes just happen because it's easier. Entropy and all that.

[pErvinalia]

The devil is an interesting topic.
The Jews NEVER had a devil in their lore, or in the Jewish Bible. In any case, it runs against the idea of a single god, which was the essence of Judaism.
The words in the Jewish Bible, which were translated as a devil for the Old Testament, merely referred to an accuser, or tester, who was usually just another human, or on just two occasions, an animal. Once a talking snake, in the garden of Eden, and once, a talking donkey.

So it's very unlikely that Jesus would have actually told people that he was tempted by the devil, in the wilderness, during the 40 days and nights as reported in the new testament.
Jesus was a Jew, and the concept of "the Devil" as an entity would not have meant anything to him.

There were angels, who were either human or supernatural messengers of god, but there were no demons. (although there were probably non official legends of demons around, which were not part of the jewish faith).

So the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil has to be wrong. Jesus would never have said it, and even if he did, he'd have been mocked as superstitious.

I'd say it's wrong because the whole thing is a pile of made up bollocks, not because of some theological reason.

Without an evil devil, you come up against the problem of evil. (and even WITH the devil, there is a problem)
Why is there evil? Even if there was a devil, God is more powerful. So why does he allow evil? Why did he CREATE evil?

God works in mysterious ways something something...

[JimC]

"Between the Devil and the deep blue sea"

"The Devil to pay"

"Even the Devil can quote scripture"

"The Devil is in the details"

"You soul to the devil, sirrah"

[Hermit]

Can I play the devil's advocate? I'm pretty good with detail.