Episode 341: Archie Wright - Who The Devil Is Satan?
In this week’s episode of The Bible for Normal People, Pete talks with biblical scholar Archie Wright about the development of the devil and how Jewish and Christian understandings of Satan have evolved over time. They explore why Satan does not appear in the Garden of Eden story as commonly assumed, how ancient Jewish texts like 1 Enoch helped shape ideas about evil spirits, and how later Christian traditions transformed Satan into the figure familiar today. Together, they invite listeners to reconsider familiar assumptions about the Bible, explore the historical development of theological ideas, and approach Scripture with fresh eyes by tracing traditions back to their earliest sources.
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: When Old Answers Stop Working with Pete Enns
Book: Satan and the Problem of Evil: From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers by Archie T. Wright
Join: The Society of Normal People community
Support: www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
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Pete: [00:00:00] You're listening to The Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the internet. I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas.
Jared: Hey, if you're in a place where things don't make sense, where you wonder where God is, maybe you're in a place of disappointment or doubt, the Book of Ecclesiastes might be relatable. And our October class is a deep dive into Ecclesiastes, and our very own Pete Enns will be our scuba instructor. You get it?
'Cause it's a deep dive.
Pete: Yeah. I get it.
Jared: Anyway, we're excited to have Pete teach the class. It feels, well, timely.
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Pete: Hey, everybody. On today's episode it's just me, Pete, and I'm talking with Archie Wright about the Devil.
Archie is the executive director of the Catholic Biblical Association of America, and visiting lecturer at the Catholic University of America and London School of Theology. It was a great discussion, so let's dive in.
Archie: And when you get through the whole Old Testament, you're not gonna see the Christian Satan figure in the Old Testament.
You're not going to. He's not there. When you get to the church fathers, the [00:02:00] Satan figure really changes. This is where he becomes the guy with the horns and the tail and all that other nonsense.
Pete: Archie, welcome. Welcome to the podcast.
Archie: Thanks, Peter. I appreciate you, uh, inviting me here.
Pete: Yeah, absolutely.
Archie: I’ve been really looking forward to this.
Pete: Yeah, I mean, so am I, although the topic's a little bit interesting, isn't it? To talk about the devil and whatnot, so that's sort of the gift that keeps on giving, you know, if people wanna talk about this.
Archie: Yeah, I just keep saying, "Well, the devil made me do it,"
Pete: Uh-huh. . . . so you write from experience, right?
Archie: He didn't make me write the book, though. There's a lot of . . . certain people made me write this book.
Pete: Ah, I get it. Okay.
Archie: So yeah.
Pete: You know, I mean, everyone's heard of the devil, right? I mean, religious or not, but, uh, in religious circles certainly that's a big [00:03:00] thing. And, um, it seems like... I, I think people assume, and understandably so, I think they assume, like, "Well, it's just this constant thing that shows up in the Bible, and we know exactly what it is, and there's no development or anything like that." Um, but let's, let's start with the Hebrew Bible.
Do we find this entity there?
Archie: I think a lot of people assume that. The problem is they assume that because of what we've heard about the Garden. The Garden of Eden, and the temptation of Eve and Adam, and the assumption is that Satan is in the Old Testament in that story.
And, uh, I think Christians have been taught from the pulpit about that-
Pete: Mm-hmm ...
Archie: from the beginning, and that, you know, the corruption of Adam and Eve in the Garden is a result of, you know, the Satan figure appearing as the serpent and tempting [00:04:00] Eve. But the problem is, Satan doesn't appear in Genesis 3 anywhere.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Doesn't appear in the Book of Genesis anywhere.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And we don't find the figure of Satan until we get to the book called The Life of Adam and Eve, which, uh, is probably a late first century CE book. There is a very interesting story about the fall of Satan and the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Um, the surviving Greek versions of it are third and fifth century, but, but nowhere in Genesis do we have any evidence of the Satan figure.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: The real image of Satan in the Hebrew Bible, I'll g- I have two or three texts that I'd like to talk about that-
Pete: Sure, yeah ...
Archie: I think give us, give us a good image.
The primary one is the Book of Job.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Um, when we get to Job chapter one, we find Satan coming to heaven along with the sons of God, the Bene Elohim, which [00:05:00] are key figures in this whole story of Satan. Even when we get to the Second Temple period, these figures become very important in the origin of evil spirits.
So, Satan comes to heaven into the court of God with these Bene Elohim, so he's likely part of the divine court-
Pete: Mm-hmm ...
