From ChatGPT on 9/11/2025.
This post contains four Prompts/Responses with the prompts listed below. Scroll down to read the responses.
1st Prompt – Are there any critical bible scholars who discuss if evil or satan actually exists, or is what we call evil the absence of God?
2nd Prompt – Why do critical bible scholars think the Hebrew Bible’s “satan” (a legal accuser in Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3) was originally a divine functionary, not an evil opposite of God?
3rd Prompt – What are the reasons scholars like Elaine Pagels (The Origin of Satan, 1995) and John J. Collins (The Apocalyptic Imagination, 2016) believe in Second Temple times in apocalyptic Judaism, “Satan” gradually became a proper name for a hostile angelic power.
4th Prompt – When did the belief arise that God is letting Satan have his way with mankind but will in the end destroy satan and save the godly humans?
1st of 4 Prompts: Are there any critical bible scholars who discuss if evil or satan actually exists, or is what we call evil the absence of God?
Quite a few critical biblical scholars tackle the question of whether “evil” or “Satan” is an independent force or simply the absence of God’s presence. Here are some of the main voices and how they frame it, with their own words or published arguments identified inline:
1. Evil as Privation (lack of God’s goodness)
• James Barr (Old Testament scholar, Biblical Faith and Natural Theology, 1993) notes that much of the Hebrew Bible portrays evil less as a cosmic power and more as calamity that God either sends or allows. He writes that “evil is what happens when God’s sustaining order is withdrawn,” aligning with the classic philosophical idea of privatio boni (privation of good).
• Jon D. Levenson (Creation and the Persistence of Evil, 1988) argues that in texts like Isaiah 45:7 (“I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe,” ASV) the Hebrew Bible places even disaster under God’s own agency, not a rival being. Levenson sees “evil” more as the chaos that resurfaces when God’s creative control loosens.
2. Development of Satan as a distinct being
• Elaine Pagels (The Origin of Satan, 1995) shows that the Hebrew Bible’s “satan” (a legal accuser in Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3) was originally a divine functionary, not an evil opposite of God. Only in Second Temple literature (e.g., 1 Enoch, Jubilees) does “Satan” become an independent adversary.
• John J. Collins (The Apocalyptic Imagination, 3rd ed., 2016) traces how Jewish apocalyptic writings between 200 BCE and 100 CE turned older chaos or accuser motifs into a cosmic enemy. For Collins, this is a literary-theological move, not evidence of a metaphysical dualism.
3. New Testament perspectives
• Bart D. Ehrman (Heaven and Hell, 2020) stresses that Jesus and Paul inherited a late–Second Temple worldview where Satan and demons were real for them, but that these beliefs arose historically from attempts to explain suffering under foreign oppression.
• Gerd Lüdemann (The Unholy in Holy Scripture, 1996) argues that the New Testament’s devil language is symbolic of human hostility to God, not a separate supernatural being.
4. Philosophical–theological synthesis
• Richard Bauckham (while more theological than purely critical) comments in God and the Crisis of Freedom (2013) that biblical texts can be read compatibly with Augustine’s privation theory: evil is a “parasitic non-thing,” the turning away from God.
Bottom line:
– In the Hebrew Bible, most critical scholars (Barr, Levenson) see “evil” as either calamity within God’s sovereignty or the result of creation reverting toward chaos, not as a rival deity.
– The idea of Satan as an autonomous evil power emerges gradually in late Second Temple Judaism (Pagels, Collins).
– Many New Testament writers speak as if Satan exists, but modern critical scholars (Ehrman, Lüdemann) explain that historically as mythic language for human and cosmic opposition to God, not proof of a metaphysical being.
So, from a critical scholarly standpoint, “evil as the absence of God” fits well with the earliest Hebrew traditions and with later philosophical readings, while the fully personal Devil is a later literary and theological development rather than a core biblical given.
2nd Prompt – Why do critical bible scholars think the Hebrew Bible’s “satan” (a legal accuser in Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3) was originally a divine functionary, not an evil opposite of God?
