TOS - Chapter 2: The Social History of Satan

[00:00:00] The Invisible Presence

[00:00:00] Don Early: The very first sentence of the introduction to her book, The Origin of Satan, Elaine Pagels reveals a deep and intimate grief. The loss of her husband. She describes an awareness, and I quote, "I was living in the presence of an invisible being, living that is with a vivid sense of someone who has died." 

[00:00:36] I first experienced this deep sense of loss when I was 22, when my mother called and told me that my dad had died. It didn't even seem real. I didn't even know he was sick. For years, I would have dreams about him. So vivid that when I woke up, I often just grab my phone to call him only to realize. 

[00:01:00] He wasn't there anymore. 

[00:01:05] In the past month, I am experiencing this again with the loss of my dear, dear friend, Camille. Living in the presence of an invisible being. I can't see here anymore. I can't see dad. But I can certainly feel the impact that they have had in my life, and in those around me. That is observable. 

[00:01:31] And I believe it is this experience living in the presence of an invisible being, a being that has died, is what the New Testament and in particular, the gospels are wrestling with. 

[00:01:46] Grief intensifies so many emotions and colors rationale. There is often a sense of injustice that they were taken from you unfairly or even worse, maliciously. And who could do such a thing?

[00:02:05] As we learned in the previous episode, Mark's answer to this was Satan. Satan and his minions influenced an orchestrated the execution of God's Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. And today we're going to explore the Social History of Satan: From the Hebrew Bible to the Gospels. This is The Devil You Don't Know. 

[00:02:28] All right, let's get this show on the road.

[00:02:50] Emily Quann: Let's do it.

[00:02:52] Don Early: It is yet another episode of The Devil You Don't Know Podcast, which is the podcast where we take a historical and cultural look at the relevance of the Devil. Me, I'm Don Early,

[00:03:05] Emily Quann: I am Emily Quann.

[00:03:07] Jeremy Spray: And I'm Jeremy Spray.

[00:03:09] Don Early: And we're doing the book club thing 

[00:03:12] Emily Quann: Yay. 

[00:03:15] Don Early: Yeah. Kinda fun. Jammy whammy. I don't know why I think that, but that's what came to mind just now the book is The Origins of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics. A love story. Nope. Uh, By Elaine Pagels, who is the renowned scholar, maybe best known for her work on the Gnostic Gospels.

[00:03:41] So if you're in the crowd, as it were knowing historical things, and you probably know her from that. A link to this book is in the description of this episode. So go get your copy and join us. And if you missed last episode, you probably want to stop this recording right now and go listen to that one first, just to get yourself caught up. Because today we're talking about chapter two and it builds on itself like a book

[00:04:12] Jeremy Spray: Like a booked does. Weird.

[00:04:15] Don Early: Yeah.

[00:04:15] Emily Quann: Crazy. I have to say I did like this chapter better. Well, it seems like with this chapter, we actually got into the origin of Satan.

[00:04:27] Jeremy Spray: Yeah.

[00:04:28] Emily Quann: Like the, the last ones were just a bunch of background information, which is fine. That sets everything up. But when you're reading the book that is titled the Origin of Satan, and you have to wait through a lengthy introduction and through like 40 some pages

[00:04:45] Don Early: Of chapter one.

[00:04:46] Emily Quann: Of chapter one before you actually get to the origin of Satan. Nah, no, but here it is, you know, so

[00:04:54] Jeremy Spray: But not till the end of the chapter, want to point that out. Like I was going through the first half, I'm like, there's so much context happening. You're just setting people up and people up and people that there's so much of just like,

[00:05:06] Emily Quann: It's towards the end of the chapter, but like at least, I don't know when I was reading, I was like, ah, there it

[00:05:12] Jeremy Spray: There it is.

[00:05:14] Don Early: Well, there is. Yeah.

[00:05:15] Emily Quann: Everything we have read up to this point has been building to this moment. We have made it and let's get started.

[00:05:24] Don Early: Yeah. Okay. Well, let's do that. Because I, I felt like there was plenty of the Satan stuff. Maybe not immediately early on, for sure. I think that they

[00:05:36] Emily Quann: Not mentioned by name.

[00:05:38] Don Early: Ye- well. Yeah. They had to set up how, Israel, how the Israelites handled their enemies and who they were. The Israelites were set apart, as a nation An us versus them. Us, we are the chosen people versus them assholes.

[00:06:00] Emily Quann: Right. And then it moves to us versus them within that group.

[00:06:06] Don Early: Yeah. So that was really kind of a key distinction. So we spend a lot of time in the beginning of this chapter, talking about Jewish tradition and how the writings lift up the Jewish people like Israel as a whole as like a unified identity and a unified people. And because it was more important to be centralized that way and then set against what they call "the nations," which is everyone that's not Jewish.

[00:06:39] Jeremy Spray: That's not. Yeah. Right. And Israel itself was itself a nation. And they're very clear on that. That we're a nation of people. So it was not just the distinction of heritage, but it was also the distinction of rights and of laws and of religion.

[00:06:53] Don Early: Yeah. There is, there's a definite ethnicity going on, but there's also political and social structures of this community. And community on a large, like you said, nation scale for that time. So us, it is the people of Israel, the chosen people of God versus them, the other nations, the alien enemies of Israel who are morally depraved and potentially accursed.

[00:07:24] Jeremy Spray: Right.

[00:07:24] Emily Quann: Oh yeah, there's bad stuff said about them.

[00:07:26] Don Early: Yeah. Yeah. So the, those them's, the thems are not good.

[00:07:32] Emily Quann: They're the baddies.

[00:07:34] Don Early: I think it was interesting how, when it's "the nations," when it's those morally depraved, awful people over there or have come to us to take us over or whatever, the writings they describe their enemies in animalistic terms, or yeah monstrous. And these amalgamated different, like chimeras almost. Different bestial body parts put together and that sort of thing. 

[00:08:06] Apocryphal Writings

[00:08:06] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. So I was having this moment while listening to it and recognizing that Daniel in having his dreams and his visions of, of these beasts that were coming to attack Israel. I remember I, I pictured it a lot, like Revelations in the same, but a deal where there was so many beasts and, and these, this, the apocryphal writings of all of the, you must avoid in or destruction in.

[00:08:31] I never put it together ever when I was younger, that those were political stories. That they were comments that they weren't crazy visions or bizarre, drugs causing all these intense dreams and, or the way it was given prophecies from God. Right. But it was actually message-based, it was satirical and it was much more Alice in Wonderland than it was, End of Times.

[00:08:57] And I just, it was one of those that I just had that blinking moment of like, oh wow, how many years have I known that this is not based in truth, but have I not put together completely where the stories came from, but they're not just telling tales, they're teaching lessons based on what's going on in their lives.