Archie: of God. And so, he's an important figure in that whole realm.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Even though, and his task seems to be that he's a heavenly prosecutor or heavenly accuser, and he works for God, and he can't do anything without being commissioned by God to go do something. And his primary task is to go to and fro upon the earth, looking for people who are not being obedient to Torah or to try people, to test them, to see whether or not they're actually faithful. Maybe they're just looking good [00:06:00] or being too good to actually be really... Are they really that good? Are they really that faithful? And so . . .
Pete: Well, actually, so just to be clear, I mean, l- let's get to Job, but just to be clear, so people really hear this, this Satan or Satan figure in Job-
Archie: Mm-hmm ...
Pete: is not cast as the king of the underworld who strolls up into heaven or something and sits with these sons of God, the Bene Elohim. He seems to be one of them.
Archie: Yeah.
Pete: He's welcomed. He's welcomed there and they start a conversation, so yeah, right.
Archie: Yeah, he's welcomed into the court with them. He walks into them, with them, into the court of God. Right. So he's, he's not somebody who's sneaking in and snaking his way into the court to listen to what's going on.
No. Right. He's there, and he approaches God and talks to him in a conversation.
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: And, and this is when he's standing there talking to God, and God says to Satan, "Well, uh, [00:07:00] have you considered my servant, Job?"
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And so, you know, Job is a really faithful person. Everybody knows that, who's read the story.
And so Satan’s like, "Ah, I don't know. I think if I go down there and test and try him, I think he'll just turn away from you and turn away from Torah." 'Cause his primary task is to try to get people to turn away from Torah and their faithfulness in God and, of course, we all know the story.
He goes down there and, and tests and tries Job, and Job is faithful through chapter one. And then he comes back in chapter two and comes back to God again. The divine court's still there. The Bene Elohim are still there, and God says again, "What about Job?"
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And so he goes back, and the testing and trying becomes more severe at that point. Um, but of course, Job is still faithful. And the, Job one and two are very, [00:08:00] very clear about who the Satan figure is.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: He seems to be part of the divine court. He's one of the Bene Elohim, and the Bene Elohim are- They're related to several other figures in the Second Temple period literature.
Remember, Job was probably written during that period, although some will argue it's much earlier, but-
Pete: So, so that period, just remind us what that period is, what the Second Temple period is.
Archie: So that would be from, like, the end of the Babylonian exile, which would be roughly 450 BCE.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And the end date is probably around the fall of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE.
Some people take it a little farther into the beginning of the Second Temple, uh, second century, sorry. Uh, I would stop it at the, at 70 CE and the fall of the Jerusalem Temple. But these Bene Elohim are related to, [00:09:00] are related to the watcher angels that we see in One Enoch that maybe we'll talk about later.
Pete: Yeah, I think we need to get to that. That's no question. Yeah.
Archie: But they're also like, most likely the archangels or some of the archangels. So we all know who they are, Michael and Gabriel and some of the other ones. But Satan is clearly a divine being who is not some sneaky character coming up out of the underworld. There's no underworld In the Hebrew Bible, like Christians know of hell and, where all the bad people go.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Um, and he's not the ruler over that world. He is clearly working for God and doing what God tells him to do-
Pete: Right.
Archie: ... in the Hebrew Bible.
Pete: And, Satan is not a name, right? It's, it's Satan?
Archie: It's [00:10:00] Satan- Yeah ... or the Satan. Right ... yeah. And it, and it's either the accuser, where it's probably referring to the figure operating in a particular office or function, and there are probably multiple accusers or Satans in the Hebrew Bible.
Um, we know, that's the case in the Book of Enoch. It mentions Satans. There's more than one.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And a Satan would be an accuser, where it just appears by itself without the definite article.
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: It's not a proper name in the Hebrew Bible. Let me mention just a couple other texts quickly about this. Um, similar circumstances would be, uh, 1 Chronicles 21 and 2 Samuel 24, where the Satan figure appears again there as an adversary to test and try David. Probably God has sent [00:11:00] him to do a similar thing there, where David takes the census prior to the war with the Philistines, where he's basically not trusting God 'cause God's telling him, "You're gonna go fight the Philistines," and David's going, "Well, I don't know if I have enough people or enough soldiers." So he decides to take a census, and, and the Satan figure is probably there and tempted him to do that. So again, Satan's acting kind of like he does in Job, but in 1 Chronicles. But in the 2 Samuel text, in chapter 24, it's the anger of the Lord that comes and tests David to, and encourages or, or entices him to take the census there. So it's very similar to what's going on in Job. Same type of action the figure's doing.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Um, and of course, David gets punished for what he does there. And here, a really interesting text is in Numbers 22 which is Balaam and his talking ass, which I always find that really funny. But, so this is the ... The angel of the Lord is acting as a Satan in this case, where only the ass gets to see him. And, you know, Balaam's going, punishing his ass 'cause he keeps stopping or running into the wall and the ass sees the angel, but Balaam can't.
