As Jim Davila points out, there is now an official recommendation by the Israel Antiquities Authority to move the prison and preserve the site of the newly discovered Christian mosaics and possible church. Two other recent articles in the Jerusalem Post and on Haaretz.com discuss this same development. If IAA’s recommendation is followed, this is good news for further archeological study and preservation of the site.

One among the many academic or historical approaches to studying gospels such as Mark is narrative analysis. One asks literary questions like: What is the overall plot of this story and how does it unfold? Who are the main characters in the narrative and how do they relate to one another? What story-telling techniques does the author use to move the narrative forward or to build tension? How does this author portray the main protagonist, Jesus?

As ancient biographies (”Lives”, bioi), all of the gospels are very much concerned with the question of who was Jesus. Still, the Gospel of Mark in particular has issues of identity at the heart of the unfolding of the plot in a way that is somewhat different than the other gospels. (For a translation of Mark, which was written about 70 CE, go here. For online resources go here. For more on the gospels as ancient biography, see the recent reviews of Richard A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Greco-Roman Biography, 2nd edition, 2004). From the outset, the reader (or hearer) of this story is very much aware of who Jesus is: the first sentence says that this work is the beginning of the good message about Jesus, “the Son of God“, after all. Yet, from this author’s perspective, the human characters in the story generally do not know who this Jesus is until key moments in the narrative. Not only that, but Jesus himself is portrayed as not wanting his identity revealed, as when he tells non-human forces — demons who do know who he is — not to tell anyone (see, for instance, the exorcism in Mark 1:23-26). This is the so called “messianic secret” that is characteristic of Mark specifically and less so the other gospels that likely used Mark as a source (Matthew and Luke). This gap between what the reader knows and what the characters in the story know about Jesus’ identity is what makes the overall story ironic in a literary sense.

Throughout, just about everyone is asking “Who is this guy” (Beezelbub? Elijah? John the Baptist returned?) and it’s only at several key moments, which I want to just briefly mention here, that this identity is revealed more openly to some of the characters in the story. Up to the middle of the story, only demons know clearly who Jesus is (”Holy One of God”, “Son of the Most High God”), and he tells them to be quiet about it. But at about the mid-point of the story (Mark 8:27-33) one of his misunderstanding disciples finally outright recognizes and says who Jesus is (namely what we readers knew all along). But immediately after, the same disciple misunderstands what that identity means: Peter proclaims “You are the Messiah” but then attempts to stop Jesus’ talk about suffering and dying as the “Son of Man”, with the result that Jesus rebukes Peter as the ultimate Adversary, Satan. So the identity is now momentarily revealed to the disciples of Jesus alone, but even they are not completely on to the whole project yet. So Jesus repeatedly states to the disciples what the “Son of Man” has to do (9:12-13, 9:31-32; 10:33-34) — namely suffer and die — often with continued misunderstandings (the disciples are consistently portrayed as not getting things or as lacking “faith” in Mark). They just don’t get it, right to the very end, when they deny or desert Jesus after his arrest.

The next key identity revelations take place in the passion narrative, and these happen in a more public setting (rather than among only the disciples). They represent the culmination of Mark’s story in many respects. After his arrest, Jesus is brought before the highpriest and other Judean authorities, where he is accused of threatening to destroy the temple. More importantly here, Jesus is publicly asked “Are you the Messiah (Christ)?” and, in an unprecedented manner (for Mark’s narrative), he openly proclaims “I am”. The secret is out. Then, when he is brought for another hearing before Pilate, the Roman governor, the issue of identity is at the fore: “Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ He answered him, ‘You say so’” (15:2 [NRSV]) — which likely amounts to a “yes” here (or a qualified yes — see the update below). Finally, as Jesus passes away on the cross, a Roman (Gentile) soldier proclaims, “Truly this man was God’s Son” (15:19). So the issue of who is Jesus is fundamental to the unfolding of Mark’s Gospel, and the final character to openly proclaim Jesus’ identity is a Gentile (non-Judean / non-Jew). Scholars generally point out that Mark’s gospel was likely written by a Gentile for a primarily Gentile audience (see, for instance, Mark 7:3-4, where the author needs to explain what any Judean [Jew] would know). This post touches on only a few important factors in the narrative of Mark; much more could of course be said.

UPDATES
(Jan. 28): Over on NTGateway, Mark Goodacre comments on this present post and points out that the “you say so” (σὺ λέγεις) before Pilate may be a “no” (Mark Goodacre is an expert in the gospels specifically in a way that I am not, I should mention). And this is indeed a possibility here. To further support this, he draws attention to parallel passages in the trial narrative of the gospel of John. Mark Goodacre feels that this is one of those times when the gospel of John may offer a helpful guide for interpreting the gospel of Mark.

