Ep 18: The Devil Made Us Do It

00:00In some of these other texts, like the Samaritan Pentateuch and some Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts,

00:08it's the Angel of God that is saying, "Pale him, Psst, hey, wake up!"

00:14In, like, Exodus 4.24, so this is where God confronts Moses at the Motel 6 or whatever and says tries to kill him.

00:27And then his wife circumizes him and throws it at his feet and says, "Thou art of bloody husband, to me!"

00:35In the Targumim and in the Septuagint, it's the Angel that confronts Moses and tries to kill them.

00:42It's not God himself, so this is something that was done quite commonly, anciently.

00:47And so my argument here is that this is God, themselves, who is confronting "Pale him."

00:53Because they're gonna think that that helps me understand the story more, but it's more interesting.

00:58It just muddies the waters, yeah?

01:00Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

01:06And I'm Dan Beacher.

01:07And evidently, you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we try to increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about the same.

01:20How are you doing today, Dan?

01:22Rockin' and rollin', baby.

01:24Today's gonna be a fun one.

01:26I'm kind of excited about today.

01:28We're gonna be just diving headfirst into some stuff on today's show.

01:32Yeah, it's gonna get interesting, that's for sure.

01:35Yeah, we're gonna start it off with a little chapter and verse, and we're gonna do a story that I thought just had sort of one interesting element, but it turns out that it has stuff that, like, when you read it carefully, you're like, "Wait, what's that?

01:51What's happening right there?"

01:52Yeah.

01:53So we're gonna dive into that, and then afterwards, we're gonna start a whole new segment.

01:58It's gonna get weird.

02:01Yeah.

02:02About the evil one, the great Satan himself.

02:07Could it be?

02:09Satan?

02:10Satan?

02:11All right.

02:12Okay.

02:13But first, chapter and verse.

02:15What are we looking at today?

02:19Well, today, we're in numbers.

02:22Numbers 22 to be specific.

02:25All right.

02:26That is a number.

02:27That's a number.

02:28There's lots of numbers.

02:30Almost an infinite number of numbers.

02:33And I want to give us some background.

02:37I'm actually gonna bury the lead here, or not bury the lead.

02:41I'm actually gonna just sort of spill the beans.

02:43We're talking about Balaam.

02:44We're talking about a talking donkey.

02:46And to be honest with you right now, the talking donkey is the least interesting part of this

02:54story to me now.

02:56Yeah.

02:57So yes, a donkey will talk, but there's so much more to it.

03:01And I wanted to start by giving us some background about what's happening.

03:04This is, and numbers is weird to me.

03:07We're back in the Exodus story.

03:10We're not in Exodus, but we're kind of rooted in that story.

03:15Am I right about that?

03:16We're sort of in the Moses leaving Israel or rather Egypt story, correct?

03:21Yes.

03:22We are where they are kind of wandering.

03:26They're camped in the plains of Moab across the Jordan River from Jericho.

03:33And they are not just wandering because you go back one, two chapters.

03:39They are slaughtering people as they go through.

03:43They are, they are absolutely destroyed.

03:46They are committing mass genocides as they sort of plunder through this part of the world.

03:54Yeah.

03:55They've just defeated the Ammonites, is that right?

04:01And just like they are tearing through the land.

04:06Yeah.

04:07They are a barbarian horde at this point.

04:11So now we cut from the Israelites to the Moabites who have heard of this horde of Israelites

04:23who are just shredding through the world and had aimed directly at them.

04:29And they are just a family, I think, very concerned.

04:34So they head to, so the Moabite king who is king.

04:41Baloch.

04:42Oh, okay.

04:43Baloch.

04:44Decide to send for Balam who is, who seems to be the go to guy for curses, for blessings,

04:59for communing with God.

05:01He's, he's a bit of an itinerant, yeah, bless or slash cursor.

05:07This is, this is one of the things that prophets could be hired to do at the time would be

05:12to show up and, you know, we don't like these guys, throw some money at him and let him curse

05:20him.

05:21Yeah.

05:22So the king sends to emissaries with money to Balam and says, hey, need you to curse these

05:30guys, we are in trouble, we might all die.

05:33Because to be clear, the last battle that the Israelites had, they left no one alive.

05:39Yeah.

05:40I think that's actually the, the Amorites, isn't it that, and then Baloch hears what has

05:45happened to the Amorites and, and that's what catalyzes this, this call for help.

05:51Yeah.

05:52He's, he's freaked out, understandably so.

05:57So Balam says, says to these emissaries, chill out for a night.

06:04I'm going to talk to God, I'll see what he says, and I'll come back to you.

06:09He talks to God and God says, no, no, these Israelites are blessed.

06:15So you can't curse them.

06:17So send these dudes away.

06:20He sends the dudes away, the king disappointed sends even more important dudes, I guess, with

06:30even more money, or the promise of more money and says, dude, just come and help us.

06:37I'll give you literally anything.

06:39I will, I will, I will make sure that you are, that you are paid well.