[00:09:18] And so it just had me do this rapid, like catalog and going back and forth. These beasts with teeth of iron and ram's horn heads. And I was like, oh my God, he's talking about all of their literal, actual enemies, not this, you know, not this crazy monster. He's just using the monster as the analogy as the, and it was like, oh, I just, I felt a little dumb that I didn't come up with that so much sooner.

[00:09:46] Emily Quann: Okay. So you had that moment. I had the moment when I was reading about all of these monsters and as Elaine Pagels is writing out all of these monsters that seemed like they just got more and more hideous, and then the last one was this horned ram, which was the king of Greece. And I laughed out loud at that. Like, that was the worst. That was the ultimate, the king of Greece. 

[00:10:13] Jeremy Spray: The king of Greece, but right, right. All of them, you have to guess on your own, the horned

[00:10:17] Emily Quann: Yeah. What does this mean? What does this mean? Oh, there's a ram with horns and that is the king of Greece. The penultimate.

[00:10:25] Jeremy Spray: The Baphomets.

[00:10:28] Emily Quann: Yeah. So you had that moment and I literally laughed out loud at when I read the king of Greece,

[00:10:34] Don Early: I

[00:10:34] Emily Quann: But yeah, that, that was, that was the adversary, you know, during this time. Um, and so it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense. Those were their, their enemies or who they perceived their enemies.

[00:10:49] Don Early: Right, but I think she also makes the point I think it had a later part of the chapter that these writings are written in such a way that they're not, they didn't write specifically about those leaders or they didn't write specifically about those Jewish people or whatever.

[00:11:08] If the shoe fit, you 

[00:11:11] Jeremy Spray: Exactly 

[00:11:12] Don Early: it was, it was written so that when the applicable situation came up again, you 

[00:11:18] Emily Quann: They could point 

[00:11:19] Don Early: yeah. Well, or, I mean, recycle, we get to use this story again. Now what does it mean? Which is really,

[00:11:29] Jeremy Spray: Tribal tails. So with that, is that right? That's true. Tribal storytelling.

[00:11:32] Don Early: And this is why it endures. I mean, it's so evocative and every generation, every, everybody who reads it is their imagination is, sparked and it causes all these questions.

[00:11:47] And Jeremy, I don't think you're off at all. Not making that connection that you just talked about because that's not how it's often taught in church. That's not the, the Christian education or the Christian, the Bible school and that stuff. You're not really going to get that connection you know, in particularly like the passage that they talk about later in Isaiah, we've brought this one up before where the, oh, son of the morning, talking about the prince and I forget which nation is it? But talking about, it's directly commentary on

[00:12:22] Jeremy Spray: On the Morningstar, right? Yeah. It's a particular guy. 

[00:12:25] Don Early: But we have a tradition of retconning that to mean Lucifer, the devil and in rereading that context, which we'll get into in a sec, that basically that's what some of these sectarian groups of Jews did is revisionist looking back at these other teachings. Us versus them is Israel versus everyone else. And then if, if it's the enemy, then they're bestial and monstrous. But in times of crisis, when times of oppression and war, there can be some infighting. And so there are times when, Israelites will blame other Israelites for their plight because it's clearly because the nation of Israel has sinned against God and must, atone. That's 

[00:13:29] Jeremy Spray: but by not us, we didn't do it.

[00:13:31] Don Early: Yeah, no.

[00:13:32] Jeremy Spray: You sinned against God, not this side.

[00:13:35] Don Early: And then it begs the question like, well, how can this be? So when the enemy is other us's

[00:13:43] Emily Quann: following

[00:13:47] Don Early: They can't be beasts. We're not beast. We're not, we th this us, we, we can't be that. So it must be something else. There must be something that we know about that is different. That's powerful. And what they come up with is a divine being, or any of the divine beings, angels the, what they described as the sons of God, which were these supernatural angelic beings, divine council, that sort of thing.

[00:14:16] So superhuman, incredibly intelligent and cunning. Super powerful. 

[00:14:24] and

[00:14:24] Jeremy Spray: have the ear of God have the direct counsel with God.

[00:14:28] Don Early: I mean, Angel o' Death, and just,

[00:14:33] Jeremy Spray: Yeah.

[00:14:33] Don Early: These beings smite the shit out of things.

[00:14:37] Emily Quann: Yeah, these weren't outsiders, these were, and I think she even uses this phrase multiple times the "intimate enemy,"

[00:14:45] Don Early: Yeah, I have that noted, several times that, when, 

[00:14:49] Emily Quann: To you to, you know? 

[00:14:51] Don Early: Yeah, exactly so the Satan is invented or the Satan is recognized and it's this term early on she describes is not referring to any particular person. It's more of a role.

[00:15:06] Emily Quann: Yeah. And the way I was picturing this was like like a, a title, you know, somebody's name isn't Doctor. "Doctor" is their role that they play. So that's how I was picturing it in my mind to make sense.

[00:15:20] Jeremy Spray: For me, I did put it as a lawyer, right? Like defense and prosecutor and prosecutor is Satan. The adversary.

[00:15:26] Don Early: Yeah, absolutely. But the other thing that I liked about how she goes into the meaning is when Satan is translated diabolos in Greek, which is "to put something in the way of somebody" like to be a stumbling block, to, you know, to obstruct.

[00:15:47] Emily Quann: yeah, it was just going to say to obstruct

[00:15:48] Don Early: I thought that was really insightful and so the, the Satan is just this role. It could be anybody, it could be other people, it could be different angels, any of them at that point and

[00:16:01] Emily Quann: Also though, sent by God.

[00:16:03] Don Early: Sent, yes. Sent by

[00:16:06] Emily Quann: So not, not on their own doing, this stuff, being an obstructionist on their own, just because they want to. And, you know, they get their kicks that way, but God is sending this being.

[00:16:19] Balaam

[00:16:19] Don Early: God says, okay. Need to teach this person a lesson. Go down there and get in his way. So the Satan is an obedient servant of God. Part of the Divine Court. So let's get into Balaam cause this, you want to talk about 

[00:16:37] Emily Quann: I liked the story. 

[00:16:38] Jeremy Spray: was going to ask about Balaam cause I was pretty sure it was in this chapter, not the previous one, but I I'd been reading the two kind of back to back.

[00:16:44] Don Early: Yeah. This one I kept laughing out loud, 

[00:16:48] Emily Quann: His poor, his poor animals just 

[00:16:51] Jeremy Spray: You, did you guys know the Balaam before this?

[00:16:54] Don Early: Distantly maybe. Um, yeah, it's not 

[00:16:57] Emily Quann: at the 

[00:16:57] Don Early: familiar 

[00:16:58] Emily Quann: of my mind. I felt like I was reading it for the first time.

