By Stephanie S. Henry
As presented at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Pensacola on April 7th, 2002
Aren’t kids incredible though? I get a kick out of my own of course, but out of other people’s children as well. In fact, one of the many hats that I wear is that of a substitute teacher for the Escambia County School Department Just a couple weeks ago I was teaching a second grade class when for some reason the subject of Star Wars came up. I happened to mention that I remembered when the original Star Wars movie came out.
“Wow! Mrs. Henry, you must be, like, really old!” said one kid in all innocence.
“That movie came out way back in the eighties!”
Actually, it was the late 70’s. You can tell by Harrison Ford’s haircut.
Any way, seeing as that I grew up with the original Star Wars series, I was fascinated by the release of Star Wars Episode I a year or so ago.
In Star Wars Episode I, we are introduced to young Anakin Skywalker before he becomes corrupted. Anakin at the age of 9 is unaware that he is a child of destiny, the child referred to in the prophecies of the Jedi as “he who will bring balance to The Force.” He is also unaware that he will, given time, become the most powerful Dark Lord the galaxy has ever seen, a Dark Lord that will betray and help to hunt down all but a handful of the Jedi Knights.
For millennia the Jedi Knights had ruled supreme throughout the galaxy while the Sith, or Dark Lords, had kept their number to two individuals, a master, and an apprentice. After Darth Vader (aka Anakin Skywalker’s) coup, the Jedi Knights no longer have the upper hand. Hindsight being 20/20 it must be admitted that this seemingly ruthless killing spree did indeed bring balance to The Force.
If you follow the story line, you’ll find that over time Darth Vader becomes the personification of evil, a sort of Devil arch type. Yet even this Ultimate Evil contains a spark of goodness (as we find out in Episode six, The Return of the Jedi).
And indeed, don’t we all contain the seeds of both good and evil? I am reminded of a quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, he says:
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Indeed, who would? Human nature being what it is we would much rather blame someone else for our problems. History is jam packed with instances of nations and religions blaming someone or something else for problems they have brought upon themselves. This view of “Us vs. Them” seems to carry over even into today’s society. Secular though western society may claim to be. We tend to interpret the history of Western Culture as a moral history in which the forces of good are pitted against the forces of evil. The situation in the Middle East is a perfect example of this sort of thinking.
Somehow, though, we can’t stop with simply blaming all our woes on those who happen to be different than us. We can’t seem to reconcile the atrocities mankind has proven itself capable of with our deep-seated belief in the basic goodness of human nature. There must be something or someone behind the evils that men do.
Enter the Devil, a.k.a. Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness, The Great Dragon, Deceiver of Mankind and Father of Lies.
Christianity presents the Devil as a fallen angel, the Prince of Light, who was cast out of heaven following an attempt to overthrow God. Indeed, most Evangelicals and fundamentalists view the Devil as an actual entity that is able to tempt mankind to sin, poses the minds and bodies of humans and inflict physical pain and mental sickness. He is presented as the ruler of Hell and has legions of other fallen angels, known as demons, to serve him in his work on Earth and in the eternal torment of the sinners who have been condemned to Hell.
The scientific community, on the other hand, sees Lucifer as the dark side of cosmic fecundity, the force of evil with which nature moves the human world to greater heights of organization, intricacy, and power. In fact, modern scientists’ views of evil as being a necessary part of nature are weirdly reminiscent of ancient scholars’ descriptions of the being we now regard as the Devil or Satan.
For example, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, today known as the Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness reads as follows:
“The Prince of Light thou has appointed to come to our support: but Satan, the angel Mastema, thou hast created for the pit; he rules in darkness, and his purpose is to bring about evil and sin.” (1QM 19:10-12) The question then arises why would a seemingly benevolent God create a being whose sole purpose was to bring about suffering and temptation? It hardly seems fair to the creature, let alone to the beings he is allowed to torment.
Unless of course, evil is a necessary part of creation.
Unless of course that without evil we might not be able to appreciate what is good.