And what's interesting is this angel of the Lord is acting as an adversary, but the same angel of the Lord often in the Hebrew Bible acts as if he's Yahweh or speaks for Yahweh on multiple occasions. And it's most likely an archangel and on occasion, it seems to be the Archangel Michael, but it's difficult to tell.
And there's multiple other texts, [00:13:00] where it appears as, the Satan appears as a divine adversary against, uh, various figures. I could name a bunch of texts. But then there are also... the Satan can appear as a human adversary as well. There's multiple texts there that, where he's not a spiritual being, but he's a human adversary.
I mean, David appears to be a human adversary with the Philistines, when he wants to go help fight with them, and they just go, "Ah, I don't know." "I don't think, I don't think we can trust this guy."
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: So, but he's named a Satan in the Hebrew, which is 'cause he's an adversary 'cause he's an Israelite, and they just don't trust him.
Pete: So, we have this Satan... And with my students, I like to say Satan rather than Satan, just to get them thinking differently. Um, but so what we have there is, in the Hebrew Bible, it [00:14:00] seems to be more some sort of a function that can be played by various roles, whether it's one of the sons of God or whether it's the angel of the Lord or maybe God also doing this, and, um- or maybe a general or an army or a people. And it, it describes a function. It doesn't describe an evil entity.
Archie: Correct.
Pete: Okay.
Archie: Yeah.
Pete: So where does that come from then?
Archie: Where does the evil entity come from?
Pete: Yeah. Where does this whole devil business start then? If the Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, doesn't have it.
There's nothing that we would recognize in popular thought about the devil. We don't find that in the Hebrew Bible, including in the story of Adam and Eve, right? It's not there. It's a wise serpent. Um, but it came from somewhere. And, um, I imagine we should probably talk about the Second Temple period a little bit here, right?
Archie: Yeah, we should, but the problem is we're really [00:15:00] not gonna find it there either.
Pete: Uh-oh.
Archie: But we'll talk about the Second Temple period. We'll kind of work our way up till we get to the point where- uh, Pete, here it is.
Pete: Yeah. There it is. The first sight. But- I want the first devil sighting in the Bible.
Or in the Jewish/Christian tradition. Let's put it that way.
Archie: Yeah. Well, it's gonna take a few hundred years till we get there, but we'll-
Pete: Yeah. Well, we don't have that much time here.
Archie: No, we don't.
Pete: Yeah. Okay. Just letting you know.
Archie: The Satan figure comes into play because of the problem of evil, right? in this period in particular, and God. So the Jews are coming out of the, the Babylonian exile, and they're wondering, "What the heck?"
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Right? "What, how did we end up there?" Uh, a- and think it's pretty self-evident, right? They're, "You guys weren't obeying the Torah." Right? So God didn't have much choice. So what did he do? And here's a good example of [00:16:00] humans or a nation being used as a Satan-
Pete: Yeah ...
Archie: an adversary. The Babylonians were used as a Satan to try to bring the, the Israelites back to God and back to Torah. And how successful they were, or he was, in this case, um, that's, I don't know.
When they come out of Babylon, how faithful they were. Some of them, maybe. Some of them, probably not. But-
Pete: Mm-hmm ...
Archie: so they, they're coming back into Israel, and those who are starting to write texts, the big thing we see in, with the problem of evil now is they're trying to make a separation between God and the problem of evil and the cause of evil. And so now we see the emergence of more of these spiritual beings who are kind of acting more like the Satan figure, being responsible [00:17:00] for evil.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: But at the same time, they seem to be acting under the sovereignty and authority of God, even though he seems to be pushed off the side a little bit more. And they're ... And this is where we see the archangels coming into play a bit more as well, where they're acting more as intermediaries alongside these figures, these- ... I guess we'd call them Satan figures. But they come by, they come under a bunch of different names now when we get into the Second Temple period.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And a lot of this is we see, uh, the emergence of wicked spirits, uh, angels of punishment. I don't know if you're seeing that or not, but ... Then we have the fallen angels from the Watchers, the Book of Watchers. We have unclean spirits, and then we also have what appear to be leaders or a single leader of [00:18:00] a group of, uh, evil spirits or the fallen angels, where you have Shamihazah or Azazel in the Watcher tradition, where we have these fallen angels.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Um-
Pete: So, so before we go on, that, uh, those examples you just gave developed, uh, uh, 'cause a couple times you mentioned the problem of evil.
