Satan-- Misunderstood?

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Satan-- Misunderstood?

Postby heyjt » Sat Aug 19, 2006 2:39 pm

This kinda' throws a monkeywrench in everything. Not just for the Christians, but what about the Luciferians?<br><br>What the Devil? <br>Prince of Darkness Is <br>Misunderstood, Says UCLA Professor <br>8-19-6<br><br><br>He's not the enemy of God, his name really isn't Lucifer and he isn't even evil. And as far as leading Adam and Eve astray, that was a bad rap stemming from a case of mistaken identity. <br> <br>"There's little or no evidence in the Bible for most of the characteristics and deeds commonly attributed to Satan," insists a UCLA professor with four decades in what he describes as "the devil business." <br> <br>In "Satan: A Biography" (Cambridge Press), Henry Ansgar Kelly puts forth the most comprehensive case ever made for sympathy for the devil, arguing that the Bible actually provides a kinder, gentler version of the infamous antagonist than typically thought. <br> <br>"A strict reading of the Bible shows Satan to be less like Darth Vader and more and more like an overzealous prosecutor," said Kelly, a UCLA professor emeritus of English and the former director of the university's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. "He's not so much the proud and angry figure who turns away from God as [he is] a Joseph McCarthy or J. Edgar Hoover. Satan's basic intention is to uncover wrongdoing and treachery, however overzealous and unscrupulous the means. But he's still part of God's administration." <br> <br>The view runs in opposition to the beliefs held by many Christians and others about key religious concepts like original sin and the nature of good and evil. <br> <br>"If Satan isn't really in opposition to God and he isn't really evil, then that means the fight between good and evil isn't an authentic part of Christianity," Kelly said. "What I'm saying will be scandalous to some people." <br> <br>But what would you expect of someone's whose 72nd birthday fell this year on June 6 (06-06-06) and who felt disappointed when nothing momentous occurred that day? Actually, Kelly is no stranger to bubble-bursting. After digging deep into the history of Valentine's Day, he pronounced 20 years ago that he had not only uncovered the holiday's origins but that it should be celebrated in May, not February. <br> <br>Still, if Kelly could be considered scandalous, it's not because he doesn't know any better. Kelly started his academic career at a Jesuit seminary and was ordained in four of the seven holy orders on the way to the priesthood, including the order of exorcist. <br> <br>"It was at that time that I started my campaign to rehabilitate the devil - to deliver him from evil, as it were," Kelly said. <br> <br>"Satan: A Biography" is the culmination of more than 40 years of research into the devil and religious and cultural traditions that have grown up around him. The book is Kelly's third on the topic. <br> <br>When it comes to the Old Testament, Kelly insists that Satan's profile is considerably lower than commonly thought and significantly less menacing. By Kelly's count, Satan only appears three times in the 45 books that make up the pre-Christian scriptures, the best known being in the Book of Job. On each occasion, Satan is still firmly part of what Kelly calls "God's administration," and his activities are done at the behest of "the Big Guy." But his actions aren't evil so much as consistent with the translation of "devil" and "satan," which literally mean "adversary" in Greek and Hebrew, respectively. <br> <br>"His job is to test people's virtue and to report their failures," Kelly said. <br> <br>Perhaps most surprising is not the figure Satan cuts, but his notable absences in the Old Testament. In the Bible's first reference to Lucifer, for instance, Satan doesn't appear - even by implication, Kelly points out. "'Lucifer' is Latin for light-bearer," he said, and was the name given to the morning star, or the planet Venus. Originally written in ancient Hebrew, the passage, on face value, refers to the tyrannical Babylonian king who boasts of his conquests but who is "about to be cast to the ground." Kelly insists there's nothing more to the reference than an apt use of metaphor, but the third-century Christian philosopher Origen of Alexandria argued in his best known work, "On First Things," that the reference applied to Satan. <br> <br>"Origen says, 'Lucifer is said to have fallen from Heaven,'" Kelly explained. "'This can't refer to a human being, so it must refer to Satan.' Subsequent church fathers found this reasoning persuasive, and so did everyone who followed them." <br> <br>Ironically, the only mentions of Lucifer in the New Testament - and there are three of them - refer to Jesus, Kelly said. "Jesus is called 'Lucifer' or 'the morning star' because he represents a new beginning." <br> <br>Another prominent omission in the Old Testament, Kelly said, can be found in Genesis. "Nobody in the Old Testament - or, for that matter, in the New Testament either - ever identifies the serpent of Eden with Satan," Kelly said. "The serpent is just the smartest animal, and he's motivated by envy after being jilted by Adam for Eve." <br> <br>Kelly traces the correlation of Satan and the serpent to not long after the New Testament was completed. In his "Dialogue With Trypho," the second-century Christian martyr Justin of Samaria first argued that Satan appeared as a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve to disobey God, according to Kelly. <br> <br>"This is what I call 'The New Biography,'" Kelly said. "It starts with Justin Martyr, who implicates Satan in the fall of Adam and Eve. By causing Adam and Eve to fall, Satan caused his own fall. <br> <br>"The second step in this new and phony biography comes with Origen, who said, 'No, Satan's first sin was not deceiving Adam and Eve or refusing to go along with God's plan of creating Adam in his own image,'" Kelly said. "'It was to sin out of pride like the morning star, like Lucifer in the passage from Isaiah.' Turning Satan into God's enemy is a two-step process." <br> <br>Meanwhile, in passages in Luke, Matthew, Corinthians and elsewhere in the New Testament, Satan continues to act as a tester, enforcer and prosecutor but not as God's enemy, Kelly points out. <br> <br>"Everyone else has said that by the time Satan gets to the New Testament, he is evil, he's an enemy of God, but that's not so," Kelly said. "The whole biblical picture of Satan is that of a bad cop to Yaweh's good cop in the Old Testament, and to Jesus' good cop in the New Testament. Throughout, Satan is someone who works for God." <br> <br>A scene in the New Testament's Book of Revelation is often cited today as evidence that Satan was the deceiver of Adam and Eve, but the interpretation stems from a fundamental misunderstanding, Kelly argues. <br> <br>"'That ancient serpent' refers to the giant sea serpent Leviathan, not the garden snake of Eden," he said. "In Revelation, Leviathan has morphed into a dragon, or large serpent, with the seven heads and 10 horns, which is still further removed from the seductive serpent who deceived Eve." <br> <br>In addition to linking Satan with the Garden of Eden, the passage from Revelation also has been used to prove that Satan fell early on in the Bible, but Kelly insists that is not accurate. <br> <br>"Satan's ouster from heaven in Revelation is explained as taking place in the future," Kelly said. "In Revelation 12:10, a voice says that 'the accuser of our brothers is cast out, overcome by the testimony of martyrs.' Since there were no martyrs until Christ died, that has to be in the future." <br> <br>Similarly, a passage in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus reports having seen "Satan fall like lightning," has been misinterpreted, according to Kelly. "Jesus saw the fall in the past because he had the vision the day before he describes it to the apostles," Kelly said. "But Jesus is referring to a future fall [of Satan] from his position as God's attorney general." <br> <br>This is not to say, however, that Kelly contends that Satan is likeable. <br> <br>"Jesus doesn't like him, and Paul doesn't like him," Kelly explained. "He represents the old guard in the heavenly bureaucracy, and everyone longs for him to be disbarred as the chief accuser of humankind." <br> <br>Source: UCLA <br> <br>This news is brought to you by PhysOrg.com <br><br> <br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Satan-- Misunderstood?

