bellsybop Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 I read this on another site and found it interesting enough to share with you all. Who has killed more, Satan or God? In a previous post, I counted the number of people that were killed by God in the Bible. I came up with 2,270,365, which, of course, greatly underestimates God's total death toll, since it only includes those killings for which specific numbers are given. No attempt was made to include the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc., with which the good book is filled. Still, 2 million is a respectable number even for world class killers. But how does this compare with Satan? How many did he kill in the Bible? Well I can only find ten, and even these he shares with God, since God allowed him to do it as a part of a bet. I'm talking about the seven sons and three daughters of Job. There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job ... And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. ... And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the LORD ... 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, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD. ... And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house...And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. -- Job 1:1-19 www.dwindlinginunbelief Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWIM Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 God kills this amount of folks in the bible -- Grand Total: 32,920,770 The Devil kills this many -- Grand Total: 0 You decide... http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?showtopic=20483 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted March 8, 2008 Super Moderator Share Posted March 8, 2008 Since god's in charge, he's killed everyone who's dead. All of 'em. - Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Captain Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 Within the scope of the Bible I've never really noticed Satan doing much bad stuff. Unless I'm forgetting something he is practically non-existent outside of the Creation and Job. In the New Testament he tempts Christ, and thats about it. After that he is just referenced by the apostles as the real source of all doubt and bad etc. Oh and the pipe dream that is Revelation I guess, but those are supposed to be future events. What exactly is so bad about this guy in the mythology? As the earlier posts pointed out ole Jehovah has a much more extensive resume of being an asshole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 Well I can only find ten, and even these he shares with God, since God allowed him to do it as a part of a bet. I'm talking about the seven sons and three daughters of Job.And then in the next verse right after, God gets tired of waiting on Satan to do his dirty work for him and just does it himself, verse 16, "While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; and I alone have escaped to tell you!†Yet Christians will conveniently ignore this part about the fire of God....And if God is going to get into all the fun himself, then what exactly was the point of God's bet? I thought the point of God's bet was that Satan couldn't get Job to be tempted, not God? And I thought God was not supposed to tempt anyone yet here he clearly is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bellsybop Posted March 8, 2008 Author Share Posted March 8, 2008 I think it's just pure ignorance how anyone can justify this as a loving god. Yet, I've posted this same thing on a religion thread from another forum and I know they will pick it to death to justify it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest eejay Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 Interesting. Keep us posted on the responses from the religious site. I don't really believe in either mythical creature, but I would have to say more people have been killed in the name of god, rather than satan. Besides one only need look at many of the wars that have been started in a particular god's name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoosier Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 I've read smewhere that the book of Job isnt actually refering to Satan but rather "the Satan" meaning not the actual devil wanting to torment Job but rather possibly some other adversary and and that the concept of the devil wasnt yet invented at the time. I'm thinking this was in a book by an author named Bart Erhman but I might be wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhampir Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 That makes it worse!! Not that I didn't know that, but it does make it seem even more like god doesn't give 2 shits about humanity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 I've read smewhere that the book of Job isnt actually refering to Satan but rather "the Satan" meaning not the actual devil wanting to torment Job but rather possibly some other adversary and and that the concept of the devil wasnt yet invented at the time. This is essentially correct. "Satan" is basically "adversary" and is really more of a title or position in the Jewish way of thinking. So Satan is an angel of god who plays the part of the adversary in the sense of something like a court prosecutor type figure but he is not the adversary of god (he works for god and in the story of Job it is clear that Satan never disobeys god at any point). The term "devil" is really more "evil one" which is obviously