06:46The actual line is, thus says Baloch son of Zippur, do not let anything hinder you from

06:51coming to me for I will surely do you great honor and whatever you say to me, I will do

06:56come curse this people for me.

07:00Balam says, you know, I'm not going to do anything that the Lord tells me not to do,

07:05no matter how much money you give me, but hang out overnight again.

07:11I'll see what God says to me this time.

07:15And then verse 20 says that, that night God came to Balam and said to him, if the men

07:20have come to summon you, get up and go with them, but do only what I tell you to do.

07:26So he got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the officials of Moab.

07:33So far everything seems clear and understandable.

07:37And then the next verse happens and I don't know what's going on.

07:42Right.

07:44So the next verse is God's anger was kindled because he was going.

07:50Okay, so before I even get to the second clause or the second half of that verse, help me

07:58understand why God said go with them and then was mad when he did.

08:04So there are actually a couple of incongruities between what we just read and what is coming

08:12up in this story and overwhelmingly scholars agree that this is likely a separate tradition

08:18that has been worked into this story in an effort to kind of editorialize Balam a little

08:25bit because the punchline of this story is, "Balam is stupider than his own ass, his

08:32own donkey."

08:35But Balam is not being mocked in the rest of the narrative.

08:38The narrative around this story is talking about how Balam is being faithful, is trying

08:44to do what he's instructed to do by the God of Israel.

08:49And so this is a little independent tradition associated with Balam that is basically there

08:57to just give the finger to Balam, just kind of an aside from the rest of the story.

09:04Interesting.

09:05You see this a lot where separate traditions get woven together and the rhetorical value

09:13of having the tradition there is more important than any incongruities that may be caused by

09:21the wedding of these two traditions.

09:24I think the story of Joseph being sold into Egypt is one of the easiest ones to see, where

09:29it's like, so then there were these Ishmael lights and then the Midianites took them out

09:33and then the brothers sold them to the Ishmael lights, then the Midianites took them to Egypt

09:37and there's no coherence to the story and to try to create coherence you have to imagine.

09:45You just have to fabricate a number of scenarios that are nowhere in evidence.

09:51However, if you just peel apart the two different layers and disentangle them, you get two perfectly

09:59coherent, perfectly full stories with their own beginnings, middles and ends.

10:04We see this happening from time to time, particularly in the Pentateuch, the first five books of

10:08Moses and so this story is an example of this and it makes you wonder, wait a minute, two

10:14verses before God says, yeah, go ahead, go with them and then it's like, wait a minute.

10:19Why are you going with it?

10:21It is a little confusing, it's just a product of these editorial stitches.

10:26I see that in my reading, I see that come up a bunch and I've never been able to piece

10:32it together in that way.

10:33It's always been very confusing because it does seem like a bunch of times, especially

10:38in the Pentateuch.

10:40God says, go do the thing and the person goes and does the thing and then God's like, why

10:44did you do that?

10:47It can be very confusing.

10:51Before you and I talked about this, I had come up with an alternate guess or that I understand

11:00your, it makes sense what you just explained, but I kind of, I don't understand why Balam

11:07Balaam would, who is, who is a Moabite himself would be in touch with, with Adonai, the God

11:16of Israel.

11:18So my theory, this is a hypothesis by a non-scholar that means nothing to anybody, so don't take

11:24this with you.

11:26But my theory was that, that it was Kemosh, the God of Moab, that had said, don't, that

11:34had said you can go with him and that it was Adonai, the God of Israel, who said, yes,

11:40you can, or rather, who said, or who was mad and said, no, don't do it.

11:45Anyway, that's, that's my personal theory. I'm not sticking with it, because I don't,

11:50I'm not a scholar. I don't know. Anyway, someone take that and run with it.

11:55Anyway, God, regardless, God's anger was kindled because he was going and the angel of the Lord

12:03took his stand in the road as his adversary. Now I'm guessing you're going to jump on that

12:09last word.

12:10Right, so in Hebrew, it says Lissaton, or as a Satan. So this is the noun, this is one

12:20of only a handful of places in the entire Hebrew Bible where this noun, satan, appears.

12:27And one of the things that this indicates is that a satan is more of a role that someone

12:34fills rather than the personal name of a specific individual. And so throughout the Hebrew Bible,

12:42you have different entities that are filling that role. And here, it is the very angel

12:49of the Lord who is acting as a satan. And it's Lissaton, lo, so his satan, or his adversary,

12:59his opposing or something like that. But I would go even further and say that everything

13:05else in the story suggests that this is God themselves. So this is Adonai who is standing

13:12in the way. The only reason we would not think that is because we have that word angel there,

13:18which is in Hebrew, Malach, which literally just means messenger and is used a number

13:22of times to refer to perfectly human messengers throughout the Hebrew Bible. But when we have

13:27Malach, Adonai, or Malach, Elohim, or Malach, Elohim, that is frequently understood to be

13:33some kind of supernatural entity and specifically a specific kind of leading angel. But I have

13:42argued in print in more than one place, and we'll continue to argue in print that many

13:47of these places, particularly in the Pentateuch, but also in places like Judges and perhaps

