The Nature of Evil according to the Jesus of History:
Forensic Textual Analysis Based on Philosophical Coherence
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The Jesus of History
The man behind the myth
The man behind the myth
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THERE IS NO SATAN!
Satan is a Zoroastrian myth
Unlike Christianity, Jewish Scriptures do not teach that Satan is a “fallen and rebellious angel.”[2] In fact, the first time that Satan appears in the Jewish Bible, the word refers to an angel sent by God to prevent Balaam, the non-Jewish prophet, from cursing the Jewish people. In fact, Balaam winds up blessing them. Definitely not a mission for an evil Satan!
The Jewish Bible states, “God was very angry when he (Balaam) went, and the angel (מאלך) of the Lord stood in the road to oppose (לשטן) him…” [Numbers 22:22] In this verse, the Hebrew word for “oppose” is “l’satan” and it is clearly not referring to an angel who is rebelling against God’s will. Rather, it refers to a messenger designated to carry out His will. The literal meaning of the Hebrew word “malach – מאלך” is “messenger” although it is usually translated as “angel.”
This interpretation is also consistent with the biblical account of Satan found in the book of Job. There we see that Satan has no free will of his own and is given permission by God to torment Job to test his loyalty to Him.
Thus, we see that Satan is a force, an angel, used by God to test mankind. Furthermore, we can understand the purpose of evil in this world and why the Jewish prophet Isaiah 45:7 states that God, “makes peace and creates evil (רע).” Contrary to Christianity’s viewpoint, which is similar to the one inherent in Greek mythology, Judaism does not regard Satan as a separate force that exists to oppose God.
These explanations, combined with a careful scrutiny of the original Hebrew, clarify the apparent contradiction in the passages cited above from Chronicles and Samuel – and they also demonstrate that there is no contradiction at all because Satan is an emissary sent by God who created him solely for His use in testing mankind.
Jeremiah 17:9
“The human heart is the most deceitful of ALL things, and desperately evil. Who really knows how bad it is?
THIS IS WHERE EVIL COMES FROM:
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man:
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away OF HIS OWN LUST, and ENTICED.
Then when LUST HAS CONCEIVED it brings forth SIN: and SIN, when it is finished, brings forth DEATH. [James 1:13-15]
Stop with the Flip Wilson theology: “The Devil made me do it”!
YOU TUBE: Flip Wilson on The Ed Sullivan Show
Hi Buddy. Sorry for the delay in replying. I have been away for several weeks. Thank you for leaving a thoughtful comment. You might like to take the time to read the full paper. I suspect that you may have jumped to a conclusion based on your own assumptions. This is the nature of evil, the phantoms of our own mind that we project onto the world, creating darkness and we become that darkness.