The Origin of Satan (35 page)

Comparative Studies in Society and History
14 (1972): 494-504. See Richard A.

Horsley,
Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus

(Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985).

188 / NOTES

12. For discussion of the term
lestes
in Josephus, sec Richard A. Horsley,

“Josephus and the Bandits,”
Journal for the Study of Judaism
10 (1979): 37-63.

13. Most recently see Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah (New

York: Doubleday, 1994).

14. Ched Myers has recently argued for an early date (68 C.E.) in
Binding the

Strong Man
(Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1981), 40-42.

15. The dating of the gospels is still a debated issue among New Testament

scholars. I intend to follow the consensus, not to present any original arguments

about dating.

16. For an excellent recent discussion of Jesus’ sayings in Paul's writings, see

H. Koester,
Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development

(London: SCM Press, and Philadelphia: Trinity Press, 1990), 52-55.

17. Josephus,
Jewish Antiquities
18.63 and 20.200, Loeb edition, vol. 9, trans.

L. H. Feldman (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965).

18. See below, pp. 30-33.

19. Philo,
Embassy to Gaius
, 301-2, Loeb edition, vol. 10, trans. F. H. Col-son (London: Heinemann, 1962).

20. James M. Robinson,
The Problem of History in Mark
(London: SCM

Press, 1957).

21.
Ibid
., p. 80: “The ministry of Jesus . . . consists in proclaiming the new-situation (1:15) and in carrying through the struggle against Satan in the power

of the spirit.”

22. Mary Smallwood,
The Jews Under Roman Rule from Pompey to Diocletian

(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 164.

23. 1 Maccabees 2.

24. Robinson,
The Problem of History in Mark
, 63.

25. See, for example, G. Vermes,
The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qûmran in Perspective

(London: Collins, 1977), and the recent revisionist views of L. H. Schiffmann,

The Eschatological Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989).

26. The wording of the Greek text of Mark indicates that it was Jesus’ family

(
hoi peri autov
) who went to seize him (3:21) and his family who were saying

that he was insane (3:22). Many translators, however, apparently finding the

obvious reading objectionable, have worded their translation in ways that avoid

attributing such acts and beliefs to his family. The Revised Standard Version, for

example, adds several words that suggest that his family intended to protect him

from the hostile suspicions of outsiders: “When his family heard it, they went out

to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ ”

27. E. Best, “The Role of the Disciples in Mark,”
New Testament Studies
23

(1977):377-101; T. J. Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict (Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1971); Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “Disciples/Crowds/Whoever:

Mark on Characters and Readers,”
Novum Testamentum
28, 2 (1986): 104-30.

28. See Georg Bentram,
Die Leidengeschichte Jesu und der Christuskult
,

FRLANT N.F. 22 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1922), 55-71.

NOTES / 189

29. Dennis Nineham, on Mark 14:53-72, in
The Gospel of St. Mark
(Balti-

more: Penguin, 1967), 398: “The proceedings which were the cause of Jesus'

death ... are shown as the work of the Jews. The Romans, in the person of Pilate,

also played their part (15:25ff.) but the aim of this section is to show that the primary initiative and the real responsibility lay with the Jews, who, through their

official representatives, solemnly rejected and destroyed the Messiah in full

consciousness of what they were doing.” Nineham discusses the reasons for

doubting the historicity of Mark’s trial narrative in 400-12; see also Rudolf

Bultmann,
The History of the Synoptic Tradition
, trans. John Marsh, rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), 262-87; Eta Linnemann,
Studien zur

Passionsgeschichte
, FRLANT 102 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1970);

John R. Donahue, S.J.,
Are You the Christ? The Trial Narrative in the Gospel of

Mark
(Missoula, Mont.: SBL Press, 1973). An opposite viewpoint is taken by

David Catchpole in
The Trial of Jesus: A Study in the Gospels and Jewish

Historiography from 1770 to the Present Day
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971). Catchpole concludes that Luke's version of the Sanhedrin trial “plays a vital role in the

historical reconstruction of the trial of Jesus” (p. 278). See also Raymond E.

