Satan

Satan (?????? Standard Hebrew Satan, Latin Sátanas, Tiberian Hebrew ????n; Aramaic ???????? ?i?nâ: both words mean "Adversary; accuser") is an angel, demon, or minor god in many religions. Satan plays various roles in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha and the New Testament. In the Hebrew Bible, Satan is an angel that God uses to test man for various reasons usually dealing with his level of piety (i.e. the test in the Book of Job). In the Apocrypha and New Testament, Satan is portrayed as an evil, rebellious demon who is the enemy of God and mankind. These two ideals are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

In the New Testament

Satan figures much more prominently in the New Testament and in Christian theology generally. In the New Testament, Satan appears as a tempter for Jesus for example (see -). In John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, the theme is further developed—Satan is believed to have been an archangel named Lucifer who turned against God before the creation of man. (Prophecies in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are thought to be referring metaphorically to Satan, rather than to the king of Babylon. Babylon in Revelation is a symbol for an evil world, one of which Satan would be head in the Tribulational period of the end times.) According to this view, Satan waged war against God, his creator, and was banished from Heaven because of this.

Related Topics:
New Testament - Christian - Theology - Jesus - John Milton - Paradise Lost - Archangel - Lucifer - God - Isaiah - Ezekiel - Heaven

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The creation story found in the book of Genesis reports that a serpent tempted Adam and Eve to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. In the Jewish tradition, the serpent was always taken to be literally a snake; the story tells us the origin of how the snake lost its legs. Later Christian theologies interpreted this serpent to be Satan, to the point where many Christians are unaware that the actual Hebrew text does not identify the serpent as Satan. In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Satan is one of humanity's three enemies, along with sin and death.

Related Topics:
Genesis - Adam and Eve - Tree of Knowledge - Eastern Orthodox Christianity

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According to most Christian eschatology, Satan will wage a final war against Jesus, before being cast into Hell for "aeonios." (Aeonios, literally translated, means of or pertaining to an age, which is incorrectly translated as "all eternity.") The Unification Church, a cult that deviates from mainstream Christianity, teaches that Satan will be restored in the last days and become a good angel again (see Lucifer, A Criminal Against Humanity). A few early Church Fathers are known to have prayed for Satan's eventual repentance; it was not generally believed that this would happen. On the other hand, Dispensationalists teach that Jesus returns to earth before the Tribulational period to reclaim the righteous, dead and living, to meet Him in the air (known as the Rapture, see 1 Thess 4:17). Many Fundamentalists believe that immediately following this, the Tribulational period will occur as prophesied in the book of Daniel, while others (especially Seventh-Day Adventists) believe that immediately following Jesus' Second Coming, Satan will be bound on this Earth for a thousand years, after which he will be “loosed for a little season” (a short time, see Rev 20:1-3)—this is when the battle of Armageddon (the final confrontation between good and evil) will be waged—and Satan and his followers will be destroyed once and for all, the Earth will be cleansed of all evil and there will be “a new Heaven and a new Earth” where sin will reign no more (see Rev 21:1-4).

Related Topics:
Christian eschatology - Jesus - Hell - Unification Church - Last days - Tribulational - Rapture - Seventh-Day Adventists - Armageddon

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In various Gnostic sects, Satan was praised as the giver of knowledge, sometimes with references to Lucifer, “the light-bringer.” Some claimed that the being imagined as God by Christians and Jews was in fact Satan, as a world as imperfect as ours could not be created by a perfect God.

Related Topics:
Gnostic - Lucifer - Christians - Jews

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Particularly in the medieval period, Satan was often depicted as having horns and a goat's hindquarters. He has also been depicted as carrying a pitchfork, and with a forked tail. None of these images seem to be based on Biblical materials. Rather, this image is apparently based on pagan horned gods, such as Pan and Dionysus, common to many mythologies. Neo-pagans allege that this image was chosen specifically to discredit the Horned God of ancient paganism.

Related Topics:
Horned god - Pan - Dionysus - Mythologies - Neo-pagans

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Christadelphians believe that there is no supernatural being of evil, and that references to Satan or the Devil in the Bible are usually to be understood as either personifications of evil or as particular individuals.

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