Mm-hmm.
So can you just tie those together for us? The problem of evil, how does the creation of these figures that do bad things, what does that have to do with the problem of evil?
Like, if God is all-powerful and all good, you know, why do bad things happen?
Archie: Well, that's the thing. The Jewish leadership or priests or authors are searching for reasons of why hum- humans are suffering or why Israel is suffering on a continual basis, and how can [00:19:00] they blame God? Cause God is all good.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And so they're searching for reasons or of how this is possible. And so these figures, like I just mentioned, and this is where we get when the 1 Enoch stuff comes into play.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Um, and the fall of the watcher angels and, and some other stuff that goes on. But they're trying to find ways of, uh, or figures that are responsible for the problem of evil in the Second Temple period.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Um, so they, these figures and divine beings or whatever you want, wanna call them, start to develop and start to take the blame or some of the blame for the suffering of humanity. You know, the [00:20:00] afflicting spirits. Um, you have more of the, uh, adversarial nations, because at this point, it's not only the Babylonians.
Now we have the Persians, we have the Seleucids, the Ptolemies. All of a sudden, Israel's surrounded by nations who are oppressing them. So more adversarial Satan nations are surrounding them and causing more of a problem of evil for Israel. So the authors are writing more and more texts about that issue, and more and more types of figures are coming into play trying to resolve the problem, or not, not resolve it, but trying to find reasons why they're suffering and why it's possible that, God is not [00:21:00] coming to their rescue at that point. But then you have one particular group from Qumran.
Pete: Hmm, the Dead Sea Scrolls, right?
Archie: And the Dead Sea Scrolls where we start to see hope in the Yahad, the, the sectarian texts, um, the non-biblical texts that the authors there are writing, where they're starting to look in the eschatological age, where they're seeing God is going to eventually come and deliver them.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And so they, they see, particular- we have texts like The War Scroll, where good is going to triumph over evil. Um, and there's good, uh, spiritual beings that are gonna overcome some of these evil spiritual beings in the present day. And so they're seeing [00:22:00] a very different thing than what some of the other sectarian groups in Judaism are seeing.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: So we have quite a contrast that's going on within the sects of, uh, Judaism in the Second Temple period. Um, who wins out? Really nobody, um- ... because it all comes to a head in 70 when Rome crushes the rebellion and everybody loses.
Pete: Well, could we pause for a bit and, um, you know, 'cause this, y- you've mentioned First Enoch a couple of times- Yeah ... which is, I'm, I'm sure a book that many of our listeners, uh, may have heard of, but aren't really sure what's going on there. And so can we just talk about that [00:23:00] briefly and then, you know, tie that in a little bit to the topic here?
Archie: I think it'd be good to, uh, just briefly touch on where that develops from.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: So we have to go back to Genesis and Genesis 6. Um, and what, this is where, this is a very enigmatic passage where, I don't know, a lot of people probably sit and scratch their head when they're reading this passage. 'Cause it's right before the flood, and it doesn't seem to create a reason of why there, there should be a flood. Unless you're reading it alongside the Book of Watchers. Right? So it starts out basically the same way. I don't... If you read the beginning of the Book of Watchers in chapter six.
Pete: So that's part of First Enoch.
Archie: Part of First Enoch. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. That's the first section [00:24:00] of One Enoch. One Enoch is, uh, basically, like, seven different books, depending on who you're talking to.
Pete: Yeah, just brought together, right. Yeah, right.
Archie: Yeah, and they're all been edited together. Uh, but the Book of Watchers is the one that talks about the origin of evil spirits. So the Book of Gene- the... One of the big debates is which came first. Genesis 6:1-12. Uh, we're focusing on Genesis 6:1-4 for the Watcher issue. Or did the Book of Watchers come first?
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: I seem to... I think that the tradition that we see in the Book of Watchers and the fallen angels was probably in the background in the mind of the author of Genesis 6:1-4. At least. So when people read Genesis 6:1-4 or heard it being read, they knew what that text meant. They knew that when it said, "The sons of God saw the daughters of humanity [00:25:00] were beautiful and took them as wives, and they gave birth to the Gibborim- the mighty man."
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And then when you shift to the Book of Watchers, basically you have the same opening.
"When the s- sons of God saw the daughters of humanity and saw that they were beautiful, they took them as wives- and they gave birth to giants." Which is the term that translated in the Septuagint for the Gibborim the mighty men of, of Hebrew. But these giants were evil.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Right? So what has happened in the Book of Watchers, you had this basically kind of neutral... If you read Genesis 6:1-4 without the Book of Watchers alongside it, you would think, "Oh, that's, that's a pretty neutral text." You know? Mm. You got sons of God who are... They could be anybody.
