Satan in Eden

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Jedothek

Junior Member
Dec 1, 2014
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I know Genesis does not say the serpent in Eden was Satan; but I thought this was stated in the epistles or somewhere; but now all I can find is rev 20:2, which does not mention Eden. Is there anything more explicit?
 
Satan is called the serpent, dragon, fiery serpent. It was the snake that Satan used and God cursed the snake to crawl on it's belly and most women abhor a snake as God said. In the Garden animals had the power of speech.
 
Ezekiel
28:12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus [the Lord speaks to Satan standing behind the human king Hiram], and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

28:15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

28:16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

28:17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

28:18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

28:19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.


Revelation
20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years
 
Actually, Satan was not ever identified in scripture with the "serpent" from Genesis, or any of the other various biblical monsters.

From Job, beginning in Chapter 1 verse 6, El the paramount god of the Hebrew pantheon holds court in the Council of Gods, Hebrew "bene elohim." Elsewhere we find this god is called “el elohim Yahweh” or “Yahweh, the God of the gods.” Also give attention to the fact that “the Satan,” in biblical Hebrew "il’shatan," literally translated is "God’s Satan." Satan is appearing at the command, and under the direction of the paramount God El.


The late Babylonian Empire employed secret agents empowered to act as both judge and executioner. They were ‘agents provocateur’ with the nickname of the “Emperor’s wanderers,” (Akkadean verb “shu-ut” = to wander) This leads directly to God’s Satan (God's Wanderer) having the role of the “adversary” which is another of Satan's nicknames. This provides a rather amusing world play in Job 1:7 since the Satan says he was “wandering about” and the name Satan is derived from the Akkadean verb “shu-ut” = to wander, and later consonant shifts yielded “shatan”= to accuse, and then to “Satan.” So an actually literal transaltion would be "El asked, Where My Wanderer have you been? I have been wandering, Lord God, wandering (or accusing) on the Earth, said God's Wanderer."
 
Well now isn't that special Hurd .... you don't really expect an student of the scriptures to believe your evaluation do you?
 
The honest man would first quote, Ezekial 28:11, "The Word of Yahweh came to me again, saying

Ezekiel
28:12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyre (English spelling correction, gh) [the Lord speaks to Satan standing behind the human king Hiram], and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

The text in Red is unbiblical. It is false. Much of the rest is garbled. The text in blue is interesting. In Hebrew, it is roughly "Yahweh El, God of the gods," (Yahweh el elohim).
 
Well now isn't that special Hurd .... you don't really expect an student of the scriptures to believe your evaluation do you?

In fact, only an honest student of the Bible would know this already. Nearly anyone able to read should be able to know this with a little effort. Some recommendations from competent Jewish biblical scholars;

Slifkin, Rabbi Natan
2007 “Sacred Monsters: Mysterious and Mythical Creatures of Scripture, Talmud and Midrash” New York: Zoo Torah and Yashar Books

Jewish Publication Society
2004 “The Jewish Study Bible: TANAKA translation” Oxford University Press.

Zevit, Ziony
2001 "The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches” New York: Continuum Press

And then the many Christian scholars I have studied;

Blenkinsopp, Joseph
1992 The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible The Anchor Bible Reference Library New York: ABRL/Doubleday

Boadt, Lawrence
1984 Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction Mahwah N.J.: The Paulist Press

Bodine, Walter R., (Ed.)
1992 "Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew." Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns

Pardee, Dennis
2002 Writings from the Ancient World Vol. 10: Ritual and Cult at Ugarit Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature

Pope, Marvin H.
1965 “Job: A new translation with Introduction and Commentary” Anchor Bible Vol. 15, New York: ABRL/Doubleday

Smith, Mark S.
2002 “The Early History of God 2nd ed.” Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing
 
Nay .... the scriptures tell the real thing about Satan

It makes no difference what others might concoct Hurd

Your listing has those that carry questionable motives
 
This is an excerpt from my outline study on Genesis. [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]

III. The Curses are Pronounced, 14-21.
[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
A. The Serpent – We do at this point know anything of Satan. All we know about evil at this point is the serpent. What do we learn about him from chapter three?
[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]

1. He is a member of the natural world, not a supernatural creature.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]2. He is a citizen of the animal domain.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]3. He is the craftiest of beasts. The word crafty suggests skills in evil scheming. He is a sly trixter who is able to deceive others. This seems to be his natural character. This does not place him on an intellectual level with man. Beasts of the field is the standard of comparison that defines his intellect.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]4. Unlike the other beasts of the field he possesses the capacity for speech and reason.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]5. He seems to have been a willing participant in the deception so, what are the possibilities.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]a. Could he simply have been possessed by Satan? Possibly.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
b. Was he himself also tempted? This seems more plausible. For temptation to have any power, there must be the illusion of satisfying some desire. If so, what could he have hoped to gain by the fall of man?
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
* Seizure of preeminence? Of all natural beings, only man is higher than he.
[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
* Did God create the serpent with a diminished view of reality; an epistemology that is rooted solely in the five senses?
[/FONT] This is certainly how his temptation of Eve are played out in chapter three.
 
NO.

el, yl, il, literally means strength or power.

shaytan/satan literally means adversary.

I recognize that "Hizikyah" occupies a pretended expertise on this chat room as a Hebrew scholar. I am not impressed.

Two of the texts used by evangelical "bible" scholars are the old Strong's Concordance published in 1894, and Brown, Driver Briggs "Hebrew and English Lexicon" from 1906 are their standards. I have them well thumbed on my shelves.