much different than "adversary" in the sense that "Satan" is being used above (although I imagine that someone being prosecuted might consider the prosecutor to be an evil one). Satan is supposed to be helping this god by testing people on his behalf in order to see if they are truly worthy of god's blessings (as we all know Job ultimately passed the test and got his stuff back and more). Obviously this reveals a less than all-knowing god (he appears to "know" but really he's just extremely sure of old Job...omniscience makes Satan utterly pointless and the story ludicrous but Job being totally faithful and proving YHWH's initial faith in Job to be a good thing is really what makes the story because if Job breaks Satan gets an "I told you so" moment which the ancient "reader" had to know just *might* happen unlike today). Of course what all powerful "god" would need an army of angels and an angel to lead them? It only makes sense that a "king" have a court and that court have "people" that serve various known tasks. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted March 13, 2008 Share Posted March 13, 2008 Gods don't kill people. People with gods kill people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sbwilley Posted March 17, 2008 Share Posted March 17, 2008 Within the scope of the Bible I've never really noticed Satan doing much bad stuff. Unless I'm forgetting something he is practically non-existent outside of the Creation and Job. In the New Testament he tempts Christ, and thats about it. After that he is just referenced by the apostles as the real source of all doubt and bad etc. Oh and the pipe dream that is Revelation I guess, but those are supposed to be future events. What exactly is so bad about this guy in the mythology? As the earlier posts pointed out ole Jehovah has a much more extensive resume of being an asshole. The Garden of Eden story doesn't mention "the Satan." See the other thread about Job. MWC was correct that "the Satan" worked for Yahweh, and was like a prosecuting attorney in his court. The idea of a devil as the enemy of god and man came much later in history, after many Zoroastrian and Greek ideas were syncretized in the NT. The story in Genesis Chapter 3 is very interesting because it begins by referring to the serpent as just another one of the "wild animals the LORD God had made." People who know and grew up with the NT mistake this creatue for the devil, Satan, Lucifer, because of the perceived deception. It's likely, however, that the serpents of the field were considered relatives of the dragons of the deep. Genesis includes the serpent as a sideways nod to other mythology involving those serpentine creatures. One such story was the Babylonian myth of creation resulting from primordial battle between Marduk and Tiamat. Marduk was the great conqueror god. He fought the dragon Tiamat, subdued her, and bifurcated her carcass. Half of her became the land, and half of her became the ocean. Similar stories existed in Akkadian and Caananite mythology. Many cultures had dragons in their creation myths. The Aborigines in Australia said a serpentine dragon traveled the land and shaped the rivers. The Hebrews were no different. A dragon named Leviathan is described in Job 41, and Yahweh had supposedly done battle with it. There are miscellaneous references to another one, named Rahab, in Psalms and the prophets. Gen 1:2 refers to a world hewn ot of water, not a world created out of nothingness. It's creation carved out of chaos, not creation ex nihilo. The dragon was the embodiment of chaos, and even in this verse it is evident. The Hebrew word "deep" is cognate with "Tiamat." Jonah doesn't just spend three days in the slimy belly of a fish. He visits the deep (2:3), which is also connected to the grave [sheol], (2:1) and "the roots of the mountains." It was a terrifying idea. Jesus calms the surface of the "deep" in Mark 4 and walks on the water in Mark 6. Both of these are very mythological! Only in Revelation is the serpent finally equated with the devil and Satan. He is cast into Hades (from Greek mythology, not Hebrew). And then a new world is created that has no ocean (Rev. 21), so the cosmological conception has remained the same, even after the equation is made. Have a Nice Day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted March 17, 2008 Share Posted March 17, 2008 Only in Revelation is the serpent finally equated with the devil and Satan. Which serpent? Because I believe that the serpent in Revelation is the Leviathan and not the talking snake from Genesis. It really makes much more sense that way. Unfortunately the talking snake is the "serpent of old" that people envision when Leviathan really is so much better all things considered. Look at Isaiah 26/27: 26:19 Your dead will come back; their dead bodies will come to life again. Those in the dust, awaking from their sleep, will send out a song; for your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the shades. 20 Come, my people, into your secret places, and let your doors be shut: keep yourself safe for a short time, till his wrath is over. 21 For the Lord is coming out of his place to send punishment on the people of the earth for their evil-doing: the earth will let the blood drained out on her be seen, and will keep her dead covered no longer. 27:1 1 In that day the Lord, with his great and strong and cruel sword, will send punishment on Leviathan, the quick-moving snake, and on Leviathan, the twisted snake; and he will put to death the dragon which is in the sea. Seems to be the resurrection, judgment and killing of that "serpent of old" (Leviathan) to me. I could be wrong but considering how much people liked to "borrow" from Isaiah I would bet that this serpent, and not the talking snake, is exactly what the author has in mind. But that's just me. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