13:51even Joshua, where we have the Malach, Adonai, where the identities of God and their angels

13:57seem to be overlapping, seem to be confused. Those stories were originally about God themselves

14:04and theological discomfort with the direct physical interaction of God and humanity,

14:13or where God seems to be doing something uncomfortable, like confronting Balaam here after saying,

14:20"Yeah, go with them." They would slip in this word in Malach, as a way to kind of prophylactically

14:28distance the deity from these events. And this actually occurs in later literature when we look

14:35at the Targumim, which are the Aramaic paraphrases of the Bible. When we look at the Septuagint and

14:42other later versions of the Hebrew Bible, we see a proliferation of the word for angel, where in

14:52the original Hebrew, it referred to God themselves. So for instance, in chapter 21, where we have

14:57God coming to Balaam, standing at the foot of his bed saying, "Bala, Bala, you awake?"

15:03In some of these other texts, like the Samaritan Pentateuch and some Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts,

15:10it's the angel of God that is saying, "Balaam, hey, where you go?" In Exodus 4, 24. So this is where

15:20God confronts Moses at the Motel 6 or whatever, and says, "Tries to kill him." And then his wife

15:31circumcises him and throws it at his feet and says, "Thou art a bloody husband unto me."

15:38In the Targumim and in the Septuagint, it's the angel that confronts Moses and tries to kill

15:44them. It's not God themselves. So this is something that was done quite commonly,

15:48anciently. And so my argument here is that this is God themselves, who is confronting Balaam.

15:55I don't think that that helps me understand the story more, but it's more interesting.

16:00It just muddies the waters. But the angel is speaking as God, in confronting Balaam.

16:10Very clearly, one way or the other, whether it's an angel or God themselves, it's very clear that

16:17this is in God's name, that this is happening. So the angel of the Lord

16:27takes a stand in the road as Balaam's adversary, as his Satan, if you will, and we're going to get

16:34into the Satan later. So that's going to be fun. And he's writing on his donkey, and his two servants

16:44are with him. I'm not sure why we need to know about the servants. But the donkey is the only

16:48one who manages to see God or the angel, whichever. Quick interruption. The princes of Moab are not

16:56mentioned, even though in Numbers 22, 21, it says he went with the princes of Moab.

17:02So another indication that we've got a separate tradition here.

17:06No, he's just on a slow donkey. They're way ahead. Donkeys are slow. Man, those guys are on

17:12horses or camels or something. You never know. Anyway, the donkey sees the angel. Nobody else

17:19seems to. And so the donkey turns. The donkey's like, there's a dude with a sword. Yeah. And I

17:27don't like this idea. So I'm going to swerve and turn off the road and go into a field. And Balaam

17:38angrily strikes his donkey and says, get back on the road. And then the angel, I love this

17:47because it does paint the picture of this angel just sort of corralling the donkey.

17:52Yeah. You go over there, oh, contain contain.

17:56Eventually the angel pins the donkey against a wall. So three times this happens and three times

18:06Balaam strikes the donkey, at which point the donkey is very upset having been thrice struck.

18:17And for whatever reason, the Lord decides to give the gift of speech to the donkey. You'd think that

18:26the Lord would just reveal himself to Balaam, but instead he has the donkey speak, which doesn't

18:33seem to throw Balaam off his game at all. He takes it in stride. Very much so. The donkey says,

18:40what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times? And Balaam, as you say,

18:45just sort of turns to him and is like, dude, it's because you keep turning wrong. He says,

18:50because you have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand. I would kill you right now.

18:54You're right. Doesn't go. Holy crap, a talking donkey.

18:58Apparently that's not that's not. Look, this guy, God visits this guy all the time.

19:05He knows donkeys can talk. He's totally been down with that. Anyway, the donkey says, am I not?

19:12This is the sweetest part. The donkey says, am I not your donkey, which you have ridden

19:16all your life to this day? Have I been in the habit of treating you this way?

19:20And he said, no, so no, donkey, no. Does Balaam speak with a Scottish accent?

19:29I think he might. We need to get Mike Myers in here to do the Balaam voice.

19:38So there you go. Then after the conversation with the pack animal, the Lord does make himself

19:50visible to Balaam. Opened Balaam's eyes. Yeah, we have here. Yeah. And he saw the angel of the

19:59Lord standing in the road with his drawn sword in his hand, and he bowed down, falling on his face.

20:07And then the angel goes after him. What are you doing? Why are you hitting your donkey?

20:13Which by the way, that's so unfair. I mean, I know that you claimed that this story is about

20:19him being dumber than his donkey. But like, if you don't see the guy and your donkey is like,

20:26making all these crazy turns, and you're just trying to stay on the road,

20:33I'm not I'm not faulting Balaam on that one. I'm giving it to him. You would hit your donkey

20:38to go back, I think. I don't know. Well, I think it strikes me as very similar to a lot of traditions

20:45we have from the broader world of ancient South West Asian literature, where the gods are playing

20:51tricks on people. And they're coming down disguised as people. And they're like, Ooh, what do you think

20:56about this God? And just in general being jerks to humans. And frequently, they kind of corner

21:06them, they trap them, and then reveal. Aha, I got you. And so it's kind of entrapment here because

21:14and particularly where it says the then Adonai opened the eyes of Balaam. So which suggests that

21:24God is somehow controlling Balaam's ability to perceive exactly the the angel or God themselves.