[00:17:02] Jeremy Spray: Balaam was one of my favorite tales when I started going to a junior high. This was one of those things that I would bring up and I talk about the angel of death and the opening of the mouth. Anyway, let's get into it because I loved it.

[00:17:12] I, I was like, oh yeah, let's get into Balaam and his donkey.

[00:17:15] His 

[00:17:16] Don Early: His ass. This is one of those where you're giggling in Sunday school because of, you know, the word 

[00:17:22] Emily Quann: You get to say "ass." 

[00:17:24] Don Early: I don't know if you have the, the passage open. It's on page 40. I think we should, read the, just literally quote it because it's, fricking hilarious.

[00:17:33] So, basically the story is there's this guy Balaam, Balaam, Balaam, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. And he is going where the Lord or where God told him not to go. He's going there, that he decided, so it gets on his donkey, his ass gets on his ass and he heads towards wherever this place is that God told him not to go.

[00:17:58] Emily Quann: Towards the destination, which is off limits.

[00:18:01] Jeremy Spray: I, if you guys want to look up the actual scriptures it's Numbers 22 and 24, 22 through 24 is what we're

[00:18:07] Don Early: yeah. Yeah. And the passages that I have are, 22, verses 23 through 33. So God sends a messenger to the, you know, this angel to obstruct Balaam and his ass,

[00:18:24] Emily Quann: Yeah, literally obstruct his way, stand in the road,

[00:18:28] Don Early: But sneaky-like, right? He on purpose is invisible to Balaam, 

[00:18:34] Emily Quann: But not the donkey.

[00:18:39] Don Early: So, this donkey, she sees this supernatural amazing being and stops because it's terrifying. Do you want to read that? Emily? Do you got that open?

[00:18:50] Emily Quann: oh, yes, I do. Uh, this first one here?

[00:18:54] Don Early: Yeah.

[00:18:55] Emily Quann: "And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand. And the ass turned aside out of the road and went into the field and Balaam struck the ass to turn her onto the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on each side. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord she pushed against the wall. So he struck her again."

[00:19:23] Don Early: It's just so dirty. I mean, to me when you take it out of context, 

[00:19:29] Emily Quann: Okay. To me, I'm I just, my, my little heartstrings are tugging here for this poor animal that's being beat.

[00:19:36] Don Early: Me too. Absolutely. But I'm just saying what if it was an actual ass? Not a donkey? What what's this is his ass. Uh, that's it's juvenile and I'm sorry.

[00:19:46] Emily Quann: Yeah. "And the third time the ass saw the obstructing angel and she laid down under Balaam and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he struck the ass with his staff. The Lord opened the mouth of the ass. And she said to Baalam, "What have I done to you that you have struck me three times?"

[00:20:04] Don Early: I'm going to stop you there because I love what happens next in this story. Balaam's gonna reply. But he doesn't reply with, I have a fucking talking ass?!

[00:20:18] Emily Quann: I know,

[00:20:19] Don Early: My donkey can talk. 

[00:20:22] Emily Quann: I'm going to be rich!

[00:20:23] Don Early: He answers the donkey and says,

[00:20:28] Emily Quann: "Because you have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand for then I would kill you." And the leap okay, it's one thing to beat it, but then just immediately leap to, "I'm going to kill you."

[00:20:41] Don Early: Yeah, because we're talking about hubris really. We're talking about pride. He w his, his man feelings were hurt.

[00:20:48] Emily Quann: And then the ass talks again, the talking ass. "Am I not your ass that you have ridden all your life to this very day? Did I ever do such things to you? And he said, no,"

[00:21:02] Jeremy Spray: He said no.

[00:21:03] Don Early: And he said no. 

[00:21:03] Emily Quann: He said, no,

[00:21:04] Don Early: Nope. It's just such an interesting story. " Then the Lord opens the eyes of Balaam and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his sword drawn in his hand and he bowed his head and fell on his face. Then the Satan rebukes Balaam and speaks for his master, the Lord, "Why have you struck your ass three times? Behold, I come here to oppose you because your way is evil in my eyes. And the ass saw me. If she had not turned away from me, I surely would have killed you right then and let her go." 

[00:21:46] And so he agrees and, lesson learned. 

[00:21:50] Emily Quann: I just also, and with so many Bible stories, I just, I just think, there are easier ways to teach a lesson.

[00:22:01] Jeremy Spray: Yes.

[00:22:02] Emily Quann: We're going to find the trickiest and the hardest one to do.

[00:22:07] Don Early: This is, we're teeing up Job here in a second. And this brings a point that I've kind of been having for a long time with this God of the Hebrew Bible. He's a fucking asshole. 

[00:22:22] Emily Quann: Yeah. I don't like Old Testament God. He's so mean.

[00:22:26] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. 

[00:22:26] Don Early: It's not just mean. 

[00:22:28] Emily Quann: Scary, and changes his mind. And you never know what he's thinking and you don't know. I don't know. Rules change all the time. 

[00:22:37] Don Early: The Satan shows up, but only the donkey can see him on purpose.

[00:22:44] Emily Quann: Yeah. It's kind of a very subtle hint. Oh, my donkey has stopped moving.

[00:22:49] Don Early: Yeah. What are you supposed make of that? 

[00:22:51] Emily Quann: Should I think that there's an angel, who's going to kill me if I continue.

[00:22:57] Jeremy Spray: And in all fairness, it was not that that the donkey stopped. The donkey crushed him into a wall, crushing his foot. Like the donkey was like, we're not moving. Like, it was very clear in the way that it's written that it's not the "ass won't move." "Ass is fighting you." It's 

[00:23:15] Don Early: ah, yeah, we don't get that in the passages that she quotes.

[00:23:21] Jeremy Spray: but that's th that's, that's what

[00:23:22] Emily Quann: Jeremy would live and Don and I would just be struck down. Don and I would not get the clue. We, we would not take the hint.

[00:23:33] Jeremy Spray: Well, I I don't even, it's not so much about the survivor or even understanding the passage. It's the way that it's written again. Right? Like, like going back to the way I was seeing it earlier, they're very deliberate with the way these come up across, even the way the animals are depicted. Daniel's four headed leopard with four wings, right?

[00:23:54] The, the body of a lion with the, with the wings of eagles, like these are very specific images that are coming up. It's not just random animal pieces. So this is another one. Even in the story of Balaam,

[00:24:06] Don Early: Yeah.

