"Satan" (Σατανᾶς) is from satanas, the Greek form of the Hebrew satan( שטן), meaning "adversary", "opponent," or "one who opposes another in purpose or act." It is also the more general idea of “adversity” and “opposition” rather than a person. This is either a positive or negative word, depending on who is opposing whom. In the old Testament, it is applied both to the Good Guys, Israelite heroes, like King David, and the Bad Guys, Israel opponents. Jesus uses it only in sixteen verses, but before we look at how Jesus used it, we must look how the Hebrew word was used in the Old Testament, and how that word was translated into Greek in the Greek Old Testament. It was never a name, but a word used to depersonalize the idea of adversity.
The argument here is not that Jesus did not use the concept of “the adversary” or “the enemy” but simply that 1) Satan is not the name of a specific being, 2) Satan is not the Zoroastrian concept of the ruler of “hell”, and 3) the idea of adversity in life is baked into Jesus’s worldview, but not its major focus.
A Hebrew Word from the Old Testament
First, let us look at some “good guy” examples. In Numbers 22:22, (KJV) “And God's anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him.” The word translated as “adversary,” is the Hebrew satan, ( שטן) used to describe an angel of the Lord sent against Ballaam, to get Ballaam to do what God wanted. In the Greek Old Testament version of this verse, the Hebrew satan is translated into an uncommon Greek word, endiaballein (ἐνδιαβάλλειν) meaning "slander” and “denigrate.” In 1 Samuel 29:4, King David is described as an adversary of the Philistine, the Philistine princes saying, (KJV) “lest in the battle he be an adversary to us.” In the Greek version, satan is translated into the Greek, epíboulos (ἐπίβουλος), meaning “plotting against” or “treacherous.”
When referring to the Bad Guys, the Hebrew word satan ( שטן) is most commonly translated into the Greek word diabolos (διάβολος), which means "slanderer," (see this article). The word diabolos, for example, is used throughout the story of Job. In the the English NT, this word is translated as "devils" or "demons,,” but diabolos is usually translated into “adversary” in the English Old Testament because “demons” seldom works.
The Greek spelling of the Hebrew word, satanas (Σατανᾶς) appears the first time in the Greek Old Testament, where it is used only once, in 1 Kings 11:14, where it is translated into English as “adversary.” Again, this is clearly never a person’s name.
So, it isn’t until the New Testament that we see satanas magically transformed into a name of an incarnation of evil. But maybe Jesus changed the meaning of the word, right? Not so much. Somebody changed the word, but it wasn’t Jesus.
Jesus’ Use of Satanas
Jesus was kind enough to provide a kind of Rosetta Stone for understanding how he used satanas. The Rosetta Stone is the Parable of the Sower, where three different Greek words are used to describe the same thing: the force taking away the seeds sown by the wayside. Assuming, as I do, that Jesus told the same story in three different ways, he saw all three of these words as, if not synonyms, conceptual equivalents.
In Mark 4:15, the word satanas is used to describe this force, which is helpful because that is the word we are investigating. In Matthew 13:19, this force is described by the adjective poneros, (see this article), which is Biblically translated as "the wicked one" (KJV) and “the evil one” (NIV), when that word’s meaning is "the worthless one." In the Luke version, Luke 8:12 used the term diabolos, which is usually translated as "devil" but means "slanderer," (see this article).
So, we see a remarkable consistency between what we see in the Old Testament and the words that Jesus used as equivalent to satanas.
The confusion with this word starts in Matthew 4:10, where Ὕπαγε, Σατανᾶ: is translated as (KJV) “Begone, Satan!” The good news is that this translation could be half right. The first word could be a command, in the second person, seemingly addressed to someone, meaning “go away.” The bad news is that the word “satanas” is not who is addressed. In Greek, nouns have a special form when used to address a person, called the vocative case. Here, satanas is the object of the verb, not its subject. Oh, the verb having an object creates a problem because when this verb is transitive, that is, having an object, it means something else, “to bring something under ones power.” So Jesus is saying “Bring adversity under control.” Or “withdraw opposition behind me.” He could be talking to Peter, but he was not talking to some person named “Satan.”