One thing to note is that in John there are other clear incidents that show that Jesus (in John) is uncomfortable with the crowds’ notion of making him a “king” specifically, as they understand that term. Thus, when Jesus miraculously feeds the crowds, “they were about to come and take him by force to make him king” with the result that “Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (John 6:15). Then, in response to Pilate’s question in the gospel of John, this hesitancy in accepting kingship is further developed when Jesus says that “‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. . . ‘” (John 18:36-37).

I don’t think we have further, specific evidence in the gospel of Mark itself that the author particularly objects to the use of “king” for Jesus (though the title does not recur outside of the trial and passion, I believe). The title king would nonetheless match up quite nicely with the notion of an anointed one / messiah (kings were anointed in the Judean way of thinking), which is definitely what Jesus is titled in Mark. One option here that may address what Mark Goodacre raises is that the answer to ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ in the gospel of Mark is a “Yes, in a way, but I think you may have in mind a different idea of what kind of king I am”. This is the sort of corrective approach to Jesus’ identity that is characteristic of Mark, who presents a Jesus who nuances what it means to be the Son of God or Son of Man or Messiah (Christ). The disciples in Mark’s narrative can’t get their minds around these nuances (especially the suffering and dying).

If Mark Goodacre had taken the gospel of Matthew (instead of John) as a guide to interpreting the gospel of Mark, then he might have come up with an opposite conclusion, since in Matthew Jesus answers the questions of the high-priest (”are you the Messiah, the Son of God”) and of Pilate (”Are you the king of the Jews”) using very similar phrases: “You have said so” (σὺ εἶπας in Matthew 26:64) and “You say so” (σὺ λέγεις in 27:11). In the former case, there is no doubt that Jesus is the Messiah (Christ) in Matthew’s narrative, that this is a “yes”. I’m not advocating using one gospel to interpret the specific narrative features of another in this case, though. (It is worth noting that, if one holds the view that Mark was used as a source by the gospel of Matthew, Matthew is among the first of Mark’s interpreters, who nonetheless spins things his own way and has his own story and portrayal of Jesus). The absence of any other passages (beyond the passion narrative) in Mark regarding the title “king” specifically makes it difficult to be definite on the matter.

(Jan. 28):
Loren Rosson now has a post on this issue (and he also mentions another post by Wayne Leman). Loren comes to the conclusion that the answer to Pilate (in the gospel of Mark) is a “yes” of some sort, as do I. Loren also attempts to place this issue of identity in relation to ancient Mediterranean modes of identity formation or expression (using Malina et al), and in a useful way. To some degree, Loren’s discussion begins to waver into the issue of what did the historical Jesus himself — that obscure Jewish peasant — think or say about himself, which was not my focus at all here in this post. I would suggest that historical methods are quite limited in their ability to get at that obscure Jewish peasant from Galilee (the “historical Jesus”), let alone detailed questions of how he would express his own identity in the trial setting. We can, however, know quite a bit about what specific followers of Jesus (early Christian authors) thought about that peasant’s significance in the decades following Jesus’ death. And we can compare these portrayals of Jesus, which also provide us with glimpses into the worldviews of particular Christians or Christian groups.

After re-reading a work by Herzog, Loren now has a second post on the subject where he begins to doubt that the answer to Pilate is a “yes” and tends to the “no” side. But he seems more focussed on the historical Jesus than on the Markan narrative specifically.

(Feb. 2):
Stephen Carlson now weighs in on this topic, citing Morton Smith’s interpretation of Jesus’ answer to Pilate in Mark.

(Feb. 4):
Mark Goodacre now has another nuanced and well-expressed post in reaction to some of the discussion.

One of the topics encompassed by that Travel and Religion Seminar I mentioned earlier is how the ancients engaged in and imagined travel, and how they used the notion of movement as a metaphor. A recent book, now reviewed by Isabelle Torrance at BMCR deals precisely with the theme of “wandering”, both real and imagined, in ancient Greek literature: S. Montiglio, Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005. The topics covered in the book range from the wanderings of mythical figures such as Odysseus and the use of movement and travel as a metaphor for notions of dislocation or even madness to the historian Herodotus’ actual journeys and the travel of philosophical figures such as Apollonius of Tyana.

Loren now has a series of posts (prelude, parts 1, 2, 3) regarding C.S. Lewis’ novel Perelandra, which is set on an “unfallen” planet Venus. The devil plays an important role in the plot and Loren analyzes the “Devil’s argument” in the most recent post. In the novel, Professor Weston is a Faust- or Jabez-like figure who sells his soul to the devil (on which see my previous post). Lewis, who wrote most of his novels from a position advocating Christianity, is also well known for his novel Screwtape Letters, which presents itself as a series of letters from an experienced demon named Screwtape to a younger demon named Wormwood.