Postby Moddey Screbbagh » Sat Aug 19, 2006 2:49 pm

Goethe saw it this way:<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Faust:</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Nun gut, wer bist du denn?<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Mephistopheles:</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Ein Teil von jener Kraft, Die stets das Boese will und stets das Gute schafft.<br><br>Translation:<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Faust:</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> So, who are you then?<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Mephistopheles:</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Part of that force that wills forever evil and works forever good.<br><br>This is one way of looking at it....but only if the good folks continue the struggle <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Satan-- Misunderstood?

Postby Et in Arcadia ego » Sat Aug 19, 2006 2:55 pm

I browsed an interesting book last year by a woman who made the assertion that Lucifer is a female deity based on multi-cultural associations with the planet Venus. I dug and probed for years into that stuff, and essentially abandoned it for the quagmire it really is due to deliberate/accidental obfuscation of ancient writings and just the crushing weight of time and it's natural distortion effect..<br><br>The most important thing to keep in mind when you read about ye olde shite is the same thing that applies to everything else:<br><br>EVERYONE has an agenda, even if it's a seemingly innocent one. <p>____________________<br>Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.</p><i></i>
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Re: Satan-- Misunderstood?

Postby heyjt » Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:33 pm

It never fails to amaze me just how wrong Fundementalist Christians have been about some of this stuff.<br> A couple of months ago we find out through newly translated Gospels that Judas may have been asked by Christ to turn him in so he could fulfill his destiny-- and perhaps never even died on the cross-- (if he existed at all).<br> Now we find out that cultural references to Satan and the Devil are about as real as a Bush terror alert.<br><br> I'm still noodleing through Luciferianism. Maybe those guys were'nt so far off the mark... <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Satan-- Misunderstood?