But, Hebrew el means various things- mostly God. Occasionally el means "the God," or "a god." The plural is "elohim" "the gods." The phrase "bene elohim" means a group of gods, or "council of gods." The possessive form of el is il. we see this in Job "ilshatar" (Job 1:7) literally "God's Satan."

The discovery of the ancient city of Ugarit in 1927 has revolutionized the study of the Bible. We all know this unless we are members of a willfully ignorant congregation. For honest students, I suggest;

Schniedewind, William M., Joel H. Hunt
2007 “A Primer on Ugaritic: Language, Culture, and Literature” Cambridge University Press

Specifically for the introductory notes, and translation lexicon;

Dahood, Mitchell
1965 Psalms I, 1-50: Introduction, Translation and Notes New York: Anchor Bible- Doubleday

Pardee, Dennis
2002 Writings from the Ancient World Vol. 10: Ritual and Cult at Ugarit Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature

For a Christian's presentation, see either:

Smith, Mark S.
2002 “The Early History of God 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] ed.” Grand Rapids: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing
___________
2003 “The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts” Oxford University Press.
 
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All of this sounds like caveman/dinosaur analysis


Dump it Hurd and spend a few years with nothing but the Lord's Word in you Bible .... earnestly seek Him

The you will not have to rely upon the theories of men
 
I know Genesis does not say the serpent in Eden was Satan; but I thought this was stated in the epistles or somewhere; but now all I can find is rev 20:2, which does not mention Eden. Is there anything more explicit?

He's there in the Garden, using an upright serpent as a proxy. We know it is the Devil, Satan, formerly "Lucifer" before falling from Heaven, by the context of Genesis 3:14-15 (KJV)
[SUP]14 [/SUP]
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
[SUP]15 [/SUP] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.


The first curse was upon the animal in verse 14.

The next one was against Satan who was "in" the animal, supplying the messages. It would be very poor exegesis of scripture to say God was only making women fearful of snakes, that women would someday stomp their heads. The "seed" is One seed, Jesus, who came as the seed of the woman Mary, not of the man Joseph. That was a prophesy both against Satan, and future "children of the Devil". The children of God have been at enmity with the children of darkness ever since. Christ Jesus effectively destroyed Satan, bruising his head by defeating death, and will completely destroy him later at the Judgment. Satan was behind the short-lived bruising of Jesus, allowed by God. God allowed the same Satan to bruise Job, who, with God, won that challenge.

As for the account in Job, again there is a proper use of the scriptures only possible by having spiritual eyes to see truth, and taking God's word in context. I see the atheist benefited from neither. I will try to simplify the passage so anyone can understand at least in part.

The story has Satan noticing a man blessed by God, who came to a council in Heaven to accuse Job and God.
In v. 6 the council was of sons of God, God's angels, checking in with God. Then came Satan. v. 7 God didn't ask the sons of God where they came from. He asked Satan, who was not of them. They met again in chapter 2. No doubt the angels do that regularly, sent out to minister, returning with reports. Satan reported he was just going about on earth, up and down.
Satan reported he was going to and from, the English phrase for the Hebrew 'shut'[FONT=&quot][/FONT], meaning early to and from. It was God's chief adversary/opponent/arch enemy, called "Satan" as transliterated from the Hebrew, an angel named that, like
"Sir Adversary". "Satan" is a proper noun, a name of one being, like Gabriel, Michael, other arch angels.

From there on it becomes clear that God is the one who blesses, protects, but also lets. The lie was that men won't fear God unless God blesses them. He was willing to withdraw His protection of Job with a condition. In doing that God proves it is Satan who delivers death and destruction if given a chance. Most people suffer from that because they won't accept God's hand on their lives in the first place.

Satan made use of many powers of earth to destroy all that Job had. No human servant of an earthly king could command tornado like winds and fire from the sky like an arch angel.
 
All of this sounds like caveman/dinosaur analysis


Dump it Hurd and spend a few years with nothing but the Lord's Word in you Bible .... earnestly seek Him

The you will not have to rely upon the theories of men

You seem to have the delusion that you are the final arbitrator of the Bible.

I deny that. The Bible denies it as well.

I have spent well more years over your weak efforts. You merely remind me of [FONT=&quot]1 Timothy 1.7.

[/FONT]
 
The spirit creature behind the serpent that spoke to Eve is identified in the Bible as “the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan.” (Revelation 12:9) The audible words that Eve heard and responded to came at the instigation of Satan, who “keeps transforming himself into an angel of light.”—2 Corinthians 11:14.
 
RE: #12

Good evening Dr Hurd,

Bene elohim or bene Ha' elohim means "sons of God" not council of gods :) benoth is the femme
 
He's there in the Garden, using an upright serpent as a proxy. We know it is the Devil, Satan, formerly "Lucifer" before falling from Heaven, by the context of Genesis 3:14-15 (KJV)
[SUP]14 [/SUP]
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
[SUP]15 [/SUP] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Typically antibiblical. Quoting scripture without any understanding of the culture, or languages of antiquity is mere boasting, and self-righteous nonsense. How does this Gen 2:14 description that the "serpent" would be a conventionally legless reptile- a snake? How can you even pretend then that this snake is "Satan." And the demigod Lucifer was hardly a snake. Cite that dummy.
 
God can speak to Christians through non-Christians, but what you propose Hurd is absolute bunk, to put it politely.
 
RE: #12

Bene elohim or bene Ha' elohim means "sons of God" not council of gods :) benoth is the femme

Not according to real biblical language experts. I gave you the citations above- use them or not. I don't really care what amateurs pretend they know.

And just who would the "Sons of God" be?

And, please explain why God's Satan was totally under the command of god El in Job if he were the "fallen" or the snake.

Pull you head free from the old Strong's Concordance published in 1894.