Satan is very much a part of popular culture in the West. His story has heavily influenced the portrayal of evil in film, as we shall see, but the devil also makes his appearance in our music, including the blues and its offspring, rock-n’-roll. The profound influence of Robert Johnson, a Delta blues (or country blues) performer of the 1930s (who made just two recording sessions in 1936 and 1937), was not fully felt until the re-release of several recordings in 1961 (which the likes of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Zeppelin, and others have expressly identified as a profound influence on their work).

(For Johnson’s lyrics, cited in part below, go here. For sound clips from the songs discussed below, scroll down to see the CD information for King of the Delta Blues (in this case on Amazon). Eric Clapton has recently released a tribute album (is that word still used) with new performances of Johnson’s songs: Me and Mr. Johnson (2004).)

The powers of evil make their appearance in a variety of ways in Johnson’s songs, some with more frightening effect than others (all of Johnson’s music is “haunting” in some way). In a devil-made-me-do-it sort of way, “Me and the Devil Blues” expresses the notion that some evil power outside of Johnson is responsible for his more violent behaviour towards a woman friend:

Early this mornin’
when you knocked upon my door
Early this mornin’, ooh
when you knocked upon my door
And I said, “Hello, Satan,”
I believe it’s time to go.”

Me and the Devil
was walkin’ side by side
Me and the Devil, ooh
was walkin’ side by side
And I’m goin’ to beat my woman
until I get satisfied

. . .

You may bury my body
down by the highway side
spoken: Baby, I don’t care where you bury my
body when I’m dead and gone
You may bury my body, ooh
down by the highway side
So my old evil spirit
can catch a Greyhound bus and ride

Less disturbing, in some ways, are songs like “Hellhound on my trail”, which nonetheless express Johnson’s angst in raw terms drawn from ideas associated with the powers of hell and the hell-hound successor of Cerberus (the guard-dog of the underworld in some Greek mythology) :

I gotta keep movin’
I gotta keep movin’
Blues fallin’ down like hail
Blues fallin’ down like hail
Umm mmmm mmm mmmmmm
Blues fallin’ down like hail
Blues fallin’ down like hail
And the days keeps on worryin’ me
there’s a hellhound on my trail
hellhound on my trail
hellhound on my trail. . .

All I needs is my sweet woman
and to keep my company hey hey hey hey
my company

The notion that the crossroads or intersection outside of town was a magical place where the-powers-that-be were especially potent has a long history. But a specific legend grew up in the context of the emergence of the blues which also attached itself to Johnson himself. In particular, there was the notion that in order to gain exceptional skill at playing the blues, a person might meet the devil at the crossroads and make a deal, with the soul being the precious item in the devil’s sight. The lyrics in Johnson’s own “Cross road blues” apparently have very little, if anything, to do with this notion:

I went down to the crossroad
fell down on my knees
I went down to the crossroad
fell down on my knees
Asked the lord above “Have mercy now
save poor Bob if you please”

Still, the overall legend nonetheless attached itself to this performer, who was known for playing the guitar like noone else could. (This is partly because of the shared name with Tommy Johnson, another blues artist who supposedly claimed that he did sell his soul to the devil). It is this legend of selling one’s soul for exceptional guitar skills that is enacted in Oh Brother Where Art Thou? (2000).

Selling one’s soul to the devil has a much longer history going back to medieval legends that Goethe incorporated in his eighteenth century poetic story of Faust, as we will see later. The film The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) re-tells a similar tale in a new setting, with Jabez Stone making a contract with Mr. Scratch, the devil (a remake with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin ran into financial difficulties and is yet to be released):

[examining the contract]
Jabez Stone: What does it mean here, about my soul?
Mr. Scratch: Why should that worry you? A soul? A soul is nothing. Can you see it, smell it, touch it? No. This soul, your soul is nothing against seven years of good luck. You’ll have money and all that money can buy. (Full script online here).

The legend of selling one’s soul, which continues as part of Satan’s story, is also reflected in the Simpsons episode in which poor Homer sells his soul to the devil for a doughnut (Treehouse of Horror IV). In this case, though, Homer actually robs the devil of his due in the long run.

Biblioblogs.com is a site that gathers together links to various biblical related weblogs, but they also choose a “blog of the month” and interview the blogger in question. This month it is Jim Davila, who runs Paleojudaica, who is interviewed. Among the more important revelations: as a kid, Jim was an actor in a Waltons’ episode.

The Biblical Studies Carnival has returned under the leadership of Tyler Williams (whose expertise is in Hebrew Bible) and will commence its monthly issues on February 1. Tyler now has a call for submissions for the February edition. He clarifies that the carnival will focus on historical or academic approaches (rather than devotional) to biblical studies and cognate areas. He also explains what a blog carnival is, in the event that you are unfamiliar with this. This will be working on the model of things like the History Carnival, which I find enjoyable and often mention.