Brown,
The Death of the Messiah
, vol. 1,
From Gethsemane to the Grave
(New York: Doubleday, 1994), 516-60.

30. We do not know precisely what practices the Sanhedrin followed during

the first century, since extant evidence comes from a later time; see David

Goodblatt’s article “Sanhedrin” in the
Encyclopedia of Religion
. I am also grateful to Professor Louis Feldman for his comments on this in a letter (May 1994), and for

showing me a copy of an unpublished article, “Comments on the Physical Death

of Jesus.”

31. See the analysis in David Catchpole,
The Trial of Jesus
, and Raymond E.

Brown,
Death of the Messiah
, vol. 1, 516-60.

32. Fergus Millar, “Reflections on the Trial of Jesus,” in P. R. Davies and

R. T. White, eds.,
A Tribute to Geza Vermes: Essays on Jewish and Christian

Literature and History
, JSOT Suppl. Series 100 (Sheffield: Academia, 1990), 355-81.

33. See bibliography in note 29. Typical is Nineham's comment that the trial

before Pilate “is by no means an eyewitness report; indeed, it is not a report at

all, so much as a series of traditions, each making some apologetic point about the

trial” (
The Gospel of St. Mark
, 411).

34. Paul Winter,
On the Trial of Jesus
, 2d ed. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1974), 33-34.

35. Bentram,
Die Leidengeschichte Jesu
,
passim
; John R. Donahue,
Are You
the Christ?
(Missoula, Mont.: Society of Biblical Literature, 1973), 139-236.

36. Brown,
Death of the Messiah
, 696.

37. Philo,
Embassy to Gaius
, 301-2.

38. Smallwood,
The Jews Under Roman Rule
, 161-62.

39. E. Stauffer, « Zur Münzprägung des Pontius Pilate, »
La Nouvelle Clio

1-2 (1949-50), 495-514.

40. Brown,
Death of the Messiah
, 700.

190 / NOTES

41. See Smallwood,
The Jews Under Roman Rule
, 162, for discussion and ref-

erences.

42. Josephus,
War
2.176-77.

43. B. C. McGinny, “The Governorship of Pontius Pilate: Messiahs and

Sources,”
Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association
10 (1986): 64.

44. Josephus,
Antiquities
2.169-7A.

45. Brown,
Death of the Messiah
, 703.

46. Josephus,
Antiquities
18.85-87.

47. Winter,
On the Trial of Jesus
, 88.

48. See Howard C. Kee,
Who Are the People of God?
Forthcoming from Yale

University Press, New Haven.

1. For a more detailed scholarly treatment of the material in this chapter, see

E. Pagels, “The Social History of Satan, the ‘Intimate Enemy’: A Preliminary

Sketch,”
Harvard Theological Review
84:2 (1991): 105-28.

2. See M. Hengel,
Judaism and Hellenism
(London, 1974), 209, which

argues that apocalyptic writings are the work of a pious minority who

segregated themselves from the official cult. See also M. Barker, “Some

Reflections on the Enoch Myth,”
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
15

(1980): 7-29; her article interprets 1
Enoch
as the work of a group protesting against Jerusalem cult practices, and suggests a link between such works as
Enoch

and the later development of Christian tradition.

3. See, in particular, the incisive essays by Jonathan Z. Smith, “What a Dif-

ference a Difference Makes,” and William S. Green, “Otherness Within:

Towards a Theory of Difference in Rabbinic Judaism,” in Jacob Neusner and

Ernest S. Frerichs, eds.,
To See Ourselves as Others See Us: Christians, Jews,

“Others” in Late Antiquity
(Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985), 3-48 and 49-69.

