As I was watching the movie "Dogma" yet again (hey, I've been sick, it's how I cope, OK?) I realized two things. The first thing is that I never noticed that the nun that Loki corrupts can be seen cavorting about in the background a few shots later on as Loki and Bartleby are leaving the airport. More importantly, I realized that despite hearing over and over about how Satan rose against God in heaven and how the Morning Star was thrown down to hell for his presumption and pride, I have never seen any real evidence of this in the Bible.
Hmmmmm.... now the TV evangelists go on and on about Satan. Ole' Slewfoot is just waiting to catch you with your faith down. Lucifer, the Morning Star, had a starring role in John Milton's "Paradise Lost", a very long poem that is on everyone's greatest classic books of all time. Most people have never read it. The Devil made me do it. Lucifer revolts against heaven and eventually, after losing the battle for paradise, he is cast out along with the angels who foolishly allied with him.
The trouble is, there just isn't a lot of basis for Satan's existence as a rebel angel. Certainly not in the according-to-Holyle tried and true King James Version or the New King James Version which I happen to have sitting here next to me. Yup, its time for fun with scriptures.
Before I torture anyone any further, I have to admit that my motivation for this little exercise is the basic problem I have with the biblical version of good-and-evil, or the lack thereof. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" Genesis 1:1. "Then God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good." Genesis 1:31. "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." Genesis 3:1. Now the obvious question is: where the hell did the serpent come from? Did God make the serpent? Why is the serpent evil? If God created everything and it was good, where did the evil come from and why did God create the tree of knowledge and then stick it in the garden and tell the children he had created not to mess with it? Sorry, sorry, I digress.
Back to it, where did the serpent come from? Almost every tale I have ever heard tell about the tempting of Eve in the Garden by the serpent included the assumed fact that the serpent was Satan. I mean, Satan is all through the Bible, right? The entire story is based on the struggle between good and evil in the world, yes? Well, actually no.
There is the serpent, of course, in Genesis. But no mention of the serpent being Satan or the Devil or Lucifer until way at the end of the story, in Revelations. Just a serpent. Ok, there is a single mention of Lucifer in Isaiah 14, right after the Fall of the King of Babylon. The word "Lucifer" is from the latin. The latin of Saint Jerome, mostly, whose translation from previous latin translations and greek versions of the bible became the Vulgate. The Vulgate became the vesion of the Bible officially sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church. The King James is based directly on that. Lucifer comes from latin for "light" and "to bear or bring". Light bringer, hence Morning Star.
Isaiah 14 starts with the fall of the King of Babylon, then verses 12-21 that deal with Lucifer and the back to the rest of the destruction of Babylon, Assyria and Phillistia being destroyed because this was the wrathful God. The problem with reading Lucifer as Satan as Devil into these passages is that the author of Isaiah is taunting the enemies of the Tribes of Israel. First he is taunting the downfall of Babylon, then a swift change to Lucifer, then back to Babylon. This is only in the King James Version and the New King James. It doesn't read well as a sudden history of Lucifer, but it is a nice taunt of the same King of Babylon.
The role of Satan as the God's tempter seems to be deserved. In the book of Job God 's sons (Job 1:6) assemble and Satan also. There is no mention of the fall of Satan or any rebellion. Satan is God's servant. He tempts Job per God's direction. We have to go all the way to the New Testament for the next mention of Satan, Matthew 12:26 when Jesus casts out demons and annoys the Pharisees and of course the temptation of Christ which is in all of Gospels save that of John. Satan, again, is God's tempter. Satan as the servant of God? There is lots of evidence for that scenario.
And lastly, as it should be, Revelations. This is where Jesus gives a prophecy of things to come through the Apostle John. Things to come. Prophecy. Revelations 12:9 does, indeed, describe the battle in heaven but it is a thing to come and to be rejoiced over. It does name Satan as "that serpent of old" which could be revisionist or it could just be Satan in his normal role as God's tempter, his old left-hand-man. And in 20:1 Satan is bound for a thousand years. This is a prophecy.
So I am left without a justification for a heavenly battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. If all was the void and in the beginning was the word, who created evil? Who created Satan? Was Satan's job, all along, to tempt human beings and then report back to God on if they passed the test. If we humans were not supposed to have free will, why put the tree and the serpent in the garden to begin with. Why not just stick with the void and save a whole lot of trouble.
Be careful if you trot out the notion of a dualistic deity. That one will get you burned to a crisp.
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