In case you hadn’t noticed, David Meadows has an ambitious daily Classicarnival linking to the most recent posts relating to Greek and Roman topics. How does he keep up with it all?

Maps are indispensible to the modern researcher who hopes to make sense of political, economic, social, and cultural history in the ancient world. We’ve got to know where things happened in order to make better sense of why they happened. This, of course, also holds true in the case of studying religious life and cultural interactions specifically. Such issues are essential to a broader project I am involved in, along with Canadian colleagues, that hopes to explore the ways in which travel and religion intersected in antiquity (see the Travel and Religion in Antiquity seminar website).

A recent article by Kai Brodersen (U. Mannheim), an expert on issues of geographical understanding in antiquity, surveys the state of the question and notes some recent work in the area of maps and antiquity: “Mapping (in) the Ancient World,” Journal of Roman Studies 94 (2004) 183-190. Included in his discussion is the immensely useful Barrington Atlas (associated with the Ancient World Mapping Center), with which I can now locate — with some degree of probability — just about every obscure town and village that I find mentioned in inscriptions from Asia Minor (Turkey)!

At the heart of Brodersen’s own work (in this article and elsewhere) is the need to distinguish clearly between mapping in the ancient world (the manner in which the ancients did or did not think about or represent geography) and mapping the ancient world (the modern task of creating useful maps of the Greek or Roman world to aide in our research). This important distinction was not always recognized in past scholarship, which tended to imagine that the Romans did have maps and that there was a notion of scale involved in such geographical representations back then. This notion that the Romans had maps approaching what we think of as maps, Brodersen stresses, is unfounded:

“We simply lack the evidence for ‘map consciousness’ in the ancient world. While some theoretical speculation may well have implied texts and images, it would be wrong to assume that such images could easily be put to practical use, and even the copious ancient writings on strategy and warfare lack all references to maps”(p. 185)

There are itineraries listing places and distances between places, and we have instances of monuments that would serve to show what place was coming next, but there were no scaled maps in the Greek or Roman world. There are also the many examples of the literary genre of the periplus, the written record of attempts to sail round certain land masses, but these are not visual representations of geographical space.

This leaves the very important question of how did the Greeks and Romans perceive space and geography and how did they know where to go? Also, what implications do these perceptions have for our understanding of cultural and religious life specifically? James Romm’s study of The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction (Princeton UP, 1994) gives us some important glimpses into just such issues, for instance, including perceptions of real or imagined foreign peoples in travel writing. If you are interested in the intersection of religion and travel, also check out my introductory paper on the subject, which includes sections on travelling to honour the gods, on the dissemination of cultic practice, and on travel writing and cultural encounters in antiquity. The seminar website I mentioned earlier also includes a developing bibliography (including some of Brodersen’s works) and links to various online resources relating to travel and religion.

P.S. You may also wish to check out another interesting article (which I have yet to thoroughly read) in that same volume that looks at demographics and the movement or migration of free populations in Roman Italy: Walter Scheid, “Human Mobility in Roman Italy, I: The Free Population,” Journal of Roman Studies 94 (2004):1-26.

A very important part of Satan’s identity within Christianity is the notion that Satan is the chief angel among a group that rebelled against God and fell from their original position in the heavenly realm. We first have clear signs of this critical component in Satan’s story around 200 BCE in a Jewish writing in the Pseudepigrapha known as 1 Enoch (text and introductions online here). 1 Enoch is an apocalypse in terms of genre and is a composite work, divided into five books, with book one (chapters 1-36) being among the earliest (on which go to my earlier post here for further clarification).

What is most important here is that book one of 1 Enoch presents a midrash (interpretation) and considerable expansion of a few mysterious verses in Genesis (6:1-8): the account of the “sons of God” (angelic figures) mating with human women that immediately precedes the story of God sending the flood. “Enoch’s” visions explain the origins of evil and sin among humanity, and in this case suggest that ultimately evil came from the divine realm by way of fallen angels. Issues regarding the degree to which humans, on the one hand, or divine beings (angels), on the other, were responsible for the introduction and continuation of evil and sin among humanity would continue to occupy those who told and re-told the story of Satan in subsequent centuries. Some would configure things differently than book one of 1 Enoch does.

In the process of explaining the origins of evil, this author seems to blend together two separate traditions that existed before his time concerning a conspiracy among certain angels (perhaps drawing on a lost work called the “Book of Noah”, mentioned in the book of Jubilees ch. 10, for one of these traditions). The reason we can detect these traditions is that, in 1 Enoch, there are inconsistencies in who was the leader of the rebel angels (see further John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination). At times the author speaks of Semyaz (Semihazah) as the chief and at others of Azazel (Asa’el). Not only that, but the author seems to have preserved the different emphases of each tradition. The Semyaz material portrays the conspiracy against God as centred on the sexual act of union with humans and the Azazel tradition focusses on how the fallen angels subsequently reveal secrets of heaven to humanity, including skills that led to war and seduction, to the general chaos that brings the flood. For this author, the offspring of the mixing of divine and human are giants whose spirits after death are demons that continue to mislead humanity (15:8-12).

