Satan a victim of bad PR, professor says
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/August2006/180806Satan.htm
 
THE Devil has been unfairly and wilfully maligned and deserves a reassessment, according to a new study.

Professor Henry Ansgar Kelly, a medievalist, says the Devil has had unfair press and has been the victim of groundless aspersions. Satan is no more evil than the head of MI5 or the prime minister, he says.

In his book Satan: A Biography, to be published by Cambridge University Press this month, the California university academic argues that interpretation of the Bible shows that the Devil suffered a "severe blackening of character" by the clergy, early church fathers, artists, philosophers and religious scholars. The "Devil is in the detail" - literally, he says.

The reassessment of Satan comes hot on the heels of attempts to recast Judas in saintly form. Professor Kelly does not go as far as that, but he does call on theologians to consider whether the Devil is as bad as traditionally depicted.

Instead of being the personification of evil, Satan is a "divine functionary" whose kingdom is the earth, he says.

"My advice is, forget about evil and worry about evil deeds and the people who commit them," he said.

His interpretation is accepted by many biblical scholars. The theory provides an explanation for the presence of evil and suffering, without denying the existence or omniscience of God.

Professor Kelly refers to traditional texts, such as the Lord's Prayer, where the line "Deliver us from evil" is written in some prayer books as "Deliver us from the Evil One".

Most Christians believe that Satan was an angel named Lucifer who rebelled against God at the beginning of Creation. After being thrown out of Heaven, he tempted Adam and Eve into sin, and since then has strived to win souls for his kingdom of Hell.

But Professor Kelly argues that none of this is in the Bible, and that it represents conclusions drawn by the early church fathers and read back into the Bible.

(1 Peter 5:8 says, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour;"  Ephesians 6:11-12, "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.")

He argues from Revelation, at the end of the Christian Scriptures, that Satan remains in Heaven, as the "accuser of humankind", and will stay there until the Battle of Armageddon, when he will be imprisoned in the abyss. After a brief release, he will be imprisoned in the lake of fire for eternity.

(Job 1:6-7 says, "Now there was a day when the sons of God cam to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.  And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." So Satan has access to heaven and earth, and he isn't cast out of heaven at the Battle of Armageddon.  If you read Revelation 12:7-17, Satan and his angels are cast out of heaven and into the earth after a war in heaven with Michael and his angels. Verse 8 says, "...neither was their place found any more in heaven." Satan then persecutes the woman which brought forth the man child.  So Satan is on earth for 3 1/2 years during the Great Tribulation period.  The Battle of Armageddon doesn't take place until the end of the Great Tribulation period.)

He says Lucifer is not synonymous with Satan, arguing that in the Hebrew Bible, only the King of Babylon is called Lucifer, or the morning star, cast down to earth (Isaiah xiv, 12). In the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as the star of the morning (II Peter i, 19). Nor is Satan the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he says.

(According to Genesis 3:1-8, it was the serpent who tempted Eve.  2 Corin. 11:3 also says it was the serpent who beguiled Eve. Revelation 12:9 & 20:2 both say that the great dragon, that old serpent called the Devil and Satan. So the serpent who tempted Eve would be that old serpent who is also called the Devil and Satan.)

Professor Kelly argues from Luke iv that Satan is a minister of God in charge of the world.

"He's a government heavy, whose main job is to test human beings and to accuse them of their misdeeds, but he is cynical and overzealous in performing his duties," the professor says. "We can think of an unscrupulous and feared official investigator or prosecutor, like J.Edgar Hoover or senator Joseph McCarthy."