Satan According to Elaine Pagels,

Satan

According to Elaine Pagels, the devil's presence in the Scriptures, was not "an archaic relic, a rather silly superstitious throw-away metaphor," but rather a conflict between God and evil (Greenwood pp). Within the New Testament stories, Satan is a central character in the life of Jesus and his followers, and acts as God's enemy and rival (Greenwood pp). The Gospel authors divided the world into warring factions, the forces of good vs. The forces of evil (Greenwood pp). They associated their Jewish enemies with the devil, with Satan (Greenwood pp).

This tradition of demonizing the enemy, which Pagels calls, "a dark side of Christianity," has left its mark for over two thousand years (Greenwood pp). Many Christians today still invoke the power of Satan against pagans, heretic, atheists, and nonbelievers (Greenwood pp). Pagels points out that early Christianity was far more complex than most people realize (Greenwood pp). The early Christian church was not, as legend had it, unified, and was actually riddled with dissent (Greenwood pp). The Gnostics, who were deemed heretics by the early church fathers, offered an alternative movement to the emerging orthodox church, for they emphasized individual divinity and inner well-being (Greenwood pp). In fact, several of the Gnostic texts actually questioned the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus' body (Greenwood pp). And other texts celebrated God as both Father and Mother (Greenwood pp). However, by identifying the enemies of Jesus with the forces of evil, the followers of Jesus defined their own group identity (Greenwood pp). Within Jewish and Christian sources, Satan may not be portrayed as an evil force entirely distinct from ordinary humans, but instead, he may be a friend, peer, or relative, and "intimate enemy" (Greenwood pp).

Satan as the leader of evil never really appears in the Hebrew Bible, and when he does appear for the first time in the texts, he is not opposed to God (Greenwood pp). For example, in the Book of Job, "he is an obedient servant, an angel sent by God to block or obstruct human activity," and then gradually becomes more malevolent, especially in the writings of first-century Jewish dissidents, many of whom used Satan to characterize their Jewish opponents (Greenwood pp). Among these sects were the Essenes, a group who "saw forces of evil in the world ... And also a battle that goes on in the human heart" (Greenwood pp). Thus, the followers of Jesus adopted this same view in describing the bitter conflict with their fellow Jews (Greenwood pp).