The result of this whole conspiracy is war and chaos on earth. God consults with his trusted angels, such as Michael and Raphael, to arrange punishment of both the humans and the fallen angels, referring to the end of days in the process:

“then spoke the Most High. . . ‘the earth and everything will be destroyed. And the deluge is about to come upon all the earth; and all that is in it will be destroyed.’ . . . And secondly the Lord said to Raphael, ‘Bind Azazel hand and foot and throw him into the darkness!’ And he (Raphael) made a hole in the desert. . . he threw on top of him (Azazel) rugged and sharp rocks. And he covered his face in order that he may not see light; and in order that he may be sent into the fire on the great day of judgment.” (1 Enoch 10:1-7; trans. by E. Isaac in James H. Charlesworth, ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha [2 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1983-85], p. 17)

The imprisonment and end-time fate of this fallen angel here resembles the fate of “the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan” in John’s Apocalypse (20:1-10), as we shall soon see. As in other apocalyptic writings, the flood of long ago becomes a precursor or foreshadow of God’s final intervention in the end times, the “great day of judgment”, when the angels who rebelled, along with the humans who sided with them by doing evil, will meet their end. The righteous ones, on the other hand, will go on to live in a new world cleansed “from all sin and from all iniquity” (see 10:17-22).

The name “Satan” itself does not appear here at all, but the fallen angels story was soon to be linked up with passages involving the angelic adversary (”satan”) in the Hebrew Bible, as we begin to see in the likes of Jubilees (chapters 10-11; c. 150-105 BCE). Still later (in the second and third centuries CE), this notion of fallen angels would also be linked up (by Christian authors) with a passage that originally referred to the Babylonian king as cosmic rebel in Isaiah 14, the “Day Star, Son of Dawn” who falls from heaven (where he imagines himself to belong). Part of the phrase just mentioned was translated into Latin by Jerome (in 410 CE) as “Lucifer”. Looking far ahead to the 1600s, it would be hard to imagine Milton’s Paradise Lost without the story of Satan or Lucifer as the chief rebel angel who fell from heaven’s height.

David Meadows points to a very interesting article by Mary Beard in The Guardian: “Apart from vomitoriums and orgies, what did the Romans do for us?” She considers the modern cultural functions of the Romans in films and television series (including the recent series Rome, the HBO-BBC production). Here’s an excerpt that touches on religion and discourses of the “other” (the cultural outsider):

‘This game of defining ourselves against the habits of the “Other” is a very old one indeed. The Romans did it against the Greeks (a load of over-perfumed intellectuals), the Greeks against the Persians (effeminate despots). We are now finding it much safer to look to the remote past - the recent past is, of course, another matter - for our anti-types. For that past cannot answer back, has no government machinery on its side (or not usually), and you can do what you like with it. If they were portraying a modern religion, the lurid, blood-soaked representations of Roman paganism in the new Rome would probably end with the director up before the beak on a charge of “incitement to religious hatred”. As it is, it’s only Rome, so it doesn’t count.’

Mary Beard (professor of Classics at Cambridge University) is perhaps best known for her recent work with Simon Price and John North: Religions of Rome.

History Carnival no. 23 is up over at Old is the New New, which is a blog by Rob MacDougall, an expert on the history of the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. (His doctoral work was on “The People’s Telephone: The Politics of Telephony in the United States and Canada, 1876-1926″.)

Among the links there is one to a batch of new history-related blogs connected with the Centre for History and New Media. He also links to Histomats’ list of top ten marxist historical works. G.E.M. de Ste Croix’s The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981) appears there alongside classic E.P. Thompson and Christopher Hill, whose The English Revolution of 1640 (1940) is now available online here. I still remember reading Hill’s books for courses in my undergrad days. His works were among the ones that made quite an impression on me and got me into social history (or “history from below”) in the first place. Among the more exciting of Hill’s works are The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution, and Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England. I bet you never thought this one would come around to the history of Satan and his minions again.

In the history of civilizations, few people have made as much of an impact, directly or indirectly, as the guy who stands to your right (who died in 323 BCE). Although living over three hundred years before the origins of Christianity, his impact is in many ways essential for understanding Christian origins and the New Testament. Alexander, the son of Philip, King of Macedon (a.k.a Alexander “the Great”), successfully conquered a larger area than previously accomplished in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean world, from Greece, Asia Minor (Turkey), Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to Iraq (Mesopotamia) and Iran (Persia), as far as India itself.