Then we have Mark 8:33, when Jesus is clearly addressing Peter. Again, he is translated as saying, (KJV) “Get thee behind me, Satan.” If we look at the Greek, what do you think we will find? The exact same two words, Ὕπαγε…Σατανᾶ. In exactly the same forms. Again, satanas is not a name, but something that needs to be taken under control.
Of course, we also have the “Get behind me, Satan” (KJV) in Luke 4:8, but in this case, the problem is with the Greek source the KJV which added the same words as above. The Greek sources that we use today do not have this phrase and modern Bibles to not offer it.
Jesus also connects “the adversary” to Beelzebub, which is a personification. He refers to the personalization of a controller of demons using the term Beelzebub. This is not based upon any Greek word. The word "Ba'al Zebub" ("Lord of the Flies" or "Lord of the Flyers") which is a mockery of the Hebrew ba‘al zbûl, "Lord Prince” and "Lord of the Manor." Jesus refers to this pun in Matthew 10:25 using the Greek word "master of the estate" to introduce it. However, in Matthew 12:27, Luke 11:18, and Luke 11:19, Jesus uses this term to refer to the refer this person as the controller of demons. However, he does this all in humorous ways.
“Satan" as Adversity
As I said, Jesus only used the Hebrew word, satan, in sixteen verses, I could examine every occurrence, but that would be boring. Instead, we will look at a few verses that personalize the word to a large degree. I am not saying the the word is not used to personalize adversity. In the story of Job, for example, “the adversary” is clearly a major character. People of his era tended to personalize the invisible forces of nature and only understood the vagaries of nature in those terms. My point is simply that the word, satanas, has a broader, more practical meaning in the discussion of adversity and human suffering.
First, let us look at Matthew 12:26, “And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?” Jesus says this in response to an accusation that he is Beelzebub, the head of demons, from Ba’al, meaning simply “lord,” used as a prefix for the name of many pagan gods. Clearly, in the philosophy of the Pharisees, this lord is in charge of people’s personal demons. Jesus responds by saying a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, and then, in a literal translation:
Since Jesus refers to Beelzebub by name in the next verse, Matthew 12:27, he is clearly not using satanas as a different name in this verse. He is offering a general lesson about adversity. However, he is doing it in terms that the people of his era understood. By using satanas and not Beelzubub, he is trying to depersonalize the forces of nature. Jesus suggests that adversity has a "realm" or "kingdom" that it controls. We can think of this as the "house of pain." Anyone who has ever gone through a long, painful illness, themselves or with a family member, knows what living in the realm of adversity is like.
We see something similar in the verse offering the best evidence connecting satanas to the Lucifer of the Old Testament is Luke 10:18, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” Jesus’s Greek here loosely parallels the Greek of Isa 14:12, which describes the fall of Lucifer. But how did Jesus change this verse? He eliminated the personal name, Lucifer, replacing it again with the generic term, of “the adversary.”
The context here is critical. Jesus is addressing his students, empowering them, in the next verse giving them the control over serpents and scorpions, and in the verse following that, power of spirits. So this line is a form of extravagant praise for his students, saying they have control over the adversary of the realm of the skies.
Jesus references to satanas make perfect sense when we take the persona out of the equation and think of his references as being simply to "adversity". Christ personalizes the idea of suffering, but all suffering is personal.
Conclusion
There is a lot more I could say here, for example discussing the connection between adversity and slander and lies, which is a theme of Jesus’s but that work will have to wait.
In this earlier article on “evil,” I discussed how poneros is used to manufacture references to the “devil” by translating it as “the evil one” instead of “the worthless.” Such translation gives Jesus's teaching the feeling of Zoroastrian cosmology, the universe as a battle between good and evil when what he is really saying is that he wants to the best for us, not what is second-rate.
