See, e.g., G. L. Archer, “Daniel,” in EBC, 7:124-25; J. J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), pp. 374-76; J. E. Goldingay, Daniel, WBC 30 (Dallas, Tex.: Word, 1989), pp. 291-92, 312-14; L. F. Hartman and A. A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel, AB 23 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978), pp. 282-84; R. Wallace, The Lord Is King: The Message of Daniel (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1979), p. 179.

W. Wink suggests plausibly that this territorial spirit was protecting his territorial interests in trying to block this divine messenger. See Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), pp. 89-90. I discuss this passage more fully in chapter four.

A growing number of missions-minded evangelicals are taking the possibility of menacing “territorial spirits” seriously. Daniel 10, along with the wider notion of the “angels of the nations” to which it is connected, plays a central role in this perspective. See, e.g., J. Dawson, Taking Our Cities for God: How to Break Spiritual Strongholds (Altamonte Springs, Fla.: Creation House, 1989); G. Otis Jr., The Last of the Giants (Tarrytown, N.Y.: Chosen, 1991); C. P. Wagner, ed., Breaking Strongholds in Your City (Ventura, Calif.: Regal/Gospel Light, 1993); idem, ed., Engaging the Enemy: How to Fight and Defeat Territorial Spirits (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1991). For further background on the “angels of the nations” theme in Scripture and the early church, see J. Daniélou’s excellent little work The Angels and Their Mission, According to the Fathers of the Church, trans. D. Heimann (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1957), esp. pp. 22ff.; and W. Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 26-35.

I must nevertheless add that as we make the transition out of modernity into postmodernity, the Western naturalistic tendency to dismiss the existence, or at least the importance, of angelic beings is rapidly and dramatically changing, a fact that is of some consequence in the next chapter.

Although many issues surround the question of what exactly constitutes a “worldview,” we need not enter into them here. But it is helpful to clarify what I mean by this term. I mean to refer to a dominant feature of the ultimate gestalt within which individuals or a people-group interpret their experience. By a “warfare worldview,” therefore, I refer in a most general fashion to a dominant feature of that ultimate gestalt, shared in different ways by almost all primordial cultures, within which people understand their experience as being to some significant extent affected by a spiritual conflict that is believed to be going on in an invisible (but sometimes visible) realm. It is true that the worldview of these people-groups can in no instance be exhaustively defined as “warfare.” But this much is true of any label about any worldview, which is why labeled worldviews frequently overlap with one another. Worldviews are highly complex matters, and no single label can ever exhaustively describe them. Hence it is true to say that the warfare worldview is (or at least originally was) a dimension of the Christian worldview, while it is just as true to say that the Christian worldview is (or at least originally was) one instance of the more general “warfare worldview.” On the concept of a “worldview,” see P. Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1985), p. 46; C. Kraft, Christianity with Power: Your Worldview and Your Experience of the Supernatural (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Vine Books, 1989), passim, but esp. p. 20; and M. Kraft, “Spiritual Power and Worldview,” in her Understanding Spiritual Power: A Forgotten Dimension of Cross-Cultural Mission and Ministry (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1995), pp. 20-36.

The name Shuar has largely replaced the earlier name Jívaro, which acquired a pejorative connotation in Ecuadorian usage. See M. Harner, The Jívaro (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), pp. v-xvi. The following information on the Shuar derives largely from this work, esp. pp. 134-66.

See A. E. Jensen, Myth and Cult Among Primitive People, trans. M. T. Choldin and W. Weissleder (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, rpt. 1963), pp. 307-12.

Facilitated by several early influential works on this tribe, most notably F. W. Up de Graff, Head Hunters of the Amazon: Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure (Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing, 1923); and R. Karsten, The Headhunters of Western Amazons: The Life and Culture of the Jibaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador and Peru, Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 7/1 (Helsinki: Societas Scientarum Fennica, 1935).

In speaking of the invisible world as “supernatural,” I am importing a Western category and partially distorting a Shuarian category. For them, it is not so much that the invisible world is “supernatural” as it is that the physical world is less than natural. Perhaps a more accurate manner of speech is to distinguish between “ordinary” and “nonordinary” (rather than “natural” and “supernatural”) reality. See C. Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (New York: Simon & Schuster, rpt. 1974); idem, Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972); idem, A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971). In general, however, since I am talking primarily to Westerners, I follow Marguerite Kraft and refer to this perspective on the world that affirms the reality of spiritual beings as a central feature as “supernaturalism.” See Kraft, “Investigating Supernaturalism,” in Understanding Spiritual Power, pp. 79-87; as well as J. Henninger, “The Adversary of God in Primitive Religions,” in Satan: Essays Collected and Translated from “Etudes Carmelitaines,” ed. B. de Jésus-Marie, trans. M. Carroll, et al. (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1951), pp. 105-20.

Some schools of Buddhism, such as Zen, and certain segments of Hinduism and Taoism provide notable exceptions to this view. The world, as it is, is seen as being absolutely one and in perfect harmony with itself. Indeed, such a monistic teaching is found in Neo-Platonism, which, through Augustine, strongly influenced Christian theology. Still, it is also true to say that even in Buddhist cultures the masses have rarely followed this monistic teaching in anything like a pure form. The teaching is invariably fused to some extent with widely shared spiritual intuitions and popular folk traditions that revolve around good and evil spirits. Hence, for example, Hinduism is at once the most intensely monistic and polytheistic major religion in the world, for while all of reality is understood on a philosophical level to be Brahman, on a popular level more than thirty million different gods are adored, while multitudes of demon-type spirits are frequently feared. In the case of Christianity, Augustine’s monistic teaching could not overturn not only popular folk traditions about good and evil angels, but the scriptural teaching on the matter. As I shall argue in a forthcoming volume entitled Satan and the Problem of Evil, the result is that traditional Christianity has usually operated with a quasi-warfare worldview. For a collection of conflict myths within Hinduism, see S. Husain, Demons, Gods and Holy Men (New York: Schocken; Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1987); and W. D. O’Flaherty, Hindu Myths (London: Harmondsworth, 1975). On the demonic in folk traditions in India, see G. H. Sutherland, The Disguises of the Demon (Albany: SUNY, 1991); and J. Varenne, “Anges, démons et génies dans l’Inde,” in Génies, anges et démons (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1971), pp. 257-94.

As is well known, ancient or primitive perceptions of the spirit world usually do not break down along clear-cut “good” and “evil” categories. Most of their deities are somewhat morally ambivalent (though, as we shall see in chapter four, primordial peoples often have a vague conception of an all-good highest God). The more fundamental categories among primitive peoples are usually “friendly” and “hostile.”

By “intuition” here I mean to refer to the spiritual sense humans have, by virtue of their being made in the image of God, by which they access general revelation. We need not enter into the thorny issues regarding what can and cannot be known from general revelation or how reliable this general intuition is or is not. It will suffice to simply note my working assumption that an intuition of spiritual realities is valid to the extent that it agrees with Scripture and invalid to the extent that it does not.

Jensen, Myth and Cult, pp. 314-18. See also Jensen, Die drei Ströme: Züge aus dem geistigen Leben der Wemale (Leipzig, 1948), pp. 192ff.

Kraft, Understanding Spiritual Power, p. 77.

Ibid., pp. 77-78.

The word daimon was used to denote any incorporeal spirit at this time, much like the word “angel” is used today. It was not necessarily pejorative. On the early history and development of the notion of daimon, see F. F. Brenk, “In the Light of the Moon: Demonology in the Early Imperial Period,” in ANRW (1986), ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase, 2/16.3:2068-2145; also H. W. M. de Jong, Demonische ziekten in Babylon en Bijbel (Leiden: Brill, 1959). On Plato’s demonology, see especially S. S. Jensen, Dualism and Demonology: The Function of Demonology in Pythagorean and Platonic Thought (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1966).

See Plato, Symposium 202D-203A. For an excellent discussion of the conception, see Jensen, Dualism and Demonology, pp. 77-101; and Brenk, “In the Light of the Moon,” pp. 2085-88. As Jensen (ibid., p. 65) notes, daimons were at this point simply regarded as “beings intermediate between the gods and man.” For the demonologies of the Pythagoreans and Xenocrates, see Jensen, ibid., pp. 640-76 and 102-7. On perceptions of the daimonic in the Greco-Roman world at large, see Brenk, “In the Light of the Moon”; E. R. Dodds, “Man and the Daemonic World,” in his Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), pp. 37-68; E. Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1984), chap. 2, pp. 33-67; and J. Z. Smith, “Towards Interpreting Demonic Powers in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity,” ANRW (1978), 2/16.1:425-39.

Some early sources suggest that Socrates’ claim of dependence upon his personal daimon was used in the charges that eventually led to his death. See Plato Euthyphro 3B; and Xenophon Memorabilia 1.1-3.

On the understanding of demonic influence upon humans in the Hellenistic world, see E. A. Leeper, “Exorcism in Early Christianity” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1991), pp. 26-38. While most Greek philosophical writers regarded the notion of demon possession as superstition (see Brenk, “In the Light of the Moon,” p. 2108), the evidence suggests that the masses did not share their perspective. A. Tripolitis (“Daemons/Spirits in Hellenistic Literature” [paper presented to the Jesus Seminar, Rutgers University, Oct. 22-25, 1992]) presents evidence of exorcisms in the ancient Hellenistic world where invasive daimons are cast out through spells and even by quoting verses from Homer! For a superb study of demon possession and of spiritual warfare in general from a rather naturalistic anthropological perspective, see F. D. Goodman, How About Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), as well as her earlier work The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel (New York: Doubleday, 1981). Other works I have found informative have been W. Davis, Dojo: Magic and Exorcism in Modern Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980); and E. Colson, “Spirit Possession Among the Tonga of Zambia,” in Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa, ed. J. Beattie and J. Middleton (New York: Africana, 1969).

J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 60.

See S. Mansfield, The Gestalts of War (New York: Dial, 1982), p. 56. See N. A. Chagnon, Yanomamö: The Fierce People, 2d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977).

See W. Schmidt, High Gods in North America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), pp. 34-39.

W. Koppers, Primitive Man and His World Picture, trans. E. Raybould (London: Sheed & Ward, 1952), pp. 75-94.

For a collection of patakis (legends of the gods), see M. González-Wippler, Legends of Santeria (St. Paul: Llewellyn, 1994).

See, e.g., Kraft, Understanding Spiritual Power, pp. 67-78; Russell, Devil, p. 67; Mansfield, Gestalts of War, p. 58. On Satanlike and demonic figures, or elements and structures that suggest a general “warfare” view of the cosmos in other religious perspectives, see E. A. A. Adegbola, ed., Traditional Religion in West Africa (Ibadan: Daystar, 1983), pp. 215ff.; P. J. Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology, SHR 44 (Leiden: Brill, 1983); J. W. Boyd, Satan and Mara: Christian and Buddhist Symbols of Evil, SHR 27 (Leiden: Brill, 1975); Henninger, “Adversary of God”; E. C. Krupp, Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), pp. 14-19, 212-13; L. Massingnon, “The Yezids of Mount Sindjar,” in Satan: Essays, pp. 158-62; S. P. Rao and M. P. Reddy, “Job and His Satan: Parallels in Indian Scripture,” ZAW 91 (1979): 416-22; M. E. Spiro, Burmese Supernaturalism (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967), pp. 47-54; Sutherland, Disguises of the Demon; M. Taussig, The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); A. T. Welch, “Allah and Other Supernatural Beings: The Emergence of the Qur’anic Doctrine of Tawd,” in Studies in Qur’an and Tafsir, ed. A. T. Welch, (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1979), pp. 733-58.

One of the most remarkable ancient examples of the warfare worldview is that of Zoroastrianism. While the later Sassanid period (represented by the Pahlavi texts) reveals a strong cosmic dualism, the evidence suggests that Zoroaster’s original faith was monotheistic, but with a strong emphasis on the power of one of God’s creation who turned evil, Ahriman. See J. P. Asmussen, “Some Remarks on Sassanian Demonology,” in Commémoration Cyrus, hommage universel, 3 vols., ed. A. Pagiliaro et al., Acta Iranica 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 1:236-41; D. Bishop, “When Gods Become Demons,” in Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Papers Presented in Honor of Edith Porada, ed. A. E. Farkus et al. (Mainz on Rhine: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1987), pp. 95-100; J. W. Boyd and D. A. Crosby, “Is Zoroastrianism Dualistic or Monotheistic?” JAAR 47 (1979): 557-88; E. R. Hay, “God and Evil: Zoroaster and Barth,” Dalhousie Review 49 (1969): 369-76. I shall discuss Zoroastrianism further as concerns its influence on the Jewish conception of Satan in chapter five.

This volume attempts to demonstrate that the Bible clearly espouses a warfare view of the world, and that this worldview decisively conditions its understanding of suffering and evil. In the volume that is to follow (Satan and the Problem of Evil) I shall attempt to provide a philosophical defense of this warfare worldview, especially as it was being developed in the early postapostolic church, over against the more monistic-tending perspective that came to dominate Christian theology after Augustine.

Although at least an echo of creational monotheism (a belief in one Creator God) is found among many primordial peoples—a fact that must be accounted for (see chapter four)—the insight that this Creator God is altogether perfect and omnipotent seems quite rare.

The term “chronocentrism” is from J. B. Russell, The Prince of Darkness (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 260. On the myopic nature of the Western worldview, see M. Kraft, “The Problem with a Western Worldview,” in her Understanding Spiritual Power, pp. 31-36.

See note 12. Affirming this point does not in any way imply an endorsement of any specific features of any particular warfare worldview. From a scriptural perspective, many aspects of each pagan mythology must be judged as being themselves more erroneous, if not demonic, than correct and God-inspired. My only claim is that the basic insight that the world makes sense only against a backdrop of invisible, spiritual, cosmic conflict should, so far as it goes, be regarded as correct from the vantage point of Scripture.

See Lewis’s essay, “Myth Becomes Reality,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. W. Hooper (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1970), esp. pp. 65-67.

See my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

By “classical-philosophical Christian theism” I mean that philosophical view of God that arose chiefly from Hellenistic philosophical sources and that tended to define God as essentially atemporal, immutable, impassible, actus purus, perfectly simple and (most importantly for our purposes) meticulously sovereign over the world. I distinguish it from simple “classical theism” or “traditional theism” in that these latter terms are more general and include not only what theologians have theorized about God but also what lay Christians have tended to affirm about God (whether consistent with the official theology of the church or not). While I agree with most aspects of the classical and traditional views of God, and even many aspects of the classical-philosophical view of God (e.g., the belief that God exists necessarily and is self-sufficient apart from the world), and while I thus strongly side with both the traditional and classical-philosophical theistic traditions over against any form of process theism or dualism, I nevertheless maintain that some of the central attributes ascribed to God in the classical-philosophical theistic tradition are unbiblical, philosophically untenable and ultimately destructive to the warfare worldview because they logically undermine it. For an excellent collection of representative primary texts (with commentary) of classical-philosophical theologians (ranging from Philo to Augustine to Aquinas up to modern times), see C. Hartshorne and W. L. Reese, Philosophers Speak of God (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 76-164. For my own attempt to interact critically with both the classical-philosophical and process theistic traditions in order to produce a synthesis, see my Trinity and Process: A Critical Evaluation and Reconstruction of Hartshorne’s Di-Polar Theism Towards a Trinitarian Metaphysics (New York: Peter Lang, 1992). I shall provide a thorough biblical and philosophical critique of various classical-philosophical theistic assumptions in my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

A warfare theistic worldview also inspires a revolt against any view of God that does not see him as revolting against evil and suffering. In this sense I agree with Jüngel, Kaspers and Küng, among others, who have argued that Christian theism has much to learn from the modern atheistic critique of (the classical-philosophical view of) God. The classical-philosophical omnicontrolling view of God that modern atheism rejects is neither biblically nor philosophically defensible, and hence should be rejected. For arguments along these lines, see E. Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World: On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute Between Theism and Atheism, trans. D. L. Gruder (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983); W. Kaspar, The God of Jesus Christ, trans. M. O’Connell (New York: Crossroad, 1986), pp. 3-64; H. Küng, Does God Exist? An Answer For Today, trans. E. Quinn (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980), pp. 405-10.

On the hazards, difficulties and possibilities regarding the task of biblical theology, discussed from various perspectives, see J. Barr, “The Theological Case Against Biblical Theology,” in Canon, Theology and Old Testament Interpretation, ed. G. M. Tucker et al. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), pp. 3-19; B. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970); and J. J. Collins, “Is a Critical Biblical Theology Possible?” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, ed. W. H. Propp et al. (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), pp. 1-17. For several excellent conservative assessments, see C. H. H. Scobie, “The Challenge of Biblical Theology,” TynBul 42, no. 1 (1991): 30-61; idem, “New Directions in Biblical Theology,” Themelios 17 (1991-92): 5-6; G. R. Osborne, “Can We Get Theology from the Bible?” in his Three Crucial Questions About the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995), pp. 120-79.

For a recent discussion of the various approaches to biblical theology, along with a detailed exposition of the “canonical approach” (often termed “canonical criticism”) from one of its foremost proponents, see B. S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflections on the Christian Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).

In this regard, I am intrigued with, and initially hopeful about, P. R. Noble’s methodological and hermeneutical reconstruction of Childs’s program in his The Canonical Approach: A Critical Reconstruction of the Hermeneutics of Brevard S. Childs, BIS 16 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), esp. pp. 187-218, 340-50. On the “authorcentered” camp of textual interpretation, see E. D. Hirsch’s seminal work Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967).

My basic position is that we have it on Christ’s authority, which itself can be established on solid historical grounds, that Scripture is divinely inspired, but next to nothing as to how Scripture is divinely inspired. Hence, though I defend the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture, I am in principle completely open to the historical-critical investigation of the particular historical processes by which various segments of Scripture came about. In my view, an unequivocal affirmation of scriptural inspiration does not entail anything in the direction of the “divine dictation theory” espoused by some American fundamentalists. On the defense of the historical Jesus as the Son of God (as opposed to various modern revisionist perspectives), see my Cynic, Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies (Wheaton, Ill.: Bridgepoint, 1995), chapters 5—13. For a classical defense of biblical inspiration on the foundation of the historical Jesus as well as a discussion of various surrounding issues, see B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, ed. S. G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1970). For several other helpful discussions, see P. J. Achtemeier, The Inspiration of Scripture: Problems and Proposals (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980); S. T. Davis, The Debate About the Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977); M. J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1983-85), 1:199-220; B. Vawter, Biblical Inspiration (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972); C. Pinnock, The Scripture Principle (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984).

On the issue of the normative unity underlying the diversity of Scripture, see my Cynic, Sage, pp. 129-32; D. A. Carson, “Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: The Possibility of Systematic Theology,” in Scripture and Truth, ed. Carson and J. D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, rpt. 1992), pp. 65-95; A. J. Hultgren, The Rise of Normative Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); I. H. Marshall, “Jesus, Paul and John,” Aberdeen University Review 173 (1985): 18-36; idem, “An Evangelical Approach to ‘Theological Criticism,’” Themelios 13 (April-May 1988): 79-85; B. L. Martin, “Some Reflections on the Unity of the New Testament,” SR 8, no. 2 (1979): 143-52; and J. I. Packer, “Upholding the Unity of Scripture Today,” JETS 25, no. 4 (1982): 409-14.

Walter Wink has recently attempted to render a belief in good and evil “Powers” more credible to modern ears in the three volumes of his series The Powers: vol. 1, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); vol. 2, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986); vol. 3, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). Wink achieves this credibility, however, by denying that the Powers are autonomous and free agents. To this extent he “demythologizes” them. For Wink the Powers are most fundamentally the “spiritual interiority” of human social units—something like Jungian archetypes. The Powers, then, have no mind or will of their own, but are rather constituted by the collective mind and will of human groups (institutions, social groups, corporations, nations, etc.). For all the creativity, and often the insight, of Wink’s articulation and defense of this thesis, however, the thesis undermines at least one central aspect of the Powers in Scripture: their ability to wage war against humanity. It is for this reason that Wink’s analysis of the Powers offers no advantage for a theodicy. (On this score, Wink favors process thought. See Engaging the Powers, p. 401, note 23.) It is also because the autonomous free agency of the Powers has been undermined that Wink ultimately embraces a universalistic and a pacifistic perspective of the Powers. In contrast, we shall see that Scripture offers the view that good and evil cosmic and angelic forces are in some sense personal, autonomous and free, and hence sometimes spiritual warfare must be carried out against the evil Powers in order that they might be eternally defeated. As C. S. Lewis argued, when free will is consistently embraced, universalism cannot be. See Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), pp. 121-28; idem, The Great Divorce (New York: Macmillan, 1946), pp. 120-21.

P. Friedman, ed., Martyrs and Fighters: The Epic of the Warsaw Ghetto (New York: Praeger, 1954), pp. 166-67. Quoted in D. Rausch, A Legacy of Hatred: Why Christians Must Not Forget the Holocaust (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), p. 122.

J. B. Russell, The Prince of Darkness (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 257. So argues K. Surin: “It is imperative . . . that the theodicist ask himself: Am I operating with a conception of evil that, because of its abstract nature, effectively reduces evil to banality?” See his “Theodicy?” HTR 76, no. 2 (1983): 230-32. Just this “abstractness,” argues Hannah Arendt, is what allowed “decent” people to participate in the Holocaust. See her Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, rpt. 1977).

Russell, Prince of Darkness, p. 256. So too Surin, following Irving Greenberg, argues that after the Holocaust no theodicy can be taken seriously that does not itself “take burning children seriously.” See his Theology and the Problem of Evil (New York: Blackwell, 1986), p. 151.

See note 32 in the introduction regarding classical-philosophical theism. For a critical overview of the classical-philosophical definition of God, see the discussion (with references) in my Trinity and Process: A Critical Evaluation and Reconstruction of Hartshorne’s Di-Polar Theism Towards a Trinitarian Metaphysics (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), pp. 196ff., 253ff., 296ff. For a trenchant critique of the classical-philosophical view of God as it concerns the problem of creaturely free will and the problem of evil, see D. Griffin, Power and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976). Unfortunately, Griffin thinks that only the process view of God, being necessarily related to a nondivine world that by metaphysical necessity has power over and against God, avoids the theodicy problems created by the classical-philosophical view of God. Something similar must be said of Langdon Gilkey’s forceful critique of classical-philosophical theism in his Reaping the Whirlwind: A Christian Interpretation of History (New York: Seabury, 1976).

