There was a general decline of Satan in the wake of the eighteenth century Enlightenment and modernism (a decline in him being perceived as a real and imminent danger, that is). Nonetheless, he still remained alive and well within certain types of Christianity, particularly within the more conservative forms which do account for a large percentage of modern Christianity. Certainly not all of these conservative Christians subscribed to conspiratorial theories regarding Satan’s dastardly plans to undermine God’s activity. Yet there were — from the 1970s-1990s — a number of somewhat widespread notions of Satan’s evil machinations that are best described as conspiracy theories, two of which I will touch on here.

On the one hand were the very frightening claims of “Satanic ritual abuse“. There was a variety of contextual factors that fed the development of this particular conspiracy theory including the following:

1) There were general fears within some Christian circles regarding the many New Religious Movements (NRMs) — “cults” from this perspective — which were perceived as deceiving and brainwashing their potential members into joining. One of the results was a somewhat organized anti-cult movement, including groups such as the International Cultic Studies Association (a newer organization that follows in the footsteps of earlier groups), that produced substantial amounts of literature. The Church of Satan, or the unintentional worship of Satan via other “cults” generally, could naturally be subsumed within this framework.

2) Added to this was the actual existence and public visibility of an actual Church of Satan (founded by Magus Anton Szandor LaVey in about 1966 but especially visible in the 1970s) , which claimed to be the continuation of the worldwide worship of Satan that had been going on since ancient times.

3) Within certain circles of Christian social workers or therapists who held the view that there was a Satanic conspiracy, certain methods developed (namely suggestive interrogation) which resulted in a high number of cases where children and adults reported or confessed to involvement in Satanic rituals, often as victims. In some cases, the results of such approaches regarding stories of Satanic abuse were published in popularizing books, including Lawrence Pazder’s Michelle Remembers of 1980.

In essence, this conspiracy theory entailed a worldwide, secretive network of Satan worshippers who were systematically exploiting both children and adults to engage in wild and demonic rituals. One of the handbooks for therapists, as cited by the historian David Frankfurter, explains that Satanic abuse usually involves:

“group cult ceremonies in which children engage in sexual acts with adults and other children; the sacrifice and mutilation of animals; threats related to magical or supernatural powers; ingestion of drugs, ‘magic potions,’ blood, and human excrement; and distortion of traditional belief systems” (Susan J. Kelley as cited by Frankfurter, “Ritual as Accusation and Atrocity: Satanic Ritual Abuse, Gnostic Libertinism, and Primal Murders,” History of Religions 40 [2001], p. 356).

Another such handbook for those who believed in the conspiracy states:

“Such abuse may include the actual or simulated killing or mutilation of an animal, the actual or simulated killing or mutilation of a person, forced ingestion of real or simulated human body fluids, excrement or flesh, [and] forced sexual activity” (Noblitt and Perskin as cited by Frankfurter, p. 357).

The fact that this was indeed a conspiracy theory arising out of certain peoples’ worldviews and not reality is now widely recognized. What is particularly interesting is the manner in which stereotypes of the dangerous “other” which have a very long history — including the trio of human sacrifice, cannibalism, and sexual perversion — play a key role in this incident as well. Back in Roman times, for instance, the early Christians were accused by outsiders of engaging in precisely these three activities, as were other marginalized or foreign groups in antiquity (on which see my earlier posts here and here). Similar dynamics of marginalization and demonization were also at work in the late medieval and early modern witch hunts.

A second main conspiracy theory, which is somewhat less frightening or disturbing, involves the accusations against certain rock n’ roll bands regarding their allegiances with the Prince of Darkness (Satan not Ozzy), via backmasking, or backward messaging. The idea was that if you play a record backwards (remember records?) you could potentially hear an alternate message that, it was believed, was placed there intentionally by the artists in order to serve their lord and master, Satan. Among the first to fall prey to this accusation was Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”, which, when played backwards, it was imagined, revealed the following message:

BACKWARDS:
Here’s to my sweet Satan,
The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is fake/Satan.
He’ll give those with him 666.
There was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan.

FORWARDS:
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now,
It’s just a spring clean for the May queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on.
(Page / Plant, “Stairway to Heaven,” Led Zeppelin IV, ©1971 SuperHype Music Inc.. Lyrics online here)

Many other bands were likewise accused of broadcasting the messages of Satan to the impressionable ears of our youth. The fact is that, if you want to find it, a word that sounds like “Satan” would appear in just about any music played backwards. But soon the idea of putting hidden, backward messages on albums was consciously taken on, particularly in the case of heavy metal bands of the 1980s, who seemed to think that Satan, with his number 666, was “cool”.