21:31And then is like, how come you can't see me? Why were you looking for me? Yeah, it's like,

21:36cause you are obscuring your yourself from him or something like that. And says the donkey saw me

21:44turned away these three times. If it had not turned away from me, I would have just killed

21:49you and let the donkey live, which is and yeah, the point here is to be like, look at this moron.

21:56He can't even he's not even aware that God or the angel of God is standing in front of him.

22:03His donkey sees it. You can't you can't understand things going on as well as your own donkey.

22:12It does seem unfair. This seems like a very unfair test, but Balaam takes the bait says, says,

22:21I have sinned for I did not know that you were standing in the road to oppose me.

22:26Now therefore, if it is displeasing to you, I will return home. It seems like Balaam is just

22:34trying to do what's right the whole time. Yeah. And and the God and God is. Yeah, like you said,

22:42it does feel a little trickster. He feels a little, little lokish maybe.

22:47So the angel of Lord said to Balaam, go with the men, but speak only what I tell you to speak.

22:56And Balaam went on with the officials. Do you want to why don't you want to give us the rest

23:05of the story on this? Well, well, basically, Balaam hires Balaam to curse Israel. And then every time

23:14Balaam goes out and blesses Israel instead. And each time Balaam is like, what did I just say?

23:24And it's just getting increasingly upset with Balaam. And every time Balaam's like, look, man,

23:29I told you I can only do what God commands. And it turns out God commands me to do the exact

23:36opposite of what you paid me to do. Well, what am I paying you for, man? But we had a deal here.

23:44Yeah. And and the rhetorical point here is to suggest that if you're if you're trying to counter

23:52Israel, if you're trying to oppose Israel, God's not on your side. God is going to stop these efforts.

23:59And what's interesting is we actually have an inscription from around the eighth century BCE

24:07that mentions a dude named Balaam of Peor. So so this this itinerant

24:16blesser slash cursor probably existed. This inscription comes from

24:22Dear Allah, which is a place on the east side of the Jordan River in the Jordan Valley. So a

24:32little further north from Jericho. But it's a it's an in a language that's kind of Aramaic-y,

24:38but has some oddities to it. But we do have the story about about him being hired to to do prophetic.

24:46Stuff. So this was probably an itinerant profit. But one of the interesting things is

24:53this this person existed like four or 500 years after these stories are supposed to have taken

25:02place. A strong indication that these stories were written many centuries later and are reflecting

25:08the circumstances and reflecting rhetorical goals that are embedded within much later

25:15social circumstances. Well, and it sounds like it's using sort of known characters like Balaam

25:22in the storytelling to sort of just sort of as fun cultural touchstones or you know something

25:29along those lines. Does that jive with what you're thinking? Yeah, absolutely. And this is

25:34this is how these stories are supposed to kind of resonate with their audiences. They're like,

25:39oh yeah, we know a guy like that. We're kind of familiar with this motif with what goes on here.

25:44And in that inscription, it talks about the gods coming to Balaam at night and speaking to Balaam.

25:50And so it's there's some interesting parallels that indicate the story here is supposed to kind

25:59of sound familiar and is supposed to appeal the kind of existing literary conventions.

26:06Okay, that's fun. That's kind of interesting.

26:11I think that's that's how they're hoping you will react to this story. That's fun.

26:14I mean, my reaction is not that makes a lot of sense, but it's kind of fun. So that's where I'm

26:25going with it. Okay, that sounds good. All right. Well, I think it's time for could it be

26:34Satan? All right. It's the devil time. I it is the devil is in the details. So give us the deeds.

26:45Yeah. So let's talk a lot of people use the word devil to the devil to refer to Satan. Now,

26:54devil comes from a Greek word. So the word doesn't occur anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. It's not until

27:00it was translated in a Greek that we have this Greek word the Avalos or devil. So I'm going to talk

27:08first about the word Satan, which is frequently taken by Christians as the the proper the personal

27:16name of God's adversary as some kind of that certainly seems how the church lady was using it.

27:24Yes, a malevolent figure who has some kind of authority over a divine retinue, some kind of

27:32army or something like that, and basically stands opposed to the God of Israel. There is not a single

27:38syllable in any part of the Hebrew Bible that supports that understanding of the word Satan.

27:45As we mentioned in the in the previous segments with vellum, satan is a noun a generic noun that

27:52means something like accuser adversary opponent. There's one kind of conceptual parallel that

28:01that helps people to think about it in contemporary terms is it's kind of like the prosecutor for

28:08the divine counsel for God. It's and there's at least one story where it seems to kind of come

28:16close to that idea. But for the most part, it just means if if you're accusing someone, if you're

28:20opposing someone, if you are acting as their adversary, you are acting as a satan and opposed.