[00:24:07] Jeremy Spray: He's riding his donkey, the donkey, doesn't say, I'm not going anymore. The donkey takes actions. Takes very specific actions that like, I don't know what they mean, but I'm guessing they mean something. To have a donkey crush your foot probably in the context of the time means something that, that has a particular effect. That's and that's what, when I'm choosing to read into it, because. That's a very specific word. It's a very, like, it was, if I was watching a video and I'd say, oh, the donkey stopped or, or, oh yeah, no, the donkey actually turned into a wall. That's one thing to write that down with that kind of detail. That's a different thing.

[00:24:42] Don Early: Sure. 

[00:24:43] Emily Quann: Oh, I like your perspective, Jeremy.

[00:24:48] Don Early: I mean, yeah, it's all. It's all intentional. So, you know, what is that intention? Absolutely. The leader on, they talk about and we'll get in to more of this line of thought, but how, uh, David King David orders, the census orders, a census of the people it's about a 1000 BCE orders, a census of, uh, the Israelites in order to tax them, to raise taxes, uh, for the nation.

[00:25:15] And most of Israel was dead set against this. 

[00:25:20] Um, and this was not popular whatsoever, but it came from the king.

[00:25:25] Right. And I have 

[00:25:28] Jeremy Spray: So how 

[00:25:28] Don Early: Even, even, yeah. That's. Ooh. So how do you oppose the king without opposing the king? Divine connection with the God's appointed or whatever.

[00:25:39] And and so they come up with this notion of supernatural Satan is seducing away, or at least brainwashing David into, you know, we're influencing David to do this evil thing. It's not David, but then the writer, this is in Chronicles. First Chronicles, the writers still says, David is a hundred percent personally responsible.

[00:26:06] Jeremy Spray: Totally calls him out on it. He was influenced and then he made his mind up.

[00:26:10] Don Early: Yeah. Still his fault.

[00:26:14] Jeremy Spray: It's still his fault. Can't can't alienate everyone.

[00:26:17] Job

[00:26:17] Don Early: Yeah. So now let's get into Job. This is, I thought we would, at some point have an entire episode on Job, but we might deal with everything that we need to deal with Job here. Job is a semi well-known story, but but, and we go into it in pretty good detail in this chapter. Jeremy, I know you're pretty familiar with Job, but what's your background with this?

[00:26:43] Jeremy Spray: Uh, yeah. So Job is, is one of those first mentions without prereading of Satan with the term, right? The adversary of Satan. And so this was one of those that I was able to dive into, uh, when I was much younger doing a lot of the Bible studies and really getting into who this character was, the Satan, the devil did it in everything that was about it.

[00:27:06] But the thing that we got the most out of it was that, like you were saying, Emily, this is Old Testament God. And what I mean by that of the Old Testament God is I see. I see very two very solid depictions of who Yahweh is and who God is. And in Old Testament versus New Testament and the Old Testament God is vengeful.

[00:27:29] He is emotional. He is spiteful and he is willing to be Old Gods style with humans. He, he, he is not the hundred percent loving, benevolent kind. He is demanding. He is requiring of worship and he does, uh, occasionally toy with us because he can, and, uh, Job is, is one of those chapters that you can look at in the Bible and, and point right to it and go see he's making it happen.

[00:27:59] Don Early: Yeah,

[00:28:00] Jeremy Spray: Uh, do you want a basic summary of,

[00:28:03] Don Early: No, I think we're going to, we're going to dive into how she breaks it out a bit. But I wanted to get your perspective because that's a pretty typical, uh, again Christian teaching about the Old Testament. We get this understanding of Old Testament God, right? This is not the case for people who are Jewish.

[00:28:23] They have a very different understanding of same texts. But they have contexts that the Christians don't, go into, um, they have context in history and tradition that, you know, and, and I think that's why we're seeing, and that's the whole point of this book is that the Christians have created this narrative and so on, but

[00:28:42] Jeremy Spray: Without the, without the actual context. 

[00:28:44] Don Early: Yeah. So this is how it's happening. Because one thing that I'm learning that's happening for me right now is that New Testament God's turning out the same way as Old Testament God.

[00:28:56] Jeremy Spray: Yeah.

[00:28:56] Don Early: Once we start getting into this and you sorta understanding the us versus them. God loves who? Very specific people.

[00:29:06] Jeremy Spray: Yeah.

[00:29:08] Don Early: So the Book of Job starts out with this divine council convening of angels. And among these individuals, you know, sons of God, so divine being, is a character named the Satan, or Satan. 

[00:29:25] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. 

[00:29:26] Don Early: And God says, where you been? What are you doing? And, he says, I've been roaming the earth to, and fro, up and down. And once again, like what you said. There's some intentionality going on there about how they wrote that and

[00:29:43] Emily Quann: Right, because who were the people that were roaming? The earth or roaming their land,

[00:29:49] Don Early: Yeah. 

[00:29:50] Emily Quann: Literally their adversaries.

[00:29:54] Don Early: But also that the Satan was the term was sort of a play on the Hebrew word for, "to roam."

[00:30:04] Jeremy Spray: Right. 

[00:30:05] Don Early: To wander. It would not necessarily wander, but to Rome to and fro, to me, sounds like there's a purpose, not just aimless, wandering. Because as we find out that the Satan, this character, the Satan is really God's secret police.

[00:30:22] Jeremy Spray: Right. 

[00:30:23] Don Early: He is God's intelligence spy down there and reports back on the, appropriate day or according, on the day or whatever. However, they say that. And it comes up that God, in my opinion, as I read it, God is boasting about this follower who is completely faithful to God, which is Job.

[00:30:50] And I think it's because I think the Satan is also saying, "Well, how do you know these people really follow you for the reasons you think they do? Let's put it to the test. Don't just assume." And so, God says, "All right, well, let's take this guy, Job. He's like, perfect. What are you going to do? And the Satan says, 

[00:31:11] Emily Quann: It becomes like a bet.

[00:31:14] Don Early: "Here's an idea. Take away his stuff. All of it. Get rid of all of his stuff and he will curse you to your face." And God says, 'You're on, we'll take this bet. I give you the authority, Mr. Satan, over all of that belongs to Job. Just let him live. Don't let him die."

[00:31:44] Jeremy Spray: Yeah, and don't affect him. Right. Don't don't affect his health.

[00:31:47] Don Early: Yeah, don't affect his health, let him live and don't harm him. And so. His children are killed in this horrible accident. His sheep or cattle are slaughtered. His wealth is lost. When I heard belongings, I didn't necessarily think family members, but I guess in ancient times, that's why 

[00:32:11] Jeremy Spray: That was, that was a belonging.

[00:32:13] Don Early: That's awful. So in the midst of experiencing loss, thinking about you really start to empathize of this horrible loss that this character Job is feeling and going through and it seemingly out of nowhere. And there's this natural tendency to go, "What did I do? Did I sin? Did I cause this somehow?

