Where did Satan come from?

Question

I am not christian, nor catholic, but I was wondering where did Satan come from? Is he another god, or where did he come from?

Answer 1

In ancient Jewish tradition Satan is simply an angel doing the work that God assigned to Satan to do.

The word Satan means challenger. With the idea of Satan challenging us, or tempting if you will. This description sees Satan as the angel who is the embodiment of man's challenges. This idea of Satan works closely with God as an integral part of God plan for us. His job is to make choosing good over evil enough of a challenge so that it becomes clear to us that there can be only one meaningful or logical choice.

Contrast this to Christianity, which sees Satan as God's opponent. In Jewish thought, the idea that there exists anything capable of setting itself up as God's opponent would be considered polytheistic or setting up the devil to be an equally powerful polarity to god or a demigod.

Oddly, proof for The Christian satin/devil mythology is supposedly found in the ancient Jewish texts that were borrowed to create the bible. One can’t help but wonder how Christians came up with such a fantastically different interpretation of Gods assistant Satan in their theology.

Other hints about satans role in human relations can be seen if you look at the name Lucifer. It meaning in the original tongue translates as Light bearer or light bringer. Essentially the bringer of enlightenment. The temptations of the satan idea bring all of us eventually into Gods light. Hardly the Evil entity of Christian mythology.

Love and blessings
don

Answer 2

Satan (Lucifer) was an angel who was *according to the bible* a very pretty angel and he had loads of power etc. etc.
Then he sinned against God, (he was very vain and tried to be God...) and got thrown out of heaven - he deceived Eve and then God cursed him even further!

"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and DUST SHALL YOU EAT all the days of your life" (Gen. 3:14).

This is, of course a parable. That "serpent" in the garden was none other than

"…that OLD SERPENT, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world…" (Rev. 12:9).

Satan is the god of this world (I Cor. 4:4). Satan possesses ALL the kingdoms of the world (Matt. 4:8-9). Satan appears to the heads of his nations as an angel of light (I Cor. 11:12). It was Satan who appealed to the heaven of Eve’s mind. It was Satan that caused the people to build a tower that would reach MAN’S concept of heaven. The heaven of the minds of those conceiving of such lofty things. It was Satan who caused the king of Babylon to be lifted up in his own heaven, his own mind. Listen to his own words:

"At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The king spake, and said, is not this GREAT BABYLON, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of MY power, and for the honour of MY MAJESTY?"


I know this doesn't explain much but if you really want to understand - read the bible!

Answer 3

God created Satan. Satan apparently had the highest position of all the angles. But this was not good enough for him, he wanted to be God, tried a rebellion with 1/3 of the angels.
Of course it failed.

Answer 4

The earliest mentions of Satan in the Bible are found in The Book of Job. In that work he appears as one of the heavenly host, and works as an investigator and agent-provocateur on behalf of YHWH, searching out those who sin and accusing them before God. He and YHWH enter into a discussion about Job, with Sata saying that Job only loves God because of the good things he has received. YHWH bets that JOb would not curse h Him, even if the good things were taken away from Job, and gives Satan permission to do anything he wants to him, short of killing him.

It's a strange story, and a strange concept, without much precedent in the rest of the earlier books of the Jewish Bible. It was almost certainly adapted from Persian/Zoroastrian contacts, deriving ultimately from Ahriman, the anti-god of darkness and evil who is the cosmic opponent of Ahuramazda. However, since Judaism was (by this time) a strict monotheistic religion, the figure of Satan was perceived as YHWH's creation and servant.

In intra-testimental times, the figure of the "adversary" (the meaning of Satan) was amplified into "the god of this World" who was the opponent of the Creator, and in rebellion against him. This adversary figure was sometimes Satan, and sometimes YHWH himself (in gnostic tradition).

Answer 5

Satan (Standard Hebrew: שָׂטָן, Satan Tiberian Hebrew Śāṭān; Koine Greek: Σατανάς, Satanás; Aramaic: ܣܲܬܲܢܵܐ, Śaṭanâ; Arabic: شيطان, Shaitan) is a Abrahamic term which is traditionally applied to an angel, demon, or minor god in many belief systems.

Satan plays various roles in the Tanakh, the Apocrypha and New Testament. In the Tanakh, Satan is an angel whom God uses to test man for various reasons usually dealing with his level of piety.[citation needed] In the Apocrypha and New Testament, the term Satan refer to a preternatural entity, an evil, rebellious demon who is the enemy of God and mankind, and the central embodiment of evil[citation needed]. Satan is also commonly known as the Devil, the "Prince of Darkness," Beelzebub, Belial, Lucifer, and Mephistopheles. In the Talmud and some Kabbalist works, Satan is sometimes called Samael. In the fields of angelology and demonology these different names sometimes refer to a number of different angels and demons, and there is significant disagreement as to whether any of these entities are actually evil.

In Islam, Iblīs (Arabic إبليس), is the primary devil. He is commonly referred to in the Qur'an as Shaitan. The Islamic view of Satan has both commonalities and differences with Christian and Jewish views.

Answer 6

If you believe in that religious stuff according to them, Satan was an Angle (Gabriel) that feel from Gods Grace, so God casted him out of Heaven. So then the question becomes, why didn't he go to earth? Or even then where does hell come from, and how did God decide it was a place to burn?

Answer 7

Satan was one of God's most glorious angels that decided to try and over run God. After doing so, God cast him and 1/3 of the other angels that followed Satan (Lucifer). These fallen angels are now known as demons and Lucifer as the devil (he is the lead demon)

Answer 8

God created Satan as like all other creations from itself, which to my belief is the complete opposite of God, of equal strength commanded to test upon God's creation.

Answer 9

A angel with Bad *** attitude. God created him to test humans. But other said he was a rebel angel who tried to be God but he failed. anyway the belief that devils are ugly horns is not true. It's just an interpretation of that catholic church. Devils like angels are beautiful creatures. they arent tempting if they have horns , tails and ugly faces.

Answer 10

He used to be God's favorite most beautiful angel. Than one day he told God he wants to be like him, he wants to be equal to God. So God threw him down from the heaven and as he was falling he took 1/3 of the angels with him, they are called demons now.