"Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the very same time the beginning of his freedom and development of his reason." - Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion

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Satan: Early history: 300 BCE to 100 CE

"Development of the Concept of Satan prior to 300 BCE in Israel:

Analysis of the Bible as a historical document since the late 19th century has convinced essentially all non-Evangelical Old Testament scholars that most of the Pentateuch was not written by Moses...

Among those books of the Hebrew Scriptures written before 300 BCE, the term "satan" (root word "s'tn") appears often. The word is derived from the original Hebrew verb "satan" which means "to oppose." The
Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek was widely used in the early Christian church. They translated "satan" as "diaboloc"
from which we derive our English term "devil" and "diabolic."

The word is used to refer to:
- Any person acting as an accuser or enemy.
- A divine messenger sent by God as an adversary
- a member of God's inner council; a type of chief prosecutor of Heaven [Ed: As Dan Sawyer points out, Satan keeps people honest.]

There are no passages within the older parts of the Hebrew Scriptures where Satan is
portrayed as an evil devil - the arch enemy of God and of humanity. At most, he is
described as a henchman who carries out God's evil instructions. There is no dualism here between two powerful supernatural entities: an all-good God and an all-evil Satan. God is portrayed as performing, directly and indirectly, both kind and evil deeds. When:

- plagues are to be sent, or
- a great genocidal flood is created to kill off almost all of humanity, except for Noah and his family, or
- Onan was killed because he practiced an elementary form of birth control, in violation of a cultural tradition, or
- Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed because its residents were abusive to the needy and to strangers, or
- Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt because she looked the wrong way,

it is God who does it. In essence, the ancient writers of the early Hebrew Scriptures looked upon Jehovah as performing both good and evil deeds. A good indication of this is found in:

- Isaiah 45:6-7:
"...I am the LORD and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace an create evil. I the LORD do all these things." (KJV)
- or in Job 9:22-23:
"...[God] destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks the despair of the innocent." (i.e. laughs at the suffering of the victim)
- or in Lamentations 3:37-38:
"Who has commanded and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?

Development of the Concept of Satan prior to 300 BCE in Ancient Iran:

Historians have traced the foundations for the concept of Satan to the Indo-European invasion circa 2000 BCE... Those Kurgans who settled in the Middle East developed religious belief along different lines. They developed the twin concepts of salvation and damnation after death... Once salvation and Heaven, (and damnation and Hell) were created, then the stage was set for the next logical concept: that of a Devil...

Zoroaster taught that Ahura Mazda and Ahriman would continually battle each other until the God of Evil is finally defeated. At this time, the dead will be resurrected, a Last Judgement will divide all the people that have ever lived into two groups; the bad go to Hell for all eternity; the good go to Paradise. As author Gerald. Messandé so eloquently wrote: "The framework of the three monotheisms [Judaism, Christianity, Islam] had been erected. The Devil's birth certificate was filled out by an Iranian prophet."

Development of the Concept of Satan, 300 BCE to 100 CE:

During the last three centuries before Christ's birth, the portrayal of Satan underwent a major change. The Zoroastrian / Persian dualism concept appeared in Jewish writing: God was now looked upon as wholly good; Satan as profoundly evil. History was seen as a battle between them. No longer was Satan simply God's prosecuting attorney, helper, or lackey. Satan, and his demons, were now humanity's
greatest enemies.

Author G. Messandé theorizes that from the middle of the 5th century BCE until 53 BC and later, the Jews were on particularly good terms with the Persians. From the latter's religion, Zoroastrianism, the Jews picked up a number of concepts: the immortality of the soul, angels, and Satan. Of the 3 main divisions of Judaism (Essenes, Pharisees, Saducees) in the 1st century BCE, the Essenes seems to have focused the most on Satan...

In the writings of Paul and the other apostles, the character and range of activities of Satan and his demons is further developed. God and Satan are seen as the two most powerful forces in the universe. The duality between an all-good God and all-evil Satan is firmly established."


Dan Sawyer also points out that the traditional story of Satan that we all "know" (the rebellion, being hurled down from Heaven) comes from the apocryphal Book of Enoch (which was purged from the canon).