This concept of evil as being a necessary part of existence is clearly expressed in Buddhism. Here we find it explained that human nature is the cause of all humanity’s problems. Paradoxically Buddhism also teaches that it is within human nature that the answers to all our problems lie. It is, say the teachings, simply a matter of awareness. Once we are aware of what causes the problem, we are cleared to find the necessary solution.
This Ying/Yang philosophy of good containing the seed of evil and evil the seed of good is found in most every ancient religion. All of the old gods had seemingly dual (in fact, sometimes multiple) personalities.
The Hindu god Shiva for example, takes on a different face and set of characteristics depending on the circumstances, but each and every “new face” is seen as just another aspect of the one god. Native Americans, too, worship “The Great Spirit” who is known by many names and characteristics, again, depending on the circumstances. The Greek Pantheon is particularly well known for having a “god for every occasion, “ as were the ancient Egyptians whose legions of gods can become downright exasperating.
Even those ancient religions who did not have multiple aspects for their god had at least two, a god and a goddess, or a god of good and a god of evil. You can see this in Wicca, which, in it’s ancient form worshiped the Great Mother Goddess and her consort, the Horned God which were seen as the all-embodying aspects of the great duality.
Even in the oldest parts of the sacred scriptures of the Hebrews, (from which developed the Christian Bible) can one find multiple references to God, as a singular entity, having a dual nature. In Lamentations 3: 37-38 for example. It says:
“Who has commanded and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?”
In Job 9:22-23 we find that “. . .(God) destroys both the blameless and the wicked.When a scourge brings sudden death, he mocks the despair of the innocent.”
In Isaiah 45:6-7 God speaks for himself by saying “. . .I am the Lord and there is none else, I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create Evil. I the Lord do all these things.”
It is, indeed, interesting to discover that not once in any of the Hebrew Scriptures written prior to 300 B.C.E. will you find the concept of the devil as the enemy of god, deceiver of man and all that. In these most ancient of Hebrew texts, the word Satan, which is taken from the root word s’tn, appears often, always as a verb and means, “to oppose.”
Take, for example, 1 Samuel 29:4 Here the Philistines were distrustful of David fearing that he would “be a satan.” Satan here being translated as “someone who will turn against us.”
Again, in Numbers 22 we read the story of Balaam and the talking donkey. You know the story. The donkey saw the angel sent to stop Balaam from cursing Israel. The donkey took evasive actions, eventually crushing Balaam’s foot against a stone wall. After Balaam beats the donkey, the donkey begins to speak. The angel then appears and explains that he has come “as a satan” to kill Balaam. Here the word satan is translated as “one who opposes.”
All throughout the pre 300 B.C.E writings, one finds the term Satan referring to a messenger or messengers. This is the same word that was translated into the Greek as “Angels” in the New Testament. These messengers, or angels are sent by God to do God’s bidding. When Adam and Eve are cast out of the Garden of Eden, it is an Angel that guards the gate with a flaming sword. When a flood destroys the Earth, an angel brings it about. When Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by brimstone and fire, it is by the hands of a pair of angels. When God decides to destroy the firstborn of Egypt, he sends an angel to do the dirty work.
So in the oldest Hebrew scriptures, those that predate 300 B.C.E. (or what is known today as the Old Testament, with the exception of the books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Esther), we find a god very much like those of other ancient religions. This god is dualistic in nature, bringing about both the good and the evil. Like a parent, the god of the Old Testament rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior. Then, beginning in the time of the writing of Daniel, we find an entirely different portrayal of God. Not only is God now completely good, but we also find that the evil aspect of his nature has splintered off and become an entity in it’s own right.
This sort of splintering of the personality, where there are two or more personalities, each with well-defined traits and memories, is, in the psychological field referred to as having a dissociative identity disorder. Most cases of dissociative identiy disorder can be traced to an extremely traumatic event in childhood. The splintering of the Hebrew god’s personality is no exception.
We need look no further than the Babylonian captivity to identify this personality-splitting crises. About 600 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar II made Judah a tributary. He burned Jerusalem and carried off not only the treasures of Solomon’s temple, but most of the population as well. Two hundred years later the Jews finally received permission to return to their homeland. But two hundred years under foreign domination can have quite an influence on a people’s religious beliefs, especially when the dominant religion of the captors is as influential, and dualistic as was that of the Babylonians.