This much is true even if we choose to speak of God “permitting” certain events as opposed to God “willing” certain events. As H. Blocher (following Calvin) argues, if God exercises meticulous control over the world, then even what he “allows” must serve a particular divine purpose. Thus the classic distinction between what God “wills” and what God “permits” amounts to very little. See Blocher, Evil and the Cross, trans. D. G. Preston (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), pp. 96-97.

A. König, Here Am I: A Believer’s Reflection on God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 20. As an expression of a subjective impression König’s statement is certainly valid, though as a report about objective reality it is epistemologically dubious. How would one measure the balance between good and evil to gain such knowledge? For a painful representative selection of modern illustrations of the radicality of the problem of evil, see P. Schilling, God and Human Anguish (Nashville: Abingdon, 1977), pp. 14-24.

L. Sandell, “Day by Day and with Each Passing Moment,” trans. A. L. Skoog.

See Augustine City of God 5.10.

For a succinct but penetrating history of Christian anti-Semitism, see Rausch, Legacy of Hatred.

W. F. Lloyd, “My Times Are in Thy Hand,” adapted by W. H. Havergal.

Schelling (God and Human Anguish, pp. 59-72) speaks against a “theology of resignation,” which results from the sort of implicit theological determinism reflected in many of the traditional hymns of the church. We resign ourselves to accept as from the hand of God what we ought to revolt against as from the hand of Satan. We thereby trade in biblical spiritual activism for a nonbiblical form of passivity and pseudosecurity.

William Cowper, 1731-1800, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.”

For issues surrounding Augustine’s classic statement of this position, see C. Kirwan, Augustine (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 119-24.

R. C. Sproul, Chosen By God (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1986), pp. 26-27. Sproul has more recently expanded this argument in Not a Chance: The Myth of Chance in Modern Science and Cosmology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1994).

For a fascinating exposition on the mathematical foundation of the conception of randomness in the sciences, especially as it functions in modern chaos theory, see I. Steward, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, rpt. 1995). Also relevant, and more theologically sophisticated, is D. J. Bartholomew, God of Chance (London: SCM, 1984).

See F. Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. C. Garrett (New York: Modern Library, 1950), pp. 286-92.

Regarding the term “Augustinian model/theodicy,” a word of clarification is perhaps in order. Since John Hick’s important work on the problem of evil (Evil and the God of Love [London: Fontana, 1968]) the term “Augustinian theodicy” has frequently come to be juxtaposed to Hick’s “Irenaean theodicy,” the crucial difference being that Augustine supposedly conceives of evil as a free intrusion into an originally perfect state (of angels, then of humans), while Irenaeus, according to Hick, conceived of the original state (of humans anyway) as innocent but not perfect. For Hick, then, the Augustinian model represents the classical version of the free will defense. My objection against the Augustinian theodicy is precisely the opposite of this. I hold that Augustine’s view of the free Fall (of angels and humans) is biblical and can (contra Hick) be made philosophically intelligible. Augustine himself did not do this, however, because on top of his free will defense he posited a divine purpose preceding all events, including free actions. This all-encompassing divine blueprint undermines the explanatory value of his free will defense. For Hick’s argument against the notion that originally perfect, finite, free beings could “fall,” see “The Problem of Evil in the First and Last Things,” JTS 19 (1968): 592. Similar objections are raised by B. Calvert, “Dualism and the Problem of Evil,” Sophia 22, no. 3 (1983): 15-28, who uses this critique to argue for a necessary evil being. I shall address these objections to the free will defense in my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Many biblical scholars maintain that this is a dominant, if not the dominant, view of evil found throughout the Old Testament (and, it is sometimes argued, even in the New), especially in the Psalms. For a collection of references, see B. Whitney, Evil and the Process God (New York: Mellen, 1985), pp. 25-28, 182; E. S. Gerstenberger and W. Schrage, Suffering (Nashville: Abingdon, 1977), pp. 107, 227-331; and Schilling, God and Human Anguish, pp. 119-45. Without denying that this theme is found in the Old Testament, and thus without dismissing the truth that God can and does sometimes use evil to discipline people, many scholars question that this motif is dominant in Old Testament thinking. For a solid critique of this interpretation of many of the so-called complaint Psalms, see F. Lindström’s outstanding work, Suffering and Sin: Interpretations of Illness in the Individual Complaint Psalms, trans. M. McLamb, ConBOT 37 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1994). For a more general response to this reading of the Old Testament, see T. Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective, OBT (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); K. Koch, “Is There a Doctrine of Retribution in the Old Testament?” in Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. J. Crenshaw, IRT (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), pp. 57-87; as well as J. Crenshaw, “The Shift from Theodicy to Anthropodicy,” in ibid., pp. 1-16. Also relevant to this and other supposed theodicy themes found in Scripture is J. Crenshaw, A Whirlpool of Torment, OBT (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).

John 9:1-5 is often translated in such a way that it seems to support the view that God caused the person to be born blind. I argue against this translation in chapter eight.

Hence the title of H. S. Kushner’s popular book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (New York: Schocken, 1981). That Rabbi Kushner’s book (in which he simply denies that God is omnipotent) was a bestseller perhaps indicates that the hold which the classical-philosophical view of God had on Western people is waning.

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1943), 4.74-100.

So argues Kenneth Surin, for example: “despite the efforts of . . . theologians, the thought persists in many quarters that theodicy is perhaps one of the least satisfying areas of the theological enterprise” (“Theodicy?” HTR 76, no. 2 [1983]: 223). See also idem. Theology and the Problem of Evil (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986); T. W. Tilley, The Evils of Theodicy (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990); and M. Scott, “The Morality of Theodicies,” RelS 32, no. 1 (1996): 1-13. Similar pessimistic sentiments regarding theodicy as it has been understood within the classical-philosophical tradition are expressed in R. Worsely, Human Freedom and the Logic of Evil: Prolegomenon to a Theology of Evil (London: Macmillan, 1996), and W. C. Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking About God Went Wrong (Louisville, Ky.: Westminister John Knox Press, 1996), pp. 201-15.

Augustine, Confessions, trans. H. Chadwick (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 125. See Boethius Consolation 4.74-100.

Augustine City of God 5.10; NPNF 2:93.

Ibid., 11.18, pp. 214-15.

Brothers Karamazov, p. 290.

Cf., e.g., Deuteronomy 12:31; 16:22; Proverbs 6:16; 11:1; Isaiah 61:8; Zechariah 8:17; Malachi 2:16.

Among the vast array of theologians and philosophers who have contended that the classical-philosophical view of God is incompatible with free will, understood as self-determination, Charles Hartshorne has arguably been the most forceful, and is undoubtedly the most prolific. For his two most succinct statements against the classical view of God and for his dipolar view of God, see The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948); and Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (Albany: SUNY, 1984).

See Boyd, Trinity and Process, as well as Satan and the Problem of Evil, chapters 3-8 (forthcoming). For several examples of Arminian theologians who are nevertheless significantly (and to some extent inconsistently) classical in their views of God, see T. Oden, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, The Living God (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 53-82; H. O. Wiley, Christian Theology, 3 vols. (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill, rpt. 1963), 1:336-44, 349-60; T. O. Summers, Systematic Theology, 2 vols. (Nashville: Methodist Episcopal Church Publishing House, 1896), 1:75-109; W. B. Pope, A Compendium of Christian Theology, 3 vols. (London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1880), 1:248-358.

See, e.g., Summers, Systematic Theology, 1:122-46. For a more balanced but yet quite classical Arminian theodicy, see Ogden, Living God, 1:296-315. For an excellent philosophical defense of the possibility of gratuitous evil (and thus a rejection of the concept of providence as meticulous control), see M. Peterson, Evil and the Christian God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1982).

See my forthcoming Satan and Problem of Evil, chapter 10.

It is crucial to note that the issue I raise here is over the ontological status of the future in the present; it is not over whether God is omniscient. Orthodox Christianity has always rightly assumed that God is omniscient. Indeed, I have myself elsewhere argued that God’s knowledge is, by metaphysical necessity, coterminous with reality (Trinity and Process, pp. 242-52). Reality—including the total reality of the future—is, in my view, by definition “that which is known by God.” The issue being raised here concerns whether the future at the present time is wholly definite. Or is it, at the present time, partially indefinite, consisting at least in part of possibilities? Does the future consist only in “what shall transpire,” or does it also include “what may transpire”? Put otherwise, does the content of God’s perfect knowledge include the knowledge of possibilities, or is it (or must it be) exhaustively definite? Is the knowledge of possibilities defective? Does reality really include possibilities? If it does, then God’s knowledge of them is certainly not defective.

Though many theologians presently argue that denying that God has exhaustive definite knowledge of what shall transpire limits God’s knowledge, in truth this view limits God’s knowledge no more than denying that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future as a realm of possibilities. Both views affirm in the same manner that God knows perfectly what is real, and deny that God knows what is not. Hence it is simply the content of the reality God perfectly knows, not the fact that this knowledge is omniscient, which the two views disagree over. David Basinger is among the few who properly locates the issue. See his “Can an Evangelical Christian Justifiably Deny God’s Exhaustive Knowledge of the Future?” CSR 25, no. 2 (1995): 133-45. For an in-depth discussion, see my Trinity and Process, pp. 296-342. As mentioned in note 32 above, I shall again address this issue as it intersects with theodicy concerns in my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

See, e.g., Genesis 6:5-7, 22:12ff.; Exodus 3:18—4:9; 32:12-14; 1 Samuel 15:11, 35; 1 Kings 2:1-4; 1 Chronicles 21:15; Isaiah 38:1-5; Jonah 3:4-10; 4:2; Jeremiah 3:6-7, 19-20; 18:6-11; 26:3, 19; 38:17-18; Hosea 11:8-9; Joel 2:12-14; Revelation 3:5. The most extensive recent review of the biblical basis for an “open” view of God is J. Sanders, “Divine Providence as Risk-Taking” (Ph.D. diss., University of South Africa, 1996). Even more exhaustive, however, is the work of L. D. McCabe in the nineteenth century: Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies a Necessity (New York: Phillips and Hunt, 1882), and esp. The Foreknowledge of God (Cincinnati: Granston and Stowe, 1887). Other more recent works on the topic include C. Pinnock, ed., The Openness of God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), and R. Rice, God’s Foreknowledge and Man’s Free Will (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1985).

One might argue that God foreknows what shall transpire but can do nothing about it. He has what is sometimes called “simple foreknowledge.” (For a fine discussion of different models of foreknowledge, see Sanders, “Divine Providence as Risk-Taking,” pp. 212-29.) The view has the significant advantage of avoiding the question of why God did not do something about Hitler (or any given evil) if he knew about it ahead of time. But it is problematic in other respects. First, as a point of fact, it is not the traditional Arminian position, and indeed runs counter to the basic thrust of the Arminian position, which wanted to affirm foreknowledge as a means of asserting God’s control over the world without denying freedom. Second, the simple foreknowledge view does not explain the passages where God changes his mind or expresses surprise at the way events transpire. Third, this view does not explain those passages where God is said to know (to some extent at least) the future, for the thrust of these passages is to assert that God is (to this extent) in control (e.g., Is 42:9; 44:7; 45:11; 46:9-10; Rom 8:29; 1 Pet 1:2). Fourth, this view still renders freedom philosophically problematic, for it assumes that the future as definite is in some sense eternally “there.” (See W. Hasker, “A Philosophical Perspective,” in Openness of God, pp. 126-54. I shall address this topic in my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.) Fifth, this view is in practice no different from the “open” view. It certainly does not in the least increase God’s control over future events. It simply asserts that God knows what will happen. But this view has the disadvantage (in comparison to the open view) of reducing God to the level of the fabled Cassandra, the prophetess who was cursed to know the future without being able to do anything about it. Yet God is in this view even more unfortunate than Cassandra, for his foreknowledge is supposedly eternal. Foreknowledge, in this scenario, is hardly an advantageous attribute for God to have. It doesn’t help him rule the world, but only ensures that there will never be any novelty or adventure in his experience of the world. So concludes H. H. Framer (The World and God: A Study of Prayer, Providence and Miracle [London: Nisbet & Co., 1935], p. 35): “All that is left is the unspeakably sterile and depressing spectacle of omniscience playing an everlasting game of patience with itself, all possible combination of the cards being already known by heart.”

Despite my misgivings regarding exhaustively definite foreknowledge, however, I am in general agreement with John Sanders and David Basinger in maintaining that free will theism does not require a denial of exhaustively definite foreknowledge. Similarly, the warfare worldview does not strictly require the view that the future is in part open, though I shall subsequently argue (Satan and the Problem of Evil) that affirming that the future is exhaustively and eternally definite, and thus of course known by God as such, is problematic from the perspective of the warfare worldview.

For several discussions from various perspectives on the inadequacy of the free will defense as traditionally employed by Arminians, see H. Blocher, Evil and the Cross, trans. D. G. Preston (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), pp. 36-94; J. Feinberg, Theologies of Evil (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1979), pp. 49-83; M. Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), pp. 362-91; F. Tupper, A Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassion of God (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1995), p. 427; W. Robinson, The Devil and God (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, n.d.), p. 123.

Wink, Engaging the Powers, p. 314.

Ibid., pp. 314-15.

See, e.g., Matthew 5:10-12, 44; 10:16-18; 23:34-35; 24:8-10; Mark 13:9-13; John 15:18-19; 16:1-2; Romans 8:17-23; 1 Corinthians 4:12-13; 2 Corinthians 4:11-18; Colossians 1:24; 2 Timothy 2:12; 1 Peter 5:10.

Boethius Consolation 91, 96.

See my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil, chapters 1—4.

The Greek term daimonizomai means “to be acted on by a demon.” For three reasons I have in most cases chosen to transliterate it “demonize” rather than to follow the majority of translations that render it “possess”: (1) The term does not mean “to possess.” This term is too strong, for it denotes total control and even ownership, while “demonize” admits of a wide variety of degrees. (2) The term “possess” has generated a good deal of wholly unnecessary controversy, especially around whether Christians can be “demonized.” (3) The term “possessed” has, largely through Hollywood, acquired some unbiblical connotations that I wish to avoid. For a thorough review of the issues surrounding demonization and Christians, see F. Dickason, Demon Possession and the Christian (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1989).

I argue in chapters two and three that the Old Testament appropriation of ancient Near Eastern monster myths—its portraits of Leviathan, Yamm, Rahab and Behemoth as threatening the earth—are the rough equivalents of the New Testament’s view of Satan as the principality and power of the air as well as the ruler of this world. It also anticipates the thinking of various early church fathers, such as Athenagoras, who view Satan as the ruler of all matter. In this view, Satan is “the spirit which is about matter who was created by God, just as the other angels were . . . and entrusted with the control of matter and the forms of matter” (A Plea for the Christians, ANF 2, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, rpt. 1979), chapter 24 (p. 142).

Within the boundaries of orthodoxy there are exceptions, of course. But even among these exceptions the thesis is never fully developed. The most noteworthy contemporary orthodox apologists who make some use of Satan as at least relevant to the problem of evil are L. Hodgson, For Faith and Freedom: The Gifford Lectures, 1955-57, 2 vols. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1956-1957), 1:213-14; C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1945), pp. 121-23; E. L. Mascall, Christian Theology and Natural Science: Some Questions on Their Relations (London: Longmans, Green, 1956), pp. 301-3; W. Robinson, The Devil and God, pp. 18-23, 119-23; T. Penelhum, Religion and Rationality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (New York: Random, 1971), pp. 246-47; A. Plantinga, God, Freedom and Evil (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974), p. 58; idem, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974), pp. 191-93; S. Davis, Logic and the Nature of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 112-14; J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil From Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 221-49; D. I. Trethowan, An Essay in Christian Philosophy (London: Longmans, Green, 1954), p. 128; C. C. J. Webb, Problems in the Relations of God and Man (London: Nisbet, 1911), pp. 36-37; J. W. Wenham, The Enigma of Evil: Can We Believe in the Goodness of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, rpt. 1985), pp. 48, 86, 198; J. Kallas, The Significance of the Synoptic Miracles (Greenwich, Conn.: Seabury, 1961); idem, Jesus and the Power of Satan (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968); idem, The Satanward View: A Study of Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966).

Though her thinking lies somewhat outside the parameters of traditional orthodox Christianity, and though her method is highly subjectivistic and unscholarly, it should be noted that Ellen White, the founder of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, integrated a warfare perspective into the problem of evil and the doctrine of God perhaps more thoroughly than anyone else in church history. See E. G. White, Conflict of the Ages Series, vols. 1-5 (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1890-1917).

Throughout this volume and the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil, I identify Augustine as the turning point in church history from a warfare to a providential blueprint worldview. There were, however, significant harbingers of such a move prior to Augustine, and the warfare view was not entirely lost after Augustine. But one can arguably trace the greatest impetus for this general move to the influence of Augustine’s thought. This argument, with the requisite historical nuances, will be made in detail in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Origen anticipates Augustine “in a peculiar way” in that like Augustine he believes that all events, including free actions, meticulously follow a divine blueprint. But for Origen this divine blueprint is itself created by God in response to the free decisions made by his creatures in a preexistent state. Hence, as with other pre-Augustinian fathers, the ultimate explanation for evil in the world is free will. I shall thoroughly discuss Origen’s views, as well as views of the postapostolic church in general regarding evil and free will, in chapters 1-4 of my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

This is not to suggest that all responsibility for all evil attaches to Satan, something Scripture clearly denies. But inasmuch as the origin of evil attaches to Satan, he shares in the responsibility for all evil.

This point has rarely been disputed, but see E. Lewis, The Creator and the Adversary (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1948), who attempts to argue that the narrative of Scripture presupposes a full-fledged dualism. Also relevant here is Calvert, “Dualism and the Problem of Evil.”

Developing a philosophical and theological defense for this view, rooted in the thinking of the pre-Augustinian church, shall be my task in the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

König, Here Am I, p. 20.

Wink, Naming the Powers, p. 4.

H. Schlier, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament (Freiburg: Herder, 1961); H. Berkhof, Christ and the Powers (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1977). This position will be critically discussed in chapter ten.

See note 1 above.

Hence Screwtape says to Wormwood, “If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that . . . he therefore cannot believe in you” (C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters [New York: Macmillan, 1982], p. 33).

See, e.g., R. E. Webber’s excellent and balanced work The Church in the World: Opposition, Tension or Transformation? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1986). See also P. O’Brien, “Principalities and Powers: Opponents of the Church,” ERT 16, no. 4 (1992): 353-84, esp. 378; V. Eller, Christian Anarchy: Jesus’ Primacy over the Powers (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987); A. H. van den Heuvel, Those Rebellious Powers (New York: Friendship, 1965); and R. Sider, Christ and Violence (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1979), who takes Ephesians 3:10 to be a mandate of the church to preach against the “powers” (p. 51), as does Wink, Naming the Powers, p. 89.

R. K. McGregor Wright, No Place for Sovereignty: What’s Wrong with Freewill Theism (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996). As an important aside, it should be noted that the argument that angelic and human free will undermines divine sovereignty works only on the assumption that “sovereignty” and “exhaustive control” are synonymous and that this is the model of rule that is most praiseworthy (worthy of God). To some free will theists, however, this type of rule seems least worthy of God. It strikes some of us as reflecting an insecure, petty and impersonal deity rather than the gloriously sovereign God of the Bible who is secure enough in his transcendence to grant personhood and self-determination to his creatures. True divine sovereignty, in the thinking of free will theists, is only affirmed when it is construed in relational, interpersonal terms. Against McGregor and other Reformed thinkers, then, this view argues that it is the Calvinist perspective, not the free will theist perspective, that in truth leaves “no place for sovereignty.”

On the move from “modernism” to “postmodernism,” especially as it concerns the new perspectives that define the latter, see S. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996); J. W. Bertens, The Idea of the Postmodern: A History (London: Routledge, 1995); R. J. Berstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988); T. Docherty, ed., Postmodernism: A Reader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); C. Norris, The Truth About Postmodernism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993); idem, What’s Wrong with Postmodernism: Critical Theory and the Ends of Philosophy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990); F. B. Burnham, Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a Pluralist World (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989); N. Murphy and J. W. McClendon Jr., “Distinguishing Modern and Postmodern Theologies,” Modern Theology 5, no. 3 (1989): 191-214; C. Walhout and L. Ryken, eds., Contemporary Literary Theory: A Christian Appraisal (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991). For a helpful map of the rough terrain of postmodern theology, see D. R. Griffin, “Introduction: Varieties of Postmodern Theology,” in D. Griffin, W. A. Beardslee and J. Holland, Varieties of Postmodern Theology (Albany: SUNY, 1989), pp. 1-7; as well as (from a very different perspective) G. E. Veith, Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994).

Interestingly enough, however, the truth claims of the deconstructionists themselves seem to be strangely exempt from this criticism. For solid critical reviews of deconstructionism, see G. Steiner, Real Presences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); A. Jacobs, “The Values of Literary Study: Deconstruction and Other Developments,” CSR 16 (1987): 373-83; D. L. Jeffrey, “Caveat lector: Structuralism, Deconstructionism and Ideology,” CSR 18 (1988): 436-48; and G. P. Shaw, “The Rise and Fall of Deconstructionism,” Commentary 92 (Dec. 1991): 50-53.

For several evangelical assessments of postmodernism and deconstructionism, see D. S. Dockery, The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1995); T. C. Oden, After Modernity—What? Agenda for Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1990); T. R. Phillips and D. L. Okholm, eds., Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995); Veith, Postmodern Times; Grenz, Postmodern Primer.

The classic text regarding the sociology of knowledge is P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966). Berger uses his sociological approach to critique Western naturalism in A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969).

