There are mentions of him in the OT, but he isn’t THE DEVIL.  It is a bet with God that leads to the tribulations of Job- God says “do what you like and he will still love me”.  The way I understand it in the early texts he is the closest God has to a drinking mate- obviously its hard to be freinds with normal people when you are all-powerful (for the same way a country’s leader being a ‘man of the people’ always rings false).

If I remember correctly the Devil isn’t mentioned in the OT, and not all that much in the NT; I believe his greatest role is in the temptation of Jesus.

You should probably read the Epistles, and that big one at the end there, Revelation.  The Gospels do not mention the Devil that much, true, though he is mentioned more than just during the temptation of Jesus.  I’ll have more time when I get home to look these things up.

And the idea of him being a powerful fallen angel comes from Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, not the Bible.

I don’t have the time right now, but there is a pretty clear passage about the fall of Lucipher in Isiah.  I know some people try to interpret it as the fall of the king of Tyre, but I’m pretty sure it attributes some pretty amazing traits to a mortal if it is the king of Tyre.

A lot of people see Satan in the Fall of Man, but again, no real mention of him there, just the serpent.

As with the entire Bible, this is open to interpretation.  I personally hold no stock in this silly fairy tale any more than any of the rest of the book, but one could easily see how the Christians have interpreted the Serpent to be Satan.  Besides, I’m pretty sure Paul tries to tie it altogether and pin it on Satan, but again, my memory of the Bible is shaky at best, not having read it in nearly 10 years.

Two things to note about the whole Satan issue though:

1. Satan was not generally an opposing force to god in the Old Testament (that tends to be the Christians laying down their views over it in light of the NT). He was more a tempter working for god (See the book of Job).

True, he did pull a few dick moves in the OT, especially I think concerning king David, but he either isn’t mentioned/present through most of the OT (especially the Pentateuch...Jeezus Christ! How perfect would it have been to pin all those trials and travails of wandering around in the desert for 40 years on Satan?! I could drop his ass in there and have a better story in about 5 minutes. And what about the shit that supposedly happened to Daniel?)

2. Paul is really the man pretty much responsible for the modern Christianity we see today.  Sure Jesus is vitally important to the religion, but if you think about how people see Jesus through their religion, Paul played a major role.  He also played a major role in a bunch of dogma and doctrine that do not actually appear in the Gospels (I think).

/Can of Worms

First of all, BB I’m not disagreeing with your perception of religion and the influence it has on this and similar cases.
Guess this might be a good time to bring this quote back: “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” (Stephen Weinberg)

My point was to the “mentioned a lot” part of your earlier comment. It’s been a while since I read the Bible too and I haven’t got a KJV or even an english version, but a modern swedish translation.

Anyways, I didn’t remember the Devil being mentioned in the OT, and perhaps some of this is based on the distinction that LH makes in his post, that he doesn’t become the DEVIL (caps and all) until later - makes a lot of sense having him make an appearance in Revelations, though 8-)

I’ll have to look up Isiah in my Bible when I get home (have to find out what he’s called in Swedish), but as far as I know most of what I’ve heard of the fall of Lucifer is Milton. Perhaps there’s a feedback mechanism there with Milton reading Isiah and elaborating on it and “Paradise Lost” becoming absorbed into “canon"… Hope this makes sense!?

Laage - No problem.  I can see we are pretty much in agreement on this whole thing, I did not take your comments as an attack.

The Isiah passage is Isiah 14:11-17:

Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?

I was incorrect, the first part of the chapter refers to the King of Babylon, not Tyre, and I think some people equate the Lucifer part of the chapter to him, but the name is clear in the KJV anyway.  Who knows, all those damn translators took huge liberties (and still do) to twist the stuff to say what they wanted it to.

I totally agree though that for the most part, especially in the older books like Job (actually Job is the oldest book) Satan is kinda like God’s drinking buddy.  The two work together to fuck up Job’s life, and Satan is on a casual, first name basis with the big G.

But I think you’re assessment of the Milton thing is pretty much on point.  Milton embellished the Isiah passages in Paradise Lost.

Refer to here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan
The Western world mostly uses Dante’s Devine Comedy to define heaven and hell. Milton’s Paradise Lost came about three hundred years later. As others here mentioned, very little details about Satan per se in the Babble Bible. But, then, a myth is a myth is a myth, until you give it power in your own life. Then it becomes the Gospel Truth and therein lies the danger.

Every so often typical preachers will do a sermon on distinguishing culture from the elements of faith.  But that isn’t possible; even the contents of the bible are contextualized by the culture(s) from which they came.

/inconvenient truth about religion