[00:32:41] Cause I, uh, you know, I wasn't good enough or,

[00:32:45] Emily Quann: Always, we as humans, we are always looking for where to place blame.

[00:32:50] Don Early: That's right. Yeah. But apparently as the story and the tradition goes, Job keeps his integrity and still worships the Lord and doesn't curse his name to his face. And so God says, "See, but you made me do this to this guy for no reason." And Satan says, 

[00:33:14] "Well, 

[00:33:15] Emily Quann: Let's up the ante.

[00:33:16] Don Early: Let's, up the pressure a bit." 

[00:33:20] "What you got in mind?"

[00:33:22] "Well, all a person really has is their health. Let's take away his health. Give him a sickness beyond sickness." And God says, "All right, you're on. But don't let him die. Don't take his life." 

[00:33:38] And so he does. The Satan causes a blight, plague, terrible sickness and Job endures this god-awfulness, literally. And the moral of the story is he keeps his faith. But when you read the passage though, they don't really get into Job's reaction to all this, which I think is the better part of the story. Job reacts, I think quite appropriately in my opinion.

[00:34:07] Jeremy Spray: For sure. 

[00:34:08] Don Early: But he still doesn't curse God to his face.

[00:34:14] And so the Lord God restores Job's wealth twice over and gives it, gives everything back. And then, and then again in itself. And I don't know at face value, I mean, we we've heard this story. If you've grown up in the church, you've probably heard some version of this story at some point or another. We're all supposed to take something away from this. I think probably the most obvious is stay faithful to God and you'll get yours.

[00:34:48] Jeremy Spray: He'll take care of you in the end.

[00:34:50] Don Early: Yeah, which okay. 

[00:34:55] Jeremy Spray: Th the Lord giveth the Lord taketh away. Right. That is a common phrase and quote it throughout culture, like that's right out of Job, like Job 21.

[00:35:03] That's that's that's one that I've, heard so many times as a explanation or, even excuse for why it might be causing the loss or even the gain.

[00:35:16] Don Early: And for what, why? We're not supposed to know the reasons God has. Right. But, back to the story though, this character, Satan, never goes against what God said. He always fulfills exactly what God told him to do.

[00:35:34] Jeremy Spray: Right. 

[00:35:34] Don Early: And so character is not even really evil. He's causing suffering. Maybe we don't really know why but in some ways he's questioning God. He's questioning, how do you know these people actually like you? And I think it's really interesting story, but let's back up and put this in a little bit more context. Job was written right around 550 BCE, and this is during the Babylonian exile. It's about 20, 25 years later that Cyrus the Great destroys Babylon and brings everybody back. So I guess in the context of the Babylonian exile, the story makes some sense to me. Terrible shit is happening to the Israelites and they seem pretty unprovoked.

[00:36:26] What did they do to deserve this? You know, and then stories. If they keep their faith the identity and integrity as God's chosen people, God will restore them twofold or, by multiple. So in a larger context, it's always suffering now for the reward later. That's a theme we get for thousands of years. 

[00:36:49] Jeremy Spray: Right. 

[00:36:51] Emily Quann: Yeah.

[00:36:52] King David & the Census

[00:36:52] Don Early: Like you said, Emily, intimate. The Satan, this enemy, this adversary knows you. It's an internal conflict, it's an internal within Judaism. Incidentally though, about the whole King David thing, there's this idea in First Chronicles, also First Chronicles was written around the same time as Job, the whole story about the census and then taxation. And so the Satan must be influencing King David into this evil act, sowing chaos and disorder within Israel, that's what this Satan is doing.

[00:37:28] And God in the story is so pissed, he sends an angel of destruction and wipes out 70,000 Israelites with a plague and is barely restrained from wiping out the whole of Jerusalem.

[00:37:41] Jeremy Spray: Right. As, as judgment, right. For David making that the huge mistake.

[00:37:47] Don Early: What did the, What are the Israelites do to him? It's David's fault, not their fault. You know, we have a different context than that story was written, but, 

[00:37:58] Emily Quann: Yeah, I have the same issues that you do Don, uh, come on. Why that. 

[00:38:03] Jeremy Spray: So there's, there's some things that I'd, I definitely paint over. Like like my literary mind or just hearing I go, oh, that makes sense because. Right. Like David is, in my mind, I made that made sense because he is the king. He was the appointed one by God. Therefore, those who suffer are those under him.

[00:38:23] Wouldn't be David directly. David had his own suffering that happened with his mental illness and breaks and, and dealing with the wives and whatnot. Uh, but it was the very much the, you thought you were above this, I've just killed half of your people. Right. And, and the, and the plague that did that and, and those who are suffering and in the loss of that can tear their garments and go, "The king because of this, he, he was, he was the reason for this," which allowed them to have that dissent. Which would normally be treason, but do it in the, in the sake of, uh, you know, their own speech, they, their own freedom of communication because they could express it as because of your influence. And then you didn't do this to me, God, this did this to me because of you. Right. And that, that punishment back and forth.

[00:39:12] So that's, that's where I put it together. In my head of the, he was being held responsible for all the, the problems that were caused here. Because when given a chance, we will always look for something to blame as Emily just pointed out. And we tend to point to our leaders first, almost always like, oh, well you probably did it. You're the one in charge. 

[00:39:32] Return from Exile - Cyrus the Great

[00:39:32] Don Early: Yeah. I think you're probably really close on that. That makes a lot of sense. And I mean, it's actually a pretty good segue. Cause again, 539 BCE Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon and lets the Israelites go back to, to Judea. 

[00:39:50] Jeremy Spray: Yeah, they, they got it back. 

[00:39:53] Don Early: He's a, he's a booster, gives him some money to, uh, and support to rebuild the temple that the Babylonians had sacked and destroyed. And you know, Cyrus is, again, we've talked about this before. He was pretty cool with Judaism. He thought, people should be able to worship the way they want.

[00:40:11] But we think this is a "return from exile" story, and yay. We get to go home and it's been so awful out there and now we're going to come and, restore things to way they should be.

[00:40:24] And the king here is the great king is a supportive and you know, we're going to get positions of power to rule our own thing and stuff. And then the, uh, Israelites who are left behind, were like, "Hang on a minute. We've been here this whole time."

[00:40:43] Jeremy Spray: Right. 

[00:40:44] Don Early: Fuck you. And in fact, it seems like you're pretty close and chummy chummy with these Persians, you know, with these the nations." um, and so. We have this story, uh, in this conflict of, the threat of assimilation the Jewish identity. And, and, and to me, like if I was to over-simplify the rest of the chapter that talks about the internal conflicts within the Israelites, 

[00:41:20] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. 