They could be just a title for [00:26:00] some elite humans. Or some argue they're judges. Um, and then the birth of these Gibborim are just mighty men, you know? There's some... David's men are called mighty men or Gibborim.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Right? Right. So they could be... But if you read it alongside the Book of Watchers, very different story. So when we get to the Book of Watchers, and I'll tell this very quickly. The fall of the angels, we have 200 angels that choose to fall from heaven because they see these beautiful women. And they think, they say to themselves, "Well, why can't... They're, they're having all these offspring. Why can't we have any?" Because God doesn't want you to, that's why. But they choose and they swear an oath that they're going to commit this sin. They're gonna go down there, take women for themselves, and procreate with them.
Pete: [00:27:00] Mm-hmm.
Archie: And so they do, and the women give birth to these, uh, hybrid creatures. And they're called giants in the Book of Watchers, and they're described as being 300 cubits, which is, like-
Pete: Oh, that's pretty big. For, for you listening at home, that's 450 feet.
Archie: Yeah, they're huge.
Pete: Yeah,
Archie: And all they wanna, all they wanna do is eat. So they're eating the humans out of house and home, and then they start to turn on the humans. And they start killing the humans and eat, and eating them. And so then at that point, a cry goes up to God, up to heaven, and God's off doing something. We don't know why. He's kinda, like, off, kind of off- I don't know, playing bocce or something.
Pete: He is busy ...
Archie: So the archangels come over and they look down on the earth, and they go, "Ooh, that doesn't look good." And they hear the cry from the humans who are being killed, and then they say, "Well, well, we better go talk to God."
So they go over and talk to God, and he goes, "Oh, okay. Well, you go down there, and you bind up the watcher angels and throw them into Tartarus until the day of judgment. You go and tell Enoch to go tell the watchers that they're gonna watch their kids die."
Pete: Mm-hmm. Right.
Archie: All the giants are gonna die. And you go over and tell the giants they don't have a chance. They're all gonna die." So they all get commissioned and off they go. And God says, "I'm sending the flood."
Pete: Yes.
Archie: And one of the angels is told to go tell Noah, "Get ready."Get your family together. Build an ark." Just like we see in [00:29:00] Genesis.
Pete: So, so just, I mean, just again to, to make sure everybody's on board here, the story in The Book of Watchers, which is part of 1 Enoch- that tells a story that's, seems to be much bigger than just this illusion in Genesis to the sons of God cohabiting with the daughters of man.
And it's a question, like, who's influencing whom?
Archie: Yeah.
Pete: Right? I mean, it's probably hard to say definitively one way or the other. I can see arguments for both, but there's clearly an influence there. And the brevity in Genesis might imply that, well, this is a well-known story, uh, back then, that didn't need much elaboration, right?
Archie: Correct.
Pete: Yeah ... so then I guess we're getting to a thing of evil here, but let’s tie this to Satan then. How does that get us to understanding, like, the origins of the idea of, like, a personal, individual force of evil called the devil?
Archie: Unfortunately, it doesn't.
Pete: Ah, [00:30:00] okay.
Archie: Several people have tried to argue that there is a Satan figure in the Book of Watchers.
Pete: Ah, okay.
Archie: But, and they've tried to argue that it's Samyaza or Azazel, the two lead angels-
Pete: Yeah ...
Archie: fallen watcher angels, in, but there's no kind of connection to either of them.
Pete: Yeah. You know what's funny? I just, when I just had a discussion recently, literally a discussion with a, over the past week or two, with, uh, someone who said, you know, a third of the angels fell, and that's part of the Hebrew Bible.
And these stories in some form or another have become part of people's telling of the origin of Satan and whatnot. But it's, it's not the Satan that we know, in the New Testament in later Christian theology. That doesn't exist in the Hebrew Bible. It doesn't seem to exist at [00:31:00] least in any really developed form.
Maybe seeds of it might be found in the Second Temple period, but we have to go a little bit later, right? To see the- So why is it that in the New Testament, like, everybody knows who this guy is? What happened?
Archie: Well, that's another story.
And I'll try to explain that. But let me just finish up 'cause it's important that we tell about the the evil spirits that are coming out of the Watchers. So these giants, God sends the flood, and this is important for the New Testament 'cause, uh, one of the questions is, where do all these evil spirits come from in the New Testament?
So when God sends the flood in the Book of Watchers, these giants, remember, they're a hybrid spirit. They're part divine and part human spirit. That's ... They're a mix.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: So when the flood comes, their physical bodies are destroyed, but their spirits survive.