Here, we can see that in his use of satanas, “the adversary,” Jesus was actually working against the ideas, prevalent in his time, that evil forces were cosmic entities. He was not saying that adversity is not part of life, but rather than it is nothing personal.
“Satan” or Satanas might not be the name of a specific being. But there is a difference between the adversary and adversity. “I had the flu this week and went to work, I overcame adversity.” “My adversary plotted to destroy my life’s work” two totally different meanings. While Satan may not be one being, the Bible, and Christ, make clear reference to lesser gods and demons that afflict men, (remember “legion”) so if these things afflict people in the spiritual mental sphere, they could be described as….an ADVERSARY.
You are correct about the two words being different, even more so in the original Greek. In Greek, "adversary" is a masculine word while adversity would most likely be a feminine word because most higher level abstractions (truth, justice, beauty, etc.) are feminine words. Jesus portrayed the battle against the "adversary" in physical, down-to-earth terms. However, it would be a mistake to think this means a specific person. As Pogo said, "we have met the enemy and he is us."
I find your site fascinating and I think it is definitely important to look into these things and get as close to the truth as possible. I strongly disagree in regard to us being the enemy, we are not the enemy. The enemy happens to have entered into our pure consciousness and communion with God and caused us to Fall from Grace. Also, Egregores exist. Human Consciousness has power. Satan can be both external and also fed/internally created by a human being cutting itself off from God. While that adversarial force might not be “Satan J Smith” in first and last name, it does indeed exist as a field of consciousness that is seperate from God. Translations are important of individual words but literary context is as well. I think it’s funny that under the temptation in the desert you put that Jesus is speaking to “unknown”. I went and re-read the verses last night and “adversity” as an adjective doesn’t tell you to throw yourself off a building or promise you all the kingdoms of the world…. again diving into translations is awesome and I have lots of respect for that this sites is cool in that regard. But same as the story of Job. “Satanas” was used to describe an actual “Adversary”, albeit, one who’s name or identity might be “Unknown”, who would God be making the bets with regards to Job? Clearly someone else? Yes the word was used to describe David as an adversary of someone too. But point is, what PERSON was the adversary in the temptation of the desert?? I just watched Chris Langan clips on YouTube, and he has a great way of putting Satan into terms of “Anti-Truth, or Anti-God”, with God being the Truth Entirely. Don’t toss out the idea of there being an anti-human force, it’s heavy but people have encountered this being/force many times before. You know when you cross paths with it. You seem to have put lots of work into this site and I’m guessing you learned Koine Greek on your own. Inspiring and maybe I will someday. I would recommend volunteering some time with your local Orthodox Church and talking to a priest who also reads/speaks Koine Greek considering your linguistic knowledge and continue to pursue living for Christ. God bless!
Also, on one more note. Satan could be essentially “haywire ego based consciousness” gone terribly wrong. Like AI in Skynet, Terminator Style. But if God is ALL, and our soul/consciusness, a piece of him, then a haywire, ego that wants to be worshiped and offers you the “whole world”, would still be a SEPARATE Adversarial Entity. What I mean is, God=Consciousness=Truth=Absolute Reality, whereas Satan=Ego gone Haywire=Seperation from God=Un-Truth (Hence the constant biblical verse crossovers with Diablos, Slanderer/Lies) and “the Adversary”. Context matters. The slanderer, adversary, and all his demons can be all connected in this way as things that have become manifest of “anti-Existance/truth/God”.
Interesting, because before I read your site I saw as evidence against Satan being a named character the passage of Isaiah 14:12. In it, they described that Lucifer was not a name, only the word for morning star that didn't get translated from the vulgate for some reason. It was claimed to allude to the King of Babylon and not Satan.
