I have heard that pre- Christ the Devil did not exist and that he was based on a misinterpritation of the earlier scriptures by later christian writer. For example - that it never says that the Eden Serpent IS the Devil and that the Lucifer fallen angel is a mix up of the legend of Azazel in Hebrew mythology. Do any JEWISH folks out there know anything about this?
2007-03-01 09:36:54 · 8 answers · asked by Tirant 5 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
no, we don't believe in the devil. we believe in satan, but in our religion satan is nothing more than an angel doing his job, which is to put obstacles in our path so that doing the right thing is not always the easy choice. this makes it so that when we do choose to do the right thing, it is BECAUSE it is the right thing, not because it is the easy thing.
and no, we don't believe that the serpent in genesis was anything except a serpent. at most, we think of the serpent as a metaphor of the yetzer hara, the "evil inclination", which is basically the voice in your head telling you to choose the wrong path. and the yetzer hara and the yezter hatov ("good inclination") do not come from outside you, but from within your own soul. they can't be blamed on any external being.
here is a good quote about how we see the whole devil matter:
"IN SHORT... For Jews, anything that even remotely conflicts with the idea that God is One and Indivisible will be rejected because it precludes true, pure, monotheism. The idea that there is a God in heaven above who fights against a god of the underworld, or hell, is not monotheism, however, it is the same duality found in other pagan faiths."
from www.whatjewsbelieve.org
2007-03-01 09:48:21 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
I'm a bit Jewish actually, somewhere down the line, and i know quite a bit about the religion.
There is no Satan in the Tanach. Some belief in a malevolent entity managed to seep into folk tradition, in part due to contact with Zoroastrianism, but mericfully most Judaism is Devil-free.
And the whole serpent-was-Satan thing was actually invented by Milton in Paradise Lost. It's not in the Bible.
2007-03-01 09:40:55 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 2⤋
The jewish religion does not believe in the devil with horns or angles with wings for that matter. Since everything beyond this world is not physical then the devil with horns and angels with wings do not have physical attributes. However angels r mentioned in the old testament and they r not physical and the devil is just your lower self. It is your bad side that pushes u to do things your more refined self does not want to do. That is the idea of what u call devil, it is jus your attraction toward doing bad.
2007-03-01 09:43:27 · answer #3 · answered by Navid D 1 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Well Satan is the accusing angel in Job, and he did fall from Heaven in Isaiah. Most Christian Demonology actually comes from Dante, not scripture.
2007-03-01 09:42:02 · answer #4 · answered by kmsbean 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
You seem to be superimposing Christianity on Judaism. But that is not accurate.
Your assumptions are baseless.
But have a nice day anyway.
2007-03-01 23:54:52 · answer #5 · answered by Ivri_Anokhi 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No Devil, no "the devil made me do it" as an excuse.. no one to sell your soul to, no one to blame for the evil in the world, except for people, and choices people make...
2007-03-01 09:47:21 · answer #6 · answered by XX 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Abdul is right I have looked deeply into this!
2007-03-01 09:45:39 · answer #7 · answered by Assad 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No, they are too scared to believe in hell because they believe that they are the true children of God and it doesn't matter what they do, they are going to Heaven. But they are wrong.
2007-03-01 09:44:00 · answer #8 · answered by charmaine f 5 · 0⤊ 7⤋