Where does Satan come from?

The adversary of the New Testament is not in the earliest texts, and the road by which he arrives is one of the clearest developments in the collection. Twice a later book retells an older scene and gives to Satan what the older one gave to God.

1. IIIc. 700-587 BCE
   1 Samuel · Chapter 16

   14 Now Yahweh’s Spirit departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from Yahweh troubled him.

   In the older narrative books there is no rival power. An evil spirit troubles Saul and the text says plainly whose it is.

2. IIIc. 700-587 BCE
   2 Samuel · Chapter 24

   1 Again Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, “Go, count Israel and Judah.”

   David's census, which the story goes on to punish with a plague. Here it is Yahweh who moves him to it. Hold the verse: 1 Chronicles retells it further down this thread.

3. V539 - c. 400 BCE
   Genesis · Chapter 3

   1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”

   4 The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die,

   5 for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

   The serpent, in the chapter everyone attaches to Satan. It is called an animal of the field, it is never named as anything else, and no surviving writer identifies it with the devil until the Wisdom of Solomon, further down this thread.

4. V539 - c. 400 BCE
   Job · Chapter 1

   6 Now on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, Satan also came among them.

   7 Yahweh said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “From going back and forth on the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”

   12 Yahweh said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don’t stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of Yahweh.

   The Hebrew has ha-satan, 'the accuser' — a title with a definite article rather than a name, and the World English Bible's capital S is a translator's decision. He is a member of the heavenly court, he reports to God, and he acts only by permission.

5. V539 - c. 400 BCE
   Zechariah 1-8 · Chapter 3

   1 He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before Yahweh’s angel, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary.

   2 Yahweh said to Satan, “Yahweh rebuke you, Satan! Yes, Yahweh who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Isn’t this a burning stick plucked out of the fire?”

   The same office, in the same period: standing at the right hand of the accused to accuse him, which is where a prosecutor stood. He is rebuked here, but he is in the court, not outside it.

6. VIc. 400-200 BCE
   1 Chronicles · Chapter 21

   1 Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to take a census of Israel.

   The census again, retold from the older book two or three centuries later — and the sentence has been rewritten. 'Yahweh moved David' has become 'Satan stood up against Israel'. Everything else about the story is the same.

7. VIc. 400-200 BCE
   1 Enoch: the Book of the Watchers (Chapters 1-36) · 1 ENOCH 6

   1 And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters.

   2 And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.'

   Evil is given an origin story of its own: angels who chose to come down. Not scripture in most canons, and the account the New Testament assumes when it mentions angels who left their proper dwelling.

8. VIIc. 200-100 BCE
   Jubilees · JUBILEES 48

   2 2410 A.M. And thou thyself knowest what He spake unto thee on Mount Sinai, and what prince Mastêmâ 3 desired to do with thee when thou wast returning into Egypt on the way when thou didst meet him at the lodging- place.

   9 And the prince of the Mastêmâ stood up against thee, and sought to cast thee into the hands of Pharaoh, and he helped the Egyptian sorcerers, and they stood up and wrought before thee.

   The same substitution as the census, in another book. Exodus 4:24 says Yahweh met Moses on the way and wanted to kill him; Jubilees retells the journey and gives the attempt to Prince Mastema, and gives him the hardening of Egypt as well.

9. VIIIc. 100 BCE - 50 CE
   The Wisdom of Solomon · Chapter 2

   23 Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own everlastingness;

   24 but death entered into the world by the envy of the devil, and those who belong to him experience it.

   Written in Greek, and the first surviving text to read the serpent of Genesis 3 as the devil. The identification the third stop does not make is made here, in a book this volume files four centuries after Genesis reached its written form.

10. IXc. 50-110 CE
    Luke · Chapter 10

    18 He said to them, “I saw Satan having fallen like lightning from heaven.

    By the first century the figure is an enemy with a kingdom, and a defeat to be described. Nothing in the sentence needs explaining to its audience; the vocabulary is already theirs.

11. IXc. 50-110 CE
    Revelation · Chapter 12

    9 The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

    The last stop gathers every earlier one into a single verse: the dragon, the old serpent, the devil, Satan. Four traditions from four centuries, stated as four names for one thing.

The passages above are the text, reproduced exactly and checked against the same files the reader uses; every reference is verified when the site is built. The commentary between them is editorial, written for this volume.

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