Satan, with little biblical support, is often said to be the Devil. This idea evolved  over centuries from early medieval Christianity. Of all the religions in the world, only the Christians and Moslems, and some Jews, believe in the existence of such a being.

     The first mention of a Devil was not in Christianity. Rather, he began as the Zoroastrian demon figure, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, who opposed the Zoroastrian creator god and tempted humans. This idea was adopted by the Jewish Kabbalists  who called him Satan and portrayed him as a demon living in a demonic realm.

    The Devil, a such, may not exist, yet his influence has increased across North America and South America in the decades following the screening of the film Rosemary’s Baby. More and more unusual or unexplained events are being identified as “Satanic” by the superstitious  masses, Christian and otherwise.

     In the Old Testament, Satan is not the proper name of a particular being. Nor does  satan to a demonic being - the enemy of God.  In its original application, the word ’satan or satanel’ is a common noun meaning "an adversary, one who opposes something".   In I Samuel 29:4, 11 Samuel 19:22, 1 Kings 5:4, 14, 23, 25, he is a human being who is an adversary

     There nothing in these texts to suggest that being a satan, or adversary, was the permanent function of a particular angel.  Evidently this being was chosen ad hoc for the occasion. 

     In Psalms 109:6-9 we read: "Give him over to wickedness, and let Satan stand at his right hand to accuse him.  When he is  taken to court, let his plea be considered a wrong, and let the court find him guilty.  Let his days be few, and let another take his office.  Here the word Satan is used of  a prosecutor in a court of law.

    Though he is mentioned and described in countless stories over the centuries, very little is written about Satan anywhere in the Old Testament., the major exception is found in the book of Job, where he asks for, and receives permission from God, to test the faith of someone.

     Satan was first used as the appellation of a particular angel around 530 BC. Then he shewed me Joshua the high-priest standing before the angel of the LORD, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.  And the LORD said unto Satan, 'The LORD rebuke thee, Satan, the LORD rebuke thee who hast put Jerusalem to trial'.  " - Zechariah 3:1-2

      And then in Job:

Now there was a day when the members of the court of heaven came to the presence of the LORD, and Satan was also among them.  And the LORD asked Satan, 'Where have you been?' And Satan answered the LORD and said, 'Roaming over the Earth, from end to end.' And the LORD asked Satan, ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job? There is none like him on the Earth, a perfect and upright man, one who feareth God, and avoids evil?'  And Satan answered the LORD, and said, 'Doth Job reverence God for nothing? Hast thou not hedged him round on every side with your protection, his household and all that he hath? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, his cattle are spread over the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face'  And the LORD said unto Satan, 'So be it. All that he hath is in thy hands, only he himself you must not touch.  So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.  - Job 1:6-12  

     In The Book of Job, the angel known as Satan is acting as the prosecutor for the celestial court.  He questions Job's integrity and suggests to the Lord that he be tested.  Here he is clearly subordinate to God who does not act without God's permission. Here Satan is saying that Job only loves God because God has blessed him with a prosperous life, and that if these blessings were removed, Job would readily curse God - a reasonable, if somewhat cynical, position. God tells him to test Job and Satan went to work testing him.

     To support their position, Fundamentalist ministers quote their two favorite "Devil" passages: Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14.   

     Isaiah 14 says: How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:   I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. - Isaiah 14:12-15

    This sounds like the Devil we heard about in Sunday School.  This is because so many Christians have ugnored verse 4, the first verse of this section, which says that the entire secton is ranting against the King of Babylon.  Thou shalt take up this song of derision against the king of Babylon, and say, 'How hath thy oppression ceased! Thy golden city at an end!

    The phrase 'the mount of the covenant, etc.' is generally understood by Bible scholars as a reference to the fact that the King of Babylon believed  the gods were supposed to meet in the northern hills

     This chapter has nothing to do with the Devil or Satan. It is a taunting speech directed against the King of Babylon who was then the enemy of Jerusalem. 

      Now lets look at Ezekiel.

Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God . . . Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. - from Ezekiel 28:2-15

     The primary error of  the Fundamentalists is that they choose to ignore the very first verse which says who this section is all about. It says "Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre."

     All this was being said about an earthly king, not the Devil or Satan. .  This is supported by chapter 27  of Ezekiel and the preceding parts of chapter 28 which are all about the city kingdom of Tyre.

     The Devil, as the Christians know him, is not found in the Old Testament.  It is in the New Testament that Satan emerges as the personification of evil, as an independent personality.  And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. - Matthew 3:17       

     Elsewhere in the New Testment he is called “the author of evil.” The fullest, description of hin is found in Revelation 12:9 that anctent serpent called the Devil and Satan which deceived the whole world. He was cast into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. 

        It is this Fundamentalist Christian idea of Satan which has entered into popular lore

    How did the changed description of Satan come into existence between the close of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament?
    About 1000 B.C. the teachings’of Zoroasterism arose in Persia. Contained in these teachings is the concept that polarity exists in everything - good and evil, up and down, hot and cold, light and darkness.  The opposing deities were personified as Ahura-Mazda and Abriman. One being evolution and the other being involution.(good and evil).  The Law of Zoroaster taught that there was always an exchange taking place between these two extremes. Through the centuries, the higher truths of these teachings were lost and replaced by the mythology of the ignorant masses, who came to believe that there actually were two gods - one good and one evil. The two gods, together with their respective angels, were at war with one another and the Earth was their battlefield. This simplistic interpretation of Zoroaster’s teachings was absorbed by the Jews while they were held captive by the Persians 600 BC to 400 BC.
   The writers of the New Testament were obviously influenced by their surroundings and used elements from this religious hodgepodge aound them to express their ideas. Either we take these passages as allegories, or we find a conflict between the New Testament and  the Old Testament.      

    There is only one force in the cosmos and that force is God. Despite what the superstitious may claim, there can be no anti-God, no Devil. The highest concept of God is of one who is omniscient, omnipotent, and all good.  Being omniscient, God had to know, beforehand, what choices Satan would make. Being omnipotent, God has the power to stop him or refuse to create him in the first place, and, being all good, God would stop such a being before he became a threat to the harmony of the universe. It is not logical to believe in both God and a Devil. But the fact that there really is no Devil or Satan does not prevent people from believing in him or worshipping him.