Postby Et in Arcadia ego » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:02 pm

Lucifer might have been the first terrorist for all we know..<br><br>Many analogues between Lucifer and Prometheus, as well as countless others shoved into the mill churned out as the generic Green Man to be abhored through negative reinforcement by a midieval savant population ruled by the Church.<br><br>The Dark Ages ruined everything. <p>____________________<br>Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.</p><i></i>
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Satan: a Biography

Postby bvonahsen » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:16 pm

<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/16/satan_a_biography.html"><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Satan: a Biography</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>I was driving around earlier today, listening to a show on Los Angeles NPR affiliate station KPCC called "Air Talk," and caught guest host Jon Beaupre's interview with Henry Ansgar Kelly about his new book, "Satan: A Biography." I just ordered the book. The interview was terrific, and here's an online archive of the audio: Link.<br><br>Here's the publisher's blurb:<br><br> Christians traditionally think of Satan as Lucifer, God's enemy, who rebelled against Him out of pride and then caused Adam and Eve to sin. But, as Kelly shows, this portrayal is not biblical but a scenario invented by the early Fathers of the Church which became the 'New Biography of Satan'. The 'Original Biography' must be reconstructed from the New Testament where Satan is the same sort of celestial functionary we see in the Book of Job - appointed to govern the world, specifically to monitor and test human beings. But he is brutal and deceitful in his methods, and Jesus predicts that his rule will soon come to an end. Kelly traces the further developments of the 'New Biography': humankind's inherited guilt, captivity by Satan, and punishment in Hell at his hands. This profile of Satan remains dominant, but Kelly urges a return to the 'Original Biography of Satan'.<br><br>That's right! Bring back old-school Satan, woo-hoo! Here's an article about the book in The Australian: Satan a victim of bad PR, professor says.<br><br>Reader comment: Alexander Platt says,<br><br> The title reminds me rather strongly of the (not very good) book by Peter Stanford, "The Devil: A Biography" with much the same premise. And I've never read Kersey Graves' "Biography of Satan: Exposing the Origins of the Devil" but I understand it's the classic reference. For my money, though, it'd be really hard to do better than Elaine Pagels' "The Origins of Satan". As far as I'm concerned it's the definitive work.<br><br>William Vanti says,<br><br> There's also a great old book on this exact topic originally published in 1900 entitled "The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil" by Dr. Paul Carus. It's still available in various reprints. <br><br>The Lizardman says<br><br> Here's another for the list of books on Satan: "The Origins of Satan" by Elaine Pagels does an excellent job of acquainting readers with the original conceptions and development of Satan in Christianity. Serpents (Snakes on a Plane) & Biographies of Satan, Boing Boing is on a wonderfully diabolic track... <br><br>Cathoderay says,<br><br> As long as bb is disseminating wonderful resources on the history of Satan, may I also suggest "A History of The Devil" by Gerald Messadie. This book traces the concept of "devil" chronologically across world civilizations. It is interesting to see how often the concept evolved in tandem with the political whims of warring opponents -- especially when so many wars (past and especially present) are being fought for these same antiquated notions of absolute holy and absolute evil. <br><br>T.O.M. says,<br><br> Here's another knuckle for your finger... "The Anthropology of Evil" by David Parkin<br><br>Omnivore says,<br><br> Uber-historian Jacques Le Goff's The Birth of Purgatory provides a highly developed view of the conscious reconstruction of the afterlife, including the creation of Purgatory. It's not a light read, but it is a very complete and thought provoking discussion of how the manipulation of hope (to motivate people to contribute to the church to save the newly categorized souls in purgation) and fear (the explicit construction of a devil, of hell, and of what you had to do to get there) was managed, out of pretty thin sources in the bible. There's a lesson to be learned about how any power structure with world-wide ambitions manipulates popular sentiment, and how unverifiable assertions made by those in power are constructed to do so. If they could repackage it to match My Pet Goat, it would be a hit with the current US administration...<br><br> A criticial component in this process was the creation of the Divine Comedy, by Dante, who was, after all, not a theologian, but a poet. Milton too (although not Le Goff's concern) is also responsible for a big chunk of what passes for theology regarding Satan.<br><br> ISBN: 0226470830<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Just like David Duke... the new improved Satan

Postby The Omega Man » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:27 pm

I'm sure millions of SRA victims will be relieved to find out that it was just a rebellious, little tester of man they were abused and ritually slaughtered for. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Satan-- Misunderstood?

Postby Et in Arcadia ego » Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:46 pm

People abuse people. Satan doesn't abuse anyone. <p>____________________<br>Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.</p><i></i>
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Re: Satan-- Misunderstood?