Pete: Ah. [00:32:00]
Archie: And the book directly calls them evil spirits.
Pete: Okay. Yeah.
Archie: So this is the birth of the evil spirits that we're going to see for the rest of the Second Temple period. And remember, Enoch's written, uh, mid-second century-
Pete: Mm-hmm ...
Archie: BCE.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Maybe earlier, maybe, maybe late third century CE. BCE, sorry.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: It's just, there's some debate there.
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: Different sections of it. But anyway, it's early, so it's one of the earliest books in Enoch. So we have these evil spirits that are now birthed at that point, and they're gonna be for a couple of hundred years moving into the first century in the New Testament. Kind of wreaking havoc within Judaism until we get ... And it, they appear in the Pseudepigrapha, other- ... you know, Dead Sea Scrolls, there's texts there that we can talk about [00:33:00] b- if we have time. But we get to the New Testament. That's probably where we want to go now.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Yeah?
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: We'll try to bring this and the Satan thing together now.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: But I, I think it's important to see how these evil spirits come into play in the New Testament. Like, all of a sudden there's this explosion of these evil spirits. Yeah. And all of a sudden we see this Satan figure. Who is he? And where did he come from? And what is he?
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And one of the first encounters that we see is he and Jesus, really.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: When Jesus is driven into the wilderness For the trial of 40 days, right?
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Many people have argued that, that the Satan figure there is acting on his own. He's, uh, totally autonomous.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Right? He's basically dragging Jesus out there. But if you read the text carefully, what you see is the Holy Spirit [00:34:00] is driving Jesus into the wilderness-
Pete: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Right ...
Archie: for this trial.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: So I think this, for me, and, uh, there are people who also would argue with me, that this is a divine test of Jesus. Mm. That he's, he's being driven out there by the Holy Spirit and- People might argue with me about this, but this is a test about who he is- and his divinity and his ability to take on the Messiahship. And, and people are going, "Well, he's the Son of God. How is that possible?"
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: How could, how can he fail? I don't think he's going to fail-
Pete: Mm-hmm ...
Archie: but he's still going to be tested and tried, right?
Pete: So- Well, it's not much of a test if he can't possibly fail it, right? Right.
It's just a sort of a performance.
Archie: So I think there's probably a possibility 'cause he has to overcome evil.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Right? The evil that's on, [00:35:00] that's on the Earth at that... Where did that come from? That's something that maybe we could talk about . . .
Pete: Well, you know, just... Can I just mention s- 'cause this is triggering something in my mind that I hadn't really put together before, but it does say the Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness in Luke.
Yeah. And but then there's this, let's say, Satan figure/devil who tempts him. That reminds me a little bit of Job because it's Yahweh. It's God who almost instigates this whole problem. And do what you, do what you wanna do, just don't, don't hurt him. Or, and then later- Right ... do what you wanna do, just don't kill him.
So, uh, it... That raises all sorts of interesting possibilities that if we started talking about it would probably get us into a five-hour discussion. I don't wanna do that, but the role of God in all this is an interesting thing to me, so.
Archie: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a similar thing. I think you could...
There's several places where you see [00:36:00] that kind of playing out in several different pericopes, and this is one of them where, you know, God says, "Okay, there's Jesus. You know, just don't kill him, you know? Test him. Try him." Whatever. Just don't kill him. Don't push him off that temple 'cause I'll come after you."
Pete: He has to jump on his own, right?
Archie: Right.
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: Right. So I think, I think that's right, is that... And then 'cause at the end, Satan goes, "Okay, I'm going. Bye." Yeah. And off he goes. And but I think that's, that truly is one of those things where Satan is there. God's allowing him to do it, just like in Job.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And it comes to an end.
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: And- Right ... and off, and off he goes, and Jesus goes off on his mission 'cause he's passed the test, and he's going off to do the messianic things he's supposed to do.
Pete: Right. Right.
Archie: And, um, and I think [00:37:00] we also see it in several things with the disciples. Jesus says to Peter, "Satan has asked to sift you."
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Same thing.
Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Archie: When we-
Pete: Right ...
Archie: we get to, we get to Peter in this famous verse where he says, "Satan, uh, get you behind me."
Pete: Right. Right.
Archie: You know, it... Everybody thinks Satan's all of a sudden possessed Peter.
Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Archie: No, he's just saying, calling him an adversary to God's plan.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: He's saying, "Dude, get behind me and get out of my way, 'cause I'm going to Jerusalem. You're just, you're just being a plan blocker. You're- you're blocking God's plan. You're being an adversary to God's plan."
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: But everybody sees, sees the term Satan, and they think all of a sudden, "Oh."
