James left a good comment on my post below:

Speaking of Satan:

Looking through an Encyclopedia set from 1986, I looked up “devil” and disocvered that the name “Satan” used to belong to, in ancient Semitic mythologies, an agent of God who was sent to Earth to spy on humanity and report back to God. Later incarantions of this “agent” were more trickster-ish, with Satan wreaking havoc or getting God to test human behavior. As more time passed Satan soon became identified with evil, with the opposite of a loving God.

This reminds me of the story of Job, where Satan comes over to God’s pad and is let in without any hassles. He then proceeds to bet God that Job will crack under pressure.

It also reminds me of G.I. Gurdjieff’s “Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson” which imagines an alien being named Beelzebub who travels the universe doing research on life forms. Earth is one of his study cases.

Any thoughts on all of this? I figure you’re the guy who would give me the best feedback on such things…

My response, which didn’t fit on the comment box, was:

yep. go to amazon and check out books by “jeffrey burton russell“. he has a whole series about the changing role of the devil throughout history. really really interesting books, if a little bit dry. still worth the read though.

yeah ive come across all the things you mentioned above, and all are very interesting. another favorite story of mine about the origin of lucifer is supposedly persian. in this story, lucifer intensely loved god. so much so that when god created man, and ordered the angels to bow down before man, lucifer just couldnt bring himself to do it, because he loved god above all things, and could put nothing before Him.

also, you always hear that jesus, the son is seated at god’s right hand. you never hear mention of who is at his left hand. according to some traditions, its satan or one of dark angels. the idea supposedly is that jesus, on the right hand, acts as the public defender in the court of god’s justice. while satan, on the left hand acts as the prosecuting attorney.

I just wonder what Slayer’s take on all this would be. I was listening to some Reign of Blood earlier today. It’s really true what Bart says in that one episode of the Simpsons: All the best bands ARE affiliated with Satan…