[00:41:21] Don Early: It happens to be around Jewish identity, truly Jewish, being threatened by assimilation and the dilution of the Jewish identity by incorporating into the society at large. You know, they talked a little bit more later on, closer to the time Jesus of Hellenizing Jews who were real big fans of the idea of actually participating in the culture of the Greek system, learning Greek, and actually participating in the Olympics and, getting, 

[00:42:03] Jeremy Spray: getting 

[00:42:03] Don Early: own coins. 

[00:42:05] Jeremy Spray: own coins. Yeah.

[00:42:06] Don Early: Yeah. Being able to run their own town. But that's where this conflict keeps coming back to. There's going to be a certain group. Now she goes quite a bit into talking about how most of these people who most of these groups of Jews of the Jewish people was pretty small. A fringe minority of people who would say, well, we're really the real God's

[00:42:35] Emily Quann: Yeah, we're the real ones. Not you over there.

[00:42:39] Don Early: These apostates. Yeah. And we have the Maccabean war. The Maccabites, they were in favor of moving away from assimilation. They wanted to keep Israel pure. They wanted to keep it separate from, the, 

[00:42:55] Jeremy Spray: From the nations. Right. Get back back to that old school mindset, which is a lot of how they treated it. It's like, well, that's, that's kind of the old minds of us versus them, but they, they, they still believe that it was the pure way to do it. That that was, it was all about keeping Israel, Israel, and everyone else can F off. It's just us.

[00:43:17] Don Early: Yeah. And so the ruling party are the Pharisees and they identify more with their Maccabean ancestors, feeling that Israel should be governed by religious law and not joining or assimilating with the nations. And, as I'm reading this and reflecting on topics we've covered previously, already, particularly when we get to the Essenes where, 

[00:43:47] The Essenes

[00:43:47] Emily Quann: Oh the Essenes. So hardcore.

[00:43:50] Don Early: A group of monastic Jews, who retreat to the caves and the wilderness dress purely in white, go celibate give up all their wealth to the leaders and enter into a new covenant because the old covenant is basically null and void because of the apostate Jewish people at large completely have gone rogue and under the influence

[00:44:17] Emily Quann: They've tainted the old covenant. 

[00:44:19] Don Early: Yeah So we've gotta have a new one.

[00:44:22] Jeremy Spray: Gotta have a new one.

[00:44:23] Don Early: These people have this cosmology. The Essenes, they brought this this whole thing about angels and demons warring and that being a cosmic battle between God and Satan. And how that applies to you personally, the choices in your own heart, there's this conflict inside and you are participating in this cosmic battle. So that one day there will be a final judgment. And this is all starting to sound. So, so familiar to me, not just from the Christian thing that we've been talking about, but the Zoroastrians!

[00:45:07] Jeremy Spray: Uh huh.

[00:45:09] Don Early: Thought we weren't assimilating. I thought we weren't, you know, to set the Jewish identity aside and make it pure, but let's grab Zoroastrianism and put it right there in the center too, but we're not going to call it that. I would like to learn more about how, that isn't the case.

[00:45:31] Emily Quann: Well reading it, reading it too. I got the feeling that it wasn't so much a singular character. She, she mentioned just energy.

[00:45:42] Don Early: Yeah. So she does go in quite a bit of detail about the prince of light versus the prince of darkness. Again sounds a lot like Ahriman to me,

[00:45:55] Emily Quann: Right. This, this cosmic bad energy versus this good energy that's out there.

[00:46:03] Don Early: Yeah. And yeah, let's see here. Where are we at? I had something.

[00:46:09] Emily Quann: Essenes and how hardcore they are.

[00:46:12] Jeremy Spray: And that they came up with a lot of the conversation of the Nephilim. That was one that I wanted to bring up the sons of man 

[00:46:21] Don Early: Yeah. So we get into quite a bit, before we get to the Essenes, we spend quite a bit of time in the book of Enoch and Jubilees. 

[00:46:31] Jeremy Spray: Yeah,

[00:46:32] Emily Quann: Oh yeah. 

[00:46:34] Jeremy Spray: I was going to bring that up. There was a lot of time spent in the Apocrypha, which for me, it took me a little bit because I was like, I don't remember this. I don't. How do I not remember this? I don't remember this. And then she went in, she was like, oh, it's Apocrypha. This isn't a part of the old school Bible. This is a different book 

[00:46:51] Don Early: Yeah. 

[00:46:52] Jeremy Spray: There we go

[00:46:53] Don Early: And the reason being is that it tended to lift one group of Jewish people up over the other, instead of Israel as a whole, as all the canonical Hebrew scriptures do.

[00:47:10] Jeremy Spray: Right. 

[00:47:11] Emily Quann: Except she did say that there was one book that she thought should be, uh, not considered Apocrypha and actually part of the Hebrew Bible. I'm going to see if I can find it. 

[00:47:24] Jeremy Spray: She made a reference to Daniel, but she, but she was mostly, she was giving context for why Daniel was not in the Apocrypha. She mentioned that there were several different, uh, similar stories and, and even the timeline was written differently, but Daniel was another one of those examples of lifting up Israel as a whole, and it did acknowledge that there was others, even supernatural beings, but not so much to the detail that the Apocrypha went. Which is why she, I believe she mentioned that was why I did shows up in the Hebrew Bible the way she described it.

[00:47:57] Emily Quann: Okay. That was it. Yeah. It was the book of Daniel, which she said was, yeah, it came across as a bit different than the others. 

[00:48:04] 1 Enoch - The Book of the Watchers

[00:48:04] Don Early: Yeah. So the book of the Watchers, that is some incredible mythology.

[00:48:10] Emily Quann: Have you read that?

[00:48:11] Don Early: I have, by the way. And I really, really wish if there is a way to do a dramatic reading of this, it is fucking hilarious in my opinion.

[00:48:22] Emily Quann: I didn't think hilarious was the word you were going to go for there,

[00:48:26] Jeremy Spray: Yeah, threw me off too. I wasn't ready for that one.

[00:48:29] Don Early: It is, yeah, Cindy and I, we, uh, we downloaded it cause we were talking you know, we were reading some background for another one of our books and it brought up the Book of Enoch, or First Enoch and we're like, well, let's download it, let's read it. And so she did and I mean, it's very, very like Revelation-y. It's, it's very evocative but just the way. It's written as it's hilarious. If you just take it it's good stuff. Um, what I thought was really interesting, so she talks about, so the story is of course that the Watchers, these group of angels who are designated to watch over humanity over the earth, they're watching the human women and they're, looking,

[00:49:16] Emily Quann: They like what they 

[00:49:17] Don Early: see.