What matters most for us is what Alexander and his successors brought with them: Hellenistic culture, including the Greek language, Greek modes of social and civic organization, Greek philosophies and religions. Although local languages and cultures continued in various areas, social and cultural interactions were now inevitable and the degree of assimilation to Hellenistic ways depended on the person, group, or situation. Moreover, this situation of considerable cultural commonalities across such a vast geographical space was unparalleled at the time.

Alexander’s legacies can be seen in the fact that the New Testament, and most of early Christian literature, was written in Hellenistic Greek (also known as koine, or common, Greek), and Greek language carries with it Hellenistic culture. As a sect within Judaism, the Jesus movement in Palestine entered into a Jewish world already in interaction with Hellenism, as you can read about in my earlier brief discussion of the Jewish Maccabees (of the second century BCE). And as this Jewish movement made its way into cities throughout the Greco-Roman world (especially in the Greek East), further interaction with Hellenistic (and Roman) culture was the result. A figure like Paul of Tarsus (a Greek city in Asia Minor) seems to have been well-trained in Hellenistic modes of rhetoric (in how to make a good argument or speech), for instance. The Book of Hebrews expresses its understanding of Jesus’ significance in terms drawn not only from Judaism but also from Platonic philosophy, to provide another preview. We will see how important Hellenistic, as well as Roman, culture was for early Christianity as we continue in this series.

For further web resources on Alexander the Great, including more photos, go here. For the Wikipedia article on Alexander, go here.

Photo (by Phil): Statue of Alexander the Great from Magnesia on the Sipylos (by Menas, a sculptor from Pergamum), now in the Istanbul Archeological Museum (mid-third century BCE).

When reading the Hebrew Bible (a.k.a. “Old Testament”) for historical purposes, it is important not to project back into its pages later developments in Judaism and Christianity, and this is particularly true in the case of “Satan”. Although there is no full-blown notion of personified evil in Israelite religion, there are indeed important messenger or angelic figures associated with Yahweh (”LORD”), God of the Israelites. Sometimes these figures could later on be associated with the notion of Satan as a thoroughly evil figure. (”Israelite religion” is the term scholars often use to refer to the religious life of the Hebrews before the Babylonian exile of 586 BCE, while “Judaism” is generally used in reference to developments following the return under Cyrus and foundation of the second temple in Judea, hence “Second Temple Judaism”). Here I want to briefly discuss three closely related, recurring figures associated with Yahweh’s (God’s) heavenly entourage or council: (1) “the adversary” (ha-satan), (2) the injurious, or evil, spirit (rucha ra’a) and (2) the “messenger” (mal’ak).

1) The Hebrew word for an opponent, prosecutor, adversary, or one who obstructs, satan, occurs in a number of places in the Bible, sometimes in reference to human opponents and sometimes in reference to a figure sent by God. In 2 Samuel 19:22 and in 1 Kings 11:14-25, for instance, the term satan is used of human adversaries of the protagonists (David and Solomon). In most other cases, it is a heavenly figure or messenger (mal’ak = Greek angelos) that God sends to act as an obstruction, adversary, or accuser (see, for instance the story of Balaam in Numbers 22, especially verse 22). The most well-known case of “satan” is the adversary among the “sons of God” (bene ha-elohim) in The Book of Job (chapters 1-2; seventh-fourth centuries BCE). This figure acts almost as a legal prosecutor in challenging Job’s piety and in letting loose severe treatment (e.g. killing all of Job’s 10 children) as a test, all with the active consent of God. The adversary is by no means an evil figure opposed to God in this story (online resources for Job here).

The closest we come to the notion of an angelic adversary (satan) going against the will of God and perhaps even needing to be stopped is in Zechariah (c. 520 BCE), where “the satan” is a prosecutorial figure against Joshua, and Yahweh “rebukes” the satan for accusing Joshua in this particular case (see Zechariah 3; also see 1 Chronicles 21:1, where a “satan” apparently opposes Israel, but with little clarification by the author). There is no indication that these angelic figures are inherently evil in an ongoing manner, however.

2) A recurring figure in the Hebrew Bible sent to do God’s work, either in opposition to or in support of humans, is the mal’ak, or messenger (translated in an ancient Greek translation of the Bible [LXX] as angelos and now often as “angel” in English). Thus, for instance, it is an angel of Yahweh that appears to Moses in a flame of fire (the burning bush) and an angel (as well as pillars of cloud or fire) that helps to guide the Israelites out of Egypt and slavery (Exodus 3:2 and 14:19-24). But we have already seen above that an angel can also serve God’s will in an oppositional manner, if necessary (as in Numbers). And there are passages which imply or state that an angel is involved as a “destroyer” on God’s behalf, as in the Passover incident (Exodus 12:23; cf. 2 Samuel 24:16).