One outstanding example of a contemporary evangelical who has insightfully integrated non-Western perspectives into a Western Christian vision of reality is M. Kraft, Understanding Spiritual Power: A Forgotten Dimension of Cross-Cultural Mission and Ministry (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1995). For several anthropological studies that led the “Western”-minded investigators to take seriously various “supernatural” phenomena, see E. Turner, Experiencing Ritual: A New Interpretation of African Healing (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992); idem, “The Reality of Spirits,” ReVision 15, no. 1 (1992): 28-32; J. Fauret-Saada, Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage, trans. C. Cullen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980); idem, Corps pour corps: Enquête sur la sorcellerie dans le bocage (Paris: Gallimard, 1981); P. Stoller, “Eye, Mind and Word in Anthropology,” L’Homme 24 (1984): 91-114; M. Harner, The Way of the Shaman (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, rpt. 1990), esp. pp. 1-19; L. Peters, Ecstasy and Healing in Nepal: An Ethnopsychiatric Study of Tamang Shamanism (Malibu: Undena, 1981), pp. 45-54. For several other anthropological studies of such things as the role of spirits and exorcism in various cultures, see I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971); J. Beattie and J. Middleton, eds., Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969); E. Bourguignon, Possession (San Francisco: Chandler and Sharp, 1976); idem, ed., Religion, Altered States of Consciousness and Social Change (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1973); B. P. Levack, Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology, vol. 9: Possession and Exorcism (Hamden, Conn.: Garland, 1992); and esp. F. D. Goodman, How About Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988).

M. Adler (The Angels and Us [New York: Macmillan, 1982]) anticipated the contemporary obsession. The phenomenon has been reported in a wide variety of venues; see K. L. Woodward, “Angels,” Newsweek, Dec. 27, 1993, pp. 56-57; N. Gibbs, “Angels Among Us,” Time, Dec. 27, 1993, pp. 56-65; E. Stone, “Are There Angels Among Us?” New Age Journal (March-April 1994): 88-93, 148-51; T. Jones, “Rumors of Angels,” Christianity Today 37 (April 5, 1993): 18-22. I recently visited a major bookstore in the Twin Cities and counted no fewer than twenty-four newly published books on angels. Only six were written from a discernibly orthodox Christian perspective.

Among the earlier noteworthy books on this topic are D. Basham, Deliver Us from Evil (Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, rpt. 1980); M. Bubeck, The Adversary: The Christian Versus Demon Activity (Chicago: Moody Press, 1975); K. Koch, Occult Bondage and Deliverance (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 1970). Several of the most popular recent expositions are N. T. Anderson, The Bondage Breaker (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House, 1990); E. Christenson, Battling the Prince of Darkness: Rescuing Captives from Satan’s Kingdom (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1990); G. Mallone, Arming for Spiritual Warfare (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1991); E. Murphy, The Handbook for Spiritual Warfare (Nashville: Nelson, 1992); D. Sherman, Spiritual Warfare for Every Believer (Seattle: YWAM Books, 1990); and T. B. White, The Believer’s Guide to Spiritual Warfare: Wising Up to Satan’s Influence in Your World (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1990). At the 1989 Lausanne II conference on world missions held in Manila, the three best attended tracks (sets of workshops) all had to do with spiritual warfare. A number of the papers presented there have been reproduced in C. H. Kraft and M. White, eds., Behind Enemy Lines: An Advanced Guide to Spiritual Warfare (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1994).

F. Peretti, This Present Darkness (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1986); idem, Piercing the Darkness (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1989).

For several comparatively reliable contemporary accounts of exorcism, see T. K. Osterreich, Possession and Exorcism (New York: Causeway, 1974); M. Kelsey, Discernment (New York: Paulist, 1978); A. Rodwyk, Possessed by Satan, trans. M. Ebon (New York: Doubleday, 1975); M. Martin, Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Living Americans (New York: Reader’s Digest, 1976); M. S. Peck, People of the Lie (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983); R. Curran, The Haunted: One Family’s Nightmare (New York: St. Martin’s, 1988); R. Duetch, Exorcism: Possession or Obsession? (London: Backman and Turner, 1975); E. Fiore, The Unquiet Dead: A Psychologist Treats Spirit Possession—Detecting and Removing Earthbound Spirits (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987); J. Lhermitte, Diabolical Possession: True or False? trans. P. J. Hepburne-Scott (London: Burnes & Oates, 1963); V. Stacey, “Christ Cleanses Buildings and Delivers People: Four Case Studies,” ERT 16, no. 4 (1992): 342-52. The phenomenon of possession and deliverance can be traced throughout church history, as has been done by Paul Eddy in an unpublished manuscript entitled “The Deliverance Ministry Through Church History” (1983). Other discussions on deliverance in the early church include E. Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1984); E. A. Leeper, “Exorcism in Early Christianity” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1991); F. X. Goeky, The Terminology for the Devil and Evil Spirits in the Apostolic Fathers, PS 93 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1961); H. A. Kelly, The Devil, Demonology and Witchcraft: The Development of Christian Beliefs in Evil Spirits, 2d ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974); J. B. Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981). I shall consider in depth the warfare worldview of the early church in part 1 of Satan and the Problem of Evil. Other works that consider deliverance and exorcism throughout church history include E. Langton, Supernatural: The Doctrine of Spirits, Angels and Demons from the Middle Ages to the Present Time (London: Rider, n.d.); D. P. Walker, Unclean Spirits, Possession and Exorcism in France and England in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981); J. B. Russell, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).

Perhaps the most recent forceful attack on the “spiritual warfare movement” from a biblical perspective is that of R. Guelich, “Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti” Pneuma 13, no. 1 (1991): 33-64. Other critical assessments include T. Ice and R. Dean Jr., Overrun with Demons: The Church’s New Preoccupation with the Demonic (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House, 1990); A. Konya, Demons: A Biblically Based Perspective (Schaumburg, Ill.: Regular Baptist Press, 1990); P. M. Miller, The Devil Did Not Make Me Do It (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1977); C. Breuninger, “Where Angels Fear to Tread: Appraising the Current Fascination with Spiritual Warfare,” Covenant Quarterly 53 (May 1995): 37-43; G. Corwin, “This Present Nervousness,” EMQ 31, no. 2 (1995): 148-49; and M. Wakely, “A Critical Look at a New ‘Key’ to Evangelization,” EMQ 31, no. 2 (1995): 152-62.

Several of the most influential or fascinating works that arise from a Third World perspective are E. Milingo, The World in Between: Christian Healing and the Struggle for Spiritual Revival (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984); J. Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1978); and G. Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, rev. ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988). On issues surrounding the influence of Third and Second World perspectives on Western theology, see W. Dyrness, ed., Emerging Voices in Global Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994); and idem, Learning About Theology from the Third World (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1990).

P. G. Hiebert (“The Flaw of the Excluded Middle,” Missiology 10, no. 1 [1982]: 35-47) argues effectively that Western missionaries have been one of the chief global forces of secularization over the last two centuries chiefly because they imported their Western worldview, in which nothing significant occurs in the world between God and humanity, when they imported the gospel to other cultures. See also C. Kraft, Christianity and Culture (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979); idem, “The Problem of ‘What We Think We Know,’” Faith & Renewal, 16:2 (Sept.-Oct. 1991): 10-16; idem, Christianity with Power: Your Worldview and Your Experience of the Supernatural (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1989).

I have adopted the phrase “world in between” from Milingo’s fascinating book by that title. This work does an excellent job of illustrating why Western Christianity needs to be open to learn from (as well as to preach to) other cultures.

For example, the notorious Findhorn Community was purportedly able to produce luxurious gardens of vegetables and flowers in relatively barren sand dunes, much to the amazement of various biologists and horticulturalists who visited the community. Their secret, they claimed, was getting the “nature spirits” to cooperate with them. For a complete account, see The Findhorn Garden (New York: Harper & Row, 1975). (Incidentally, Walter Wink acknowledges his indebtedness to Dorothy Maclean, one of the founders of this community, for his own thinking on “the angels of nature.” See Unmasking the Powers, pp. 156-57.) Perhaps the most popular modern testimony of the presence of supernatural elements in a non-Christian religious/philosophical setting is Shirley MacLaine’s Out on a Limb (New York: Bantam, 1983). Others include B. Siegel, Love, Medicine and Miracles (New York: Harper & Row, 1974); T. Moss, The Probability of the Impossible (New York: New American Library, 1974); Harner, Way of the Shaman.

See, e.g., the cases cited in notes 63 and 65 above. As a personal aside, my own waking up to the reality of Satan and the demonic realm, as well as their centrality for understanding the problem of evil and the call of the church, began in 1992, when I for the first time, and entirely unwittingly, confronted several overt cases of demonization in a short span of time and hence became involved in several exorcisms.

I am not here suggesting that all miracles that take place outside Christianity are necessarily demonic. The Spirit blows where he wills, not necessarily where we expect him to blow (Jn 3:2, 8). Hence Christians cannot preclude the possibility that God might in some instances be at work among non-Christian groups to bring about supernatural healing and deliverance (Mt 9:40ff. as well as 12:25-30 may be relevant here). My only point presently is that some miracles outside Christianity may be demonically inspired, as the Bible itself suggests (Mt 24:24; 2 Thess 2:9). At the same time, however, one cannot deny that some miracles even within Christianity might be demonically inspired (Mt 7:21-23).

The “Third Wave” revival (following the earlier “Pentecostal” and “charismatic” revivals) has been a powerful impetus behind the recent rise in Christian consciousness regarding such matters. For works representative of this movement, see especially J. Wimber and K. Springer, Power Evangelism (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986); idem, Power Healing (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987); C. P. Wagner, The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant/Vine, 1988); and J. White, When the Spirit Comes with Power (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988).

As I shall argue in the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil, chapters 3—7.

For a fuller discussion of this shift, see my Trinity and Process, pp. 3-11, 108-21.

For a discussion on this increasing dynamism leading up to, and including, the pivotal philosophical theology of Jonathan Edwards, see S. Lee, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 10-14, 25-34, 97-106. For several good expressions of this shift as well as general discussions on what brought about this monumental shift, what it consists of and where it is going, see H. Oliver, A Relational Metaphysics (Boston: Marinus Nijhoff, n.d.), pp. 40ff.; J. Cushing and E. McMullin, eds., Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory: Reflections on Bell’s Theorem (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989); Ernst Cassirer, “Einstein’s Theory of Relativity,” in Substance and Function in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (New York: Dover, 1953); M. Apek, The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961); and E. Laszlo’s now classic The Systems View of the World: The Natural Philosophy of the New Developments in the Sciences (New York: Braziller, 1972); as well as J. Buchler’s classic Metaphysics of Natural Complexes, ed. K. Wallace, A. Marsoobian and R. Corrington (New York: SUNY, rpt. 1990).

D. Bohm, Causality and Chance in Modern Physics (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), p. 147. For Bohm’s definitive attempt to work out the implications of quantum physics into a coherent metaphysics, see his fascinating Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: ARK, rpt. 1983). Among other things, Bohm here attempts (unsuccessfully I believe) to construct a language that captures the primacy of verbs over nouns (pp. 27-47). See also the interview with Bohm in The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes: Exploring the Leading Edge of Science, ed. K. Wilber (Boulder: Shambhala, 1982), pp. 44-104. While many who hold to a so-called New Age worldview have co-opted such observations about reality as supporting a pantheistic understanding of God and the world, this is hardly the only way one can interpret such observations.

The metaphysical system that has most thoroughly and insightfully worked through this new perspective on reality is process thought. The originator of this movement is A. N. Whitehead with his monumental work Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, ed. D. R. Griffin and D. W. Sherburne (New York: Free Press, rpt. 1978 [1929]). While metaphysically ingenious, the system has radically heretical implications, owing to several misconstrued (and unnecessary) assumptions. See my Trinity and Process, passim, for a general critical assessment. For other orthodox critiques, see R. Nash, ed., Process Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1987); D. Basinger, Divine Power in Process Theism: A Philosophical Critique (Albany: SUNY, 1988); R. G. Gruenler, The Inexhaustible God: Biblical Faith and the Challenge of Process Theism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1983).

See, e.g., L. Boff, Trinity and Society, trans. P. Burns (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988); V. Brümmer, Speaking of a Personal God: An Essay in Philosophical Thinking (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); idem, The Model of Love: A Study in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, trans. M. Kohl (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981); A. O. Ogbonnaya, On Communitarian Divinity: An African Interpretation of the Trinity (New York: Paragon, 1994); and C. Pinnock and R. C. Brow, Unbounded Love (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994). E. Pagels offers a penetrating critique of Augustine’s denial of genuine human self-determination on the basis of its sociopolitical consequences in “The Politics of Paradise: Augustine’s Exegesis of Genesis 1-3 Versus That of John Chrysostom,” HTR 78, no. 1 (1985): 67-99. I shall myself engage in a critique of the early apologists’ appropriation of elements of the Hellenistic philosophical view of God in the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

See C. Pinnock, R. Rice, J. Sanders, W. Hasker and D. Basinger, The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994). See also my Letters from a Skeptic (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1994), pp. 29-51; and Trinity and Process, pp. 296-327. Other evangelicals who espouse some form of the open view of God include W. A. Pratney, The Nature and Character of God (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1988); R. Rice, God’s Foreknowledge and Man’s Free Will (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1985); H. R. Elseth, Did God Know? (St. Paul: Calvary United Church, 1977); W. Hasker, God, Time and Knowledge (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). For a still unsurpassed survey of the biblical basis for the open view of God, see L. D. McCabe, Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies a Necessity (New York: Phillips and Hunt, 1882).

A point frequently missed by the critics of this view. For example, three of the four reviewers of The Openness of God (ed. C. Pinnock) in Christianity Today in one way or another accused the open view of denying God’s transcendence or of limiting God in some fashion. See R. Olson, D. Kelley, T. George and A. McGrath, “Has God Been Held Hostage by Philosophy?” Christianity Today, Jan. 9, 1995. Only Olson discerned that the authors of Openness of God were arguing for a different model of transcendence, not for a less transcendent view of God.

Approximately one out of six of the Jews killed in the Holocaust was under the age of seven.

For a recent assessment of how our culture has suffered by the loss of the category of evil, see A. Delbanco, The Death of Satan (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995). On the need for the recovery of the category of evil in psychotherapy, see Peck, People of the Lie. For a collection of essays arguing along these lines on different fronts, see P. Woodruff and H. A. Wiler, eds., Facing Evil: Light at the Core of Darkness (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1988).

This use of the phrase “the tremendum” comes from Arthur Cohen’s masterful work The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust (New York: Crossroad, 1981). See R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans. J. W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press, 1923). For a comparison of Otto and Cohen, see J. K. Roth, Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy (Atlanta: John Knox, 1987), pp. 329-36. See also D. J. Fasching, Narrative Theology After Auschwitz: From Alienation to Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), pp. 143-48.

E. Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, trans. O. Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), p. 135.

C. Jung, “Wotan,” in Civilization in Transition, Collected Works 10, ed. H. Read, M. Fordham and G. Adler, trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York: Pantheon, 1970), pp. 185-87.

See Wink, Unmasking the Powers, p. 54. On this theme of Germany being possessed, see H. G. Baynes, Germany Possessed (London: Jonathan Cape, 1941). A number of works attempt to disclose the Satanic, or at least occult, origins of Nazism. One of the most balanced is Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology (New York: New York University Press, 1985).

Some of the more interesting examples are D. R. Griffin (a postmodern process theologian), “Why Demonic Power Exists: Understanding the Church’s Enemy,” Lexington Theological Quarterly 28 (1993): 223-39; E. Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995); T. J. J. Altizer, “Satan as the Messiah of Nature?” in The Whirlwind in Culture: Frontiers in Theology, in Honor of Langdon Gilkey, ed. D. Musser and J. Price (Bloomington, Ind.: Meyer-Stone, 1988), pp. 119-34; C. Nugent, Masks of Satan: The Demonic in History (London: Sheed & Ward, 1983); H. K. Bloom, The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995); L. S. Cunningham, “Satan: A Theological Meditation,” Theology Today 51, no. 3 (1994): 359-66; A. R. Eckardt, How to Tell God from the Devil: On the Way to Comedy (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1995). For excellent general assessments of the concept of Satan in the modern world from various perspectives, see J. B. Russell, Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); R. N. Ashen, The Reality of the Devil: Evil in Man (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); A. M. Olson, ed., Disguises of the Demonic: Contemporary Perspectives on the Power of Evil (New York: Association, 1975); P. Oppenheimer, Evil and the Demonic (New York: New York University Press, 1996).

O. Böcher, Dämonenfurcht und Dämonebabwehr (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970); Das Neue Testament und die dämonischen Mächte (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1972); and Christus Exorcista (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1972). This work has been lauded as the most complete work on demonology ever written. See P. Hollenbach, “Jesus, Demoniacs and Public Authorities,” JAAR 49 (1981): 584.

For a critique of Böcher’s “pan-demonological” thesis, see Edwin Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle? Diseases, Demons and Exorcisms,” in The Miracles of Jesus, GP 6, ed. D. Wenham and C. Blomberg (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), pp. 89-183.

On ancient Greek and Egyptian demonology, see Böcher, Dämonenfurcht und Dämonebabwehr; F. E. Brenk, “In the Light of the Moon: Demonology in the Early Imperial Period,” in ANRW (1986), ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase, 2/16.3:2068-2145; E. Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1984), pp. 33-67; A. E. Farkus, P. O. Harper and E. B. Harrison, eds., Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Papers Presented in Honor of Edith Porada (Mainz on Rhine: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1987); S. K. Jensen, Dualism and Demonology: The Function of Demonology in Pythagorean and Platonic Thought (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1966); D. Meeks, “Génies, anges, démons en Égypt,” in Génies, anges, démons (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1971), pp. 17-84; Russell, The Devil, 122-73; Jonathan Z. Smith, “Towards Interpreting Demonic Powers in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity,” in ANRW (1978), 2/16.1:425-39; Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle?” pp. 104-15.

For discussions on the demonology of ancient Mesopotamia, see A. Green, “Beneficent Spirits and Malevolent Demons: The Iconography of Good and Evil in Ancient Assyria and Babylonia,” in Popular Religion, ed. H. Kippenberg, L. Bosch et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1984), pp. 80-105; R. C. Thompson, The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia (London: Luzac, 1903-4); P. Weber, Dämonenbeschwörung bei den Babyloniern und Assyriern (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1906); E. Langton, The Essentials of Demonology: A Study of the Jewish and Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (London: Epworth, 1949), pp. 12-15; J. Black and A. Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992); O. Böcher and W. Culican, “Phoenician Demons,” JNES 35 (1976): 21-24; W. T. Davies, Magic, Divination and Demonology Among the Hebrews and Their Neighbors (London: Clarke, 1898; rpt. New York: KTAV, 1969); T. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. 12-13; S. N. Kramer, “Mythology of Sumer and Akkad,” in Mythologies of the Ancient World, ed. Kramer (New York: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 108-15; Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle?” pp. 99-103.

For collections of some of the most ancient Mesopotamian incantation and magical texts available, see M. J. Geller, Forerunners to UDUG-HUL: Sumerian Exorcistic Incantations, FAS 12 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1985); M. Krebernik, Die Beschwörungen aus Fara und Ebla (Hildesheim: Olms, 1984). On incantations, spells, amulets, etc., from the ancient world, see H. Dieter Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation Including the Demotic Spells (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); J. G. Gager, ed., Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); P. Gignoux, Incantations magiques Syriaques (Louvain: Peeters, 1987); C. Isbell, Corpus of Aramaic Incantation Bowls, SBLDS 17 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1975); idem, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Magnes and Hebrew University Press, 1993); E. Yamauchi, Mandaic Incantation Texts, AOS 49 (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1967).

See J. V. Kinnier Wilson, “An Introduction to Babylonian Psychiatry,” in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger, ed. H. G. Güterbock and T. Jacobsen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 291.

The text of Enuma Elish is found, with commentary, in A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), as well as in ANET, pp. 60-72. My discussion of this and other ancient warfare myths of origin shall be relatively general since I am presently concerned only with demonstrating in broad outline the motif of cosmic conflict among the literature of Israel’s neighbors. For a variety of helpful studies on the cosmic conflict motif in both the Near East and the wider Mediterranean world, see P. Amiet, “Les Combats mythologiques dan l’art mésopotamien du troisième et du début du second millénaire,” Revue archéologique 42 (1953): 129-64; G. Barton, “Tiamat,” JAOS 15 (1893): 1-27; J. Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament, UCOP 35 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); J. C. L. Gibson, “The Theology of the Ugaritic Baal Cycle,” Or 53 (1984): 202-19; E. L. Greenstein, “The Snaring of the Sea in the Baal Epic,” Maarav 3 (1982): 195-216; J. G. Griffiths, The Conflict of Horus and Seth, from Egyptian and Classical Sources: A Study in Ancient Mythology (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960); J. H. Gronbaek, “Baal’s Battle with Yam—A Canaanite Creation Fight,” JSOT 33 (1985): 27-44; H. Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung über Gen 1 und Ap Joh 12 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1895); Heidel, Babylonian Genesis; Jacobsen, Treasures of Darkness; C. Kloos, Yhwh’s Combat with the Sea: A Canaanite Tradition in the Region of Ancient Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1986); S. E. Loewenstamm, “The Killing of Mot in Ugaritic Myth,” Or 41 (1972): 378-82; J. A. Montgomery, “Ras Shamra Notes IV: The Conflict of Baal and the Waters,” JAOS 55 (1935): 268-77; M. Wakeman, God’s Battle with the Monster: A Study in Biblical Imagery (Leiden: Brill, 1973); A. Yarbro Collins, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation, HDR 9 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1976); P. J. van Zijl, Baal: A Study of Texts in Connection with Baal in the Ugaritic Epics (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1972). A few of the more helpful general overviews of the warfare motif in ancient Near Eastern literature are N. Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 21-89; J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), pp. 85-98; T. Longman III and D. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 13-60.

Russell, Devil, p. 88.

ANET, p. 67.

Ibid., p. 68.

See Barton, “Tiamat.”

