Job on a dung heap
In the Hebrew Bible, as in mainstream Judaism to this day, Satan never appears as Western Christendom has come to know him, as the leader of an “evil empire”; an army of spirits who makes war on God and humankind alike. As he first appears in the Hebrew Bible, Satan is not necessarily evil, much less opposed to God. On the contrary, he appears in the Book of Numbers and in Job as one of God’s obedient servants—a messenger, or angel. In Hebrew, the angels were often called “sons of God” and were envisioned as the hierarchical ranks of a great army, or staff of a royal court.
In the biblical sources, the Hebrew term satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century BCE occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity.
Rabinowitz writes: “Nowhere is he in any sense a rival to God. …Satan is one of God’s many advocates and trusted servants, all of whom are endowed with special powers by God.”
As God’s advocate, Satan’s specific task is to act as an obstacle representing God by testing the Jewish people or other righteous people through temptation:
“Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel” (I Chronicles 21:1).
In the case of Jesus, Satan’s task may have been to deceive the Jewish people into following a false messiah and a false god, through his supernatural powers [Jesus’ miracles and healings]. Why? The reason was to serve as a test of the Jewish people’s fidelity. According to Scripture, neither God nor Satan wants the Jewish people to fail this test. But without humankind making a choice, there can be no reward or punishment. Therefore, the miracles and events recorded in the Gospels and Acts were deceptions, but Jesus, his disciples, and later believers were unaware of this fact.
–Michael Alter, Jewish counter-missionary, in his book, The Resurrection and Its Apologetics: Jesus’ Death and Burial, Volume 1, pp. 245-246
Gary: If this is true, the Jewish people passed God’s test with flying colors. According to some estimates, only 1,000 Jews converted to Christianity in the first century. There were 4-5 million Jews in the first century. One thousand conversions is therefore a drop, not in a bucket, but in a swimming pool.
And very few Jews have converted in the twenty centuries since.
.
.
.
.
.
.
End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 