Etu Malku wrote:In keeping with the flavor of the OP here is:
The Birth of the Devil
The concept of the Devil was a fairly late development in the monothiestic legacy. The early Hebrews attributed all events, whether good or bad, to the One God. He encapsulated both Darkness and Light, destruction and creation, corruption and purity. Such is clearly stated in
Isaiah 45:7;
?I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.?
In the Old Testament it is God Himself who slays the first born of Egypt, sends plagues and famine, strikes down with lightning, and demands of Abraham that he sacrifice his first born son. The idea of a separate evil only gradually arrives from the 2nd century B.C.
The myth of the Fall originates in The Book of Enoch, and is outside of the Canon. Yet by the time the New Testament was compiled the influence of Enoch had been absorbed, along with elements of the Persian Zoroastrian religion, Judea being under Persian rule from the 6th to 4th centuries B.C. In their cosmology there are two principles of Ahura Mazda, being creative, and Ahriman, being destructive. So evenly matched are they that the slightest flux can topple the balance, and mortal-kind are constantly being drawn to one side or the other. Originally the Devil was the shadow side of God, His dark aspect.
Mal?ak was the term employed for that aspect of God that was able to communicate with mortal kind. It was this concept that was translated into the concept of the angel. Only the shadow was able to communicate because the Light is too great for a human to bear, as with Zeus.
As the Hebrew religion evolved, so did this ?shadow?, until it broke away from God and became a separate power having its own free Will. However, with this separation came the natural dualistic attribution of God?s other characteristics, so that the Shadow also becomes His destructive and malign aspect, whilst the Light becomes everything good. In the Book of Jubilee, compiled approximately a hundred years after the Old Testament, this shadow has acquired the title of Mastema, a Hebrew word meaning ?adversity?. From this moment it is this Accusing Angel that becomes responsible for all the darker things previously imputed to God. It was the Mastema who hardened the Pharoah?s heart and assisted the Egyptian sorcerers against Israel.
The concept of the Evil One is essential in any religion that preaches redemption, for there must be something to be overcome.
Later Christianity adopted the legend of the Fall, a theme most popular throughout the Middle East. The following Canaanite scripture was recorded five centuries before the Hebrew scribes produced the Old Testament, and concerns the legend of Shaher, who was born of ?the Pit?, Helel, which is the womb of the Mother Goddess.
?How hast thou fallen from heaven, Helel?s son Shaher! Thou didst say in thy heart, I will ascend to Heaven. Above the circumpolar stars I will raise my throne and I will dwell on the Mount of Council in the back of the north. I will mount the back of a cloud. I will be like unto Elyon.?
Compare with Isaiah 14:12-14 as we know it now;
?How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!
For you have said in your heart: ?I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.?
I could take exception to parts of this, but for the most part very accurate.
Just as an example,
The Zoroastrian idea of the children of light vs. children of darkness, while an exelent recruiting tool, is not important for the revelation of personal salvation in Christianity, and is added on as Christianity replaced pantheism across the Mediterranean.
the concept of the good verses evil battle grows up, as you say, along with the dominance of monotheism in Israel in a similar fashion.
you could even make the case that as Christianity integrates it self in the local social order that it must by definition become anti-Christianity.