See F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 120; and Collins, Combat Myth, who adds that “the timeless and repeatable aspect of the combat myth is emphasized in a number of psalms of the royal cult” (p. 117).

W. Wink, Engaging the Powers (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), p. 14. Wink attempts to trace the historical proclivity for achieving order through violence to this “myth of redemptive violence” (pp. 17-31). Prior to this violent myth, he speculates, people were more pacifistic in their approaches to resolving conflict (pp. 33-43). This myth, in its many different forms, creates a pessimistic perspective on human beings and the cosmos that buttresses social systems of domination and aggression, according to Wink. His evaluation of the conflict myth as necessitating evil lies behind his view that the “powers” are to be engaged not by conquering them but by transforming them through nonviolent means. See esp. pp. 171-257. Whatever else may be said for and against Wink’s analysis, it is difficult to argue that his view is that of the apostle Paul. See the discussion in chapter ten below.

On the theme of rebellion in warfare myths of origin, see Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 124-46. My central disagreement with Jon Levenson (Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988]) is that he understands the rebellion motif to arise only after Genesis 1, as a means of qualifying the combat myth of the early traditions in the light of a new understanding of God’s absolute sovereignty. “The theology of the first chapter of the Bible surely relativized the old combat myth and eventually required that it be seen as a revolt—primordial, eschatological, or both—but the optimistic theology failed to uproot the older and more pessimistic myth altogether” (p. 49). In my view, the notion that overt evil arises with rebellion is present, however tacitly, in all the traditions incorporated in Scripture as well as in the Mesopotamian and Canaanite hymns that form the background to Scripture’s Chaoskampf (conflictwith-chaos) material.

See R. Murray, Cosmic Covenant: Biblical Themes of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (London: Sheed & Ward, 1992). See also B. F. Battu, “The Covenant of Peace: A Neglected Ancient Near Eastern Motif,” CBQ 49 (1987): 187-211.

Wakeman, God’s Battle, pp. 4-6.

In many ways these combat stories reflect the degree to which the world is adversely affected when order is not conquering chaos. For example, when Ishtar is slain by Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld, there is famine upon the earth until she is revived. “Hell,” says Russell, “is here not only a region of death but a power that, when it imprisons the goddess of love and fertility, can cause blight and sterility on the earth” (Devil, p. 92). So too, the earth is said to suffer greatly when Baal is killed by Mot, and it does not revive until he does. The assumption is that what goes on “in the heavenlies” very much affects what goes on in the world, for better or for worse. Robert Murray argues that the Old Testament has a similar conviction, though it is expressed in a radically different fashion. Here, he argues, calamities come upon the earth because a cosmic covenant has been broken by now-hostile powers between God and the earth. See Murray, Cosmic Covenant, passim, but esp. pp. 44-67. I shall subsequently argue that this widespread spiritual intuition concerning the relationship between “spiritual” conflict and “natural” evils is shared by the New Testament and early church, and that this intuition can be made into an important component of a contemporary theodicy, especially as it concerns the problem of so-called natural evil.

This is in contrast to the view of scholars in the past who generally identified Babylon as the backdrop for the combat motif in the Old Testament. See J. Day, God’s Conflict, p. 4. The shift in opinion has largely been due to the discovery of the Ugaritic tablets in Ras Shamra in 1929. On the discovery and dating of Ugarit, see P. Craigie, Ugarit and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983); C. Gordon, Before the Bible: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilization (London: Collins, 1962), pp. 128ff.; G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 3d ed., ed. J. C. L. Gibson (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1978 [1956]), pp. 1-2.

There are a number of problematic issues in the reconstruction of this account, but the outline of the story is clear enough. See Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 46-48.

This point of view is not undisputed. As mentioned earlier, Böcher attempts to argue that the Israelites attributed all sickness and disease to demonic influence, just as their Mesopotamian neighbors had done. See Dämonenfurcht und Dämonenabwehr, p. 154. Hence he argues that many of the rituals in the Old Testament had an antidemonic function (pp. 162, 274-78, 288, etc.). J. Plöger argues along similar lines (“’^adhamah,” TDOT, 1:90), as does B. Levine (In the Presence of the Lord [Leiden: Brill, 1974], pp. 55-59). Such interpretations, however, are based more on an assumption that the Israelites adopted the demonological perspective of their neighbors than they are on any clear evidence in the Old Testament itself. If we let the Old Testament speak for itself, it becomes clear that the Israelites’ perspective was quite distinctive. For helpful overviews and discussions of the topic, see A. Caquot, “Anges et démons en Israël,” in Génies, anges et démons, pp. 113-52; idem, “Sur quelques démons de l’Ancien Testament (Reshep, Qeteb, Deber),” Semitica 6 (1956): 53-68; H. Kaupel, Die Dämonen im Alten Testament (Augsburg: B. Filser, 1930); J. K. Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Demons: Old Testament,” ABD, 2:138-40; Langton, Essentials, pp. 35-52; M. Gruenthaner, “The Demonology of the Old Testament,” CBQ 6 (1944): 6-27; Davies, Magic, Divination and Demonology, pp. 95-130; H. Gunkel, Folktale in the Old Testament, trans. M. D. Rutter (Sheffield: Almond, 1987), chap. 6, pp. 83-106; N. S. Alexander, Occultism in the Old Testament (Philadelphia and Armore, Penn.: Dorrance, 1978), pp. 31-40; K. J. Cathcart, “The ‘Demons’ in Judges 5:8a,” Biblishe Zeitschrift 21 (1977): 111-12; J. G. Gammie, “The Angelology and Demonology in the Septuagint and the Book of Job,” HUCA 56 (1985): 1-19; J. Lust, “Devils and Angels in the Old Testament,” Louvain Studies 5 (1974): 115-20; R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), pp. 34, 463, 509; Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle?” pp. 115-20.

A similar understanding of demonic spirits being able to incite crowds may be behind 1 Corinthians 2:8, which attributes Jesus’ crucifixion to evil powers, though the means by which they carried it out was willing, evil, human hands (Acts 2:23). So too Paul attributes his inability to reach Thessalonica to Satan (1 Thess 2:18), though Luke explains the same situation as resulting from social unrest (Acts 17:5-15).

For example, Forsyth argues that the evil spirit in these passages was simply “a servant of the divine king, a shady but necessary member of the Politburo” (Old Enemy, p. 112).

F. Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil: A Contextual Analysis of Alleged Monistic Evidence in the Old Testament, trans. F. H. Cryer, ConBOT 21 (Lund: Gleerup, 1983), pp. 112-14. See pp. 94-103 for his explication of Isaiah 19:14; 29:9-10; and 37:7.

Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle?” p. 16. For further discussion, see V. Hamilton, “shed,” TWOT, 2:905-6; Langton, Essentials, pp. 16-17, 51; Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Demons: Old Testament,” p. 139.

Langton, Essentials, p. 47. This creature factored significantly in the developed demonology of later Jewish writers. See the discussion on “Lilith” in J. D. W. Watts, Isaiah 34—66, WBC 25 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), pp. 13-14; D. Aune, “Night Hag,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 4 vols., ed. G. W. Bromiley et al. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1979-1988), 3:536; Langton, Essentials, pp. 16, 47; M. Gaster, “Lilith und die drei Engel,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 29 (1880): 553-65; C. H. Gordon, “A World of Demons and Liliths,” in his Adventures in the Near East (London: Phoenix, 1957), pp. 160-74; L. Handy, “Lilith,” ABD, 4:324-25; Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Demons: Old Testament,” p. 139; B. B. Koltuv, The Book of Lilith (York Beach, Maine: Nicolas-Hays, 1986); Russell, Devil, p. 215; C. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), p. 57; and H. Torczyner, “A Hebrew Incantation Against Night-Demons from Biblical Times,” JNES 6 (1947): 18-29. Kinlaw (“Demythologization,” p. 33) argues that Lilith was a natural creature on the basis of the fact that it is listed with other natural creatures. His case is weak, however, and in any event it is certainly not clear that all the other creatures in this passage are natural creatures. On this issue, see also G. R. Driver, “Birds in the Old Testament, II. Birds in Life,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 87 (1955): 134-36.

See Driver, “Birds in the Old Testament,” pp. 135-36; Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Demons: Old Testament,” p. 139; Langton, Essentials, pp. 40-41; Arnold, Powers of Darkness, pp. 57-58; König, Here Am I, p. 15. R. L. Harris (“sa‘îr,” TWOT, 2:881) provides an example of those who dismiss any demonic connotations in regard to this term.

E. A. Speiser, Genesis, 2d ed., AB 1 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, rpt. 1978), pp. 29, 33. See also Wakeman, God’s Battle, p. 88.

See the excellent articles by M. Malul, “Terror of the Night,” DDD, pp. 1604-8; and N. Wyatt, “Qeteb,” DDD, pp. 1269-72. See also Caquot, “Sur quelques démons de l’Ancien Testament,” pp. 53-68; Kuemmerlin-McLean, “Demons: Old Testament,” p. 139; Langton, Essentials, pp. 49-50; and esp. R. Arbesmann, “The ‘Daemonium Meridianum’ and Greek and Latin Patristic Exegesis,” Traditio 14 (1958): 17-31, who demonstrates how later Jewish and Christian thought saw the “plague that destroys at noonday” as a demon, and argues persuasively that this reading is rooted in the original.

E.g., R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, p. 509; B. Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975), p. 110; Langton, Essentials, pp. 43-45; M. Delcor, “Le mythe de la chute des anges,” RHR 190 (1976): 35-37; O. Loretz, Leberschau, Sündenbock, Asasel in Ugarit und Israel, Ugaritisch-Biblische Literatur 3 (Soest: Altenberge, 1985), pp. 50-57; D. P. Wright, “Azazel,” ABD, 1:536-37; idem, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature, SBLDS 101 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), pp. 21-25; König, Here Am I, p. 15; H. Tawil, “Azazel, Prince of the Steppe,” ZAW 92 (1980): 43-49, who attempts to demonstrate that the name Azazel derives from the Canaanite god Mot, the god of the underworld. For an opposing view, however, see H. Kaupel, Die Dämonen im Alten Testament (Augsburg: B. Filser, 1930), p. 91. It is important to note that the scapegoat ritual found in the Old Testament (Lev 16) portrays a very different picture from that of other ancient Near Eastern rites of elimination that involve demonic beings. For a comparison, see Wright, Disposal of Impurity, pp. 21-74.

See P. D. Hanson, “Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel, and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6—11,” JBL 96 (1977): 195-233; L. L. Grabbe, “The Scapegoat: A Study in Early Jewish Interpretation,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 18 (1987): 153-55; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6—11,” JBL 96 (1977): 397-404. R. A. Helm argues that 1 Enoch and other intertestamental Jewish literature demonstrate an early strand of tradition holding that Azael was a demonic being to whom some type of sacrifice was given. See “Azazel in Early Jewish Tradition,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 32 (Autumn 1994): 217-26.

For example, as noted above, both Böcher and Levine read aspects of the Levitical law as being antidemonic in nature (e.g., Böcher, Dämonenfurcht und Dämonenabwehr, pp. 118, 162, 274-78, 288; Levine, Presence of the Lord, pp. 55-59). In similar fashion, Langton argues that all the animals referred to in Isaiah 13:21ff. are diabolical entities (Essentials, pp. 41-43). Such positions, while not impossible, are not widely received owing to their speculative nature. By contrast, Lindström’s sustained case for reading many of the psalms that depict Yahweh as a warrior as containing references not to particular demons but to a suprahuman, supraindividual, demonic type of being (or “reality”) is quite compelling (see his Suffering and Sin, pp. 439-41).

See the discussion in Levenson, Persistence of Evil, pp. 112-13. Drawing parallels from such passages as Psalm 2:8-9; 8:4-9; 72:8-11; 89:26-28; 110:2, Levenson rightly concludes that “the status of humanity as . . . just a bit less than a god is realized in their sovereignty over the rest of creation.” We shall later see that a central component in the warfare theme of redemption in the New Testament concerns restoring humanity as God’s viceroy upon the earth. With the Fall, we had surrendered it to Satan, who thus became the new (but illegitimate) “ruler of this world” (Jn 12:31).

Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 122.

König, Levenson, Barth and others have argued, however, that the “waters” and the “darkness” in the Genesis 1 account yet preserve some of the “menacing character” (König) they have in Ancient Near Eastern creation accounts. Yahweh separates the light from darkness and the dry land from the waters to protect his creation from chaos. See A. König, New and Greater Things: Re-evaluating the Biblical Message on Creation (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1988), pp. 15-18; Levenson, Persistence of Evil, pp. 5, 122-23; K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, 3/1, The Doctrine of Creation, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1961), pp. 102-3. Cf. vol. 3/3:74-78. In favor of this view, it is significant that the author does not say that God created the darkness, the deep or the waters. This does not necessarily imply that the author thought of these as eternal realities, only that it did not suit his purposes in composing this account to state this at this point. See König, New and Greater Things, p. 72. Indeed, in the next chapter I suggest that it is possible that the author here does not say that God created the formless and futile (tohû wabohû) world engulfed in the deep because the author is suggesting that God did not create the world this way, but that it somehow became this way as a result of a prehistoric spiritual battle. Genesis 1, in this case, depicts God re-creating an already corrupted earth. For a sustained defense of this view, sometimes called “the gap theory” or “the restitution theory,” see A. C. Custance, Without Form and Void (Brockville, Canada: Custance, 1970). Very different from both this view and that of Barth and König is the view of D. T. Tsumura, The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and 2: A Linguistic Investigation, JSOTSup 83 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989). Tsumura goes so far as to argue that t^ehôm here does not even represent a demythologized version of the Canaanite Chaoskampf mythology. It is, rather, wholly unrelated to this tradition and simply derives from the term tihâm, meaning “ocean” (see esp. pp. 62-65, 141-58, 165-68).

Critical Old Testament scholars most frequently regard the author of this account to be the Priestly redactor(s) in contrast to the J redactor(s) of other creation account(s). There is, in principle, no irreconcilable contradiction between some versions of the documentary hypothesis and a high view of scriptural inspiration so long as not too much is read into Christ’s endorsement of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (cf., e.g., Mk 1:44; 7:10; 10:3-5; 12:19, 26). When, however, absolute contradictions are posited between the different strands of the biblical traditions (which, remarkably enough, supposed later redactors did not detect but modern critics have amazingly “discovered”), a Christlike view of the divine inspiration of the canon is no longer possible. In any event, I am in general inclined to think that the standard versions of the documentary hypothesis are not solidly rooted in historical evidence, especially as it concerns some of their fundamental conclusions regarding the dating, and therefore the cultural context, of different traditions. The standard documentary approach thus plays no role in my own exegesis of Old Testament texts. For several fine assessments of the documentary hypothesis, see U. Cassuto, The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch: Eight Lectures, trans. I. Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961); R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981); D. Garrett, Rethinking Genesis: The Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1991); G. Maier, “How Did Moses Compose the Pentateuch?” Stulos Theological Journal 1, no. 2 (1993): 157-61; A. F. Campbell and M. A. O’Brien, Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), pp. 10-15.

Murray, Cosmic Covenant, passim, but esp. pp. 1-67. Levenson argues that the most primitive Chaoskampf passages portray forces opposing Yahweh not as rebellious but as primordial (precreational). They follow “the Marduk pattern” rather than “the Baal pattern,” for in the Marduk saga, creation is a result of the conflict. See Persistence of Evil, p. 11, but also pp. 3-46. I am inclined to agree, except that even holding that this creation is the result of a cosmic conflict is not yet to admit that the evil forces Yahweh has conflict with are uncreated. Even Genesis 1, I tentatively suggest in the next chapter, may presuppose creation and a prior conflict.

See Day, God’s Conflict, p. 53. Day argues that the Old Testament’s Chaoskampf motif was centrally associated with the Feast of Tabernacles and with Yahweh’s kingship (p. 19). See also König, New and Greater Things, pp. 43-47; and, for a different perspective, Levenson, Persistence of Evil, pp. 53-65. Levenson’s work is, in general, among the most helpful in capturing the full force and extent of the Chaoskampf motif in the Old Testament. On the prevalence of the sea as a hostile force among ancient peoples and in the Old Testament, see F. Stolz, “Sea,” DDD, pp. 1390-1402. Other helpful but more general studies that correlate the wider ancient Near Eastern pattern of Chaoskampf with various Old Testament texts, and do so from a conservative perspective, are T. Longman III and D. G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 83-88; J. J. Niehaus, God at Sinai: Covenant and Theophany in the Bible and Ancient Near East (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 111-16. For a variety of other approaches to the issue that I have drawn upon in my own presentation, see B. W. Anderson, Creation Versus Chaos: The Reinterpretation of Mythical Symbolism in the Bible (New York: Association, 1967); B. S. Childs, “The Enemy from the North and the Chaos Tradition,” JBL 78 (1959): 187-98; A. H. W. Curtis, “The ‘Subjugation of the Waters’ Motif in the Psalms: Imagery or Polemic?” JSS 23 (1978): 245-56; Gunkel, Schöpfung und Chaos; J. G. Janzen, “On the Moral Nature of God’s Power: Yahweh and the Sea in Job and Deutero-Isaiah,” CBQ 56 (1994): 458-78; C. Kloos, “The Flood on Speaking Terms with God,” ZAW 94 (1982): 639-42; idem, Yhwh’s Combat with the Sea: A Canaanite Tradition in the Religion of Ancient Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1986); S. E. Loewenstamm, “The Ugaritic Myth of the Sea,” in Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures, AOAT 204 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1980), pp. 346-61; R. Luyster, “Wind and Water: Cosmological Symbolism in the Old Testament,” ZAW 93 (1981): 1-10; M. R. Wright, Cosmology in Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1995), esp. pp. 75-92; Wakeman, God’s Battle. I might also briefly note here the treatment of the issue by E. Pagels in her recent and highly acclaimed book The Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995). Pagels argues that while sea monsters in Scripture symbolize cosmic evil, Satan symbolizes “the intimate enemy,” viz., the evil in one’s own race, nation or religion (see esp. pp. 38-62).

On the possible Canaanite background to this passage, see Day, God’s Conflict, p. 43. See also König, New and Greater Things, pp. 63, 73.

Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 15; see p. 122.

On the Canaanite background to this passage, see P. C. Craigie, “Psalm XXIX in the Hebrew Poetic Tradition,” VT 22 (1972): 143-51; T. H. Gaster, “Psalm 29,” JQR 37 (1946): 55-65; Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 59-60; Forsyth, Old Enemy, p. 65; Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 133.

Forsyth, Old Enemy, p. 64. On the “rebuke” or “roar” of Yahweh, see Day, God’s Conflict, p. 29, note 82. J. M. Kennedy argues that the best translation would be “blast.” See “The Root g‘r in the Light of Semantic Analysis,” JBL 106 (1987): 47-64.

Wakeman argues that the metaphor of Yahweh as “a rock” was the most frequently used metaphor precisely because his stability and safety contrasted so powerfully with the chaotic and threatening raging waters believed to encircle the earth. See God’s Battle, p. 138. On the reality of the threat of chaos, see Levenson, Persistence of Evil, pp. 14-25. Here I should note that these various conflict-creation accounts “were not intended primarily to answer the theoretical question, ‘Where does everything originate?’ but the existential questions of people who are under threat: ‘Are we safe?’ and ‘Shall we survive?’” (König, New and Greater Things, p. 45). Hence they make no attempt to explain when and how these hostile forces became inimical (p. 72). This is not to say that the question is inappropriate; it is, for all creational monotheists, absolutely necessary. It is only to say that it is not possible to answer these questions on the basis of these texts. As we shall later see, other texts are slightly more helpful in answering this question.

Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 16.

Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 144-45; Levenson, Persistence of Evil, pp. 18-19; König, New and Greater Things, pp. 47-49; Longman and Reid, God Is a Warrior, p. 77.

Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 18. In Levenson’s view, we have here a Canaanite creation-conflict hymn interpolated into a hymn of lament.

Ibid., p. 19.

A similar objection, invoking a similar parallel, is voiced by the psalmist in Psalm 44:19-20 according to Day, God’s Conflict, p. 43.

See the discussion in Wakeman, God’s Battle, pp. 91-94, 118; Levenson, Persistence of Evil, pp. 11-12.

Yarbro Collins, Combat Myth, p. 117. See Levenson, Persistence of Evil, pp. 20-21.

Yarbro Collins, Combat Myth, p. 118.

See Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 88-112. See also Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 44, who notes that Israel’s enemies are here no longer just earthly enemies but have become “cosmic forces of the utmost malignancy.” The interconnectedness of creation and salvation is a theme brought out insightfully throughout König’s New and Greater Things. See esp. pp. 34, 60-61, 104-5, 118. So too, Gustaf Wingren probes deeply the cosmic warfare significance of Israel’s battles in his fascinating but largely unknown work on the theology of preaching, The Living Word: A Theological Study of Preaching and the Church, trans. T. V. Pague (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1960 [1949]).

Psalm 68:22, which speaks of the Lord bringing his enemies “from the depths of the sea” (yam), may be making a similar point with an explicit reference to Yamm.

I shall attempt to render this position philosophically defensible in my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

F. Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil: A Contextual Analysis of Alleged Monistic Evidence in the Old Testament, trans. F. H. Cryer, ConBOT 21 (Lund: Gleerup, 1983), p. 155. Mary Wakeman attempts to argue that the Old Testament also speaks of an “earth monster” (’ere) that is associated with the Canaanite god Mot (God’s Battle with the Monster: A Study in Biblical Imagery [Leiden: Brill, 1973], pp. 106-17). She finds such references in Exodus 15:12, Numbers 16:32, Psalm 97:4-5, Micah 1:3-4, Amos 9:5-6, and Psalm 46:7 and 114:7. Her case, while not impossible, seems stretched and has not received widespread scholarly support. See the critique in J. Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament, UCOP 35 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 84-86.

