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The Satan: How God’s Executioner Became the Enemy is unavailable, but you can change that!

Many people today think of Satan as a little red demon with a pointy tail and a pitchfork—but this vision of the devil developed over many centuries and would be foreign to the writers of the Old Testament, where this figure makes his first appearances. The earliest texts that mention the Satan—it is always “the Satan” in the Old Testament—portray him as an agent of Yahweh, serving as an...

In the preface I called attention to the contrast between the Satan as he is depicted in the book of Revelation and the Satan of the Hebrew scriptures. The Satan of Revelation is the deceiver of the whole world, the accuser of the comrades, the ancient serpent, and the leader of the forces of evil. The earliest texts that speak of superhuman satan figures, on the other hand, present these figures as functionaries of God who punish evildoers. Up to this point
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