XolokReads reviewed The origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels
Well researched and argued story of how the Satan of Job became the Satan we are familar with today
5 stars
Growing up with Christianity, I've seen Satan deployed in many strange ways. Satan "made" people do things. Satan tempted people. People were "in league" with Satan. Satan was "behind a conspiracy to destroy Christians through the theory of evolution," etc. Elaine Pagels' book The Origin of Satan clears up a lot of where these different concepts and excuses came from. They once were very specifically aimed at different people or groups of people. Almost 2000 years later, those targets are gone or have evolved but we have kept using the rhetoric and tropes. The reader might not 100% buy into every single one of Pagels' theories, but they are all well argued and invite one to question the assumptions made for us from when we were children.