For other overviews on the influence of the Near Eastern conceptions of sea monsters on the biblical tradition, see G. R. Driver, “Mythical Monsters in the Old Testament,” in Studi Orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida, 2 vols. (Rome: Instituto per l’Oriente, 1956), 1:234-49; T. Fawcett, “The Satanic Serpent,” in Hebrew Myth and Christian Gospel (London: SCM, 1973), pp. 96-109; B. W. Anderson, “The Slaying of the Fleeing, Twisting Serpent: Isaiah 21:1 in Context,” in Uncovering Ancient Stones: Essays in Memory of H. Neil Richardson, ed. L. Hopfe (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1994), pp. 3-15.

J. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), passim, but esp. part 2, “The Alternation of Chaos and Order: Genesis 1:1—2:3,” pp. 53-127.

The root meaning of Leviathan (lwh) is “to twist.” See J. B. Payne, “liwyatan,” TWOT, 1:471-72. On Leviathan, see also C. Uehlinger, “Leviathan,” DDD, pp. 956-64; J. Day, “Leviathan,” ABD, 4:295-96; J. A. Emerton, “Leviathan and ltn: The Vocalization of the Ugaritic Word for the Dragon,” VT 32 (1982): 327-31; C. H. Gordon, “Leviathan: A Symbol of Evil,” in Biblical Motifs, ed. A. Altmann, Studies and Texts 3 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 1-9; M.-H. Henry, “Leviathan,” BHH, 2:1076-77; Wakeman, God’s Battle, pp. 62-67.

See S. R. Driver and G. B. Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job, ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1921), pp. 33-34; M. Fishbane, “Jeremiah IV 23-26 and Job III 3-13: A Recovered Use of the Creation Pattern,” VT 21 (1971): 153; T. H. Gaster, Thespis (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 228-29; Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 44-46. Job 26:13, which parallels Yahweh’s clearing of the skies with his piercing “the fleeing serpent,” may reflect a similar conception.

Some conservative scholars have attempted to argue that Leviathan in the Old Testament was simply a crocodile or a whale. See, e.g., A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 105-7. Psalm 104:25-29 perhaps allows for such a view, but the remaining references to Leviathan strongly suggest otherwise. Such a naturalistic understanding does not do justice either to the description of Leviathan in Job 41, Psalm 74 or Isaiah 27 (e.g., many heads and breathing fire!) or to the Canaanite context in which this description occurs, for here Leviathan was certainly a mythological sea dragon. See B. Zuckerman, “Job, Book of,” IDBSup, p. 479; Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 65-69. Other conservative scholars, unable to disregard the mythological element in these references but not wanting to concede that the biblical authors believed in anything mythological, attempt to dismiss such language as poetry. See, e.g., B. K. Waltke, “The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1-3: Part I, Introduction to Biblical Cosmogony,” BSac 132 (Jan.-Mar. 1975): 25-36. In my estimation, such attempts are as futile as they are unnecessary. There is no antithesis between the concepts of divine inspiration and of myth, nor is there between truth and myth, nor is there between God’s sovereignty and his conflict against formidable cosmic forces of evil.

See Longman and Reid, God Is a Warrior, p. 78.

While speaking about a cosmic event, it is likely that Isaiah has in mind a particular empire, though it is not clear whether this empire is Egypt, Babylon or Persia. See Day, God’s Conflict, p. 177. We again see that Old Testament authors could tightly weave together cosmic and historical realities, as well as creation and salvation themes. On the chaos motif of this passage, as well as for helpful discussions of other interpretive approaches and issues surrounding this text, see D. G. Johnson, From Chaos to Restoration: An Integrative Reading of Isaiah 24—27, JSOTSup 61 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988); Anderson, “Slaying of the Fleeing, Twisting Serpent”; B. C. Ollenburger, “Isaiah’s Creation Theology,” Ex Auditu 3 (1987): 54-71, esp. 54-59.

Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 27.

Ibid., p. 48.

For an excellent discussion of the combat myths behind Revelation 12, see A. Yarbro Collins, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation, HDR 9 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1976), pp. 57-85; as well as H. Wallace, “Leviathan and the Beast in Revelation,” BA 11 (1948): 61-68. Day argues that a reformed and historicized vision of Leviathan also lies behind Daniel 7, in which we find four beasts rising out of a chaotic turbulent sea. The four empires, in this view, are playing the destructive role of Leviathan. See Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 153-57.

See Day, God’s Conflict, p. 6. For an excellent overview of Rahab in the Old Testament, against its Canaanite background, see Wakeman, God’s Battle, pp. 56-82; G. Schmitt, “Rahab,” BHH, 3:1547-48; J. Day, “Rahab,” ABD, 5:610-11.

Another possible allusion to the Enuma Elish tradition. See ANET, p. 67.

The parallelism between “churning up the sea” and “cutting Rahab to pieces” suggests that one event is being referred to here. Rahab is identified with Yamm, and Yahweh’s vanquishing it signifies Yahweh’s “continuous power over creation” (Day, God’s Conflict, p. 40). So also argues Wakeman, God’s Battle, pp. 118, 121. Forsyth sees a number of Canaanite deity figures represented in this passage, including “Shades” and “Mot,” as well as the hero of the Labbu myth who clears the dragon from the sky while restraining the primeval waters (Old Enemy, p. 65).

The unity of this psalm has been frequently questioned but is convincingly defended by J. M. Ward, “The Literary Form and Liturgical Background of Psalm LXXXIX,” VT 11 (1961): 321-39; and R. J. Clifford, “Psalm 89: A Lament over the Davidic Ruler’s Continued Failure,” HTR 73, no. 1 (1980): 38-47.

See, e.g., G. S. Cansdale, “Behemoth,” ZPEB, 1:511.

See M. Pope, Job, 3d ed., AB 15 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), pp. 320-21; Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 76-77; Wakeman, God’s Battle, p. 114; B. F. Batto, “Behemoth,” DDD, pp. 316-22. The references to Behemoth’s feeding on grass (v. 15), playing by wild animals (v. 20), lying in a marsh (vv. 21-22) and standing in the Jordan River (v. 23) all seem to support seeing Behemoth as a natural creature. The issue is, is this a natural creature spoken of in hyperbolic language or a mythological creature spoken of in markedly natural language (as is Leviathan in Ps 104)? The case is open, but for reasons to be given, I support the latter.

Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 76-77.

Ibid., pp. 80-82.

E. A. Martens, “b^ehemôt,” TWOT, 1:93. See also G. S. Cansdale, “Behemoth,” ZPEB, 1:511.

Cf., e.g., 1 Enoch 60:7-9; 2 Apocalypse of Baruch 29:4; 2 Esdras 6:49-52. It is also likely that these two beasts lie behind Rev 13:1-8.

Day, God’s Conflict, p. 83. With König, Levenson and others, Day argues that the fact that Old Testament authors took these conflict myths literally does not compromise their monotheism. For these authors did not (like their pagan neighbors) take these sea monsters to be gods, at least not in any sense that would compete with the one true God. Rather, they saw them as “demonic forces, which we often find portrayed in animal form in the ancient world” (p. 189). Murray, however, argues that later Old Testament authors (the P tradition) did believe that the postulation of such evil cosmic forces overly compromised Yahweh’s supremacy, and thus sought to demythologize the conflict motif. See Cosmic Covenant, pp. xviii-xix, 1-2, passim. In my view, Murray is influenced by a frequently held scholarly view that monotheism is pure to the extent that it is exclusivistic—hence the P tradition is more “purely” monotheistic than J if it affirms one God to the exclusion of all others. As I argue in chapter four, however, monotheists have rarely if ever assumed this. König and Levenson have the preferable analysis in my view.

F. Lindström, Suffering and Sin: Interpretation of the Individual Complaint Psalms, trans. M. McLamb, ConBOT 37 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1994), p. 178. Lindström convincingly demonstrates that even when the Psalms do not make explicit reference to demonic-type beings (viz., Leviathan, Yamm), they nevertheless sometimes depict “a general experience of a suprahuman and irrational evil, i.e., an affliction which cannot be reduced to moral evil or be connected to the individual’s experience of the nature and activity of his God” (p. 17). These unspecified enemies, whose description in the Psalms “often has a supraindividual, metaphysical dimension . . . [and] can have demonic overtones,” all coalesce around what Lindström describes as “the kingdom of Death” (p. 440). Similarly, J. D. Levenson demonstrates throughout his Persistence of Evil that God’s sovereignty is “often fragile, in continual need of reactivation and reassertion” (p. 47). Levenson, unfortunately, concludes that this entails that Yahweh did not create the forces of chaos he must combat, a view that flies in the face of the strong canonical motif depicting Yahweh as “the Creator” (e.g., Gen 1:1-2; 14:19, 22; Deut 32:6; Ps 89:12; 104:30; 148:15; Is 27:11; 40:26-28; 41:20; 42:5; 43:1, 7, etc.) and the world as “the creation” (e.g., Gen 1:1; Hab 2:18; Rom 8:19-22; Col 1:15; Heb 4:13; Rev 3:14).

Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 27.

Ibid., p. 47. Cf. pp. 16-17. So also p. 48: “the continuation of the hostile forces is sometimes articulated as the survival of Leviathan (under whatever name) in captivity.”

Rather than “casting a shadow over God,” A. König argues, the point of biblical authors who appropriate a creation-conflict theme is that it “all the more wonderfully expresses God’s glory” (New and Greater Things: Re-evaluating the Biblical Message on Creation [Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1988], p. 46). Hence biblical authors frequently speak of how God uses his victory over the chaos monsters for the benefit of creation (as in Ps 104:10-18) or for his own sport (as in Job 40:25-32). From this perspective Bruce Waltke must be judged as having missed the point when he argues that we cannot maintain that the biblical authors really believed in these monsters, for this would run against their stringent monotheism. See “Creation Account, Part I,” pp. 34-35. Here exegesis seems to be controlled by a theological assumption (a mistaken one, I believe) about what “strict monotheism” supposedly implies. The end result for Waltke is that Leviathan and the other cosmic monsters are mere poetic flourishes used to proclaim that “Yahweh will triumph over all His enemies in the establishment of His rule of righteousness. . . . As the Creator of the cosmos, He triumphed at the time of creation; as Creator of history, He triumphs in the historic present; and as Creator of the new heavens and the new earth, He will triumph in the future” (p. 36). The only question is, if having genuine opponents is inconsistent with strict monotheism, as Waltke argues, how can one meaningfully speak of Yahweh triumphing at all? König’s (and Levenson’s) point is that the Old Testament sees Yahweh as having genuine opponents, and as being all the more exalted because he ultimately vanquishes them. The arbitrariness of the common assumption that monotheism is “strict” or “pure” to the extent that it denies the existence of lesser gods is argued in the next chapter.

Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 19.

Developing and defending a theodicy that is rooted in this notion of a cosmic fall among spiritual free agents who exercise cosmic power shall be the goal of part 3 of my forthcoming work Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Indeed, as Murray insightfully argues, according to some traditions at some level the creation itself seems to be involved in the rebellion (Cosmic Covenant, chaps. 1—4).

If my reading of Genesis 1 is correct (see below), the goodness of this creation (or, better, re-creation) was always something Yahweh had to fight for.

On the nontemporal nature of this language, see Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 23ff.; König, New and Greater Things, pp. 45, 71-72.

I refer to the cosmic fall as prehistoric because it lies outside what we can by ordinary means know about history, and thus outside our ordinary definition of “history.” But in my view this event is not ahistorical, hence not “mythological.” For while it lies outside our “history,” it does not lie outside the sequence of events that bracket our history.

As I make clear in what follows, affirming that a conflict occurred before the creation of this world is not to say that the players in this battle are uncreated. In my view, the only uncreated reality is God (all else is created ex nihilo). But created beings rebelled against God before the creation of Genesis 1 took place, and this creation was affected by their rebellion. In my view, Genesis 1:2 onward most probably concerns the re-creation of this present cosmos, not the creation ex nihilo of all things.

The presence of the serpent, which has traditionally been identified with Satan, in the garden was always regarded as one of the surest pieces of evidence that Satan fell before humans fell. This figure shall be discussed in chapter four.

Edwin Lewis is among the few explicit dualists in our age who denies this. See The Creator and the Adversary (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1949). Throughout Persistence of Evil, Levenson argues that “the assumption that the monstrous adversary of YHWH was not primordial, but had been created by him, so that the challenge was only an act of rebellion, derives ultimately from Genesis 1” (p. 53). In other words, the biblical Chaoskampf material assumes that the adversary of YHWH is primordial, according to Levenson. Trying to harmonize Genesis 1 with the Chaoskampf passages”does violence to the plain sense of the text” (ibid.). I argue, on the one hand, that it is not clear that the intent of Genesis 1 is to rule out the Chaoskampf motif, but, on the other hand, that none of these passages requires that the adversary be understood as primordial (in the sense of being uncreated). I agree with Levenson, however, that the traditional interpretation of Genesis 1 (at least) has exercised far too much exegetical control over interpretations of other Old Testament creation accounts, with the result that most have significantly underappreciated the warfare motif that runs throughout the Old Testament.

If this is correct, then we may read the nearly universal creation-conflict myths of various cultures just as we read (or, at least in my view, should read) the nearly universal myths of a worldwide flood, of giants stalking the earth, of the fall of humans, of a giant tower built out of rebellion, etc. They represent echoes of actual past events. All the details of such stories have been altered, expanded and distorted by being passed on orally from generation to generation. But we have reason to believe that the story itself is based on fact. The classic (if somewhat exaggerated) collection of such stories is James George Frazer’s Folklore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law (New York: Hart, rpt. 1975). See also R. Graves and R. Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963). From a conservative perspective, see A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis: The Story of Creation, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951); and idem, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949).

Waltke, “Creation Account, Part I,” pp. 34-36.

See, e.g., Ezekiel 19, where literal history and allegory are obviously interwoven with one another. On this see J. J. Davis, “Genesis, Inerrancy and the Antiquity of Man,” in Inerrancy and Common Sense, ed. R. R. Nicole and J. Ramsey Michaels (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1980), pp. 137-59.

So notes Levenson, Persistence of Evil, pp. 121ff. See also chapter two, note 34.

Alternatively, some have argued that verse 1 is a summary introduction and verse 2 begins to detail the actual account. Others have argued that verse 1 should be translated “when God began to create . . .” Both of these variations (and there are others) strengthen the restoration theory, though the theory hardly requires them. Arthur Custance argues, with some force, for the translation “In a former state God created the heavens and the earth.” See his discussion in “Analysis of Genesis 1:1,” in Time and Eternity and Other Biblical Studies, Doorway Papers 6 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1977), pp. 78-85. On this see also Levenson, Persistence of Evil, p. 121. Speiser makes a solid case that taking verse 1 as a temporal clause (“when God began to create”) fits best with the parallel reading in Enuma Elish (E. A. Speiser, Genesis, 2d ed., AB 1 [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, rpt. 1978], pp. 9-10). It must be noted that the restoration view need not deny the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, even if verse 1 is taken as a temporal clause, for this doctrine can arguably derive from other explicit verses as well as from the general depiction of Yahweh as Creator and the cosmos as a creation.

By far the most thorough, learned and forceful defense of the gap theory has been Custance’s unjustifiably neglected work Without Form and Void (Brockville, Canada: Custance, 1970). See also idem, Time and Eternity, pp. 77-120. For other expositions, see D. G. Barnhouse, “The Great Interval,” in his The Invisible War (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1965), pp. 9-20; M. Unger, “Rethinking the Genesis Account of Creation,” BSac 115 (Jan.-Mar. 1958): 27-35; E. Sauer, The King of the Earth (Palm Springs: Ronald N. Hayes Publishers, rpt. 1981), pp. 195-96, 230-42; idem, The Dawn of Redemption (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1953), pp. 35-36. Other notable scholars since 1850 who have in varying degrees endorsed this reading are Jamieson, Fausset and Brown (in their famous Commentary on the Whole Bible) and Thomas Chalmers, Johann H. Kurtz, William Buckland, Franz Delitzsch, George Pember and Dean Keerl. According to Sauer and Custance, among those who find some sort of “gap” between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 in premodern times are a significant number of ancient Jewish commentators, Origen, perhaps Augustine, Hugo of St. Victor and Jacob Böhme. See Custance, Without Form and Void, pp. 10-40, 117-27.

For attempts to refute this perspective, see W. W. Fields, Unformed and Unfilled: A Critique of the Gap Theory of Genesis 1:1, 2 (Winona Lake, Ind.: Light and Life Press, 1973); B. Waltke, “The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1-3: Part II, The Restitution Theory,” BSac 132 (Apr.-June 1975): 136-44.

Levenson notes that “Genesis 1:2 . . . describes the ‘world,’ if we may call it that, just before the cosmogony began: ‘unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep [t^ehôm] and a wind from God sweeping over the water.’ Here again, a parallel with the Enuma elish readily offers itself. Marduk, having utilized the winds to overcome Tiamat, ‘rested, examining her dead body’ just before he split her in half to form the sky and the Earth” (Persistence of Evil, p. 121).

Ibid., p. 122.

See the discussion in W. G. Lambert, “A New Look at the Babylonian Background of Genesis,” JTS 16 (1965): 287-300.

This is not to suggest that recognizing mythological elements in Scripture amounts to a denial of scriptural infallibility, for myths can be as infallible in ways appropriate to them as can be literal propositions, poems, gospels or any other genre of literature. But the conservative evangelical faith perspective holds that whatever appears to be historical and literal should be taken as such, unless we have very good reason to think otherwise. This view contrasts, for example, with the usual modern historical-critical perspective, which holds that those apparently historical accounts involving features that do not fit our modern worldview (e.g., supernatural beings, miracles) are to be considered mythological, despite their obvious historical appearance. The creation-conflict passages seem to be talking about an actual battle in space and time, though their particular portrayals of the cosmic forces involved in this battle are indisputably, and I think inevitably, mythological. The point here is simply that the conservative position should try to affirm the temporal and factual dimension of the Chaoskampf passages, even while conceding the mythological and culturally conditioned nature of how it is expressed. A good case can be made for understanding the narrative of humanity’s fall in Genesis 3 along similar lines. The account is certainly describing a temporal event, but it may at points be using mythological and culturally dependent elements to do it, as a number of orthodox commentators, past and present, have argued. See the discussion in Davis, “Genesis, Inerrancy.”

Hence the NIV translated some form of kabaš as “subdue” (enemies) in Numbers 32:22, “enslave” in Nehemiah 5:5 (cf. 2 Chron 28:10), “overcome” in Zechariah 9:15, “forced” in Jeremiah 34:16, “tread underfoot” in Micah 7:19, and to bring an enemy “under control” in Joshua 18:1.

The verb for “guard” here, šamar, is used in Genesis 3:24, where the cherubim are placed by the entrance to the garden “to guard the way to the tree of life.” See also, e.g., Exodus 23:20; Joshua 10:18; 1 Samuel 2:9; 7:1; 19:2; 26:15-16; 2 Samuel 20:10; 1 Kings 20:39; 2 Kings 6:10; 2 Chronicles 23:6; Nehemiah 3:29; 13:22; Psalm 25:20; 86:2; 91:11; Ecclesiastes 5:1.

The issues surrounding the traditional interpretation of the serpent as the devil shall be addressed in chapter five.

Franz Delitzsch, quoted in Sauer, King, p. 93.

Ibid., pp. 92-93.

See Custance, Without Form and Void, pp. 41-59; idem, “Analysis of Genesis 1:2,” in Time and Eternity, pp. 86-105; idem, “A Translation of Genesis 1:1 to 2:4 with Notes,” in Hidden Things of God’s Revelation, Doorway Papers 7 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1977), pp. 273-99; M. Anstey, The Romance of the Bible Chronology (London: Marshall, 1913), p. 62. Custance argues that even verse 1 should be translated “In a former state God perfected the heaven and the earth, but the creation had become . . .” See his “Analysis of Genesis 1:2,” pp. 86-92. Waltke, though opposed to the restoration theory, admits the possibility of reading Genesis 1:2 as “the earth had become,” largely on the strength of the parallel in Genesis 3:20, which clearly must be translated to read that Eve “became . . . the mother of all living.” See Waltke, “The Creation Account in Genesis 1:3: Part II, The Restitution Theory,” BSac 132 (Apr.-June 1975): 139.

For tohû, see Isaiah 24:10; 34:11; Jeremiah 4:23; Deuteronomy 32:10 (“become a desert”); Isaiah 49:4; for bohû, see Jeremiah 4:23; Isaiah 34:11. See the discussion in Custance, Without Form and Void, appendix 16, pp. 166-68.

See D. Kidner, Genesis, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Chicago: InterVarsity Press, 1967), p. 44. Similar to this is Barth’s understanding of the chaos of Genesis 1:2 as the “No” over and against God’s creative “Yes.” See his discussion in Church Dogmatics, 3/1, The Doctrine of Creation, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1958), pp. 101-11.

Sauer, King, p. 93.

Some have argued that 1 Corinthians 14:33 expresses a principle that would be violated if the tohû wabohû of Genesis 1:2 were created by God. The argument carries little weight, as the context of the Corinthian letter is completely unrelated to the creation issue.

Custance, “The Meaning of the Verb ‘Make’ by Contrast with the Verb ‘Create,’” in Time and Eternity, pp. 115-17. If Genesis 1:1-2 (on this reading) is based on an archaic oral tradition, an explanation arises as to how it is that myths concerning a “world before this world” that was destroyed by a catastrophic war, and out of which this present world was created, are found around the globe. See Custance, Without Form and Void, pp. 182-85.

It has been argued that the widely acknowledged paleontological evidence of a primordial catastrophe that is so often taken to support the reading of a universal flood in Genesis 6—8 better fits a reading of Genesis 1:2 as referring to a judged world. The issue, however, is highly controversial. See the balanced comments in Sauer, King, pp. 199-202, 238-42.

Lewis, Problem of Pain, pp. 133-35.

This issue of explaining cosmic evil in general, and animal suffering in particular, shall be explored further in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Sauer, King, p. 80. Sauer’s whole book, but especially part 2, “Man as the King of the Earth” (pp. 72-100), is a most insightful treatment of this theme.

See Levenson, Persistence of Evil, pp. 111ff.

Ibid., pp. 117-18.

Quoted in Sauer, King, p. 93.