28:29So when people say Jack Smith is Satan or or or good, he is an adversary.

28:36He is yes, he's functioning in that role. So just like the the angel of the Lord comes to

28:44function as vellums satan adversary, yes, Jack Smith is functioning as the satan to

28:53a serial sexual predator who can barely read. But that is another here nor there.

28:59But so numbers 22 is one of the earliest references that we have to

29:06this at least canonically. This is the earliest reference we have to this

29:12noun satan. In fact, actually, I'm going to I'm going to just look and see how many total occurrences

29:20we have. I used to know off the top of my head how many occurrences we have, but I have forgotten.

29:28So right now, yes, it looks like 27 occurrences in the entire Hebrew Bible in the entire Hebrew

29:37Bible. Oh, wow. That is not a lot because that's a yeah, there's a lot in the Hebrew Bible itself.

29:43There's that it's a big book. Yeah. And and a lot of these are are humans referring to other humans.

29:49So in 2 Samuel 19 22, but David said, what have I to do with you? You sons of Zaruia

29:58that you should today become a satan to me. So but now the Lord my God has given me rest on

30:08every side. There is neither satan nor misfortune. There is no adversary. There's nobody standing

30:14in my way. We have the the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon Hadad the Edomite.

30:26So it's it's a role that people are filling. Now numbers 22 is is a pretty interesting one,

30:33because it's the angel of the Lord or God themselves who is functioning as a satan.

30:38Another place where we where we actually see somewhat of an overlap is 2 Samuel 24 one,

30:47which is where we have David's census. The infamous sentence census. And it says there

30:58and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he incited David against them saying,

31:05go count the people of Israel and Judah. So this is Adonai. This is the God of Israel

31:10is upset. And and I love that by the way that the anger of the Lord is when it's gets kindled.

31:18It actually means the nose gets hot. So glows red with heat is is not getting angry.

31:27You don't want the Lord going Rudolph on you. That's a bad time.

31:31So we have that passage in 2 Samuel 24 one. Now a little later we have chronicles,

31:38which is basically retelling a lot of these stories using probably Samuel and Kings as a source,

31:44but also using other sources. And so if we go to first chronicles 21 one,

31:50we have the same story, but it says satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count

32:01the people of Israel. Oh wow. And and here it's it's not ha satan. It's not the satan. It is just

32:10satan. Some people will argue this suggests it's functioning more as a name, but it's probably

32:17something more like a title, the accuser or an accuser or something like that.

32:23And what I would argue here, when we put these two texts in parallel that the first chronicles

32:31text is probably trying to avoid the theological discomfort of the second Samuel 24 passage rather

32:39than having God themselves get angry and incite David. It's kind of masking it, but instead of

32:46saying the angel of the Lord did it, they're using this other option. We're going to do the satan

32:53who did this. And so, so chronicles is is kind of updating superseding the story as told in

33:01second Samuel 24. And so, you know, it's like somebody's like, I heard I heard the Lord did this and

33:07first chronicles is saying, no, no, it was a satan. It was an adversary. So obscuring who's

33:17responsible there for that. We also have Zechariah three where we have the angel of the Lord and we

33:24have Joshua and we have the satan standing by trying to accuse. And this is another instance

33:32where it seems to be someone who is filling a role, but we get this impression that this role

33:38is beginning to crystallize into some kind of formal office, somehow associated with the divine

33:44council. And that seems to be what's going on in Job one and two, which is the last famous part

33:53from the Hebrew Bible where we have this reference to satan in a way that sounds an awful lot like

33:59this divine bad guy. And this is where we have the story starts off talking about Job. And then

34:09in verse six, it says the the Benelohine, the children of God came before God one day. And it says,

34:17satan was was with them. Now, I'm going to check it. So it says hasatan. So the now you don't normally

34:29have a definite article with a proper name. So this is not a personal name. This is like a title.

34:36So it's kind of like the accuser came with them. So this is almost like a divine prosecutor.

34:42This is this is. Yeah, this is where we're approximating this idea of someone who is in God's

34:48employ. This is someone who is doing God's bidding. And they're coming with the Benelohine and

34:57Benelohine Children of God. This has been interpreted in a number of different ways. But it's pretty

35:02much the second tier deities. You have the high deity and their consort. And then their offspring

35:07are the second tier deities. These are the Benelohine. This is Genesis six. And the accuser is one of

35:15them. We'll suggest the accuser is one of the Children of God is part of the divine council.