[00:49:17] Jeremy Spray: what see, 

[00:49:18] Don Early: And so they, they descend down to, uh, to earth and mate with these women, seduce them probably closer to raping them, but it, depending on the story, but it you know, the women didn't have a lot of choice back then. But we get this constant theme of seduction, lust, moral depravity, greed. And so the offspring between these Watchers, these angels and these human women are these giants called Nephilim. Half angels. And they've, they're described in a number of ways and all this is taken from a very small comment, 

[00:50:01] Jeremy Spray: Like a throw away line in 

[00:50:02] Don Early: Genesis about, the angels looked upon earth and saw that their human women were fair. Kay, let's run with that. They teach humanity metallurgy and the secret knowings of things, and, and, astrology and, you know, so they create weapons of metal and jewelry and, 

[00:50:22] Jeremy Spray: Cosmetics.

[00:50:23] Don Early: Cosmetics. Yes, yes. Saucy cosmetics. 

[00:50:28] Jeremy Spray: I saw the mummy. I remember Nefertete painting her eyes with the gold. That was a.

[00:50:33] Don Early: And then Jubilees kind of retells the story and it's sort of a different way as well. But the whole idea is that the Nephilim, these giants, these offspring are terrible and they're corrupting and they are, again, half divine, half human. So the commentary. This is obviously satirical.

[00:50:55] This is a satirical writing about certain things, but the questions come up, who are they writing about? One interpretation was, well, the Greeks! The Greek rulers from many, for many, many years have always claimed the Kings were descended from the gods and of human women. They were called champions. So this could be a critique on the quote, unquote divineness or half divineness of the empire in which, they're being subjugated. And so you get this sort of monstrous imagery with that. And I think that's a pretty apt thing. Cause they do the same thing in Revelation where a lot of what they're talking about seems to be, historically talking probably around Nero and in the Caesar. So we could have that in, in this context. So then you have, again, Israel versus the nations, but another interpretation were these Jewish leaders, the priestly class or whatnot that had been seduced by assimilation and marrying Gentile women. Having this elevated sort of holy status with God, and yet then marrying outside of that and contaminating that. And, you know, so it could be, uh, a critique on, on internal conflict. And she says either one could be correct.

[00:52:32] But that I thought was really interesting. So whenever they talk about the enemy within and they're referring to other Israelites, like I said, it's, it's always this divine being that is superhuman. It's never monstrous. It's never, this hideous thing. It's always wicked powerful and super cunning, 

[00:53:00] Jeremy Spray: Right. But never, never attacking mankind or with the intention of devastating mankind. Right. Still following the will of God, still, still following and working with God.

[00:53:10] Don Early: Well, not the Watchers though. Watchers. Yeah. Watchers are kind of doing their own thing. They're led by different characters as well. Azazel is one that comes up. 

[00:53:21] Jeremy Spray: Yup. 

[00:53:22] Don Early: There are many names that comes out and it does get a little bit confusing as to who is supposed to be who, when you're reading this book. But like I say, if there's a way for us to dramatic reading on that, on this podcast would

[00:53:33] Jeremy Spray: But you just said a really good term that comes out of that. That was one of those pieces that jumped out to me, the adversary who is known by many names, right? Like I remember that being taught to me as, Satan comes in many forms and has many names. And they use that verse and like spoken out of, Beezlebub and Azazel and the Devil and Belial and, and all of these things.

[00:53:57] But now when I take that context out of being a person and the adversary comes from many names, many directions, especially in the context of this, you now have a very clear. If you're trying to look for who the bad guy is, it's that group and it's that group and it's that group. And it's those people and it's that king and it's those people and it's your fucking wife and it's your wife. And just like just pointing the whole thing out of like, these are what is causing your problems. 

[00:54:27] Don Early: Yeah. 

[00:54:27] Jeremy Spray: These are your adversaries,

[00:54:29] Don Early: Yeah. One of those names is, Mastema or Mastema, which, uh, is a Hebrew term for hatred. So that's Jubilees and, the book of the Watchers, First Enoch .It's a story that predates Noah. Predates Abraham, I believe as the story goes. A lot of things about the Devil comes out of that. Christianity has glommed on to those two books, to spin that mythology.

[00:54:55] And of course they mentioned in 2000, you know, almost 2000 years later, John Milton, brings a lot of that together and creates Lucifer as his protagonist in his Paradise Lost story,

[00:55:06] Jeremy Spray: In Paradise Lost right? Yeah. 

[00:55:08] Emily Quann: I haven't read that. Have you read that?

[00:55:10] Jeremy Spray: No, 

[00:55:10] Don Early: I I don't think I have read it. Actually. I love how they said how she says had Satan not already existed in Jewish tradition, the Essenes would invented 

[00:55:21] Emily Quann: The Essenes would have invented him.

[00:55:25] Jeremy Spray: For sure.

[00:55:26] Don Early: Okay. So here's where I kind of wanted to culminate on that. So the Essenes again splinter group monastic, they're very well-known. I think it was Pliny the Elder. There were other well-known writers of the time that referred to the Essenes. They had 

[00:55:42] Emily Quann: Didn't Josephus?

[00:55:44] Also. Yeah. 

[00:55:45] Don Early: Great deal of respect for how holy they were. And, 

[00:55:49] Jeremy Spray: Air quotes. I like you did the air quote. Holy.

[00:55:51] Emily Quann: So Josephus. 

[00:55:53] Don Early: That they really felt that the Book of the Watchers, the First Enoch and the Jubilees were very sacred texts. The thing is, is when you were initiated into the Essenes, this is very exclusive, very Jewish community, you were then taught the secrets of angeology, the the names of the angels and, 

[00:56:16] Emily Quann: If you can make it through your probation period. 

[00:56:19] Jeremy Spray: Don't you dare swear. 

[00:56:21] Emily Quann: Good Lord. 

[00:56:23] Don Early: The other thing that they stressed about that is that it's not enough to be Jewish anymore. Okay. You can be, you have to be a Jew. We're going to just take that as a given. Now you have to also be moral. Like super moral. 

[00:56:36] Jeremy Spray: Right. 

[00:56:37] The Zoroastrian Connection?

[00:56:37] Don Early: So they bring in this whole notion, again, the Prince of Light versus the Prince of Darkness. Yeah, it brings in the cosmic battle between God and Satan center to their cosmology and politics. All the other Israelites are apostates. Page 57, 

[00:56:53] " These devout and passionate sectarians saw the foreign occupation of Palestine and the accommodation of the majority of Jews to that occupation as evidence that the forces of evil had taken over the world and in the form of Satan, Mastema or the Prince of Darkness infiltrated and taken over God's own people, turning most of them into the allies of the evil one."