Sauer’s suggestion that the four rivers flowing out of Eden in Genesis 2:10-14 symbolize the global function of Eden has some merit. See ibid., p. 94.

Ibid., pp. 92, 94.

“He, sole Deity, obviously had the power to wrest this area of the universe from Satan, the rebel, simply by force. But this would have contradicted His own moral principles of government. His fundamental nature is innately moral, and so the laws governing His cosmic world-order must also be of a purely moral character” (Sauer, King, p. 73).

On this, see D. G. McCartney, “Ecce Homo: The Coming of the Kingdom as the Restoration of Human Vicegerency,” WTJ 56 (1994): 1-21.

See also Isaiah 40:12-28; 41:21-29; 44:6-20; 45:14-17, 20-23; 46:9.

See also Isaiah 63:9, mg, which speaks of “the angel of his presence.” P. D. Miller argues that Isaiah 40:26 and 45:12 are to be understood as God calling stars, here portrayed as part of his heavenly council, into military file. See Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel, HSM 5 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 139. See also James Muilenburg, “The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40—66, Introduction and Exegesis,” in IB, 5:442. Many scholars regard the strongly monotheistic section of Isaiah (chaps. 40—45) as deriving from a later scribe whose views do not necessarily reflect those of Isaiah himself. While little rides on the issue, I have never found the arguments for seeing Isaiah as a composite work compelling. See the defenses made for the unity of Isaiah by G. W. Grogan, “Isaiah,” in EBC, 6:6-11; J. N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1—39, NICOT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), pp. 17-28.

U. Mauser, “One God Alone: A Pillar of Biblical Theology,” Princeton Seminary Bulletin, n.s. 12, no. 3 (1991): 259.

See A. König, Here Am I: A Believer’s Reflection on God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982), pp. 1-57. See H. D. Preuss, Verspottung fremder Religionen im Alten Testament, BWANT 92 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1971).

Mauser, “One God Alone,” pp. 255-65. James Kallas argues concerning the “no other gods” theme of Isaiah: “the emphasis is not on the soleness of Yahweh but rather on the supremacy” (The Significance of the Synoptic Miracles [Greenwich, Conn.: Seabury, 1961], p. 40). See also E. Langton, The Essentials of Demonology (London: Epworth, 1949), pp. 51-52; H. Ringgren, “’^elohîm,” TDOT, 1:276-77; R. K. Eaton, “The Nature of the Non-human Opposition to the Church in the New Testament” (Ph.D. diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 1985), pp. 34-38. For an insightful discussion on the incomparability of Yahweh in relation to other gods (both in the Old Testament and today), see J. Labuschagne, The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament, POS 5 (Leiden: Brill, 1966); König, Here Am I, pp. 1-57. Also helpful in discussing the compatibility of creational monotheism with the acceptance of other gods is N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), pp. 248-59. The incomparability of Yahweh comes out in “power encounters” between Yahweh and other gods. Elijah’s battle with the priests of Baal is one such encounter, according to C. H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God’s Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1992), pp. 115-33. For Louise Holbert, Yahweh’s assailing the Egyptians with the plagues is another example. Each of the ten plagues, she argues, is tailored against a particular Egyptian deity. See her “Extrinsic Evil Powers in the Old Testament” (Th.M. thesis, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1985), pp. 57-72; also J. J. Davis, “When the Gods Were Silent,” in his Moses and the Gods of Egypt (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1971), pp. 110-29.

For a small sampling of Old Testament passages that unequivocally affirm the reality of other gods, see Exodus 12:12; 20:3; 23:32-33; Numbers 33:4; Deuteronomy 6:14; 29:25-26; 31:16; Joshua 24:15; Judges 2:12; 6:10; 10:6; 1 Kings 8:23; 11:33; 2 Kings 1:2-3, 6, 16; Psalm 89:6; 95:3; Jeremiah 5:19. In regard to such verses, Ringgren notes, “No question is raised as to whether these gods existed; their existence is simply accepted as a fact” (TDOT, 1:277).

Mauser, “One God Alone,” pp. 259-61. Mauser here notes that 1 Corinthians 8 is structured by Paul’s responding to three Corinthian slogans: “all of us possess knowledge (8:1), “no idol in the world really exists,” and “there is no God but one” (8:4). Paul rejects the Corinthians’ interpretation of all three. Mauser seems to assume that a “clean monotheism” is somehow threatened by the acknowledgment that lesser gods exist. This is a common assumption among scholars, and one that I shall shortly call into question.

See also 2 Samuel 5:24, to be discussed below, as well as Exodus 12:12; Numbers 33:4.

Mauser argues along these lines in “One God Alone,” p. 258.

The good deal of difference among the various definitions of monotheism, henotheism, monolatry and polytheism has resulted in a good amount of confusion surrounding these terms. For example, the strong tendency among laypersons and scholars alike is to define monotheism such that it is necessarily exclusivistic—it denies the existence of other “gods.” I shall soon argue that this is an arbitrary and phenomenologically inaccurate description of what monotheists believe. But once this definition is granted, henotheism and monolatry become defined as the worship of one god while admitting the existence of other gods, and polytheism becomes the worship of many gods. For reasons to be discussed shortly, I define monotheism as the worship of one supreme God who is seen as being the originator of all others, while affirming that other (created) gods exist. Given the absolute uniqueness of this creator God, it might be best to call this (following N. T. Wright) “creational monotheism.” Henotheism and monolatry I take to be the worship of one god, while admitting the existence of other gods and while not drawing a qualitative distinction between the god worshiped and these other gods. Polytheism I take to mean a belief in and worship of a multitude of gods. I would call the belief that affirming one God excludes acknowledging other gods “philosophical monotheism,” for it has been spun out on the basis of a philosophical ideal and does not correspond to what monotheists have actually believed.

Recall, for example, Waltke’s dismissal of Leviathan and Rahab as mere metaphors because of his assumption that believing in their existence runs into conflict with monotheism. See chapter three, note 37.

Wright, People of God, p. 258. The opinion is anticipated much earlier by John Baillie: “Historically speaking, monotheism has never stood for the belief that there exists in the universe only one being of a supernatural kind. If we so define it, we shall be faced with the necessity of admitting that it has never existed in the world. What monotheism has really stood for is rather the conviction that there is only one supernatural Being who counts as far as religion is concerned—one Being, that is to say, who is worthy of the name of God” (The Interpretation of Religion [New York: Scribner’s, 1928], p. 430).

P. Hayman, “Monotheism—A Misused Word in Jewish Studies?” JJS 42 (1991): 1-15.

Ibid., p. 2.

Ibid., p. 11.

See Wright’s clear discussion in People of God, pp. 248-56.

For a comprehensive discussion concerning objects of worship and veneration within Judaism and Christianity (especially as it impacts the development of Jesus worship in the early church), see L. T. Stuckenbruck, Angel Veneration and Christology: A Study in Early Judaism and in the Christology of the Apocalypse of John, WUNT 2/70 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1995).

This of course raises the question of why the Creator does not revoke the power he gives when his creatures choose to misuse it. As I shall argue more extensively in Satan and the Problem of Evil, if the Lord revoked self-determining power whenever it had been or was going to be misused, it could not be said that he genuinely gave self-determining power in the first place. In other words, the freedom to choose for or against God and his plans must, within limits, be irrevocable.

So Mauser, “One God Alone,” pp. 259-60. Wright argues, “Within the most fiercely monotheistic of Jewish circles throughout our period—from the Maccabean revolt to Bar-Kochba—there is no suggestion that ‘monotheism,’ or praying the Shema, had anything to do with the numerical analysis of the inner being of Israel’s god himself” (People of God, p. 259). On the flexibility of monotheism and the phenomenon of Jesus devotion, see L. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988).

See W. Bousset, Kyrios Christos, trans. J. E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1970). The thesis has been given a new (and slightly different) lease on life by recent post-Bultmannians. For a refutation of this approach and a historical defense of the claim that the Gospel and epistolary portraits of Jesus as divine essentially reflect the perspective of Jesus’ earliest disciples, see my Cynic, Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies (Wheaton, Ill.: Bridgepoint, 1995); and D. Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995), esp. chapter three.

Most scholars who advocate this view also argue that polytheism itself represents an evolution of an even more primitive animism or totemism. Two classic statements are E. H. Tyler, Primitive Culture (New York: Harper & Brothers, rpt. 1958); and J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel, trans. A. Menzies and J. Black (rpt. Cleveland, Ohio: World, 1957). The position has been largely discredited but is in any event irrelevant to the position I will shortly advocate. For a critique of the position, see S. H. Langdon, “Monotheism as the Predecessor of Polytheism in Sumerian Religion,” EvQ 9 (April 1937): 136-46.

For a thorough discussion of the evidence, see A. Custance, “From Monotheism to Polytheism,” in Evolution or Creation? Doorway Papers 4 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1976), pp. 113-31.

For example, Albrecht Alt argued that monotheism begins in pre-Yahwist cults that can be associated with the patriarchs (Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, trans. R. A. Wilson [New York: Doubleday, 1967], pp. 3-86). Yehezkel Kaufmann argued that monotheism originated with Moses (The Religion of Israel: From the Beginnings to the Babylonian Captivity, trans. and abridged by Moshe Greenberg [New York: Schocken, rpt. 1972]). Wellhausen, now followed by a major strand of critical Old Testament scholarship, held that true monotheism does not originate until the period of the classical prophets (Amos and Hosea). See also the strong statement of this position by B. Lang, Monotheism and the Prophetic Minority: An Essay in Biblical History and Sociology (Sheffield: Almond, 1983). More recent scholarship, operating with a thoroughly redactional approach to the Old Testament, has argued that monotheism does not become a characteristic of Israel until the formation of the Second Commonwealth under Ezra. See, e.g., F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973). Each of the theories (and many variations of them could be elucidated) hangs upon rather tenuous pieces of evidence, conjectures, dating assumptions—to say nothing of their starting definition of monotheism and their assumptions about what characterizes it. For a most helpful discussion of the field today, see D. L. Petersen, “Israel and Monotheism: The Unfinished Agenda,” in Canon, Theology and Old Testament Interpretation, ed. G. Tucker et al. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), pp. 92-107.

Defenders of the primordial monotheism theory have often argued that we do find instances of pure monotheism (“pure” being defined by exclusivity), but this claim really goes beyond the evidence (as argued, for example, by N. A. Snaith, “The Advent of Monotheism in Israel,” ALUOS 5 [1963-1965]: 100-113, esp. 104ff.). Even Andrew Lang, one of the earliest and most capable defenders of the primitive monotheism position, admits that while there is solid evidence for a primordial supreme being, “we almost always find ghosts and a Supreme Being together,” and hence “we have no historical ground for asserting that either is prior to the other.” See Lang, The Making of Religion, rev. ed. (New York: AMS, rpt. 1968), p. 220.

Langdon, “Monotheism as the Predecessor.” For a more extensive discussion, see his Semitic Mythology, vol. 5 of Mythology of All Races (Boston: Archeological Institute of America, 1938).

Langdon, “Monotheism as the Predecessor,” p. 138.

G. Foucart, “Sky and Sky-Gods,” Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 12 vols., ed. J. Hastings (New York: Scribner, 1955), 11:580-85.

For an overview of the evidence and citation of sources, see A. Custance, Evolution or Creation? pp. 113-24.

Undoubtedly, the most comprehensive work done in defense of this position is by the Roman Catholic ethnologist W. Schmidt in his monumental work Der Ursprung der Gottesidee: Eine historische-kristische und positive Studie, 12 vols. (Münster in Westfalen: Aschendorffsche, 1926-1955). For an abridged translation (from which my knowledge of Schmidt derives) see The Origin and Growth of Religion: Facts and Theories, trans. H. J. Rose (New York: Cooper Square, rpt. 1972). For a sympathetic overview of Schmidt and his work, see E. Brandewie, Wilhelm Schmidt and the Origin of the Idea of God (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1983). Other noteworthy scholars who argue along these lines are Lang, Making of Religion; Langdon, “Monotheism as Predecessor” and Semitic Mythology; Custance, “Monotheism to Polytheism.”

D. Rooney, “The First Religion of Mankind,” Faith and Reason 19, nos. 2-3 (1993): 207.

Ibid., p. 199.

Ibid., p. 206.

N. Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind, 3d ed. (Santa Barbara: University of California Press, 1983), p. 33.

Ibid. For more detailed discussions, see E. Smith, ed., African Ideas of God: A Symposium (London: Edinburgh House Press, 1950); R. Cameron Mitchell, African Primal Religions (Niles, Ill.: Argus Communications, 1977), pp. 23-29; G. Parrinder, Africa’s Three Religions, 2d ed. (London: Sheldon, 1976), pp. 39-48. For a discussion on the important implications of this spirituality for Christian missions, see Gailyor Van Rheener, Communicating Christ in Animistic Context (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1990), pp. 242-73.

For example, their creation account speaks of “the Great Manitu” existing while “the earth was an extended fog” (one thinks of Gen 1:2), “lost in space, everywhere.” Then Manitu made the land and sky, the sun, moon and stars, and then made dry land appear with a strong wind. After this he spoke “to beings, mortals, souls, and all, and ever he was a manitu to men, and he was their grandfather.” See W. Schmidt, High Gods in North America (Oxford: Clarendon, 1933), p. 74.

I. Lissner, Man, God and Magic, trans. J. M. Brownjohn (New York: Putnam’s, 1961), pp. 118-19.

W. Koppers, Primitive Man and His World Picture, trans. E. Raybould (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1952), pp. 147-65.

Ibid., pp. 75-94.

Another possibility is to argue, following Brandewie, that the powers of reason naturally lead to monotheism. See Brandewie, Idea of God, p. 77. Yet, as Koppers replied, many cultures with a far more developed intellectual life became far less monotheistic. See Koppers, Primitive Man, p. 182. The debate is reviewed in Rooney, “First Religion,” pp. 216-18.

Rooney, “First Religion,” p. 213. In this sense, the widespread common conceptions of one supreme deity could be seen as paralleling the commonalities amid the widespread stories about the creation, the origin of evil, the flood, arrogantly built towers to heaven, the sexual union between humans and gods, giants roaming the earth, etc. See references in chapter three, note 35.

Schmidt postulates a primal revelation to account for this shared stock of knowledge. See his Primitive Revelation, trans. J. Baierl (New York: Herder, 1939). As Schmidt himself recognized, the postulation is conjectural, and the primal monotheism position could survive without it.

Snaith, “Advent,” pp. 107-8.

On the supreme being as female, or at least as explicitly embodying female qualities, see Smith, ed., African Ideas of God, pp. 215ff.

Snaith plausibly speculates that it is the very silence and consequent irrelevance of these high gods that accounts for why they are sometimes missed by outside documenters. See “Advent,” pp. 108-9. On the notion of the high God “going away,” see J. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970), pp. 125-29; Smith, ed., African Ideas of God, p. 7; Smart, Religious Experience, p. 34.

Thus Lang argued concerning the deus otiosus: “if the idea of a universal Father and Maker came last in evolution . . . then, of course, it ought to be the newest, and therefore the most fashionable and potent” (Making of Religion, p. 224). Just the opposite is the case, however. An alternative explanation was offered by Nathan Söderblom, who argued that the “high god” was not really a “god,” but an Urheber, a power that brings things forth. See the discussion in J. de Vries, Perspectives in the History of Religions, trans. K. W. Bolle [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977], p. 116, note 19). In my estimation, this reading presupposes too much philosophical sophistication on the part of the people under consideration.

Much of Father Schmidt’s research was conducted by colleagues at the Society of the Divine Word, and in the eyes of some this rendered his work suspect. Several of the more noteworthy attempts to discredit the evidence procured by Schmidt or other defenders of the primal monotheism theory were P. Radin, Primitive Religion: Its Nature and Origin (New York: Viking, 1937), pp. 254-67; R. Lowie, Primitive Religion (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1924), pp. 124-33.

See the review in de Vries, Perspectives, pp. 110-20; Rooney, “First Religion,” pp. 210-11.

Snaith, “Advent,” p. 108. Almost all the cases Father Schmidt believes illustrate original monotheism have to be qualified by him, argues Snaith. “It may be said that by the time Father Schmidt has mentioned all the modifications and has thus included a great company of ‘other supreme beings,’ the original Supreme Being in all his pristine excellence . . . exists more in his [Schmidt’s] own head than among any primitive people” (p. 105). As Snaith sees it, Schmidt “has demonstrated the existence everywhere of a Supreme Being, but not a primary monotheism. He has not proved a Primary Monotheism existing before all ‘low gods.’” But then again, “he has shown that the existence of ‘low gods’ is not prior to the belief in a Supreme Being” (pp. 105-6). Similarly, illustrating how slippery terminology can be in this debate, Radin argues against the original monotheism thesis on the basis that we never find only a supreme God, but a supreme God surrounded by lesser gods. “Monotheism is extremely rare. What we have is monolatry, and this is essentially merely a form of polytheism” (Primitive Religion, p. 266). This is precisely the position I am presently espousing, except I see no reason not to call this monotheism if the supreme God is discerned to be the Creator of the lesser gods. If, as Hayman has argued, monotheists have hardly ever held to the form of exclusivistic monotheism Radin is talking about, then it seems odd, confusing and unnecessary to call this belief monolatry.

On the basis of commonalities between some modern “bear festival” practices among certain primitive tribes (e.g., Gilyaks of Siberia and Ainu of Hokkaido) and similar practices among prehistoric people, Ivar Lissner has argued that we are generally justified in reading the worldviews and behaviors of primitive tribes today as evidence for what prehistoric people generally believed, and that prehistoric humanity likely believed in a single, all-good, invisible Supreme Being. For the “bear festival” of primitive tribes today surrounds just such a conception of a high God, though there are lesser deities to contend with as well. See Lissner, Man, God and Magic, pp. 120-94. Cf. H. Kohn, “The Problem of Primitive Monotheism,” in Selections II, ed. C. Hastings and D. Nicholl (London: Sheed & Ward, 1954), pp. 67-68.

So argue W. Sanford LaSor, D. A. Hubbard and F. W. Bush in Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form and Background of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 181.

I have seen this idea attributed to Augustine in print but have not been able to locate it in his writings. The concept, in any event, was prevalent in the early church and goes back at least as far as Philo. Both the historical and theological issues surrounding the issue shall be discussed in my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

For a general discussion, see W. Wink, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), pp. 87-107.

This development becomes more plausible still if we have reason to think that some of these lesser gods were themselves fallen, and were, as such, encouraging humans to err in this direction. As we shall see (chapter six), many authors from the intertestamental period on held to just this view, often basing it on the account of the fall of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6. It was certainly the dominant view of the early church. Many of those who espouse the primal monotheistic position, however, argue that polytheism results from the hypostatization of God’s attributes. For the most thorough statement, see H. Ringgren, Word and Wisdom: Studies in the Hypostatization of Divine Qualities and Functions in the Ancient Near East (Lund: Hakan Ohlssons, 1947). See also Custance, “Monotheism to Polytheism.” I cannot deny that this hypostatization sometimes occurs, but see no grounds for taking it to be the primary basis for a belief in many lesser gods.

G. Parrinder, Africa’s Three Religions, 2d ed. (London: Sheldon, 1976), p. 47.

Gerald Cooke has demonstrated that the concept of a divine council is found throughout all of Israel’s early history. See “The Sons of (the) God(s),” ZAW 76 [1964]: 22-47. As with the concept of heavenly councils in Mesopotamian and Ugaritic cultures, for the Hebrews “the essential business of the council is discussion leading to a decision.” Often “the high god calls for some god to volunteer to resolve a crisis” (as in 1 Kings 22:19-22). See S. B. Parker, “Council,” DDD, pp. 392-98.

This raises the issue of why an omniscient and all-wise Creator would invite input from lesser beings, an issue that is essentially no different from the issue of why God would invite us to influence him in prayer. Also important here is the issue of what it means for an omniscient being to change his mind, and what divine sovereignty means if God is literally open to the input of other creatures. Each of these issues shall be addressed in Satan and the Problem of Evil. Presently, however, we are simply concerned with observing what Scripture says, not with trying to make it intellectually palatable.

Surprisingly enough, the NIV interprets rather than translates the phrase “LORD of hosts” when they render it “the LORD Almighty” (285 times). The supplied rationale is that the phrase was taken by the interpreters to be “a general reference to the sovereignty of God over all powers in the universe.” See note on 1 Samuel 1:3, The NIV Study Bible, ed. K. Barker (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1985), p. 375. This translation thereby turns all these references to the heavenly council in the Old Testament into an attribute of God! Consequently, and unfortunately, the impression of the prevalence of the concept of the society of the gods (the “hosts”) in the Old Testament is lessened significantly. On the Old Testament’s conception of the “council of Yahweh” in relation to that of other Near Eastern peoples, see E. T. Mullen Jr., The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature, HSM 24 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1980); Cross, Canaanite Myth, pp. 186-90; idem, “The Council of Yahweh in Second Isaiah,” JNES 12 (1953): 274-77; G. E Wright, The Old Testament Against Its Environment, SBT 1/2 (London: SCM, 1954), pp. 30-41; H. W. Robinson, “The Council of Yahweh,” JTS 45 (1944): 151-57; P. D. Miller Jr., “The Divine Council and the Prophetic Call to War,” VT 18 (1968): 100-107; J. Morgenstern, “The Mythical Background of Psalm 82,” HUCA 14 (1939): 29-126; Parker, “Council,” DDD, pp. 392-97; M. Tsevat, “God and the Gods in Assembly,” HUCA 40/41 (1969-70): 123-37; and especially L. K. Handy, Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1994). See W. H. McClellan, “Donimus Deus Sabaoth,” CBQ 2 (1940): 300-307, who argues that the phrase “LORD of hosts” refers first and foremost not to an angelic military force but rather to an “unending and ordered servitude which is their lot by nature” (p. 307).