If we take a look at the history of the dominant religion during the time of the Babylonian captivity, we discover that in ancient Iran, an area which was later to become first the Babylonian, and later the Persian empires, the foundations for the concept of Satan can be traced to the Indo-European invasion of 2000 B.C.E. This migration of what is known today as the Kurgan people from the South of Russia into the Near East, Middle East and Europe caused a lot of change and upheaval. Many indigenous peoples were uprooted or destroyed altogether. The Kurgan’s religious views were based on the ancient Vedic writings of India. Those Kurgan’s who settled in western Europe became the Celtic people with their religion of Druidism and the first concepts of what is known today as Wicca. Those who Settled in the Middle East developed religious beliefs along far different lines than the Celts; they developed the twin concepts of salvation and damnation after death (probably misinterpretations of some of the ancient Vedic writings).
Upon dying, they believed that the soul of the deceased must pass over a narrow bridge on horseback. This was called the Bridge of the Petitioner.Rashu, a god, judged each soul and decided who was sufficiently righteous to cross the bridge and enter paradise, and who would fall into a type of Hell with flames and terrible smells Once salvation, Heaven, damnation and Hell were believed it, it was only a matter of time before someone decided that one deity could not possibly rule both afterworlds. The time was ripe for the rise of a separate dark god. And Zoroaster was just the man to bring it about.
Zoroaster was a Persian prophet and is believed to have lived from 638 to 551 B.C.E. Like Jesus he was recorded as having been tempted by Satan, having performed many miracles and healings and was considered a supernatural being by many of his followers. He introduced a major spiritual reform and created what is generally regarded as the first established monotheistic religion in the world. He rejected the worship of the established Hindu trinity of Varuna, Mithra and Indra Zoroastrianism involved the worship of a single male god, Ahura Mazda, the “sovereign, lawmaker, supreme judge, master of day and night, the center of nature and inventor of moral law.
Oddly enough, Zoroaster also recognized Ahura Mazda’s twin brother, Angra Manu (or Ahriman) as the God of Evil. The only things that Ahriman created were snakes, demons, and all of the world’s evil. Note that he, too was a creator.
As Zoroastrianism gained in popularity, the old gods of the ancient indigenous religions became the demons of the new faith. Zoroaster taught that Ahura Mazda and Ahriman would battle each other until the God of Evil was finally defeated. At this time, the dead would be resurrected; a last judgment would divide all the people that have ever lived into two groups, the bad to go to Hell for all eternity, the good to go to Paradise.
Zoroastrianism was becoming quite popular during the Babylonian captivity, We can see the influence of this Zoroastrian/Persian dualism concept in the Hebrew scriptures after their return from the Babylonian captivity (specifically in Daniel and the New Testament) God was now looked upon as wholly good, Satan as profoundly evil. History was seen as a battle between the two. No longer was Satan simply God’s prosecuting attorney, helper, or lackey. Satan and his demons were now humanity’s greatest enemies.
By the writing of the New Testament (most of which wasn’t actually written until at least 100 years after the death of Christ) the concept of Good vs. Evil, God vs. The Devil had solidified.
In the Gospels, Demons are seen as the cause of most every physical disabilities including blindness, spinal deformities, deafness, twisted limbs, debilitating diseases and the inability to speak. Satan tempts Jesus; the Pharisees accuse Jesus of casting out demons in the name of Beelzebub.
In the writings of Paul the character of Satan and his demons is developed even further. Satan indeed becomes a force to be reckoned with. God and Satan are seen as the two most powerful forces in the universe. For example, in second Corinthians 11: 12-14 Satan is seen as being responsible for false teaching by false apostles. In chapter 12:7 of the same book Satan has given Paul a “thorn in the flesh” to trouble him. In 1 Thessalonians 2:17-18 Satan hinders Paul’s travels. But it is in Revelation that we find the ultimate battle between good and evil.