Pete: Right, Satan's there or, or Peter's possessed- Yeah
of the devil or has- Yeah ... a demon in him or something. Yeah, so.
Archie: Yeah, and, and Satan is not a spirit that can possess. He's a physical, angelic being. He's not going... Even in where we see [00:38:00] Judas at the Last, at the Last Supper where Satan entered in. And that, we could... The same thing there, we could understand that to be an adversary and not the Satan.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: The Christian, the Christian tradition Satan, that it could just simply be an adversary that's taken over the mind of Judas, and he's gone off to do whatever to betray Jesus. Or, he thinks he's helping Jesus, actually, but.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Um, so it's not necessarily Satan is possessing him, 'cause Satan's an angelic being.
He can't possess people. He's not a, he's not a spirit like the giants. And I think that it's only the spirits of the giants from the Enoch tradition are the spirits that actually go around looking to possess human bodies. I think there are oth- I think there are other spirits that are active in the Second Temple period and the First Century CE that don't possess [00:39:00] people, and that they're the spirits that are actually doing the testing and trying, and may be working under s- under the Satan figure, uh, un- who is working under God.
Um, and they don't possess. They simply are doing affliction, testing, trying, whatever.
Pete: Right.
Archie: But they're not possessing. The only possessors are those spirits that came from the giants.
Pete: And that's, see, that makes me think though, I mean, I, this is fascinating and I think it is for people listening too, even if maybe their heads are rocked a little bit. But, the origin of the whole idea of evil spirits could come really, first [00:40:00] Enoch could be very responsible for bringing that maybe to the surface and speaking about it.
And then when you get to the New Testament, I mean, I know, I know Christians like, "You, you can mess with the Old Testament if you want to. You can mess with intertestamental literature, Second Temple literature. Don't mess with the Jesus story." And here you have all these evil spirits. You have exorcisms.
You know, Jesus is driving them out and putting them into pigs. And it just, it, you know, maybe in the few minutes that we have left, maybe can we talk a little bit about the implications of this for people of faith reading the New Testament and the story of Jesus? I mean, how ... Is this real? Uh, I mean, you can feel free to give your opinion.
Is it real? Is it not real? Is there something to it? Are we just looking at, uh, I shouldn't say just. Are we really seeing a snapshot of a belief system, you know, in the first century during the time of Jesus [00:41:00] where they sort of thought of things a certain way, and here we are reading about it?
Archie: That's a mind boggler. But, um- That's a... Yeah, I hate these theological questions, Pete.
Pete: Well, think of it as, you know, if you were sitting in a room with people who are really eager and willing to listen, but they say "I don't know what to do about Jesus now, or the New Testament."
And, um, feel free to express your opinion. Uh, uh, you know, we don't need a final answer here. Just how, do you think through this stuff, or is this... Maybe that's not an interest of yours too.
Archie: Oh, no. Okay. I've thought this through many times believe me. Yeah. And I'm still trying to come up with an answer that makes sense to me, but-
Pete: Mm-hmm
Archie: um, there's several parts of answers that kind of do, but, um-
Pete: And that in and of itself is a good answer, because you're showing that you're still needing to think through this, and maybe there isn't a simple bumper sticker answer to this.
Archie: Oh, there's not that. The difficulty is there's [00:42:00] not a, there's not a single tradition going on in the first century Christianity-
Pete: Mm-hmm
Archie: of evil spirits and the Satan figure. And I think most of the listeners probably realize that there are traditions from, like, the second century that are being brought back into the New Testament texts-
Pete: Mm-hmm ...
Archie: of the, of the Gospels and, and so forth. Uh, and I think that trying to understand that, realizing that some of the Satan stuff in particular- Is from later traditions that is being brought back in that wasn't relevant in the 1st century.
Pete: So second century you mentioned, uh, uh, CE, right? Yeah. So later traditions that were read ba- I, I, read back into, that sounds like a very ... [00:43:00] That, that, that, that triggers people. I don't mean to say that, but that were, you know, they were brought into the telling of these first century stories. Like a later theology was brought into an earlier time, and there you have it.
Archie: Well, 'cause remember, we don't have any first century manuscripts.
Pete: Right.
Archie: Right?
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: We don't even have any solid second century manuscripts. So we have, we could have very easily have second century traditions of the gospels pericopees that were edited into manuscripts that we now think were first century traditions, but they weren't.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: They were actually second century traditions about the Satan figure, where the, the idea ... Remember, theological ideas evolve just like- Mm-hmm ... everything else. I mean, there's some that are fixed.
I mean, there are theological ideas that are fixed, right?