Postby heyjt » Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:35 pm

Re: Lucifer/generic Green Man<br> I have a copy of Anderson and Hicks "Green Man", and I don't recall seeing anything linking GM to Lucifer. Rather more like Pan, which I believe is somewhat different. In fact, the Church usurped the Green Man and he appears carved into many, many cathedrals and other artifacts of the church. <br> Interesting analogy though... <p></p><i></i>
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Puppeteers

Postby The Omega Man » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:57 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>People abuse people. Satan doesn't abuse anyone.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>And just like the elite that worship him, he doesn't like getting his hands dirty either. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Puppeteers

Postby Et in Arcadia ego » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:15 pm

Not sure I understand your point. I get the impression they like getting their hands plenty dirty as long as it's behind closed doors. I've never met Satan, so I can't speak for him personally, of course, and I doubt you can either.<br><br>Let's be clear:<br><br>I don't endorse Satan, God, the Green Man or Peter Pan. I'm an athiest and as far as I'm concerned ALL organized religion is cleverly masked crowd/mind control. Not sure where your antagonism is coming from, as I have little desire but to see them all burn together..<br><br>Plenty of people commit horrid crimes in the name of something else. Hell, the Administration runs the world's most corrupt bullshit ever and they do it in YOUR name(assuming your American).. <p>____________________<br>Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.</p><i></i>
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Re: Puppeteers

Postby The Omega Man » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:41 pm

I've never met Satan either, nor have I ever met the puppeteers that use institutions and people to carry out their wicked agendas on the masses of us everyday. They do nothing in my name personally, because I gave them no endorsement or carte blanche. They're nothing more than thieves who came in, stole my credit card and run up an enormous debts in my name. I concur with you wholeheartedly that organized religion is/was the world's first mind control project. As for "antagonism", how in the world did you pick that up from my single sentence answer I posted previously Arcadia? Don't be so defensive, I assure you I've come for a civil discourse and nothing more. Satan is just a name that every culture has a different name to represent the force of evil that works like cocaine to seduce you in, use you up and leave you debased and ruined.<br><br>* I represent nor endorse any religion, or belief other than good versus evil which transcends the convoluted and contradictory designs inherent in man-made religions. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=theomegaman@rigorousintuition>The Omega Man</A> at: 8/19/06 9:45 pm<br></i>
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Re: Puppeteers

Postby yesferatu » Sun Aug 20, 2006 12:26 am

It's strange for this professor to even treat it in a scholarly manner. I suppose his next subject will be the ethical dilemma of Santa Claus using elves in forced labor camps in the inhospitable cold of the north pole. <br><br>Satan. Hmph. <p></p><i></i>
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It's what the comic book fans call a ret-con

Postby starroute » Sun Aug 20, 2006 3:24 am

That is, "retroactive continuity" -- which is what happens after your story-lines have kept going for year after year, with many different authors introducing new characters and sometimes forgetting the older stuff until it all turns into a hopelessly contradictory mess. Then somebody else has to go in and clean it all up and explain away the contradictions or -- in the most extreme cases -- rewrite history to pretend they never happened.<br><br>It happens on tv, too -- for example, the case of the Klingons and those face-bumps that weren't there in Trouble with Tribbles.<br><br>It can happen even with a single author. For example, when Tolkien decided Aragorn needed to marry an elf-princess and not just a mortal woman, he had to retcon Arwen in -- and did so not all that successfully. The movie managed somewhat better by having her around in the Rivendell sequence, but the seams still show a bit.<br><br>Sometimes retconning happens for philosophical reasons. It's pretty obvious that the original version of the Moses story involved a wizards' duel between Moses drawing on the power of his god and the Egyptians drawing on the power of their gods, and Moses's god coming out on top. But when the Old Testament got reworked to conform to strict monotheism, you ended up with a single god playing both sides -- including egging the Egyptians on by "hardening Pharaoh's heart" until they draw down the plagues on themselves. The result is morally pretty sleazy -- which is what tends to happen with philosophical retconning.<br><br>And in the case of the serpent/Leviathan/Lucifer/Satan stuff, it's clear that the early Christians had picked up on the whole Zoroastrian thing of cosmic battles between the forces of light and the forces of darkness and wanted to rewrite their history of the universe to express that theme. They needed a single, continuing Antagonist, and so they pressed an amplified Satan into the role, patching in whatever else they could find to fill out the story.<br><br>It happens in comic books all the time.<br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=starroute>starroute</A> at: 8/20/06 1:25 am<br></i>
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agendas

Postby blanc » Sun Aug 20, 2006 3:50 am

'satan' can mean what you decide it means. like any word, lets say 'nice' for example, its meaning changes in the different cultural contexts or over time. Question is whether or not there is an agenda in whitewashing satan ( a word now commonly held to stand for evil's overlord) at this moment, when the existence of sra in its various guises, is finally becoming too obvious to ignore. <br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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