In Rev. 2:8-9 Satan is portrayed as the power behind the Roman Empire’s persecution of the Christians. In Rev 12:9 he is viewed as the great dragon, which was cast down to earth with his fallen angels. In chapter 20 we find the longest reference in the Bible regarding Satan. Here the serpent or great dragon is bound for a thousand years in the Abyss which is locked and sealed to keep the serpent from deceiving the nations until the thousand years are ended. When these thousand years come to an end, Satan is then released from his prison and gathers the nations together for battle, they march across the of the earth and surround the camp of God’s people, but of course, before any attack can be launched, fire comes down from heaven and devours the army the devil has brought against God’s people. Then the devil himself is thrown into the lake of burning sulfur where He will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
In retrospect, this seems disturbingly similar to the concept of the Zoroastrian twin Gods battling it out until Evil is overcome and good is triumphant. It also doesn’t make much sense for the Head honcho of Hell to be condemned to Hell for Eternity when that is where he supposedly was to begin with.
But I’m not here to argue the validity of the Christian teachings on Hell and the Devil.
You see, it doesn’t matter what I believe about God and the Devil and Heaven and Hell. What does matter is that thousands, millions, of people around the world accept these concepts as un-refutable fact. They are kept submissive to the will of the Church by the fear of a being who has no historical, or even biblical basis. You can’t argue the point with them because their church doctrine, or their pastor or a popular televangelist, says that it is the way things are.
I am reminded of the bumper sticker that reads: “The Bible Says It, I Believe It. That Settles It.” This sort of mindset never ceases to amaze me, particularly because for the first twenty years of my life, I believed the same way. My family was hard-core fundamentalist Christian. Puritan New England Stock We belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and, as with any other fundamentalist religion, you did what you were told, when you were told, believed what you were told and were punished, usually by being sent on severe guilt trips, if you dared to question the Inspired Word Of God. And, as in any fundamentalist Christian religion, I was raised to believe in a literal, physical devil who wanders about the earth thinking up ways in which to tempt mankind to sin.
According to some of my early childhood teachers he was responsible for alcohol and tobacco use, drug addiction, syncopated rhythm, mental illness, paleontology, (no kidding, I actually had a first grade teacher who told me that the dinosaur bones paleontologists found were nothing but a deception of the devil). The devil was also responsible for teenage pregnancy, Hollywood, the ACLU and solar power The thing is, in spite of the way I was raised I could never help but feel that, somehow, the Devil had gotten a bum rap.
I mean, how did we know for sure that it was the Christian devil that was responsible for all the evil in the world?
What if it was the African God of evil, Abonsam, or Anubis, the Egyptian God of Death? What about Loki or Kali or Lilith? All of these gods of evil and death and desolation were far older than the Christian Devil.I tried broaching this particular subject with one of my high-school bible instructors and got a parent-teacher conference for my trouble. The Bible instructor told my mother that it was obvious that I had been reading material not approved by the school board and that my mother had been neglecting her parental duties and needed to keep a closer eye on my after-school activities (this included any extracurricular reading material). My mother was humiliated and appalled that I had dared to ask such a question. She had special prayer sessions with me every evening for the next two weeks (until I got wise and told her that I understood now how persuasive the devil’s influence could be) I never again gave voice to my questions, but that didn’t stop me from questioning just the same.
I would ask myself questions then go on a quest for the answers. I would read everything I could get my hands on about a subject and fill notebooks with the material I had found. Some of the questions I asked myself were:
How did the Devil come to be associated with the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when there is no direct reference made of him anywhere in Genesis?It is assumed that the serpent who tempts Eve was either the Devil in disguise or working directly for the Devil, but the two are never actually linked.
And speaking of snakes, why is it that snakes, serpents and dragons are equated with the Devil and evil in some cultures, but are a sign of wisdom, power and eternal life in others? Those Western cultures with Christian, Judaic or Islamic roots equate the snake with evil, temptation and the Devil. The ancient Mayans were an example of the type of culture that revered snakes. The Mayans revered a god named Quezlecotal who was described as a “plumed serpent.” He had taught their people the principals of agriculture, architecture, astronomy, reading, writing and design. The Mayans also based much of their architecture and decorative designs on the pattern of the rattlesnake’s skin. It is a well-known fact that the Chinese view the dragon as a symbol of power, protection and benevolence. It is a rare piece of Chinese artwork architecture or literature that does not contain some reference to dragons.