35:23Yeah, not not outside of the the divine council, but actually a member with this particular

35:31employment and assignment within the divine council. And there are there are different

35:35takes on this. For instance, there's a wonderful book called the Satan how God's executioner became

35:41the enemy by a scholar named Ryan Stokes. And Ryan argues that satan there should be understood

35:48to mean executioner. And so this again is someone in God's employ. This is someone doing God's bidding

35:57filling a specific office within God's administrative infrastructure. So here, the satan

36:06comes siding up to God and is like, so starts to challenge Job's faithfulness. Oh, Job just

36:16likes you because you bless him. So if you take away everything, he'll curse you. And I don't know,

36:23I have not seen the second the first episode of the second season of a of

36:28the show. With the two angels, the good omens, good omens. But evidently, it starts start start

36:41that sentence again. I have not seen that. Okay. Now I have not seen the first episode of the

36:46second season of good omens. But I heard that it starts off with the good angel coming to

36:53confront the bad angel. And it's like, Oh, it's you. And he's like, you know, you're not supposed

36:58to be doing this. He's like, no, I have a permit. God told me. And it's he's he's harassing Job.

37:03So I look forward to catching up on good omens. But yeah, it's a great show. So this is not the

37:14contemporary Christian concept of Satan. This is something very different. Now, and this this

37:20text comes from the Persian period. A lot of people think Job is one of the oldest texts in the Hebrew

37:25Bible. It's not it's one of the youngest texts in the Hebrew Bible. It is a tale that was written

37:31in the Persian period. And it's kind of, it's kind of foreignizing and archaizing. It's trying to sound

37:37old and foreign in an effort to kind of dislodge it from any discernible historical context. It's

37:44kind of a long, long time ago in a kingdom far, far away kind of story. And so we're starting to

37:54move in the direction of Satan being something individuated. But the real linchpin for that is

38:03the traditions that develop in the Greco-Roman period around the tradition of the fall of the

38:11angels, the watchers, the Nephilim, all this kind of stuff. So the book of Enoch, the book of giants,

38:20Jubilee's Genesis Apocryphon, some of the other what used to be called rewritten Bible.

38:28That's not really a handy genre anymore. But basically we're taking famous stories,

38:34particularly from Genesis and particularly Genesis six, the story where the Benelohim,

38:39the children of God, come down and marry and reproduce with the daughters of humanity.

38:45And in Genesis six, it says these were warriors of old men of renown and they were on the earth at

38:52the same time as the Nephilim. And in the Greco-Roman period, these traditions accrete to this story.

39:01They're kind of retelling these traditions and these now become angels. And we have a whole raft

39:06of like 200 angels who descend upon Mount Hermon and they are rebelling. And traditions are kind of,

39:14we get different takes on this tradition all the way in to like the medieval period within Christianity

39:19where we have the story where basically Adam and Eve are created and God tells the angels to go

39:27worship Adam and Eve. And then one of the angels is like, why are we worshiping this dude? We're

39:31better than this dude. And basically kind of ginning up a mutiny against God and that's

39:38responsible for the fall of the angels. And in the later period, Satan is kind of the leader

39:44of these angels. But in the Greco-Roman period, Satan is still kind of a generic noun. And so in

39:49the Anakic and other literature, you actually have the plural use of this noun. You have satans,

39:55which is just kind of a just kind of a generic these deities. But you do begin to see a hierarchy

40:05among the angels. And you do begin to see some names popping up for some of these leaders.

40:11Belial, which is like worthless. This is the name of a leader. You get this concept of the

40:21Benet-Belial, the sons of the children of Belial. And then there's an alternative spelling, Beliar.

40:29Satan, like I said, you get the plural of satan. And you have an alternate spelling of that as well.

40:35You have this word satan with an M on the end. And this is a verb that means to persecute,

40:43to pursue, to entrap, to hate. And so one of the names of one of these leaders is

40:49Maestema, which is taking that verbal root and turning it into a noun. So Maestema would mean

40:57persecution, pursuit, entrapment, things like that. And we see that in Hosea, in the book of

41:04Hosea in 9/8, it talks about persecution, this abstract noun. But that becomes one of the names

41:11of the leaders of these fallen angels. And so you get this hierarchy that's developing and you get

41:19these ideas about these different folks who might be in charge of these wicked angels.

41:24And one of the names that also comes up is Beelzebub, which we've all heard that one.

41:31We've all heard that one. That's a very famous one, which is actually a, it's kind of an editorialization

41:38of a name, a title that actually exists in ancient northwest Semitic traditions. It was

41:45originally Zevul Ball or Baal Zevul, which means Prince Ball, but Beelzebub would mean,

41:53and so ball means Lord, so Prince Lord, Prince Ball. But when you say Beelzebub, it's Lord of

42:00Flies. So it's kind of taking the name and corrupting it to make it an editorialization on that name.

42:06And you actually had to... Presumably, flies were not thought to be good.

42:12No, yeah. This is a pretty demeaning, denigrating title. But in the New Testament,

42:19you usually see it transliterated in the English as Beelzebub. It's actually spelled correctly

42:26in the Greek. It's Beelzebul in the Greek. But because of the tradition of that editorialization,

42:36usually translations will render Beelzebub. So a little oddity of how modern translators render

42:44that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So some of the places where Satan is not mentioned in the Hebrew

42:51Bible that are going to be kind of roped in in later periods, the serpent in the Garden of Eden,

43:00nowhere in the entire Bible is identified as Satan. Yeah. We talked about that a little bit in our

43:06first episode. Yeah. It's just a snake. Yep. Just a snake. And snakes were associated with a few

43:14different things, anciently, with wisdom, with healing, also with eternal life. And so in the story

43:22of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is trying to get this flower that's going to give him eternal life.

