Why is Satan refered to as the beast?

Question

When I see images of Satan in texts or movies that shows a pentagram and a goat. Where did this 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 Gods 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 satan/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 Satan’s role in human relations can be seen if you look at the name Lucifer. It’s 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

*In some cases the inverted Pentagram represents the Fall of humanity
The pentagram has five points and is drawn with five, unbroken lines. The number five has always been regarded as magickal and yet, essentially human: we have five fingers/toes on each limb extremity. We commonly note five senses - sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. We go through five stages in our lives - birth, adolescence, coitus, parenthood and death. In Christianity, Christ suffered five wounds on the cross. There are five pillars of the Muslim faith and five daily times of prayer. The medieval knights had five virtues - generosity, courtesy, chastity, chivalry and piety. The Wiccan Kiss is fivefold - feet, knees, womb, breasts and lips. The number five is also prime and is comprised 3+2 as well as 1+4.(123&4)
*During the Jewish feast of atonement the 'sins' of Israel were placed on the head of a goat as a symbol of atonement. Then the goat was taken out into the desert. Later the priests attributed the goat with the sins as being evil instead of it being a representation of Jesus as intended.
*When you think of evil you think ugly although evilis attractive to us. In revelation their is so much symbolism it is hard to sort out all the beasts and anti-christ and satan. So the anti-christ, satan and the beast all tend to be lumped together.
*I have yet to see an attractive picture of a depiction of satan and seeing as he was an angel he must be beautiful. However you don't want satan to be attractive to people so its not a surprise the depiction has been distorted over time.
P.S.God is portrayed as a guy because Adam was created in God's image.

Answer 3

Hello, Circusde:

Satan is certainly a beast, but God uses that image for governments, too. Have you noticed that governments force their will? Daniel 7:23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.

Also, Jesus and Satan were both portrayed as goats in Deuteronomy: 16:8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
16:9 And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD'S lot fell, and offer him [for] a sin offering.
16:10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, [and] to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.

Some of this analogy is discussed Online in a pulication that cracks the end-of-the-days Bible code. Site listed in "source."

When you have a bad beast, it obviously represents Satan, however, the Bible tells us governments are God's ministers--thank God that there are people out there risking their lives to protect us.

Blessings, One-Way

Answer 4

The book of Revelation has imagery that says that Satan is the "beast" in that he is called the great dragon. The actual "beast" in the antichrist.

Answer 5

Every good fiction story needs a hero and a villan.

The more outrageous the heros abilities and mindset, the worse the villan has to be to compensate.

Answer 6

Yeah, really what's up with that. And why is god portrayed as a guy?