Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

There is nothing in the Torah, or in the Talmud and Midrash, or Kabbalah that would suggest that there is a supremely evil being that is determined to make war against God.

As a verb, שָׂטַן (śāṭan), means to “be hostile,” or “accuse,” deriving from the root śṭn, whose basic meaning can be rendered “to be hostile to, oppose.” Generally, it implies someone who verbally accuses another. [1] Only in Job 1-2; Zechariah 3:2; and 1 Chronicles 21:1 the same term is translated as a proper name and designates the angel that acts as the  “Public Prosecutor.”  It is interesting to note that the passage in 1 Chronicles 21:1  is based upon the parallel story in 2 Samuel 24:1, but it is God who entices David to count his people and not Satan! The Satanic angel who serves as Public Prosecutor is not an apostate nor is it a fallen being, an idea that is nowhere suggested in the Hebrew Bible.

On the other hand, early Judaic writings in the apocryphal books of the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls describes  Satan  as Beliyal (“the Baseless One”), i.e., the preeminent Adversary of God. [2] It is plain and clear that the apocryphal literature later influenced the early Christian Bible.  In John (16:1) for instance, Satan appears with a capital “S.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke clearly accept and teach a doctrine of a personal Satan and called the Satanic agents “fallen angels” or “demons” (Mark 3:22).  Sometimes referred to as Lucifer, Christian legends teach that Satan vaingloriously sought to overturn the regime in heaven and waged war against God’s loyalists.

Defeated by the Archangel Michael, the angel who had ambition to be God was cast into his inferno, to brood in the darkness, “hatching vain empires.” Satan did not go unescorted, along with him went about a third of the heavenly host, a horde of fallen angels. According to Christian doctrine, angels were created separately and were given free will, just as humans were. Their fallenness had to do with a denial and distortion of angelic life just as human fallenness has to do with the denial and distortion of goodness and truth.

In contrast, Judaism teaches that only humanity was  endowed with freedom of choice. Angles are often described as omdim (beings who occupy a stationary position cf. Isaiah 6:2, Eze. 1:21-25, 10:3-6) while human beings are described as mehalchim (movers) for only human beings are capable of transcending their baser natures. Angels are sometimes compared to animals (cf. Eze.1:5) because the character of angels is instinctive much like an animals’ instinct. Angels cannot help but be what God intended for them to be.

For poets like John Milton, Satan was the archetypal antihero, the rebel waging  eternal guerrilla warfare against his Creator. He is best known for his statement, “ “To reign is worth  ambition though in hell: “Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n” (Paradise Lost, Book 1:263).

=========

Notes:

[1] This is especially the case with respect to the Psalms, cf. Psa. 38:21; 71:13; 109:4, 20, 29.

[2] See Helmer Ringgren, The Faith of Qumram — Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Fortress Press, N.Y., 1963, later reprinted by Crossroad in 1995).