Some thoughts on Satan Kathryn on Schlog had an interesting point yesterday. It's one that's been contemplated by much smarter men than me (I?) for many centuries now. Here's how she puts it:

sometimes i'm so mad at adam and eve, they did this and we all pay for it forever?? but i think no matter who was the original pair, they probably would have done the same thing? i'm more mad at satan and i wonder why satan did what he did. . where did that come from? it seemed that his magnificence made him fall, he was proud, but i wrack my brain sometimes wondering why - i've even wondered if God made lucifer perfectly, then where did that evil come from?

Tradition holds more answers here than scripture. Lucifer's story is one that has been pieced together through references scattered throughout other stories. The Father of Lies is perhaps most imfamous for this suble presence. He's lurking throughout the bible. In Job he approaches God as arrogant and smug as I imagine him to have been before he was cast out. He tempts Christ with God's own scriptures, and spends all his time in the Good Book going against our Hebrew and Christian protagonists.
But who is "he", and is he really a he? This is like calling God "He," even though God's a divine being so far above gender and all its implications. Satan, the second most powerful being in the universe, is as mysterious as God and nowhere near as approachable. It is, I think, what draws some to the occult. Millinia of tradition has given Satan an identity (in lobster red and cloven hoof), but it's those that have struggled with him the longest that have the least to say about him. Alyza on "All things Jewish" puts it this way:

the Hebrew word satan (sin-tet-nun sofit) means an adversary or accuser


There is no Lucifer, no devil in the Tanach, but there are many, many adversaries and accusers of the Jewish people.

While Alyza's page is not the most professional (says the boy on his blog...), it is a good synopsis of a common view. Satan, the adversary within. And while I will be the first to acknowledge that humanity has internal evil, I can't explain away the adversary (or adversaries) of the bible that easily.
So I've come full circle. Satan has become a symbol, even for those who don't give him the presence granted to God. He is as powerful in our minds as the Cross, or the Star of David. Satan is all that is evil, just as God is all that is good. And while some of us may not believe he exists in the way we believe in God, others point to the fact that every coin has two sides.
And sometimes I think when I get to heaven, I'd like to ask God to give me the whole story on what happened before man's bible was written.  ¶   1 comments