Miller, Divine Warrior, pp. 66-70. Modern Western people operate with a worldview that posits a radical bifurcation between the “natural” and the “spiritual” (if the “spiritual” is even acknowledged) that ancient people did not share. We are thus inclined to see the many references to the stars as participants in Yahweh’s council as mere poetry. But in the context of the Near Eastern worldview in which they wrote, the biblical authors undoubtedly understood this much more literally. Later Jewish thought, as well as early Christian thinkers, would interpret the Old Testament view that objects and phenomena of nature were part of Yahweh’s council to mean that he had entrusted various angels in charge of these objects or phenomena, a point to be further discussed in chapter six. Such an outlook may have implications for our understanding of “natural evil,” a point I will discuss in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

The undisputed consensus is that b^enê ha-’^elohîm in the prologue of Job refers to angelic beings. For other passages the question is somewhat more disputed. P. A. H. de Boer concludes that wherever the phrase is found, it refers to one “who belongs to the circle in which the god exercises fatherly authority and for which he manifests fatherly concern.” See his “The Son of God in the Old Testament,” in Syntax and Meaning: Studies in Hebrew Syntax and Biblical Exegesis, OTS 18, ed. A. S. van der Woude (Leiden: Brill, 1973), p. 205. See also J. L. McKenzie, “The Divine Sonship of the Angels,” CBQ 5 (1943): 293-300.

See R. P. Gordon, “From Mari to Moses: Prophecy at Mari and in Ancient Israel,” in Of Prophets’ Visions and the Wisdom of Sages, ed. H. A. McKay and D. J. A. Clines, JSOTSup 162 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), pp. 71-74; M. E. Polley, “Hebrew Prophecy Within the Council of Yahweh, Examined in Its Ancient Near Eastern Setting,” in Scripture in Context: Essays on the Comparative Method, ed. C. D. Evans et al. (Pittsburgh, Penn.: Pickwick, 1980), pp. 141-56.

Against this common approach, P. Joüon has demonstrated that the biblical Hebrew plural of majesty occurs with nouns but never with verbs or pronouns, as in this passage. See Grammaire de l’hébreu biblique (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1947), §136d-e.

Upon discussing the six possible interpretations of the use of the plural in Genesis 1:26, G. J. Wenham (Genesis 1—15, WBC 1 [Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987], pp. 27-28) concludes that the plural most likely constitutes a reference to the angelic heavenly court. See also Cooke, “Sons of (the) God(s),” pp. 22-23. If correct, this implies, as George Foot Moore has noted, that we are made not only in the image of God but in the image of the gods. See Judaism, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, rpt. 1962), 1:447.

See Wenham, Genesis 1—15, p. 241; Cooke, “Sons of (the) God(s),” pp. 22-23. The judgment of humankind at Babel may be connected to Deuteronomy 32:8-9, in which Moses says (in the original text) that the Lord divided up the nations according to the number of the sons of God, a point which may incidentally confirm the reading of the plural of Genesis 11:7 as referring to an angelic host. This fascinating passage will be discussed further below.

On Psalm 68:17 Miller comments, “Here the march of Yahweh and his hosts into battle is unmistakably present” (Divine Warrior, p. 109).

Ibid., p. 139. See also Muilenburg, IB, 5:442. Miller argues that Deuteronomy 33:2 is also to be taken as a reference to Yahweh’s army, though this is debatable. See Divine Warrior, pp. 75-84.

W. Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Powers in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), p. 131.

F. Garcia Martinez, ed., IQM 1.10-11, 12.8-9; in The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English, trans. W. G. E. Watson, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 95, 106; see also IQM 7.6, 13.10, 17.6-7. On this view in the Old Testament see T. Longman III and D. G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 72-82; P. D. Miller, “The Divine Council and the Prophetic Call to War,” VT 18 (1968) pp. 100-107; idem, “God the Warrior: A Problem in Biblical Interpretation and Apologetics,” Interpretation 19 (1965), pp. 40-41; M. Weinfeld, “Divine Intervention in War in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East,” in History, Historiography and Interpretation: Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Literatures, ed. H. Tadmor and M. Winfeld (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1984), pp. 124-31. Significantly, the notion that the physical realm is a microcosm of the larger spiritual world, and that the former parallels the latter, is a motif that “appears to be almost universal,” according to Wink (Naming the Powers, p. 131). For example, the Native American Black Elk speaks of “the nation above” the nations of the world, referring to a heavenly council. See J. G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks (rpt. New York: Pocket Books, 1972), p. 33. See also M. Eliade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), pp. 6ff.

In the interest of space this study must forgo a review of the various interpretations of Israel’s holy war tradition with the various issues they address. For concise introductions to these issues, see G. H. Jones, “The Concept of Holy War,” in The World of Ancient Israel: Sociologial, Anthropological and Political Perspectives: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study, ed. R. E. Clements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 299-321; N. K. Gottwald, “War, Holy,” in Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Supplement, ed. Keith Crim et. al. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1976), pp. 942-44; B. C. Ollenburger, “Gerhard von Rad’s Theory of Holy War,” introduction to Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel, ed. and trans. M. J. Dawn (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 1-33.

On Yahweh’s wars against unfaithful Israel see Longman and Reid, God Is a Warrior, 48-60; J. A. Soggin, “The Prophets on Holy War as Judgement against Israel,” in his Old Testament and Oriental Studies, Biblica et Orientalia 29 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1975), pp. 67-81. On Old Testament warfare viewed within the framework of God’s battle with Chaos see B. C. Ollenburger, “Peace and God’s Action Against Chaos in the Old Testament,” in The Church’s Peace Witness, ed. M. E. Miller and B. N. Gingerich (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 70-88. Closely related to this, P. D. Hanson has forcefully argued that the opposite of Old Testament shalom (peace) is not war but chaos, against which Yahweh fights; see “War and Peace in the Hebrew Bible,” Interpretation 38 (1984): 341-62; see also idem, “War, Peace and Justice in Early Israel,” Bible Review 3 (1987): 32-45.

M. C. Lind, Yahweh Is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1980), pp. 169, 170. See also E. W. Conrad, Fear Not Warrior: A Study of the ‘al tira’ Pericopes in the Hebrew Scriptures, BJS 75 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985), who argues that a central strand of Israelite war theology, rooted in the Davidic tradition and paradigmatically exemplified by Abraham, called the king and the people to passivity in war, allowing Yahweh to fight alone on their behalf.

Miller, “God the Warrior,” p. 40. For other such considerations see L. Barrett, The Way God Fights: War and Peace in the Old Testament (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1987); P. C. Craigie, The Problem of War in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1978); T. R. Hobbs, A Time for War: A Study of Warfare in the Old Testament (Wilmington, Del.: Glazier, 1989), pp. 208-33; R. Nysse, “Yahweh Is a Warrior,” Word and World 7 (1987): 192-201; Ollenburger, “Peace and God’s Action Against Chaos”; C. Sherlock, The God Who Fights: The War Tradition in Holy Scripture, RSCT 6 (Edinburgh: Rutherford House; Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1993), pp. 97-105; G. E. Wright, “God the Warrior,” in his The Old Testament and Theology (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 121-50.

See L. C. L. Brenton, trans., The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (rpt. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1980), p. 277. The NIV, like most English translations, opts for the easier reading “sons of Israel” found in the Masoretic text. A growing majority of scholars, however, argue that the Septuagint (LXX) reading, “angels of God,” reflects the original. As early as 1944 H. W. Robinson (“Council of Yahweh,” p. 155) could write that the LXX version was “probably original.” Since that time, fragments of Deuteronomy 32 found at Qumran have effectively settled the issue. In 1954 P. W. Skehan (“A Fragment of the ‘Song of Moses’ [Deut 32] from Qumran,” BASOR 136 [Dec. 1954]: 12-15) discovered a fragment of an ancient Hebrew manuscript that offered the b^enê ’el reading. See also Skehan, “Qumran and the Present State of Old Testament Text Studies: The Masoretic Text,” JBL 78 (1959): 21. For corroboration and further discussion, see Tsevat, “God and the Gods,” pp. 132-33; de Boer, “Sons of God,” p. 190; and especially R. S. Hendel, “When the Sons of God Cavorted with the Daughters of Men,” in Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reader from the Biblical Archaeology Review, ed. H. Shanks (New York: Random House, 1992), pp. 168-72.

D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), p. 248; cf. p. 168.

Ibid., pp. 244-49.

On the ancient Near Eastern idea that particular “gods” are intimately connected to specific territories, see especially D. I. Block, The Gods of the Nations: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern National Theology, ETSMS 2 (Jackson, Miss.: Evangelical Theological Society, 1988). Block notes that “Jeremiah’s words in 2:11 seem to reflect a theological axiom common to all of the nations of the ancient Near East: ‘Has a nation ever changed its gods (even though they are not gods)? But my people have exchanged my glory for “The Useless One.”’” Block adds, “Specific deities tended to be identified with particular nations” (p. 72). For a detailed discussion of the sometimes complex relations among deity, land and nation in the ancient Near East, see also idem, “The Foundations of National Identity: A Study in Ancient Northwest Semitic Perceptions” (Ph.D. diss., University of Liverpool, 1982), pp. 397-492. See also W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, trans. J. A. Baker, 2 vols., OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961-1967), 2:199-200.

Some take Deuteronomy 4:19 and Micah 4:5 to entail that “the appointment of gods over the nations is . . . a permanent aspect of the divine economy” (Wink, Unmasking the Powers, p. 201, note 12). These verses are taken to legitimize the worship of other gods among the people over whom they are assigned. Such a view would directly contradict the central teaching of Scripture as well as church tradition on the idolatry of worshiping gods other than Yahweh. In any case, the passages can as easily be read in a different light. Deuteronomy 4:19 need only imply that Yahweh has given to all people the sun, moon and stars (and thus they should not be worshiped by any particular nation), and Micah 4:5 need only mean that however other nations may walk (viz., “in the name of their gods”), committed Israelites will follow the Lord.

Russell, Method and Message, p. 244. Both the terminology of “gods” and Yahweh’s threat that these gods would die like mere mortals if they disobey seem to render it certain that angelic (not human) beings are being referred to here. Some, however, have argued that humans are referred to here on the strength of Jesus’ use of this psalm in John 10:34-35. See the discussions in A. Hanson, “John’s Citation of Psalm LXXXII Reconsidered,” NTS 13 (1966-1967): 363-67; J. H. Neyrey, “‘I Said You Are Gods’: Psalm 82:6 and John 19,” JBL 108 (1989): 647-63. It is not certain, however, that Jesus (or John) had only, or even primarily, human beings in mind in his use of this psalm. Even if Jesus did have human beings in mind, it does not follow that this should decide our interpretation of what the original author intended. In any event, most Jewish commentators at the time clearly assumed that the psalm referred to angels (or gods). See J. A. Emerton’s thorough research in “The Interpretation of Psalm LXXXII in John X,” JTS 11 (1960): 329-34; idem, “Melchizedek and the Gods: Fresh Evidence for the Jewish Background of John X. 34-36,” JTS 17 (1966): 399-401. Also helpful here is G. R. Beasley-Murray, John, WBC 36 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), pp. 175-80.

See Wink, Unmasking the Powers, p. 111. So too König argues that here Yahweh, taking over the Canaanite god El, “sacks the gods after he has found them guilty of mismanagement” (Here Am I, p. 11). Tsevat argues along similar lines, adding that Psalm 58 contains a similar motif, in “God and the Gods,” pp. 134-37. See also Morgenstern, “Mythological Background”; J. Ackerman, “An Exegetical Study of Psalm 82” (Th.D. diss., Harvard University, 1966); B. J. Bamberger, Fallen Angels (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1952), pp. 10-11; R. T. O’Callaghan, “A Note on the Canaanite Background of Psalm 82,” CBQ 15 (1953): 311-14; Robinson, “Council of Yahweh,” p. 155; R. Driver, “Notes on the Psalms, I. 1-72,” JTS 43 (1942): 157.

See, e.g., J. E. Goldingay, Daniel, WBC 30 (Dallas: Word, 1989), pp. 291-92, 312-14 (who betrays an influence of Wink’s modern reading); G. L. Archer, “Daniel,” in EBC, 7:124-25; J. J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), pp. 374-76; L. F. Hartman and A. A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel, AB 23 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978), pp. 282-84; A. Jeffery, “The Book of Daniel,” IB, 6:506-7; N. W. Porteous, Daniel, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965), pp. 152-54.

See Wink, Unmasking the Powers, pp. 88-94. Here, as often in his work, Wink’s biblical exegesis of the “powers” is insightful. But his conclusions are tainted by his denial that the “powers” or “angels” over nations have any autonomous objective existence. They are, in his view, symbols for the national spirit as a whole. In his view the only “mind of its own” that any national god has is the mind of the collective whole of the people that form that nation. Such a view not only does injustice to the biblical texts but virtually undermines any advantage the Bible’s warfare worldview has for understanding evil in the cosmos.

On the “prince of Greece,” see Collins, Daniel, p. 376.

Wink, Unmasking the Powers, p. 91. So observes Goldingay, Daniel, p. 313; and Archer, “Daniel,” p. 125, who goes so far as to argue that the prince of Persia was “apparently the satanic agent assigned to the sponsorship and control of the Persian realm.”

Josephus identifies the “sons of God” with angels, and the Nephilim with the twenty-four violent and lecherous giants of Greek tradition who were said to be born of Mother Earth at Phlegra in Thrace. See the discussion in R. Graves and R. Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 104. On the rather obscure etymology of the term Nephilim, see Wenham, Genesis 1—15, 142-43. Concerning the (most likely) related term gibborîm (“warriors,” “giants”) in this verse, see E. G. Kraeling, “The Significance and Origin of Gen. 6:1-4,” JNES 6 (1947): 196-99.

One of the central controversies surrounding this passage has involved the question of whether this story was originally a Canaanite story of the fall of certain gods that was then softened by a Jewish redactor into a story of the fall of certain angels so as to avoid polytheism and render it compatible with Jewish monotheism. So argues, for example, C. Westermann, Genesis 1—11, trans. J. J. Scullion, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), pp. 371-73; E. van Wolde,“The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men in Genesis 6:1-4,” in her Words Become Worlds: Semantic Studies of Genesis 1—11, BIS 6 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 65-66; M. Oduyoye, The Sons of the Gods and the Daughters of Men: An Afro-Asiatic Interpretation of Genesis 1—11 (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984), pp. 30-34. From my perspective, far too much is being made of the distinction between gods and angels, owing to the arbitrary assumption that monotheism is incompatible with affirming the existence of other gods and that monotheism evolved out of polytheism. If these two assumptions are not granted (see above), then the issue of whether “gods” or “angels” are being spoken of in this passage becomes merely semantics. As argued earlier, biblical monotheists on the whole reflect no uneasiness with acknowledging the existence of other gods. This observation does not, however, address the issue of whether this passage constitutes a reworked Canaanite story. It only specifies that the issue of whether the “sons of God” were originally understood to be “gods” or “angels” is irrelevant to deciding this issue.

Examples of this tradition in early Christian writings include Justin Martyr Second Apology 5 (though cf. his First Apology 5, where he seems to equate demons with fallen angels); Athenagoras Plea for Christians 24-26; Tertullian Apology 22; Lactantius Divine Institutes 2.15ff.; 4.27.

Both 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 (following 1 Enoch and Jubilees) may provide support for the angelic interpretation (unless they are referring to a precreation fall). Some have also found possible allusions to this interpretation in 1 Corinthians 11:10, 1 Timothy 2:9, 1 Peter 3:19-20 and even Matthew 22:30. It is then found in Justin Martyr (Second Apology 2.5); Irenaeus (Against Heresies 4.16.2, 36.4); Clement of Alexandria (Miscellanies 5.1.10); Tertullian (On Idolatry 9; Against Marcion 5.18); Lactantius (Divine Institutes 2.15); Clementine (Homilies 7.11-15); and Comodianus (Instructions 3). On the use of Genesis 6 in the early church, see L. R. Wickham, “The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men: Genesis vi 2 in Early Christian Exegesis,” in Language and Meaning: Studies in Hebrew Language and Biblical Exegesis, OTS 19 (Leiden: Brill, 1974), pp. 135-47. Among other things, Wickham argues that the divine beings interpretation of b^enê ’^elohîm in Genesis 6 was later generally rejected because of the use made of the “sons of God” texts by Arians in fourth-century christological debates (see esp. 144-47). See the discussions in P. S. Alexander, “The Targumim and Early Exegesis of the ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6,” JJS 23 (1972): 68 (who argues that a Jewish polemic accounts for the dismissal of the divine beings interpretation of Gen 6); R. C. Newman, “Ancient Exegesis of Genesis 6:2, 4,” Grace Theological Journal 5 (1984): 21-31; Bamberger, Fallen Angels, pp. 74-78; Wenham, Genesis 1—15, p. 139.

So far as I can discern, Philo was the first to suggest that “sons of God” may refer to humans, though he does not mention the Sethite line per se. Julius Africanus (Chronography 2) argues the Sethian interpretation, as does Augustine (City of God 15.17). Cyril of Jerusalem (Glaphyraa 2) offers a novel twist when he identifies the “sons of God” with the descendants of Enoch. For several modern interpreters who argue along these lines, see J. E. Coleran,“The Sons of God in Gen. 6:2,” Theological Studies 2 (1941): 488-509; P. Joüon, “Les unions entre les ‘fils de Dieu’ et les ‘filles des hommes’ (Gen. 6:1-4),” RSR 29 (1939): 108-12; McKenzie, “Divine Sonship of the Angels,” pp. 294-95. L. Eslinger takes this general approach but reverses the identifications. In his view “sons of God” are the Cainites while the “daughters of men” are the Sethites (“A Contextual Identification of the bene ha’elohim and benoth ha’adam in Genesis 6:1-4,” JSOT 13 [1979]: 65-73).

This view became popular among Jewish exegetes beginning in the mid-second century A.D. See Alexander, “Targumim and Early Exegesis,” pp. 61-71; Newman, “Ancient Exegesis,” pp. 23-27. Modern proponents include F. Dexinger, Sturz der Göttersöhne oder Engel vor der Sintlfut? (Vienna: Herder, 1966); M. Kline, “Divine Kingship and Genesis 6:1-4,” WTJ 24 (1962): 187-204. D. J. A. Clines takes a both/and approach and argues that the author meant to identify both divine beings and antediluvian rulers with his phrase “sons of God.” See his “The Significance of the ‘Sons of God’ Episode (Genesis 6:1-4) in the Context of the ‘Primeval History’ (Genesis 1—11),” JSOT 13 (1979): 33-46.

Hence the vast majority of contemporary interpreters have been persuaded by the divine being interpretation. See, e.g., de Boer, “Sons of God,” pp. 190-01; U. Cassuto, “The Episode of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Man,” in Biblical and Oriental Studies, vol. 1, Bible, trans. I. Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1973), pp. 17-28; Cooke, “Sons of (the) God(s),” pp. 23-24; T. E. Fretheim, “The Book of Genesis,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. L. E. Keck et al. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 1:382-83; R. S. Hendel, “Of Demigods and the Deluge: Toward an Interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4,” JBL 106 (1987): 13-26; Wenham, Genesis 1—15, pp. 139-41; V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1—17, NICOT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990), pp. 262-65.

See, e.g., C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, rpt. 1950), 1:131; J. Murray, Principles of Conduct (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1957), p. 246; H. G. Stigers, A Commentary on Genesis (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1976), p. 97.

So argues W. A. Van Gemeren, “The Sons of God in Genesis 6:1-4 (An Example of Evangelical Demythologization?)” WTJ 43 (1981): 320-48; Newman, “Ancient Exegesis,” p. 36; Wenham, Genesis 1—15, p. 140.

P. G. Hiebert, “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle,” Missiology 10, no. 1 (1982): 35-47. See also C. Kraft, Christianity and Culture (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979); idem, “The Problem of ‘What We Think We Know,’” Faith & Renewal, 16 (Sept.-Oct. 1991): 10-16; idem, Christianity with Power: Your Worldview and Your Experience of the Supernatural (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Vine, 1989); Pinnock, Wideness in God’s Mercy, pp. 122-24. The phrase “the world in between” is taken from the splendid book by Emmanuel Milingo, former archbishop in Zambia. See The World in Between: Christian Healing and the Struggle for Spiritual Survival (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984). As noted in chapter one, it is increasingly evident that our culture as a whole is now moving toward a more Third World perspective on “the world in between.” One unmistakable sign of this is the present explosion of interest in angels. For contemporary popular observations, see N. Gibbs, “Angels Among Us,” Time, Dec. 27, 1993, pp. 56-65; K. L. Woodward et al., “Angels,” Newsweek, Dec. 27, 1993, pp. 52-57; E. Stone, “Are There Angels Among Us?” New Age Journal, Mar.-Apr. 1994, pp. 88-93, 148-51.

As shall be argued extensively in Satan and the Problem of Evil, chapters 3—7.

Quoted from the Timaeus in C. Hartshorne and W. L. Reese, eds., Philosophers Speak of God (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, rpt. 1973), p. 54.

The Hebrew term sa?an means “adversary” or “one who opposes.” For discussions, see New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew-English Lexicon (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1979), p. 966; J. B. Payne, “sa?an,” TWOT, 2:874-75; E. Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 39; and esp. P. L. Day, An Adversary in Heaven: sa?an in the Hebrew Bible, HSM 43 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). The verb form sa?an (“to oppose as an adversary”) occurs 6 times in the Old Testament (Ps 38:20; 71:13; 109:4, 20, 29; Zech 3:1). The noun form occurs 27 times, 7 of which clearly refer to a human adversary (1 Sam 29:4; 2 Sam 19:23; 1 Kings 5:4; 11:14, 23, 25; Ps 109:6). Twice the “angel of Yahweh” is referred to as a sa?an (Num 22:22, 32). The remaining 18 occurrences of the noun are found in only three passages, all of which will be discussed in this chapter (1 Chron 21:1; Job 1—2; Zech 3:1-2). With the exception of 1 Chronicles 21:1, the noun in these cases is used with the definite article and hence probably cannot be taken as a proper name. I shall italicize (satan) when I am referring to the original Hebrew noun and capitalize (Satan) when I am referring to the proper name of this being.

