Reddit reviews The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots

Hi, I teach a class on angels and demons in Western Monotheisms. We do a unit on the character of Satan as it developed from the Babylonian captivity to modern pop culture. I'll restrict my answers to what is in the Biblical text.

1. Not really. There is an allusion to Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12, but scholarly consensus is that this refers to a worldly tyrant, not Satan.
   
   
2. Possibly. In Job, Satan has his first real debut. He bargains with God. It makes sense that this characterization would put him on God's team, i.e. part of the heavenly court, and not an arch-enemy. Job's Satan is like a righteousness auditor or prosecutor: not necessarily pleasant, but necessary.
   
   
3. The rebellion / fallen angel story comes from an extra-biblical source, The Life of Adam and Eve that was composed around the 1st century. It's also in the Qur'an. Now there are stories of other fallen angels that disobey God. Genesis 6:4 is an enigmatic verse:
   >The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
   There is lots of Jewish mythology imagining the backstory to this verse, imagining fallen "sons of God."
   
   
4. There is no mention of hell as we know it (fiery, bad) in the Hebrew Bible. By the time you get to the NT, you have Gehenna, a Hellenized Jewish conception of Hell. The valley of Hinnom was Jerusalem's literal dumpster fire - and it was the inspiration for Gehenna / Hell. By the 1st century, Satan is thought of as God's arch-enemy instead of God's prosecutor (as he was in Job). Revelation says that Satan is having / will have a bad time in Hell. All of the Gospel writers, as far as I can remember, mention Hell and Satan. Matthew in particular loves to end chapters with
   >and they will be cast into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
   
   
5. No. This is a popular myth with no scriptural basis.
   
   The book Birth of Satan by Wray and Mobley is a great introduction to the topic. It's accessible and emant for popular audiences.
   
   Edit: It is worth pointing out that the Hebrew hassatan means accuser, or obstacle.
   
   Edit Edit: Overall, it's probably important to note that Satan is characterized in several different ways throughout the Bible. There isn't a single coherent consensus on who Satan is, or what Satan's relationship with God is like.

I think this is pretty sound.

The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots by T.J. Wray and Gregory Mobley

• The Invention of Satanism (2015)
  
• Children of Lucifer: The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism (2016)
  
• Satanism: A Social History (2016)
  
• The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots (2005)
  
  There are also some other books on amazon that i have not read but that seem to fit your description:
  
  
• The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity (2012)
  
• Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology (2009)
  
• The Devil: A New Biography (2014)
  
• The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (2016)

Check out the book "The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots" by T.J. Wray and Gregory Mobley. It does a good job of tracing the evolution of the idea Satan from its Jewish roots to the modern anti-force it is supposed to be today.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Birth-Satan-Tracing-Biblical/dp/1403969337

When you look at certain passages of the New Testament with understanding that Satan is fulfilling an appointed role, they take on a different character. A good example is Luke 4:1-13 where Jesus is tempted in the desert. Instead reading it as Satan (written as "the devil" in the passage) as the incarnation of evil attempting to sway Jesus over to his side, he becomes instead an emissary of God fulfilling his duties as the accuser. He is sent to test Jesus' human will to find out whether it is in line with his divine will -- the will of God. I like how the ASV/WEB translation of the passage ends using the word "completed", as in he completed his assigned duty to test Jesus. "When the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him until another time."