white_raven23 Posted March 17, 2008 Share Posted March 17, 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism) The association of Satan with the serpent in the creation story is a christian invention, not a judean one. And since Genesis was originally a hebrew text, I'm going to side with them on the serpent identity. No one sees demons in the talking animals in Aesop's Fables. And Genesis reads a lot like a storytelling fable. What if a future religion decided that jesus rode into Jerusalem in a jeep, and "donkey" was just a euphemism for the car because Jeep comes out with a Donkey model in 2025? It's also a lot like believing Sirius Black and Remus Lupin really were gay lovers in the original Harry Potter series based on later slash fan fiction writings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sbwilley Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 That is definitely true, for Isaiah's idea of the serpent. The author of John was communicating something more, tying in three previously unrelated concepts (1) the Greek idea of "the Devil" (2) Leviathan/Rahab/Tiamat and (3) Satan. Revelation 12:9 does this all at once: "And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan." This writer had no problem equating Leviathan with Satan, although previously Leviathan lived n the sea like Tiamat and Rahab, while Satan was a member of God's court. The Devil inhabited Hades, tormenting the departed wicked, but only in the Greek mind. Hebrews believed ALL of the dead went to Sheol, where there was no awareness of anything (Ecclesiastes 9), or at most, you became a faint resemblance of your former self called a "shade" (mentioned in your passage from Isaiah and other places). Sheol was also closely connected to "the deep" (Jonah 1 and Job 38) in Hebrew cosmology. Have a nice day Only in Revelation is the serpent finally equated with the devil and Satan. Which serpent? Because I believe that the serpent in Revelation is the Leviathan and not the talking snake from Genesis. It really makes much more sense that way. Unfortunately the talking snake is the "serpent of old" that people envision when Leviathan really is so much better all things considered. Look at Isaiah 26/27: 26:19 Your dead will come back; their dead bodies will come to life again. Those in the dust, awaking from their sleep, will send out a song; for your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the shades. 20 Come, my people, into your secret places, and let your doors be shut: keep yourself safe for a short time, till his wrath is over. 21 For the Lord is coming out of his place to send punishment on the people of the earth for their evil-doing: the earth will let the blood drained out on her be seen, and will keep her dead covered no longer. 27:1 1 In that day the Lord, with his great and strong and cruel sword, will send punishment on Leviathan, the quick-moving snake, and on Leviathan, the twisted snake; and he will put to death the dragon which is in the sea. Seems to be the resurrection, judgment and killing of that "serpent of old" (Leviathan) to me. I could be wrong but considering how much people liked to "borrow" from Isaiah I would bet that this serpent, and not the talking snake, is exactly what the author has in mind. But that's just me. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 That is definitely true, for Isaiah's idea of the serpent. The author of John was communicating something more, tying in three previously unrelated concepts...[snip] Right. So I would say that nearly all uses of "serpent" in the bible that we've discussed here (Genesis 1, Isaiah, Job and Revelation) are all related to Leviathan (in some form) and not some ordinary garden snake. The talking snake in Genesis I would attribute more to Asherah (the same goes for the magical bronze healing serpent of Moses). The author of Revelation simply tried tying together all the "evil" figures of his day into one super villain as it were but the talking snake, contrary to popular opinion, wasn't one of them (at least in my view of things). mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sbwilley Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 Another interesting thing about this topic, comes in relating Jesus to it. 1) Jesus ALWAYS revered the murderous "father," the character responsible for these killings 2) If you believe the story of the Bible, the killings have not ended. We are all threatened with a "second death" if we do not believe. Perhaps I'll die from an accident, heart disease, or cancer. Millions who live until the end will die of plagues that God creates. And then, at the end of the Biblical drama, God drags everybody out of their graves to face judgment. Those who didn't accept Jesus are thrown into the Lake of Fire, including the people he recently killed with the plagues. This is the "REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST, which God gave Him to show . . . things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel. . ." BLATHER BLATHER BLATHER. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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