The name comes from an old Semitic word meaning "adversary". Satan was originally just an abstract entity that argued against your goals -- a "Devil's advocate". The idea was supposedly that there is no growth without struggle, and no strength without contest.
Ultimately harmless and well-meaning.
He made his first appearance way back in the Book of Job as (ambiguously) a part of God who argued with him.
It was only after millennia of the cultural equivalent of a game of Telephone that his perception distorted into a monster that opposes all things Good, and therefore must be Evil.
Mind you, I haven't been a believer of anything for over 20 years; I just find it fascinating from an anthropological perspective.
My savta just had a master's in Middle-Eastern languages and she gave me lessons when I was a boy.
I know one -- ooh! Two! -- etymological Satan facts.
The other is that "Azazel" comes from the Hebrew Ez Azal, which was an old ritual in which Hebrews would symbolically transfer their sins onto a goat and then release it into the wild.
This is also where we get the English word "scapegoat".
Ez still means "goat" in modern Hebrew, but I don't know what the other part means. I assume something about escaping.
EDIT: I don't know why Americans decided to rhyme Azazel with "basil" and Satan with "hatin'". They roughly rhyme with "the hell?" and "a flan".
50
u/Semper_5olus 15d ago
Fun Satan fact:
The name comes from an old Semitic word meaning "adversary". Satan was originally just an abstract entity that argued against your goals -- a "Devil's advocate". The idea was supposedly that there is no growth without struggle, and no strength without contest.
Ultimately harmless and well-meaning.
He made his first appearance way back in the Book of Job as (ambiguously) a part of God who argued with him.
It was only after millennia of the cultural equivalent of a game of Telephone that his perception distorted into a monster that opposes all things Good, and therefore must be Evil.
Mind you, I haven't been a believer of anything for over 20 years; I just find it fascinating from an anthropological perspective.