Maiar & Valar

[Bêthberry]

Greetings All,

If I could interject with a reference here and later return with a longer post of explanation....

Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton, has written on the historical development of the idea of Satan in The Origin of Satan.

She argues, with biblical references, that in the Hebrew Bible, Satan does not appear as he is known in later Christendom after Mark, as the leader of an 'evil empire.' (Her term) The word satan refers in Numbers and Job to a servant of God who plays an adversarial role in human affairs. It does not refer to a particular character, although a satan prods God to test Job. Slowly the word was used to account for the division and destruction in polical and social order in Israel, with the word being invoked to characterize opponents, so that ultimately, Satan became personalized as God's antagonist in the gospels, over whom Christ triumphed.

This is a crude summation. Sorry I'm in a hurry. I will provide some of her references later tonight. Perhaps someone else can find some online links to Pagels' work.

Bethberry