Reminder that the modern Christian conception of Satan/the Devil is relatively recent in the history of what I will wildly oversimplify as “the church”, early Christianity was not like this by and large
https://twitter.com/commiewife/status/1376209775097221129
Even the notion of Satan as some kind of directly opposing force to God is not consistent throughout the Bible. He actually seems to work for God at several points.
As far as I’m aware the current opinion in the scholarship is that that development came about in significant part because of the influence of Zoroastrianism. You don’t find it until later on. In the earlier books? Satan is God’s employee. He’s there to do a job.
The identification of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan? Yeah, that’s basically not even in there. It shouldn’t be assumed that they were the same entity at all.
The Bible is just not internally consistent on matters like this. It *is* quite consistent regarding other things, but this is what happens when you get it into your head that the whole thing has to be read as one single consistent and literally true text. It’s incoherent.
This is in fact precisely one of the reasons why I love the Bible. It’s a fascinating record of a culture’s difficult uncomfortable wrestling with God and God wrestling right back. It’s a conflicting mess. That’s part of what makes it feel so human.
This actually puts me in mind of a somewhat annoyed thread I might do later about what it’s like to be a Christian Druid in a world which is often telling you that you can’t do that from both sides.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