43:30And then he is, I think he's in the sea, and he's going to trying to get to this flower,

43:36and a snake steals it from him. And so it is also, it's associated with eternal life. It's also

43:41associated with obstructing human access to eternal life, which somewhat overlaps with the story of

43:49Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Yes, but opposite, because in that case, the snake is

43:58actually granting access to at least knowledge. So that's interesting. Moving them in that direction.

44:04And then God is the one who steps in and says, nah, nah, nah, nah. Another figure that is mentioned

44:10in the Hebrew Bible that actually has nothing to do with Satan is Lucifer. So Isaiah 1412,

44:18we have this story about this chapter is explicitly about a king of Babylon. Like the author says,

44:26this is about this king. And then goes on to say these things. And then says, oh, how you have

44:31fallen. Oh, and the Hebrew is haleil ben shachar, which means shining one son of the dawn.

44:40And there have been a number of attempts to try to situate this within an existing kind of

44:47traditional background. I think that probably the most popular is to associate haleil with

44:55this Northwest Semitic deity, Aftar, from known from the ball cycle and from some other literature.

45:01Irrespective, however, this is talking about the king of Babylon that way and kind of sarcastically

45:10saying, oh, you tried to exalt yourself up above the stars of heaven, which is a reference to the

45:15gods over the throne of Elle. You wanted to be higher than all of them, but you've been thrown

45:22down. You've been subjected. You've been buried under the earth. You are in the underworld. In other

45:28words, you wanted to be high, but now you're the lowest of the low. And so it's mocking the king of

45:35Babylon. And we have no connection of that story with Satan, no, no explicit connection until the

45:42middle of the second century CE, I think, around Justin Martyr, somewhere around there is the first

45:47time somebody says, Hey, this is Satan. Will you connect with for me the, because I didn't catch

45:56how the name Lucifer is connected? Oh, right. Sorry. So this haleil Ben Chahar or Ben Chahar,

46:05this is probably a reference to the planet Venus and traditions that deified this planet and that

46:13connected certain deities with this planet. Son of the dawn, this is the morning star,

46:18this is the brightest star in this guy that's actually a planet before the sun comes up. And so

46:23in the Greek translation, they rendered a house photos, which is like light bringer light bearer,

46:31which is a similar reference to Venus as a deity. In fact, that was one of the names of

46:37the deity was connected with Venus. In the Roman pantheon, you had a deity named Lucifer,

46:44which also means a light bearer light bringer. And so you have Jerome, the translator of the

46:50Vulgate into Latin, who renders Lucifer for house photos in the Greek. So this is all parallel,

46:57they're all they're all different kind of socially contingent ways to refer to a deity

47:04linked with the planet Venus. As time goes on, Lucifer as kind of a title for the planet Venus

47:12takes on the qualities of a proper name. And so you start to see, and particularly when it gets

47:22connected with Satan, the adversary, then Lucifer becomes a proper name. I've heard some people say

47:27that it's the King James version that first capitalizes the L or something like that. And that's simply

47:32not true. Every English translation back to Wycliffe capitalized the L treated that if not a as a

47:41personal name as a title that was referring to a specific individual. And that probably goes back

47:47to early traditions of how the the Vulgate was read. But but so yeah, Lucifer nowhere connected

47:57with Satan. There are two places where people in the New Testament or people suggest this is

48:01connected with Satan. And I think it's probably closer to some other tradition. So one is in

48:08Luke where Jesus says I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning. And so this kind of sounds

48:14like Isaiah 14 12. Oh, how thou art fallen from the heavens. But kind of, but kind of, not really. I

48:23mean, lightning is a little more direct than. Yeah, that's kind of a flash. But this also sounds

48:33an awful lot like the traditions of the fall of the angels from the Greco-Roman period with

48:37the anochic literature and others where the angels are rebelling and are being thrown down with

48:44their leader who is in the Greco-Roman period has not yet been named Satan. But by the time of the

48:52New Testament is going to be associated with Satan. And then we also have in the book of Revelation

48:57it talks about Satan is as that ancient serpent. And so people think, ah, serpent the serpent from

49:05the Garden of Eden case closed. But that's probably a reference to Leviathan who is mentioned in a

49:13handful of places, Isaiah 27 one, one of them mentioned in Job mentioned in some of the Psalms.

49:20But Leviathan is kind of a prehistoric chaos monster that is associated with

49:27other divine entities from the traditions around them. In the Eucharitic literature,

49:33the word is lotan, which is cognate, meaning it's it's the same word, but in another language.