The idea of opposition is a strong concept. It certainly applies in our lives, so it is natural to think that God must have an opponent, someone he is battling with. This is used to explain the existence of suffering in the world. Of course, the main inspiration in early years for creating Satan was Zoroastrianism,which was a major religious competitor in the middle east. People cannot see that the Divine is above all that and that there are better explanations for suffering.t
“Satan” or Satanas might not be the name of a specific being. But there is a difference between the adversary and adversity. “I had the flu this week and went to work, I overcame adversity.” “My adversary plotted to destroy my life’s work” two totally different meanings. While Satan may not be one being, the Bible, and Christ, make clear reference to lesser gods and demons that afflict men, (remember “legion”) so if these things afflict people in the spiritual mental sphere, they could be described as….an ADVERSARY.
You are correct about the two words being different, even more so in the original Greek. In Greek, "adversary" is a masculine word while adversity would most likely be a feminine word because most higher level abstractions (truth, justice, beauty, etc.) are feminine words. Jesus portrayed the battle against the "adversary" in physical, down-to-earth terms. However, it would be a mistake to think this means a specific person. As Pogo said, "we have met the enemy and he is us."
I find your site fascinating and I think it is definitely important to look into these things and get as close to the truth as possible. I strongly disagree in regard to us being the enemy, we are not the enemy. The enemy happens to have entered into our pure consciousness and communion with God and caused us to Fall from Grace. Also, Egregores exist. Human Consciousness has power. Satan can be both external and also fed/internally created by a human being cutting itself off from God. While that adversarial force might not be “Satan J Smith” in first and last name, it does indeed exist as a field of consciousness that is seperate from God. Translations are important of individual words but literary context is as well. I think it’s funny that under the temptation in the desert you put that Jesus is speaking to “unknown”. I went and re-read the verses last night and “adversity” as an adjective doesn’t tell you to throw yourself off a building or promise you all the kingdoms of the world…. again diving into translations is awesome and I have lots of respect for that this sites is cool in that regard. But same as the story of Job. “Satanas” was used to describe an actual “Adversary”, albeit, one who’s name or identity might be “Unknown”, who would God be making the bets with regards to Job? Clearly someone else? Yes the word was used to describe David as an adversary of someone too. But point is, what PERSON was the adversary in the temptation of the desert?? I just watched Chris Langan clips on YouTube, and he has a great way of putting Satan into terms of “Anti-Truth, or Anti-God”, with God being the Truth Entirely. Don’t toss out the idea of there being an anti-human force, it’s heavy but people have encountered this being/force many times before. You know when you cross paths with it. You seem to have put lots of work into this site and I’m guessing you learned Koine Greek on your own. Inspiring and maybe I will someday. I would recommend volunteering some time with your local Orthodox Church and talking to a priest who also reads/speaks Koine Greek considering your linguistic knowledge and continue to pursue living for Christ. God bless!
Also, on one more note. Satan could be essentially “haywire ego based consciousness” gone terribly wrong. Like AI in Skynet, Terminator Style. But if God is ALL, and our soul/consciusness, a piece of him, then a haywire, ego that wants to be worshiped and offers you the “whole world”, would still be a SEPARATE Adversarial Entity. What I mean is, God=Consciousness=Truth=Absolute Reality, whereas Satan=Ego gone Haywire=Seperation from God=Un-Truth (Hence the constant biblical verse crossovers with Diablos, Slanderer/Lies) and “the Adversary”. Context matters. The slanderer, adversary, and all his demons can be all connected in this way as things that have become manifest of “anti-Existance/truth/God”.
Interesting, because before I read your site I saw as evidence against Satan being a named character the passage of Isaiah 14:12. In it, they described that Lucifer was not a name, only the word for morning star that didn't get translated from the vulgate for some reason. It was claimed to allude to the King of Babylon and not Satan.
The idea of opposition is a strong concept. It certainly applies in our lives, so it is natural to think that God must have an opponent, someone he is battling with. This is used to explain the existence of suffering in the world. Of course, the main inspiration in early years for creating Satan was Zoroastrianism,which was a major religious competitor in the middle east. People cannot see that the Divine is above all that and that there are better explanations for suffering.t