4. See Morton Smith,
Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old

Testament
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), especially 62-146;

also Paul Hanson,
The Dawn of Apocalyptic
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975).

5. Jon D. Levenson,
Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama

of Divine Omnipotence
(San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988). I am grateful to

John Collins for referring me to this work.

6.
Ibid
., 44.

7. Many scholars have made this observation; for a recent discussion see

Neil Forsyth,
The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth
(Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1987), 107: “In the collection of documents . . . known

to Christians as the Old Testament, the word [Satan] never appears ... as the name

of the adversary. . . . rather, when the satan appears in the Old Testament, he is a

member of the heavenly court, albeit with unusual tasks.” See also the article on

démon
, in
Le Dictionnaire de Spiritualité
3 (Paris: Beauschesne, 1957), 142-16; H.

A. Kelly, “Demonology and Diabolical Temptation,”
Thought
46 (1965): 165-70.

NOTES / 191

8. M. Delcor, “Le Mythe de la chute des anges et l'origine des géants comme

explication du mal dans le monde dans l’apocalyptique juive: Histoire des

traditions”,
Revue de L’histoire des religions
190:5-12; P. Day,
An Adversary in
Heaven: Satan in the Hebrew Bible
(Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1988).

9. Forsyth,
The Old Enemy
, 113.

10. See discussion in Day,
An Adversary
, 69-106.

11. Forsyth,
The Old Enemy
, 114.

12. Note that 2 Samuel 24:1-17 tells a different version of the story, in which

the Lord himself, not “the
satan
,” incites David to take the census. For

discussion, see Morton Smith,
Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old
Testament
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 62-146; Forsyth,
The
Old Enemy
, 119-20.

13. Pagels, “The Social History of Satan, the ‘Intimate Enemy’: A Prelimi-

nary Sketch,”
Harvard Theological Review
84:2 (1991): 112-14.

14. Paul D. Hanson,
The Dawn of Apocalyptic
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press,

1975), 125.

15. An excellent account of these events is to be found in Victor Tcherikover's
Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews
(New York: Atheneum,

1970).

16. 1 Maccabees, 2.

17. Tcherikover,
Hellenistic Civilization
, 132-74.

18.
Ibid.,
253-65.

19. Such scholars as Knut Schäferdick, in his article “Satan in the Post Apos-

tolic Fathers,” s.v. “σατανας,”
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
7 (1971): 163-65, attributes this development to Christians. Others, including Harold Kuhn,

“The Angelology of the Non-Canonical Jewish Apocalypses,”
Journal of Biblical

Literature
67 (1948): 217; Claude Montefiore,
Lectures on the Origin and Growth of
Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews
(London: Williams and Norgate, 1892), 429; and George Foote Moore,
Judaism in the First Centuries of the
Christian Era
, vol. 1,
The Age of the Tannaim
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1927), rightly locate the development of angelology and demonology in pre-Christian Jewish sources, and offer different interpretations of this, as noted in

Pagels, “The Social History of Satan, the ‘Intimate Enemy,’ ” 107.

20. Which account is earlier—that in Genesis 6 or in I
Enoch
6-11—remains

a debatable issue. See, for example, J. T. Milik,
The Books of Enoch: Aramaic

Fragments of Qûmran Caves
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1976); George W. E.

Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in I
Enoch
6-11,”
Journal of Biblical

Literature
96 (1977): 383-405; Margaret Barker, 2Some Reflections on the Enoch Myth,” JSOT 15 (1980): 7-29; Philip S. Alexander, “The Targumim and Early

Exegesis of the ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6,”
Journal of Jewish Studies
23 (1972): 60-71.

21. For a survey of this theme of rivalry between angels and humans, see

Peter Schafer’s fine work
Rivalität Zwischen Engeln und Menschen:

Untersuchungen zur rabbinischen Engelvorstellung
(Berlin and New York: de

Gruyter, 1975). For a discussion of one strand of Muslim tra-