Another question would be, why was it such a terrible thing for mankind to learn the difference between good and evil? If the Garden of Eden was the paradise it is reputed to have been, if its inhabitants did not know the difference between good and evil, how would they have known that Eden was such a good place to live? Wouldn’t God have wanted them to know the difference so that they could appreciate how good their life was? And if not, why not? What was God trying to hide?
How do we know that there haven’t been advanced civilizations before ours? Why do most scientist tend to avoid commenting on the existence of the Piri Reis World Map. A map which has been reliably dated as having been drawn up in 1513 but which shows details of the continent of Antarctica that weren’t officially “discovered” until the comprehensive seismic survey of Queen Maud Land was carried out in 1949 by a British-Swedish scientific reconnaissance team. What is to be made of the knowledge that the erosion patterns on the Sphinx are now known to have been made by rainfall, rainfall in amounts that haven’t been seen in the Giza plateau since before 4,000 B.C.?
How do we know that the story of Noah’s flood isn’t a reference to a natural disaster of some sort that brought about the end of such an advanced civilization? Why is it that the teachings of Paul, who never even met Jesus, were taken as gospel truth by the early Christian Church, and why was Paul so dead set against women in general, and women being involved in the church in particular?
Another question is, why is reincarnation such an appalling thought to most Christians? And, do they realize that the early Christian Church actually believed in reincarnation? Do they know that it was a decree by Emperor Constantine that had all references to reincarnation removed in 483A.D.? He was afraid you see Afraid that if people in his empire, especially his soldiers, thought that they would get another chance in another lifetime, that they would refuse to obey him in this life. What is a threat of death, after all, against someone who is unafraid to die?
Then there is the question of the Lucifer. Even if you believe in a literal devil, the story presented in Isaiah 14: 12 of Lucifer, a being who was supposedly cast down out of heaven for daring to challenge God’s authority, there is one major stumbling block. It is just this. Lucifer is a Latin name. How did a Latin name find its way into a Hebrew manuscript?
For years these and other heretical thoughts meandered through my head looking for some fertile grazing grounds. Then one day my husband asked me a question,
“What if the Devil wasn’t the bad guy we make him out to be?” he asked. “What if he was trying to help mankind all this time.?"
I told him that that would make a great story.
“So why don’t you do something with it?” He asked. And I thought, why not?
But it wasn’t until a year later, when I stumbled across a quote by Samuel Butler that all the ideas and questions in my head solidified into an actual story idea. The quote read:
“An apology for the Devil: It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.”
And so it was that many of the questions I had ever dared to ask about the nature of good and evil and the purpose of mankind on Earth came together and found a voice in a fictional character by the name of Talib. Talib is a Lucifer, and light bearer and, true to his name, he is a searcher after truth who is banished from the presence of The Eternal for daring to ask why. He becomes, by default, a guardian of planet Earth. He has been here since the beginning. He knows how life on Earth began, he knows why we are here, and he knows the real underlying forces behind Earth’s history. He tells his story, reveals his secrets, in his own words and asks only that we listen to his story with an open mind.
There may be those who are offended by my giving the devil a voice. To those people I say “get a grip, it’s a work of fiction.”
There may be those who disagree with some of the conclusions I draw in the story. To those I say, again, “relax, it’s just a work of fiction.”
But then there may be those who read “An Apology For The Devil” and say, “what if she’s right?” And that, If I may be so bold, is the entire point of the story. My book, in spite of it’s title, is not “An Apology For The Devil,” it is a work of fiction. But if through the telling of the story I can encourage just one other person to reevaluate their beliefs, to begin thinking for themselves, then the book has been a success, and no apologies, for the devil or anyone else, will be necessary.
Stephanie S. Henry,
April 7th, 2002