Inventing the Devil:
Etymologies of the Name
1. The Setting: Apocalyptic Times (200
BCE to 150 CE)
- Israel under Roman and Syrian rule
- Sectarianism and religious/social strife
- Humorously evoked in Life of Brian
2. Bits and Pieces: Calling the Devil
into existence
- Sources: the Bible/Old Testament (ca. 900-100 BCE); the
Septuagent (ca 250 BCE); apocryphal material including apocalyptic
texts, the
Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran (200 BCE to 150CE); the Qu’ran (Koran; ca
600 CE)
- Satan (Hebrew word deriving from root meaning to oppose, to
obstruct or accuse). As a common noun it means opponent, obstacle, and
accuser.
Cf. Balaam’s ass: An angel blocks the donkey’s path and is therefore
identified
as a satan.
- In Septuagent Diabolos (Greek translation of Satan meaning
one who throws an obstacle in one’s path, accuser): devil, Teufel,
diable,
duivel, etc.
- The bene-ha-elohim (sons of the Lord)
- The mal’ak Yahweh (voice of the Lord; Septuagent
translates as angelos)
- Lucifer: “bearer of light,” probably from Isaiah: “How you
are fallen from heaven, daystar, son of the dawn”
- In Qu’ran Shaytan (Arabic word derived from “to be far from”
and “born in anger”)
3. The Fall of the
Devil
- Contradictory and inconsistent accounts
- When? (before creation?
before fall of humankind? after fall of humankind?
- Why? Pride? Envy? Of God? Of Humans?
- The Devil was once (with) the Lord, is now his intimate
enemy
4. Book
of Job, chapters 1-2
- The Lord holds court (bene-ha-elohim)
- The Satan wanders the earth (mal’ak)
- The Satan accuses (original meaning of Hebrew noun)
- The Lord gives Satan permission to inflict evil on Job (Lord
as author of evil)
5. Jesus, the
Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of Satan
- One among many apocalyptic texts and traditions of the time
- Canonical and apocryphal accounts of Jesus (Nag Hammadi)
- The dualism of Jesus: Daily battles with Satan
6. Gospel of
Matthew, chapter 4
- Repetition of the Temptation of Eve
- Reversal of the Fall
7.
Mephistopheles/Mephostophiles: The Modern Devil
- First attested in the German Faustbook (1587)
- Modern neologism containing Greek, Latin and possibly Hebrew
Greek: me (not)
phos/photos
(light)
philos (lover)
- Latin: mephist means pungent, sulpherous, malodorous
- Hebrew: tophel can mean liar (Hebrew and Aramaic root
meaning of tapal is to smear, plaster, paste, etc. In Job there
is the
phrase tofle-sheker which means something like plasters of
falsehood.
8. Explaining the Fall: Clip from Bedazzled (with
Dudley Moore and Peter Cook)