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: We, I think we can all can agree on that. But there's a lot, and Satan is [00:44:00] one of them, that are not fixed.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And have not been fixed, and I don't think they are yet.
Pete: Right. Right.
Archie: Uh, don't think it is yet, 'cause we wouldn't be sitting here talking about this if it was.
Pete: Yeah. If it were an easy issue, so yeah.
Archie: So yeah, I think that's part of the issue is, uh, the reason why we have variation in the New Testament, in the Gospels, is what we have there is not truly a first century, are first century ideas or are first century thoughts of the authors, pure first century thoughts of the authors. From various sects or communities, but rather they are some, their second century ideas have filtered into those of the Satan figure.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: Uh, I think maybe the, the concepts of the evil spirits may be a [00:45:00] bit more pure. But I think the later ... 'Cause when you get to the church fathers, the Satan figure really changes. And that's what I was trying to get at earlier. That's where the Christian tradition of the Satan figure turns head over heels.
Pete: Right. Right.
Archie: This is where he becomes the guy with the horns and the tail and all that other nonsense.
Pete: Yeah, right.
Archie: Uh, he's nothing like that. But that, the Satan figure changes then because the early church fathers are battling with the Gnostics against their ideas of the demiurge, in other words, the two gods of, at creation- and various other ideas. And so they're using the Satan figure to try to battle them.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And, and in by doing that, they actually raise Satan up beyond the place where he [00:46:00] actually belongs and give him powers that he doesn't actually have.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: And, and that's how we end up with a Satan that is beyond his realm.
Pete: All right. Well, we're nearing the end of our time here, unfortunately. I've had a wonderful time listening to what you have to say. Um, but m- maybe a practical question, what would you like interested readers in, in the Bible to come away with, to walk away with from this discussion?
Archie: What I'd really like them to think about from this is... And this doesn't just concern this topic. I think it concerns any topic they may be struggling with theologically, is to approach that topic with a clean slate.
Pete: Hmm.
Archie: Right?
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: All the things that you've been [00:47:00] taught in church or wherever, try to wipe the slate clean. And, and come to the scripture and other extra biblical texts like we've talked about. Cause you have to take the whole collection in order to study, or in order to understand the whole tradition. So, like what you asked first about Genesis, you have to go back there with a clean slate and start there.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: If, if you wanna talk about a tradition, a Christian tradition, you gotta go back there. You can't start in the New Testament.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: You gotta go way back to there. And I think you have to go ... You have to start with that and work your way forward, and it's a whole new ballgame for a lot of people. They're used to reading the Old Testament, they're used to, used to reading the [00:48:00] New Testament, but all the stuff, the Second Temple stuff- Mm-hmm. Yeah ... Early Church Fathers.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: I wouldn't recommend reading all of those-
Pete: Yeah ... '
Archie: cause I mean, first couple of centuries of, you know, second, third century-
Pete: Mm-hmm
Archie: some really important stuff there to understand what was coming out of the New Testament.
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Archie: But I think, you know- Reading the primary text of a, something that you're struggling with theologically a tradition or a concept, is to just try to go to the text and read the text and start there and try to grasp it. Yeah. And I think that's the best, best thing you could take away from this. Yeah. Even if you don't listen to me or don't understand or don't believe what I said- ... do it for yourself.
Pete: Yeah, right, right.
Archie: You know? Yeah. Go and start, go and start at Genesis 1. And when you get to Genesis 3, you're gonna [00:49:00] go, "Oh, he's right." There's no Satan here.
Pete: Yeah, right.
Archie: And when you get through the whole Old Testament, you're not gonna see the Christian Satan figure in the Old Testament.
Pete: Mm-hmm, right.
Archie: You're not going to.
Pete: Right.
Archie: He's not there.
Pete: Yeah.
Archie: Sorry.
Pete: So don't apologize. If he's, if he's not there, he's not there, right?
So anyway. Yeah. Well, thank you, Archie. Thanks for that, and, um, I had a good time being with you again and chatting about this. And, uh, thank you for taking the time to be with us.
Archie: Oh, I really appreciate it.
Jared: All right, one last thing. If you made it this far, you're clearly the kind of person who thinks about this stuff more than is probably necessary.
Pete: We say that with love, but you're not alone. We are also those people.
Jared: Community for us folks who do a lot of extra thinking, it's called the Society of Normal People, which, yes, we know is a little ironic given what we just said, but it's a good group, smart and weird in the right ways and not trying to convince anyone of anything.
Pete: Come be weird [00:50:00] with us. The link is in the show notes, or go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com.
Jared: Front slash join. I forgot to put that.
