The Origin of Satan

How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics

By: Elaine Pagels

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Who is Satan in the New Testament, and what is the evil that he represents? In this groundbreaking book, Elaine Pagels, Princeton's distinguished historian of religion, traces the evolution of Satan from its origins in the Hebrew Bible, where Satan is at first merely obstructive, to the New Testament, where Satan becomes the Prince of Darkness, the bitter enemy of God and man, evil incarnate. In The Origin of Satan, Pagels shows that the four Christian gospels tell two very different stories. The first is the story of Jesus' moral genius: his lessons of love, forgiveness, and redemption. The second tells of the bitter conflict between the followers of Jesus and their fellow Jews, a conflict in which the writers of the four gospels condemned as creatures of Satan those Jews who refused to worship Jesus as the Messiah. Writing during and just after the Jewish war against Rome, the evangelists invoked Satan to portray their Jewish enemies as God's enemies too. As Pagels then shows, the church later turned this satanic indictment against its Roman enemies, declaring that pagans and infidels were also creatures of Satan, and against its own dissenters, calling them heretics and ascribing their heterodox views to satanic influences.

©1995 Elaine Pagels (P)2014 Audible Inc.

deceptive

deceptive title, the character of satan is rarely discussed. primarily a history of the early church.

Very detailed but needs a different title

This narrator is fantastic! The book is very well researched with a large volume of biblical references and verses that are incorporated into the text. However, the book is as much a background of Gnostic beliefs as it is a research into the history of Satan. I enjoyed the Gnostic perspectives on numerous biblical text as well as the pseudepigrapha and Nag Hamadi texts. Unfortunately I spent 70% of the time listening to this book wondering what it had to do with Satan. If the title more accurately reflected the content, would have given the story a higher rating. If you understand what the book is really about, I’m certain you will appreciate the research that went into its creation, and the exceptional narration.

Initially generic, later intriguing

Overall, I do not recommend this book because a large chunk of it provides little more than summaries of well known Bible stories. There are intriguing bits of history and the author’s insights later on, so if you have mined everything else in books of Biblical criticism you may want to try this.

interesting

loved it,very well done,was a pleasure to listen to, will definitely check out more of her books

Good Information

Well done
Well said
Historical Information
Maybe more present day application would have took the book to that next level