49:40And in the Eucharitic literature, lotan has seven heads. And in Revelation, the ancient serpent is

49:49the dragon who has seven heads. So I think at least in Revelation, it's much more closely linked with

49:58the tradition of the Leviathan rather than the serpent in the Garden of Eden. And there are

50:03some folks who think that see the wisdom of Solomon chapter two verse 24. I think it says,

50:11because of the what is it because of the envy of a devil, Diabolu, that's the the genitive of

50:21devil, death entered the world. And I mentioned Diabolos or Diabolos devil in the beginning of

50:29this segment. That's a Greek word that literally etymologically it means to cast through or beyond

50:38basically to miss the mark. And the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible uses that

50:44to translate satan. And so there's a connection there. And so some people think, ah, Diabolos,

50:53there must be Satan. Therefore it was Satan who allowed death to enter the world in the Garden

51:00of Eden. So that we see some loose maybe connections, but we don't really see an explicit identification

51:08of Satan either with the serpent in the Garden of Eden or with Lucifer until we get into the

51:12second and third centuries CE within early Christianity. So I would argue that these are most clearly

51:18post biblical identifications. But by the time we get to the New Testament, we have Satan functioning

51:28kind of as the proper personal name of an individual who is stands opposed to God has rule over the

51:39evil spirits, the malevolent forces of the world. And some people have asked, where does this come

51:48from? Does this have to do with Zoroastrianism? And we I don't think we have enough data about

51:55Zoroastrianism to say for sure. But I think it's likely that does Zoroastrianism have a Satan figure?

52:01Is that what we're saying? So Zoroastrianism has a a a leader, a hermazda. This is the

52:11the divine leader. And there are two spirits that derive from a hermazda. One is called

52:19Angra Minu, which is like the opposing spirit. And the other is called Spenta Minu, which is the

52:24holy or the bountiful spirit. And they live on our shoulders. Because I've heard of that one.

52:30They dress in white and in red, and they sound an awful lot like Patrick Warburton.

52:34But these, this is this dualism that kind of exists within Zoroastrianism as near as we can

52:44tell. And hermazda and Angra Minu represent opposite sides of this spectrum. And so people

52:51think it's reasonable to think that while the Judahites were in exile, in Babylon,

52:59the the empire that ruled over them was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism. These traditions

53:06would have been there. These traditions would have influenced their understanding of God's

53:11relationship to good and to evil. And so maybe this concept, this dualism of a good deity and

53:21then a bad deity was brought back to the land of Israel. But there were an awful lot of Jewish

53:27folks who remained behind in Babylon as well and stayed there for many centuries. And so we have

53:32like the sons of light and the sons of darkness in the Dead Sea Scrolls. These are spiritual forces.

53:38And some of them are also human. So we have a dualism that seems to pop up within early Judaism

53:46following the Babylonian exile. And a lot of scholars would say Zoroastrianism seems like the

53:52most likely source of that. And so this may have contributed to the need to whittle these different

53:59figures down to a single one. And a lot of these different figures that exist, all these sources

54:06of evil in the Hebrew Bible and in Greco-Roman period Judaism get consolidated within this one

54:12figure. So Satan, the devil, the serpent, Lucifer, Leviathan, Beelzebub, all of these things all just

54:20get consolidated into one figure who then takes the name Satan or the title, the devil.

54:28If the idea of a single character with this sort of title, if that came out, if that really first

54:39appears in the New Testament, would you say that it's an innovation of followers of Jesus? Or is

54:46it something that was more broadly applied in Judaism at that time? I think you see kind of this

54:52developmental trajectory within the Judaism of that time. I think the New Testament and so the

54:57followers of Jesus are probably the ones who systematize it. So kind of boil it down to, okay,

55:04this is what it's going to be moving forward. And everybody kind of agrees. There's still some

55:08variability, like there are scholars who talk about the different ways that the different

55:13gospels talk about Satan. Some of them still seem to preserve a little of this ambiguity,

55:18a little of this concept of a role rather than a personal name. So a good book on that,

55:23Archie Wright has a book called Satan and the Problem of Evil from the Bible to the Early

55:31Church Fathers, which I think does a wonderful job of tracing that developmental trajectory.

55:35And so the New Testament is where it is most clearly and systematically fleshed out, but it's

55:40going on within Judaism already. And so they're not the first to kind of come up with these ideas,

55:48but they're the first to most clearly kind of tie them all together with a nice little bow named

55:55Satan. Well, there you go. I, you know, he's a confusing character. And now I understand why,

56:04because my tradition has, you know, the tradition that I grew up in did that consolidating and

56:12then went and sort of, like you say, went back and re-labeled all of these other characters that

56:18aren't that guy to be that guy. So I appreciate that. I think that that's actually a very useful

56:29history to know as we move forward and as we understand the Bible. And speaking of Patrick

56:34Warburton, your labels all look alike. You might consider re-labeling as Satan. Oh, man.

56:43Now we need Patrick to come on and do some do some voiceovers for us. Patrick, I know you're

56:48watching. I know you're listening. Get in here. There's much better things to do at this time,

56:53I imagine. Yeah, okay. Well, that's it for today's show. Thank you so much for listening.

56:59If you have any comments, questions, any of that sort of thing, we don't guarantee that we'll

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57:39Dan, thanks so much. Thank you for all of your knowledge. And everyone, we'll see you again next

57:45week. Bye, everybody.