Does Satan exist? Author says no.

I’ve skimmed my way through most of this book by James R. Brayshaw, Satan Christianity’s Other God, enough to give a rundown at least. As an atheist, there’s nothing overly illuminating in it, aside from the historical aspects. As a lifelong Christian, which Brayshaw is (was?), it was eye-opening to study the bible as much as he did and come to these conclusions.

Volume 1 is nearly five-hundred pages of history and verses and proofs illustrating how Satan evolved as a concept in the Old Testament. The earliest writings in there refer to an adversary, which was what the word sawtawn meant. It didn’t mean a specific person or being. On page 100, Brayshaw lists all the places where a word referring to goats was used – sa’iyr – and how many different translations of that word wound up in the Torah. Some verses translated it into kid, some into goat, some into devils and demons. The original point was, don’t worship goats, worship Yahweh. Don’t make your sacrifices at pagan alters, make them for Yahweh. Don’t invent and worship those wilderness gods with lots of hair and cloven hooves, worship Yahweh who really truly exists…

The earliest writings credit Yahweh with the making of all things, good and evil. He’s a god. If there’s evil in the world, it’s because he wants it. Brayshaw points out that later writings, after the Israelites wandered for a while and met the Persians, they got the idea of dualism, which helped them learn to attribute evil to an evil influence in the world.

Brayshaw thinks it’s worth pointing out that the writers (Moses and Yeshua get mentions) were heavily influenced by the mythologies and religions of the places they were living, especially in Egypt. Their writing reflects where they were and ideas of the time they were there. A lot of it is metaphorical and some of it is misunderstanding — not theirs necessarily, but the fault of later readers and writers who altered and manipulated the original text while trying to bring it to the masses.

Brayshaw includes a link to the Satan entry at Monstropedia which elaborates on how Adversary became Satan. Satan became a character in the book later as a misinterpretation, a misrepresentation of snakes and deceivers and adversaries and other enemies of a people, not of a god.

He spends a lot of the book pulling apart the areas of the bible where Satan supposedly influenced the story. The events surrounding the trial of Job were all set rolling by God who sent an enemy to Job to test his faith. Lucifer is a Latin translation of the Hebrew word for “morning star” could have referred to a human king on his way out, possibly a King of Babylon who fell from grace. Zechariah, Ezekiel and the serpent in the garden each get a section devoted to correcting the flawed assumptions of an evil being’s influence.

Bottom line, there never was a Satan. People think there is, but they’re wrong.