[00:57:19] Jeremy Spray: Yeah. 

[00:57:21] Don Early: What brings it together for me that I keep just questioning. I keep wondering. you know, there's Satan versus God, it's this, everybody else is seduced by, the Satan or whatnot. It belongs to damnation. But then they bring it together into this quote, 1 QS.

[00:57:41] I'm not sure what that stands for, 4:12-13.

[00:57:44] Emily Quann: Yeah. I didn't know either.

[00:57:46] Don Early: Uh, it's, it's again, one of the dead sea scrolls, I think, or, um, external extra biblical stuff. 

[00:57:53] "The spirits of truth and falsehood struggle within the human heart, according to his share in truth and right. Thus, a man hates lies. And according to his share in a lot of deceit, thus, he hates the truth." 

[00:58:09] That's Zoroastriansim. The worst sin was lies. You remember the Prince of Darkness. It was all about lie though, the great lie. And so we have this Prince of Darkness and I just, I keep thinking, like here's a group of people who are being very, very strict about being Jewish and yet also have nearly identical cosmology to the Zoroastrianisms. The Zoroastrians. It's just is really, really interesting and dumbfounding to me. 

[00:58:52] Jeremy Spray: I was just trying to figure out what, what, what made it, so I think you were about to answer this. What made it so dumbfounding? was catching you on it?

[00:58:58] Don Early: Well, I think it's just the hypocrisy of it. That is, 

[00:59:02] Emily Quann: We're pure, but yet our ideas are coming from this

[00:59:07] Don Early: Well, and of course they're never going to see that and 

[00:59:09] Emily Quann: Right. 

[00:59:10] Don Early: Entirely probable that the evolution of those thoughts have had centuries to culminate into something that feels completely original within their own context. Um, none of this is "This came from that." Just interesting that it looks or much

[00:59:30] Emily Quann: That it's very similar.

[00:59:32] Don Early: Yeah. Using very similar language as well with similar values, so they go on to then say, okay, so the Essenes were well-known, they were famous as this fringe group of people, uh, who were very, very exclusive, very exclusive. But then you had the followers of Jesus who had similar ideas, particularly cosmology-wise, but not so much on the exclusive side of things.

[01:00:04] You know, they, they start out

[01:00:06] Emily Quann: Right. 

[01:00:07] Don Early: is more, this is more of an internal, you know, Jewish issue that we're trying to work out. But as time goes on that ethnic identity and, and political, the nation part of thing of Israel is being minimized more and more. And it's that moral identification. It's that religious identification as being chosen. So, you know, Gentiles, Jesus' his followers would have to incorporate more and more of the Gentile world, uh, in order just to survive. 

[01:00:41] Jeremy Spray: I'm interested to see where it's going to continue to go, because the, the Essenes were, were one of those that when I heard it and saw the way that they went and the way they put it together, again, kind of made a bit of the, the Zoroastrian connection, but mostly saw that almost out of a necessity for justifying the need to separate or justifying the need to stay put. That all of us would be coming together. And it got me a little bit, like I really totally believed that if there was not a Satan adversary or Satan character or Prince of Light/Prince of Darkness ahead of time that they would have come up with one and kind of made me think about how the Zoroastrians did it.

[01:01:26] Right. How'd that get all put together? Was it the same deal? Was it, was it the, we needed something to necessitate this type of separation to help me keep us from them. And I just, it started, it started sounding like it's a bit of a human nature thing, and I thought I found that to be really, really interesting. So I'm curious to see what other pieces of the human nature elements of our creation of Satan is going to show up a bit more inside the, this biblical study.

[01:01:56] Don Early: For sure. Yeah. The other thing is, is we've come now to a point where the evolution of this character of the Satan, is more and more referring to a singular cosmic being. 

[01:02:09] Jeremy Spray: Person. Yeah,

[01:02:10] Don Early: Rather than it was early on.

[01:02:13] Jeremy Spray: It's to be cool. I'm excited about it. 

[01:02:16] Emily Quann: I got into this much faster than, uh, the intro and chapter one. And I'm excited for chapter three. That's going to get more into the specific gospels again, this didn't really touch on,

[01:02:28] Don Early: Yeah.

[01:02:29] Emily Quann: uh, like, so chapter one was Gospel of Mark. I think next one was Matthew.

[01:02:36] Yeah. 

[01:02:37] Don Early: So yeah, chapter three is Matthew's Campaign Against the Pharisees: Deploying the Devil.

[01:02:45] Jeremy Spray: Nice 

[01:02:46] Emily Quann: Deployed. 

[01:02:50] Don Early: All right. Well thank you everybody. And we will capture you. We will, we will capture you capture 

[01:02:57] Jeremy Spray: You're going to capture us. There's something.

[01:02:59] Don Early: I'm going to deploy the devil is what I'm going to do. Use a Matthew. All right folks.

[01:03:05] Emily Quann: Alright, bye.

[01:03:07] Conclusion

[01:03:07] Don Early: While Satan or the Satan has always been an adversarial role towards humans, for the Israelites and the early Christians, he was also an insider. Satan was one of us working against us. It's personal. It's intimate. And when betrayal and resentment is felt that close. By someone that close the wounds become nearly unhealable. Unforgivable. 

[01:03:39] For many, Jesus was the long awaited Messiah. How could our fellow Jews reject him to the point of torture and execution? Does this mean he was not the Messiah. No, no, no, no, no. He, he had to be. But how. Only by putting this conflict on a cosmic scale could any of this make any sense. 

[01:04:04] An invisible presence must be at work to sabotage what our brilliant, inspirational, and dear, dear friend came to build. 

[01:04:13] In the next episode, we're going to get context around the gospel of Matthew written a generation after Mark. There's been time to somewhat recover from the Jewish rebellion that was quelled by the Romans. Followers of Jesus face intense criticism by the Jewish leaders, particularly in the light of Mark's gospel. 

[01:04:35] Someone has to step up and address the accusations, the other writings about Jesus being passed around, and set the record straight. The author of Matthew knows exactly who he wants to target. 

[01:04:49] Outro

[01:04:49] Don Early: You are listening to The Devil You Don't Know podcast. We are reading the book, The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonize Jews, Pagans, and Heretics by Elaine Pagels. Tune in next time for our discussion on chapter three: Matthew's Campaign Against the Pharisees: Deploying the Devil. 

[01:05:11] Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, so you get every new episode automatically. And if you are enjoying this podcast, please, please, please head on over to Apple Podcasts or Podchaser to rate and review the show. Links to do just that are in this episode's show description. 

[01:05:30] Thank you so much for listening. And remember the devil you don't know is the devil someone else does. Ask questions, seek the greater context. This is the end. 

[01:05:44] Of the episode.