UPDATE (March 24): Now see the comments section and “Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion” blog, where there was an earlier post on the Satanic abuse scare focussing primarily on the issue of therapists or psychologists who created the scare, to some degree, particularly in connection with popularizing books on the topic (sadly, there is a Canadian connection). He also includes the cover of a book on Satan (and, yes, it is now available in a new edition with flashy cover to boot) from good ol’ Hal Lindsey of Late Great Planet Earth fame (a fundamentalist, apocalyptic, best-selling book showing the end was near in the 1970s):

Is there another Satanic scare on the horizon?

I do not know what this says about my book, but Christianbook.com must have acquired some overstock and is selling my book for just $5.99 USD right now (73% off — thanks to Brian Irwin for noticing this). If you were tempted by it but thought it wasn’t worth 15-22 bucks, then now is your chance (this means you, Loren). If you want some information and reviews of the book first, look here.

The most recent issue of Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies (current issue not yet online) has a fascinating article by David Frankfurter (U. New Hampshire): “Fetus Magic and Sorcery Fears in Roman Egypt,” GRBS 46 (2006), 37-62. Frankfurter explores the case of one Gemellus Horion, a partially blind descendent of a Roman veteran who brought a formal complaint before the Roman strategos over an incident that occured in the village of Karanis in 197 CE. Horion’s not-so-friendly neighbours — the family of Julius — had on more than one occasion robbed Horion’s family of their harvest and had ensured that their thieving action would not be stopped by using magic. Not once, but twice, the neighbours had thrown an aborted or miscarried fetus (brephos) in order to “surround [the Horion family] with malice” and create a binding spell that would ensure that noone would stop them –apparently with success to the point of Horion’s petition for Roman action. The complaint on the papyrus, as translated by Frankfurter, reads in part:

“[Julius] again trespassed with his wife and a certain Zenas, holding a brephos (fetus), intending to surround my cultivator with malice so that he would abandon his labor after having harvested . . . Again, in the same manner, they threw the same brephos toward me, intending to surround me also with malice. . . Julius, after he had gathered in the remaining crops from the fields, took the brephos away to his house (PMich VI 423-424, lines 12-14, 16-18, 20-21, as translated by Frankfurter 2006:41).

Frankfurter goes on to discuss this incident of a binding spell within the context of local traditions of magical practice and shows how the fetus functions primarily as something completely out of place or “weird” and therefore impure (making use of Malinowksi’s principle of the “coefficient of weirdness”) (p. 52). I would highly recommend this and the many other solid studies that David Frankfurter has produced, including his Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000) and “Ritual as Accusation and Atrocity: Satanic Ritual Abuse, Gnostic Libertinism, and Primal Murders,” History of Religions 40 (2001), 352-381.

Frankfurter has a knack for picking interesting topics and solving important issues in the process, I would suggest.

(Copyright Gospel Communications International, Inc - www.reverendfun.com)

This week we’ve been talking about Paul’s letter to the Galatians and the issue of circumcision (= “works of law” in Paul’s letter) as a symbol of belonging in the people of God. Paul was addressing a situation where other leaders of the Jesus movement had come to Galatia and were requiring, naturally, that Gentiles be circumcized and follow the Torah in order to belong to a Jewish movement. It seems that Paul (a trained Pharisee) is somewhat of an oddball (so to speak) within second temple Judaism and the early Jesus movement, not in his notion of including Gentiles but rather in his not requiring that such Gentiles be circumcized in order to express their belonging within this Jewish Jesus movement.

Paul presents a somewhat complicated argument (in Galatians 3) using the sequence of Abraham’s (Abram’s) relations with Yahweh in order to show that the primary covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15) was established before the introduction of circumcision (Genesis 17), and that uncircumcized Gentiles can become “sons of Abraham” by doing what the uncircumcized Abraham did in Genesis 15: believing that what God says he will do will indeed happen (in Abraham’s case the promise was for innumerable heirs or offspring despite his childlessness to that point). Circumcision was not required of a Gentile in order to be a son of Abraham, argues Paul, since Abraham’s circumcision was only subsequent to the primary promise and covenant. The methods of biblical interpretation that Paul employs are very much Jewish midrash, but the conclusions he comes to regarding Abraham and the covenant are very different than what most other Jews engaging in midrash of Genesis would have concluded (Jews who would more likely focus more attention on Genesis 17, the circumcision of Abraham).

Coincidentally Mark Goodacre has a post today that addresses some related issues and also points to an online article by Paula Fredriksen that is definitely worth a read: “Judaism, the Circumcision of Gentiles, and Apocalyptic Hope: Another Look at Galatians 1 and 2,” Journal of Theological Studies 42 (1991): 532-64. The views expressed in that article, particularly the notion that Paul’s position (Gentiles not required to be circumcized in order fully to join the group) is the normative one in the Jesus movement generally, differ from my own expressed above, however.

There is a very interesting discussion going on regarding a comment made by Paul Bahnin in his Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. On this see the posts:

Gender, Archaeology and Gender Archaeology, over at Alun (with comments by others), and

A feminist archaeology, by Tony Keen.