Critical Bible scholars focus on how the Hebrew text actually uses the word śāṭān (שָׂטָן) and on the wider ancient Near Eastern setting. Their case rests on language, grammar, and the narrative roles where the figure appears—not on later Christian ideas of a cosmic devil. Key points:
1. Hebrew grammar and article
In Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3 the word is haśśāṭān—with the definite article ha (“the”). In Biblical Hebrew, a proper name (like David or Gabriel) is not preceded by the article. James Barr (Biblical Words for Time, 1962) and Marvin Sweeney (The Twelve Prophets, 2000) note that this marks the term as a title or office, “the accuser” or “the adversary,” not a personal name.
2. Role inside the divine council
Both passages place the satan among God’s own heavenly attendants:
• Job 1:6 (ASV): “the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, and the Satan also came among them.”
• Zechariah 3:1 (ASV): “and he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of Jehovah, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary.”
John Day (God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea, 1985) points out that this mirrors the king’s court imagery found across the ancient Near East, where a royal prosecutor tests loyalty but is still the king’s servant.
3. Function as prosecutor, not rebel
In Job, the satan questions Job’s motives and proposes a test, but always acts only with God’s permission (Job 1:12; 2:6). Carol Newsom (The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations, 2003) stresses that he is “a heavenly district attorney,” not a rival power. Similarly, in Zechariah 3 he accuses Joshua the high priest of impurity; God rebukes him but does not cast him as an enemy deity.
4. Broader ancient parallels
Scholars such as Mark S. Smith (The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, 2001) compare this to Ugaritic texts where the divine council includes figures who challenge or test mortals. The role of an accuser or adversary within a pantheon was a normal bureaucratic function, not a cosmic evil.
5. Later development
Elaine Pagels (The Origin of Satan, 1995) and John J. Collins (The Apocalyptic Imagination, 2016) trace how, centuries later in apocalyptic Judaism, “Satan” gradually became a proper name for a hostile angelic power. But that’s a Second Temple innovation, not the meaning in Job or Zechariah.
Summary:
Because the Hebrew uses a common noun with the article, depicts this figure as part of God’s own court, and shows him acting only under divine authority—features consistent with ancient royal “prosecutor” roles—critical scholars conclude that the Hebrew Bible’s haśśāṭān was originally a divine functionary serving God’s purposes, not an independent, evil opposite of God.
3rd Prompt – What are the reasons scholars like Elaine Pagels (The Origin of Satan, 1995) and John J. Collins (The Apocalyptic Imagination, 2016) believe in Second Temple times in apocalyptic Judaism, “Satan” gradually became a proper name for a hostile angelic power.
Elaine Pagels and John J. Collins both argue that the idea of Satan changed in the Second Temple period (roughly 500 BCE–70 CE) because Jewish writers began to explain suffering and oppression in new ways. Here are the main reasons they give, with their own framing identified:
1. Historical Pressure: Foreign Domination and Persecution
- Pagels (Origin of Satan, ch. 1–2) notes that after the Babylonian exile and especially under the brutal Seleucid and later Roman regimes, Jews needed an explanation for why the covenant-keeping people still suffered.
- Collins (Apocalyptic Imagination, 3rd ed., pp. 65–70) shows how apocalyptic authors reinterpreted cosmic history: if Israel is righteous but oppressed, then evil must be the work of a super-human enemy, not merely God’s own punishment.
2. Earlier “Accuser” Recast as Enemy
- In the Hebrew Bible haśśāṭān (“the accuser”) is God’s prosecuting agent (Job 1–2; Zech 3).
- By the Hellenistic period, texts like 1 Enoch 6–16, Jubilees 10, and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs name figures such as Satan, Mastema, or Beliar as leaders of rebel spirits.
- Pagels emphasizes that this is a shift from courtroom prosecutor to cosmic rebel, turning a job-title into a personal name.
3. Influence of Dualistic Thought
- Collins highlights contact with Persian Zoroastrianism, where an evil cosmic opponent (Angra Mainyu) opposes the good deity.
- This cultural backdrop helped Jews imagine a universe where God’s justice required a hostile angelic power to account for present evil.