3) Quite similar to the latter role of the messenger sent by God to cause injury is the “evil spirit” in the Hebrew Bible (especially in the so-called Deuteronomistic History, sixth century BCE and earlier). This figure, who is directly distinguished from the “spirit of Yahweh”, is sometimes sent by God to facilitate things happening in the way that God wants them to happen, sometimes inciting violence (see Judges 9:22-23; 1 Samuel 16:14-16; 18:10-11; 19:9-11; also see 1 Kings 22:19-22 for a “lying spirit”).

The most important distinction between these “satans” (including the one in Job), “messengers”, or “evil spirits” and the evil Satan figure of later apocalypticism is that the Hebrew Bible’s satans and angels are almost always acting in conjunction with the will of Yahweh, or God. They are almost always sent by God to be an obstruction or to act as an adversary or prosecutor against some person or persons.

However, even these same passages involving the Israelite God taking adversarial action against certain people could be interpreted differently by later Jews or Christians. This is the case with those in later centuries who did indeed hold a view of Satan as an evil figure opposed to God (such as Jubilees, where Mastema, Enmity personified, takes on some of these same roles, as we shall see later). With the full-blown, apocalyptic Satan, just about the only thing that is in accordance with God’s will is the existence of this figure, whose intentions are directly opposed to God but who unwittingly plays a crucial part in the unfolding of God’s plan (according to many ancient apocalyptic Jews and Christians).

I am indebted to Neil Forsyth’s The Old Enemy, pp. 107-123 (cited in full in the previous entry) for getting me going on analyzing the passages (I disagree somewhat with his take on Zechariah).

Troels Myrup Kristensen is attending the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the American Philological Association (which is in Montreal this year–sadly I couldn’t fit it in to my schedule since classes have already begun for us). He summarizes a number of interesting papers regarding the re-use of monuments and sculpture in antiquity and regarding Roman slavery.

A rebellious fallen angel who later develops into a full-blown personification of evil (as Satan) first begins to appear clearly in our sources within the context of Jewish apocalypticism around 200 BCE (in book 1 of 1 Enoch). The story of this personified evil figure continues to develop and play an important role in early Christianity. Yet there are important predecessors in the Ancient Near East which help us to understand subsequent stories surrounding the figure of Satan. Among the predecessors is Angra Mainyu or Ahriman (the opponent of Ahura Mazda) within Zoroastrianism, which I have discussed here in an earlier entry on this blog.

Oldest among these predecessors are the chaos-monsters (also gods) who are slayed by an up-and-coming Mesopotamian (or Hittite or Canaanite or Israelite) deity in traditions dating as far back as the third millenium BCE (our earliest evidence for literate civilizations). In particular, the portrayal of Satan in John’s Apocalypse (written c. 90s CE), which became the most potent early image of Satan as the ancient serpent or dragon, cannot be understood without reference to these older gods who threaten or even personify chaos and are ultimately defeated in combat (see especially Revelation, chapters 12-13).

Although there is considerable diversity among these stories of the Mesopotamian gods and we should not imagine that they’re all the same, there is nonetheless a common pattern that emerges in many of these combat stories:

1) A god among the pantheon engages in activity that threatens the well-being (or even existence) of other gods and the society of the gods.

2) The opposition from the chaos-god seems insurmountable and other gods desperately seek (with great difficulty) someone who can solve the problem.

3) Finally, a less prominent or younger god steps forward and acts as a hero in battling and successfully defeating and killing the monstrous threat, re-establishing order in the universe. Often, there are two rounds in the fight, with the hero losing the first. Sometimes (as in the case of Marduk vs. Tiamat and Yahweh vs. Leviathan) the slaying of the chaos-monster coincides with the creation of the world of humans by the hero-god. In essence, the hero-god has saved the entire cosmos from reverting to chaos and now has a new status as a chief or king among the gods.

It is important to state that the gods who threaten to bring chaos to the entire cosmos are not inherently evil in these traditions, however, and they are indeed gods (which Satan is not within early Judaism and Christianity). Yet the role of the chaos-monster as opponent or adversary of the hero-god and the centrality of the battle between the two (”combat myth”) which ends in triumph for the hero are, in many respects, at the heart of Satan’s story and his function within early Jewish and Christian apocalyptic worldviews.

Perhaps the most well known case of this mythology is the Babylonian story of Marduk’s slaying of Tiamat, the chaotic sea-monster and mother of all gods, whose husband, Apsu, had plans to do away with her noisy children, the rest of the gods. (As chaotic sea-monster, Tiamat is comparable to the Israelite Leviathan or the Canaanite Yamm). Marduk then uses the corpse of Tiamat to create the world as we know it. You can read that story in the Enuma elish (When on high) online.