Origen of Alexandria would approve.

(Copyright Gospel Communications International, Inc - www.reverendfun.com; used in accordance with that website’s permissions).

There is now an online review of my book in Biblical Theology Bulletin, by Peter Oakes (U. Manchester), who is a member in the Context Group and has done very important work in applying social scientific methods to the study of the New Testament. Oakes highlights some of his hesitancies regarding my arguments, which I will not address here except to say that my book does challenge the way in which the sectarian model has been applied in the past by scholars such as John H. Elliott (another excellent and very influential scholar in the Context Group). Despite such disagreements, Oakes sees my book as a valuable contribution, it seems:

This is a very ambitious and impressive book. Harland manages, astonishingly, to marshal his evidence in such a way as to engage in a serious critique of about a dozen of the leading scholarly conclusions on the nature of interaction among Gentiles, Jews, and Christians and the relative civic context of each.

For previous reviews of my book and some excerpts, go to my book information page.

Speaking of Biblical Theology Bulletin reminded me that I recently wrote a review in that publication of the following:
Judith M. Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

A while back, I referred to an article by Ilias Arnaoutoglou in which he argued, like I had in Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations (pp. 161-173), that evidence from Asia Minor shows that Roman law or legal action regarding associations was generally sporadic and not empire-wide. This argument is significant because so many scholars of the past and present assume that governmental control of associations or collegia was somewhat consistent over time and from one region to another; at times this comes to influence discussions of both Jewish and Christian groups. In other words, a well-ingrained scholarly assumption often distorts discussions of small social-religious groups in the Roman world generally.

Arnaoutoglou now has another article that hones in on Egypt specifically, and extends the earlier argument in the process: Ilias N. Arnaoutoglou, “Collegia in the Province of Egypt in the First Century CE,” Ancient Society 35 (2005): 197-216. Juxtaposing Philo’s mention of A. Aillius Flaccus’ actions in banning associations in Alexandria around 35 CE (Philo, Flaccus 4) with the actual papyrological and inscriptional evidence for associations from the late first century BCE through the first CE, Arnaoutoglou shows that this action was not part of an empire-wide attempt to quell associations and that, generally, “collegia were alive and kicking in first-century Egypt” (p. 209). For more on Philo and the associations of Alexandria, see Torrey Seland’s online article: “Philo and the Clubs and Associations of Alexandria.” (Also, for Philo generally see Torrey’s blog).

There are two key passages in Philo, the Jewish philosopher, regarding associations that are worth citing (the first reflecting his moral indignation and the latter his respect for Flaccus’ action in banning some of these supposedly wild groups):

In the city there are clubs (thiasoi) with a large membership, whose fellowship is founded on no sound principle but on strong liquor and drunkenness and sottish carousing and their offspring, wantonness. “Synods” and “banqueting-couches” (klinai) are the particular names given to them by the people of the country (Flaccus 136 [trans. by Colson in LCL, with adaptations]).

[The Roman prefect Flaccus] dissolved the associations and guilds, which were continually holding feasts on the pretext of sacrifice and misconducted their offices by insobriety, dealing drastically and peremptorily with the recalcitrant (Flaccus 4; trans. by H. Box as cited in Arnaoutoglou, p. 204)

Philo doesn’t like these non-Jewish associations, in case you hadn’t noticed, and in another treatise on the Therapeutai contrasts the ascetic lifestyle of this particular Jewish group with the wild parties of the worshippers of the god Dionysos and others (see Philo, The Contemplative Life). On the need to exercize caution in evaluating descriptions of wild banquets see my earlier posts here and here. For an entire article on the subject read this: “Culturally Transgressive Banquets in Greco-Roman Associations: Imagination and Reality.”

(Like the associations in Roman Egypt, I, too, am “alive and kicking” despite some major set-backs recently and hope to begin posting somewhat more regularly, though less than usual, soon. My apologies for the hiatus. Despite the temptation, I won’t quote any lyrics from Simple Minds, by the way).

Historians attempting to get at the Jewish peasant Jesus behind the Gospel portrayals adopt several criteria — some more valid than others — in order to assess probabilities in what the actual Jesus said or did (among these are the criterion of multiple and independent attestation; the criterion of dissimilarity; the criterion of embarrassment; and the criterion of historical plausibility). Mark Goodacre has several very well-done posts on neglected criteria for the study of the historical Jesus:

Historical Jesus Forgotten Criteria I: Accidental Information

II: View Common to Friend and Foe

Did Jesus have a house in Capernaum?

Some more historical Jesus online:

Mark G. himself has collected links to resources here.

The PBS website (for From Jesus to Christ) has several scholars’ thoughts on the historian’s task in reconstructing the historical Jesus.

Peter Kirby has an overview of some historical Jesus theories.

Ricoblog now has the Biblical Studies Carnival no. 3 posted.

I should be back soon with postings myself, but am still bogged down with various things.