4. Sectarian Conflicts Inside Judaism
- Pagels stresses that “Satan” language became a way to demonize rival Jewish groups.
- Example: the Qumran sect (Dead Sea Scrolls) calls outsiders “sons of darkness” and their leader the “Angel of Darkness” (1QM).
- For Pagels this shows Satan turning into a symbol of internal religious enemies before Christians applied it to Rome.
5. Literary Consolidation
- Collins notes that intertestamental literature consistently drops the definite article: “the satan” becomes simply Satan—a proper name.
- By the time of the New Testament, texts such as Mark 1:13 and Revelation 12:9 portray Satan as a personal cosmic opponent.
Summary:
Pagels and Collins argue that a mix of historical suffering, exposure to dualistic ideas, and fierce intra-Jewish polemics drove the transformation. The once-official “accuser” of the divine council was reimagined as Satan, a hostile angelic power with his own forces, a concept that made sense of oppression without making God the direct author of evil.
4th Prompt – When did the belief arise that God is letting Satan have his way with mankind but will in the end destroy satan and save the godly humans?
Critical scholars generally place the emergence of that full storyline—a present, limited reign of Satan that God will ultimately end by saving the righteous—in the late Second Temple period, roughly the second century BCE through the first century CE. Here’s how they track the development:
1. Hebrew Bible: No independent evil power
Earlier texts like Job or Zechariah show haśśāṭān as a subordinate prosecutor, never an enemy God must one day destroy (James Barr, Biblical Faith and Natural Theology, 1993). Isaiah 45:7 (ASV) even has God saying, “I make peace, and create evil,” keeping all agency within God.
2. Apocalyptic Judaism (c. 200 BCE – 100 CE)
This is where scholars such as John J. Collins (The Apocalyptic Imagination, 3rd ed., 2016) and Loren Stuckenbruck (1 Enoch 91–108, 2007) see the key shift:
- 1 Enoch (esp. the Book of the Watchers, 1 Enoch 6–16)
– Fallen angels corrupt humanity now but face final annihilation when God judges them and vindicates the righteous.
– Their leader (variously Shemihazah, Azazel) plays the role later identified with Satan. - Jubilees 10 (2nd cent. BCE)
– Introduces Mastema, a chief of evil spirits, who is allowed by God to “exercise authority” over sinners until the end. - Dead Sea Scrolls (War Scroll, Community Rule)
– Speak of the “Prince of Darkness” leading the “sons of darkness,” but God will “destroy Belial” in the final war.
Collins and others emphasize that these texts combine two ideas:
- Evil powers have real but time-limited sway.
- God has already fixed the date of their destruction.
3. Early Christianity (1st cent. CE)
New Testament writers inherit this apocalyptic framework and name the enemy Satan:
- Mark 3:23–27; Luke 10:18 – Satan is “the strong man” Jesus is already binding.
- Romans 16:20 (NRSV): “The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet.”
- Revelation 20:1-10 – Satan deceives the nations for a set period, is released briefly, then thrown into the lake of fire.
Bart D. Ehrman (Heaven and Hell, 2020) points out that this is exactly the Second-Temple storyline: Satan is active now, but his end is predetermined.
4. Summary Timeline
| Stage | Approx. Dates | Key Idea |
|---|---|---|
| Hebrew Bible | pre-500 BCE | Satan = God’s courtroom accuser, no final destruction plot |
| Early Apocalyptic | 200–150 BCE | Rebel angels temporarily afflict humanity, God will judge them |
| Qumran / Jubilees | 150 BCE–50 CE | “Prince of Darkness” leads present evil age, doomed at the End |
| New Testament | 50–100 CE | Satan rules the present age (1 John 5:19) but will be crushed forever (Rev 20) |
Bottom line:
The belief that God currently allows Satan limited power but will ultimately destroy him while saving the faithful crystallized between about 200 BCE and 100 CE within Jewish apocalyptic literature and was fully adopted by the earliest Christians. Scholars such as Collins, Stuckenbruck, and Ehrman trace it to that historical moment when Jews, suffering foreign domination, found in this narrative a way to affirm both the reality of present evil and the certainty of God’s final justice.