The other story I want to briefly cite here, a poetic myth dating back to the second millenium BCE, is also intriguing with regard to the chaos-god as a jealous rebel against the current head of the gods. This is the story of the frightful, monstrous bird Anzu (also Zu), who brings chaos in the world of the gods by stealing the tablet of destinies — the record of all the plans of the gods and locus of power — away from Ellil (also spelled Enlil), the father of the gods (see photo below). What better time to rebel than when Ellil’s taking a shower. The problem begins like this:

“Ellil appointed him (Anzu) to the entrance of the chamber which he had perfected.
He would bathe in holy water in his presence.
His eyes would gaze at the trappings of Ellil-power:
His lordly crown, his robe of divinity,
The Tablet of Destinies in his hands, Anzu gazed,
And gazed at Duranki’s god (i.e. Ellil), father of the gods,
And fixed his purpose, to usurp the Ellil-power.
Anzu often gazed at Duranki’s god, father of the gods,
And fixed his purpose to usurp the Ellil-power.
‘I shall take the gods’ Tablet of Destinies for myself
And control the orders for all the gods,
And shall possess the throne and be master of the rites!
I shall direct every one of the Igigi (category of gods)!’
He plotted opposition in his heart
And at the chamber’s entrance from which he often gazed,
he waited for the start of the day.
While Ellil was bathing in the holy water,
Stripped and with his crown laid down on the throne,
He gained the Tablet of Destinies for himself,
Took away the Ellil-power. Rites were abandoned,
Anzu flew off and went into hiding.
Radiance faded (?), silence reigned,
Father Ellil, their counsellor, was dumbstruck,
For he (Anzu) had stripped the chamber of its radiance.
The gods of the land searched high and low for a solution.”
Standard Babylonian version, tablet 1, iii, first millenium BCE; Stephanie Dalley, trans., Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford: OUP, 2000), pp. 206-207.

The abandonment of rites in honour of the gods, the silence, and the dumbstruck state of Ellil (as well as other passages which indicate that Anzu’s action has halted water for agriculture) are symbolic of the utter chaos that ensues in the cosmos as a result of Anzu stealing the tablet of destinies, the power of Ellil. After interviewing several divine candidates to fight Anzu, all of which are not up to the seemingly impossible task, young Ninurta (or Ningirsu in some versions) is put forward for the job, and is instructed by his mother, Belet-ili:

“Seize him by the throat: conquer Anzu,
And let the winds bring his feathers as good news to Ekur, to your father Ellil’s house. Rush and inundate the mountain pastures
And slit the throat of wicked Anzu. . .
Show prowess to the gods and your name shall be Powerful!” (SBV, tablet 2).

In the first battle-sequence, Anzu gains the upper hand by using his Ellil-power to disassemble any of Ninurta’s arrows before they can approach Anzu and Anzu has the power to release and return his own feathers as a smokescreen (using the phrase “Wing to wing” to employ this power). Ninurta then consults with Ea, god of wisdom, who advises that Ninurta disguise his own arrows as though they were Anzu’s feathers, and to time his shooting to coincide with Anzu’s use of his “super-power” (emitting and recalling his feathers). Thus in the second, overwhelming confrontation:

“(As Anzu) shouted ‘Wing to wing’, a shaft came up (?) at him,
A dart passed through his very heart.
He (Ninurta) made an arrow pass through pinion and wing. . .
He slew the mountains (symbolic of Anzu), inundated their proud pastures (ending drought). . . slew wicked Anzu.
And warrior Ninurta regained the gods’ Tablet of Destinies for his own hand.”

Problem solved, and Ninurta’s reward for slaying the jealous and rebellious god who brought chaos was supremacy among the gods:
“You have won complete dominion, every single rite.”

Here, then, is the essence of what scholars call the “combat myth” which, via the Israelite case of Yahweh vs. Leviathan, came to play an important role within the apocalyptic worldview, with its battle between the forces of God and the forces of Satan, the dragon or ancient serpent in John’s Apocalypse.

For an online scholarly article about Ninurta and Anzu (and Azag, another combatant), go here. For Israelite instances of the combat myth, with Yahweh vs. Leviathan or Rahab or Behemoth or Tananim, see the following biblical passages: Psalms, chapters 74, 104; Isaiah chapter 27; Job chapters 40-41. You can view William Blake’s illustration of Leviathan and Behemoth (1825) online at the Tate gallery here. There are also several useful online overviews concerning Ancient Near Eastern mythologies and gods of the Sumerians, the Babylonians and Assyrians, the Canaanites, the Hittites and Hurrians.

Excellent books on the relevance of Mesopotamian combat myths and chaos-monsters for early Judaism and Christianity (including Satan) include: Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith (2nd edition; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), and Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).

Photo (above): Ninurta pursues Anzu, as depicted on a stone sculpture in the temple of Ninurta at Nimrud, Iraq. Drawing from Austen Henry Layard, A Second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh (London: John Murray, 1853), volume 2, plate 5. This full work, now in the public domain, is available online at ABZU.