See, e.g., N. Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 110; E. Schwarz, Evil: A Historical and Theological Perspective, trans. M. W. Worthing (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), pp. 60-63; W. Wink, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), p. 14. Elaine Pagels describes satan in Job as a “roving intelligence agent,” sometimes called in the ancient world “the king’s eye” (Origin of Satan, pp. 41-42). J. B. Russell argues that Satan “is not yet the principle of evil, which remains with the God. He is still one of the heavenly court and does nothing without God’s consent and will” (The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977], pp. 199-200). See also P. Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil (New York: Bell, rpt. 1969), p. 71; J. Kallas, The Real Satan: From Biblical Times to the Present (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1975), pp. 22-26; P. J. Nel, “The Conception of Evil and Satan in Jewish Traditions in the Pre-Christian Period,” in Like a Roaring Lion . . .: Essays on the Bible, the Church and Demonic Powers, ed. P. G. R. de Villiers (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1987), pp. 6-7; M. E. Tate, “Satan in the Old Testament,” Review and Expositor 89 (Fall 1992): 462; W. Tremmel, Dark Side: The Satan Story (St. Louis: CBP, 1987). As in Zechariah 4, satan is here used with a definite article, thus showing that it is being used not as a proper name but as a title. Hence I do not capitalize it. See Day, Adversary, pp. 5, 15 and passim, who argues that none of the uses of satan in the Old Testament refers to a particular being.

See esp. P. Volz, Das Dämonische in Jahwe, Sammlung gemeinverstandlicher Vortrage und Schritten aus dem Gebiet der Theologie und Religionsgeschichte 110 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1924). Thus R. S. Kluger (Satan in the Old Testament, trans. H. Nagel, Studies in Jungian Thought 7 [Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1967], p. 10) writes of “the essential conclusion, fully supported by the biblical texts, that Yahweh was originally a demonic god.” See also Carus, History of the Devil, p. 70; Tremmel, Dark Side, p. 9. For a recent critique of Voltz’s theory with regard to the vengeance of God (which Volz understands to evolve gradually into a view of the devil), see H. G. L. Peels, “Appendix A: God’s Vengeance and the ‘Demonic’ (P. Voltz),” in his Vengeance of God: The Meaning of the Root NQM and the Function of the NQM-Texts in Context of Divine Revelation in the Old Testament, OTS 31 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 298-301. For two attempts to wrestle with this issue with specific regard to the book of Job, see C. Duquoc, “Demonism and the Unexpectedness of God,” in Job and the Silence of God, ed. C. Duquoc and C. Floristan, Concilium 169 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark; New York: Seabury, 1983), pp. 81-87; D. Kinet, “The Ambiguity of the Concepts of God and Satan in the Book of Job,” trans. M. Kohl, in ibid., pp. 30-35.

Russell, Devil, p. 174. See also Schwarz, Evil, pp. 55-56.

Forsyth, Old Enemy, p. 109.

Russell, Devil, p. 200.

For Jung’s own application of this theory, see his Answer to Job, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Cleveland, Ohio: World, 1960). For various expositions of or responses to Jung’s approach to evil, see H. L. Philip, Jung and the Problem of Evil (London: Rockcliff, 1958); J. A. Sandford, Evil: The Shadow Side of Reality (New York: Crossroad, 1981); R. A. Segal, “A Jungian View of Evil,” Zygon 20 (1985): 83-89. Kluger (Satan, pp. 79ff.) argues that the figure of Satan was a stage in the development of “the divine personality” in the thinking of the Israelites. Kluger’s study was originally published as “Die Gestalt des Satans im Alten Testament,” part 3 of Jung’s Symbolik des Geistes (Zurich: Rascher, 1948). Similarly, D. Wolfers argues that the satan in Job is “the projection of doubt and skepticism within the complex mind of the Deity itself.” In good Jungian fashion he concludes that this “points to the identity of the Satan as but a facet of God’s personality.” See his Deep Things Out of Darkness: The Book of Job—Essays and a New English Translation (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 202.

For the most extensive critical overview and refutation of this position to date, see F. Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil: A Contextual Analysis of Alleged Monistic Evidence in the Old Testament, trans. F. H. Cryer, ConBOT 21 (Lund: Gleerup, 1983). Lindström initially embarked on this work to further refine the customary view that among Old Testament authors “the Deity was held to be the direct author of all evils affecting man” (p. 7). But his meticulous research brought him to the opposite conclusion.

For several fine, strongly conservative works that provide a defense of the inspiration or infallibility of Scripture from a number of different fronts, see B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, ed. S. G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1970); H. N. Ridderbos, Studies in Scripture and Its Authority (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1978); idem, The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1963); J. W. Montgomery, ed., God’s Inerrant Word: An International Symposium on the Trustworthiness of Scripture (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1974); E. J. Young, Thy Word Is Truth (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1957); C. Pinnock, Biblical Revelation: The Foundation of Christian Theology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971); G. Boyd, Letters from a Skeptic (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1994), pp. 77-137. Also informative, and from a slightly more centrist perspective, is I. H. Marshall, Biblical Inspiration (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983); B. Vawter, Biblical Inspiration (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972); and P. Achtemeier, The Inspiration of Scripture: Problems and Proposals (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980). My own contention is that the rationality of belief in the divine inspiration and infallibility of Scripture is ultimately connected inextricably with the rationality of belief in the deity of Christ on historical grounds and with the rationality of the Christian worldview considered as a whole. Taken as a whole, my contention would be that this entire belief system—when thought through consistently—constitutes the most rational and existentially fulfilling belief system judged by logical, historical, existential, empirical and phenomenological criteria.

The claim that the Old Testament’s understanding of evil as something that God unambiguously opposes and that the conception of Satan as a evil figure set against God arose strictly out of Zoroastrian influence shall be critiqued in the next chapter.

On the centrality and antiquity of the divine warrior material, see T. Longman III and D. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 31-32; P. D. Miller, “God the Warrior,” Int 19 (1965): 39-40; idem, “El the Warrior,” HTR 60 (1967), esp. 428-31; idem, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel, HSM 5 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973); W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, trans. J. A. Baker, 2 vols., OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961-1967), 1:228-29.

Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil, p. 118. Gordon Lewis (“Response” to Kinlaw, pp. 36-40) raises a similar objection to D. Kinlaw’s treatment of Old Testament demonology (“The Demythologization of the Demonic in the Old Testament,” pp. 29-35) in Demon Possession, ed. J. W. Montgomery (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1976), p. 38. This is, I believe, the most telling question to be posed not only to “demonic in Yahweh” theorists but to conservative Calvinist theorists as well.

Day, Adversary, p. 81. So argues Lindström, “the satan is not an enemy of Job in this context, but God’s opponent” (God and the Origin of Evil, p. 142).

J. Morgenstern, “Satan,” The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, 10 vols., ed. I. Landman (New York: Universal Jewish Encyclopedia Co., 1943), 9:380.

E. Langton, The Essentials of Demonology: A Study of the Jewish and Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (London: Epworth, 1949), p. 54. See also E. Pagels, “The Social History of Satan, the ‘Intimate Enemy’: A Preliminary Sketch,” HTR 84 (1991): 112.

Though both Job and his friends are incorrect, it is also clear that Yahweh is far more angry with Job’s friends, who abused him with their self-protecting theologies and theodicies, than he is with Job himself, who was simply crying out in pain (Job 42:7-9).

According to most commentators today, and much of the early Jewish tradition as well, the intended genre of the prologue of Job is that of a folktale employed to set the stage for an epic, poetic drama. See Day, Adversary, pp. 70ff.; Robert Gordis, The Book of Job (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1978), p. 2; Samuel Terrien, Job: Poet of Existence (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), p. 30. We must, then, be very cautious about drawing any inferences about God’s relationship to Satan, or about God’s character, on the basis of the details of their portrayals and mutual dialogue in this work. For example, are we really to suppose that God did not know where Satan was? Was God intimidated into a bet? Does Satan have to ask permission from God every time he acts? Do they have a semicordial relationship such as this prologue suggests? Questions of these sorts are wholly inappropriate to the type of literature we are here considering. One can no more infer doctrine from this portion of Scripture than one can deduce doctrine from incidental features of Jesus’ parables. The purpose of these features is merely to serve as the backdrop for the main point being made.

P. D. Miller (“God and the Gods,” Affirmation 1, no. 5 [1973]: 54-55) has noted the manner in which Jewish theology eventually develops to where the “problem of theodicy . . . begins to be dealt with in terms of conflict in the divine realm” (p. 55). This theme, we shall see, becomes solidified in the New Testament.

See Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil, passim, for more extensive treatments of these passages, as well as a refutation of other passages sometimes used in support of the “demonic in Yahweh” theory. Also helpful in this regard is Peels, “God’s Vengeance.”

C. Westermann, Isaiah 40—66, trans. D. M. G. Stalker, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), p. 162.

Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil, p. 192. See the entire discussion from pp. 178-99. A. König argues along the same lines. He finally concludes, quite correctly, that the theology which makes “God . . . responsible for all things . . . describes a demon rather than the God of Israel” (New and Greater Things: Re-evaluating the Biblical Message on Creation [Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1988], p. 63; cf. pp. 19, 60-62). C. Stuhlmüller refutes this interpretation of Isaiah 45:7 as well in Creative Redemption in Deutero-Isaiah, AnBib 43 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970), pp. 197ff.

See Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil, pp. 214-36.

Five verses prior to this statement Jeremiah had expressly stated that Yahweh “does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone” (v. 33).

For a more in-depth discussion, see Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil, pp. 199-214. Likewise, both Peels (“God’s Vengeance”) and Eichrodt (Theology, 1:262-66) demonstrate that those instances of the vengeance and “wrath” of God in the Old Testament do not support anything like the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory. Rather, as Eichrodt argues, “unlike holiness or righteousness, wrath never forms one of the permanent attributes of the God of Israel; it can only be understood as, so to speak, a footnote to the will to fellowship of the covenant God” (p. 262). Hence “in the case of God there can never be any question of despotic caprice striking out in blind rage” (p. 265).

In Exodus 4:11 Yahweh says, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” Not surprisingly, this verse has frequently been cited in defense of the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theorists (and, predictably, in defense of Calvinism). However we interpret this verse, it should not be used to overturn the general teaching of Scripture, and especially the unambiguous example of Christ’s ministry, which instructs us that God is against evil and suffering, not the cause of it. The passage certainly teaches that Yahweh is sovereign over speech and hearing impairments; this is just the point Yahweh is making to the stuttering Moses! The verse makes this point by appealing to the divine agency involved in the creation of all human beings. But, as Fretheim notes, it is significant that the verse does not suggest that this divine activity is “individually applied, as if God entered into the womb of every pregnant woman and determined whether and how a child would have disabilities. This is a general statement that the world is so created by God that such things will happen” (T. E. Fretheim, Exodus, Interpretation [Louisville, Ky.: John Knox, 1991], p. 72). It is also significant to note, as Fretheim further observes, that the verse does not suggest that “God is the sole cause of all such developments” (ibid.). Other causes are perhaps not mentioned only because the point of the verse is to stress that God accepts responsibility for everything in the world (though not the guilt of being the cause of everything), and thus God is not at a loss as to how to use them effectively when necessary. Other passages of Scripture clearly stress human agency and responsibility alongside God on such matters. See also Fretheim’s marvelous study The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective, OBT (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 71-78. New Testament passages sometimes used to argue that God exercises unilateral meticulous control over all the affairs of history (e.g., Rom 9, 11; Eph 1:3-11) shall be discussed in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

See, e.g., Revelation 12:9; 20:2; Life of Adam and Eve 16:4. For discussion regarding the identification of Satan with Leviathan/the dragon in Judaism and Christianity, see T. Fawcett, “The Satanic Serpent,” in his Hebrew Myth and Christian Gospel (London: SCM, 1973), pp. 96-109; C. H. Gordon, “Leviathan: Symbol of Evil,” in Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations, ed. A. Altmann, Studies and Texts 3 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 1-89; as well as J. Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament, UCOP 35 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 189.

One could consider Numbers 22:22-35 as well in the light of the fact that the angel of the Lord is here said to have stood in the road as Balaam’s “adversary” (satan) (v. 22). Although the role of a satan is here referred to, the fact that it is the Lord himself who is playing this role, not a different divine being who is playing the role over against the Lord as in the other passages, sets this passage apart from the others.

“Satan” is here, as in Job, used with a definite article and thus should not be taken as a proper name. The text should probably read, “and the satan [adversary] standing at his right side.”

Pagels, however, attempts to argue that the satan here (and in 1 Chron 21) represents divisions within Israel. He is on his way to becoming the symbol for “the intimate enemy” (Origin of Satan, pp. 44-45).

See Adolphe Lods, “Les origine de la figure de satan, ses fonctions à la cour céleste,” in Mélanges syriens offerts à Monsieur René Dussaud, 2 vols. (Paris: Geuthner, 1939), 2:649-60. Even Kluger (Satan, p. 144) and Forsyth (Old Enemy, p. 115), who otherwise stress the servanthood of the satan amidst Yahweh’s council, see the beginnings of overt opposition between God and the satan in this passage. See also Pagels, “Social History of Satan,” p. 113.

The majority of scholars argue that the absence of a definite article suggests satan is here a proper name. See, e.g., Eichrodt, Theology, 2:206; H. Haag, Teufelsglaube (Tübingen: Katzmann, 1974), p. 214; J. B. Payne, “I Chronicles,” in EBC, 4:406-7; G. von Rad, “The OT View of Satan,” TDNT, 2:74. It has, however, been challenged by Day (Adversary, pp. 127-45).

Cf. Exodus 30:11-16, which reveals that undertaking a census was, within Israel, always a precarious affair.

See, e.g., S. Japhet, I & II Chronicles, OTL (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 373-74; R. Braun, 1 Chronicles, WBC 14 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1986), pp. 216-17.

For a discussion of the three main distinctive approaches to the issue of 2 Samuel 24:1 versus 1 Chronicles 21:1—the harmonistic, redactional and exegetical—see J. H. Sailhamer, “I Chronicles 21:1—A Study in Inter-biblical Interpretation,” TJ 10 (1989): 33-48. Here I offer one version of the harmonistic approach. This is not to deny important aspects of the exegetical approach as delineated by Sailhamer, just as he acknowledges important aspects of the harmonistic approach (pp. 39-40). See also G. L. Archer’s harmonistic argument in his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1982), pp. 221-22.

See, e.g., G. von Rad, Genesis, trans. J. H. Marks, rev. ed., OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), pp. 92-93; C. Westermann, Genesis 1—11, trans. J. J. Scullion, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), pp. 258-61. For several studies that take issue with this conclusion, see U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part I: From Adam to Noah, Genesis I—VI 8, trans. I. Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961), pp. 139-43; V. P. Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 1—17, NICOT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990), pp. 196-97; M. L. Holert, “Extrinsic Evil Powers in the Old Testament” (Th.M. thesis, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1985), pp. 51-53; I. Hunt, “Fall of Man,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. W. McDonald, 15 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 5:816; R. W. L. Moberly, “Did the Serpent Get It Right?” JTS 39 (1988): 1-27; G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1—15, WBC 1 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), p. 80.

See the various references in L. Jung, Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan Literature (New York: KTAV, 1974), pp. 68-72.

See, e.g., T. C. Vriezen, Onderzoek naar de Paradijs-Voorstelling bij de oude Semietische volken (Wageningen: Veenman & Zonen, 1937), who sees the serpent as a magical animal; F. A. Sayer, “The Image of God, the Wisdom of Serpents and the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” in A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden, ed. P. Morris and D. Sawyer, JSOTSup 136 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), pp. 66-68; H. N. Wallace, The Eden Narrative, HSM 32 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 159-61; E. van Wolde, “The Serpent in Genesis 2—3,” in her Words Become Worlds: Semantic Studies of Genesis 1—11, BIS 6 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 3-12.

For a summary see P. S. Alexander, “The Fall into Knowledge: The Garden of Eden/Paradise in Gnostic Literature,” in Walk in the Garden, pp. 91-104.

I am intentionally bypassing (because irrelevant) the thorny issue of how much of this passage is to be taken literally and how much allegorically. A plurality of views about this issue has characterized the church from the postapostolic period, but this plurality has gone largely unappreciated by fundamentalists and strongly conservative evangelicals today. For a balanced overview from an evangelical perspective, see J. J. Davis, “Genesis, Inerrancy and the Antiquity of Man,” in Inerrancy and Common Sense, ed. R. R. Nicole and J. R. Michaels (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1980), pp. 137-59. For a still unsurpassed overview of the traditional positions, see J. Feldmann, Paradies und Sündenfall (Münster: Aschendorff, 1913), pp. 501-605.

R. S. Hendel, “Serpent,” DDD, pp. 1405-6. See also Langton, Essentials, pp. 7, 37-38. Langton argues that Numbers 21:6-8, Deuteronomy 8:15 and Isaiah 30:6, as well as Genesis 3:1 refer to demonic creatures. See also E. Williams-Forte, “The Snake and the Tree in the Iconography and Texts of Syria during the Bronze Age,” in Ancient Seals and the Bible, ed. L. Gorelick and E. Williams-Forte (Malibu: Undena, 1983), pp. 18-43; T. Fawcett, “The Satanic Serpent,” in his Hebrew Myth and Christian Gospel (London: SCM, 1973), pp. 96-100; M. J. Gruenthaner, “The Demonology of the Old Testament,” CBQ 6 (1944): 7-15.

K. J. Joines, Serpent Symbolism in the Old Testament: A Linguistic, Archaeological and Literary Study (Haddonfield, N.J.: Haddonfield, 1974), esp. pp. 26-31; F. Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs, Bible and Literature 7 (Sheffield: Almond, 1983) pp. 229-42; E. D. Van Buren, “The Dragon in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Or 15 (1946): 21.

Joines, Serpent Symbolism, p. 30. So too Landy concludes that “the venomous formlessness of the serpent is a metaphor for seditious chaos” (Paradoxes of Paradise, pp. 229-45), while Van Buren concludes that it represents “the embodiment of evil” (“Dragon in Ancient Mesopotamia,” p. 21). See also H. S. May, “The Daimonic in Jewish History [or, The Garden of Eden Revisited],” Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 23 (1971): 205-19, who concludes that the serpent is “symbolic of the power of evil” and could be used as “a concretization of covenant breaking” (p. 208).

F. Hvidberg, “The Canaanite Background of Gen. I-III,” VT 10 (1960): 288-89.

One may object that the author of Genesis 1 is different from the author of Genesis 3, and thus one would not expect consistency between the two accounts. While we cannot enter into this tangled issue here, I may simply note that even if the accounts were compiled by a later redactor to read like a continuous narrative, one would still expect consistency. Why think that later redactors had less of an eye for consistency than original authors? If we think we pick up an inconsistency that (per hypothesis) slipped by a (hypothetical) redactor, it may very well be that the slip is on our part in thinking there is a genuine inconsistency in the first place. Hence my argument that seeing the serpent as different from natural animals on the basis of Genesis 1:24-25 stands.

Several ancient Jewish works reveal a connection between the Isaianic figure and Satan (Life of Adam and Eve 15:3; 2 Enoch 29:4-5). It may be alluded to also in Luke 10:15, 18 and Revelation 12:7-12. The vast majority of early Christian interpreters made this identification, including Tertullian, Origen, Athanasius, Ambrose, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus, Jerome, John Cassian, Augustine and Gregory the Great. Henceforth it became the almost (but not totally) unanimous opinion of the church until modern times. On the history of the interpretation of this passage, see G. L. Keown, “A History of the Interpretation of Isaiah 14:12-15” (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1979); J. M. Bertoluci, “The Son of the Morning and the Guardian Cherub in the Context of the Controversy Between Good and Evil” (Th.D. thesis, Andrews University, 1985), pp. 4-36. Today, however, a straightforward identification with Satan is largely limited to popular conservative works. See, e.g., M. Green, I Believe in Satan’s Downfall (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1981), pp. 39-42; S. D. Swihart, Angels in Heaven and Earth (Plainfield, N.J.: Logos International, 1979), pp. 77-80. The scholarly consensus slightly favors viewing this passage as referring exclusively to a purely historical figure, though some concede that it perhaps makes use of a mythic tradition of a cosmic rebellion in the process. Chrysostom, Luther and Calvin offer some historical precedent for this interpretation. For contemporary examples, see R. L. Allen, “Lucifer, Who or What?” JETS 11 (1968): 35-39; S. Erlandson, The Burden of Babylon: A Study of Isaiah 13:2—14:23, ConBOT 4 (Lund: Gleerup, 1970), pp. 123-25; Keown, “History of the Interpretation”; J. N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1—39, NICOT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), pp. 320-25; J. D. W. Watts, Isaiah 1—33, WBC 24 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1985), pp. 204-12. For a comprehensive overview of various historical-critical positions, see H. R. Page Jr., The Myth of Cosmic Rebellion: A Study of Its Reflexes in Ugaritic and Biblical Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1996), pp. 9-34.

See R. J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament, HSM 4 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 164-65. The entire text is found in Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques, 3 vols., ed. A. Herdner (Paris: Geuthner, 1963), 1:55-65. Some take ba-arsi in this account to refer to the underworld, not the earth. Hence Athtar is seen as becoming the prince of the underworld. See the discussion in J. W. McKay, “Helel and the Dawn-Goddess,” VT 20 (1970): 461; P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), p. 206. The most comprehensive analysis to date that argues for reading Isaiah 14 as one of the many stories of cosmic rebellion is Page, Myth of Cosmic Rebellion. For a discussion of the connection between the Isaiah account and the Athtar myth, see ibid., pp. 51-109.

Forsyth, Old Enemy, p. 135.

See G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 3d ed., ed. J. C. L. Gibson (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1978 [1956]), pp. 37-45.

See Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 132-33; Page, Myth of Cosmic Rebellion, passim. On related Canaanite and Greek myths, see P. C. Craigie, “Helel, Athtar and Phaethon (Jes 14:12-15),” ZAW 85 (1973): 223-25; S. A. Hirsch, “Isaiah 14:12, Helel ben Shahar,” JQR 11 (1920-21): 197-99; S. H. Langdon, “The Star Helel, Jupiter? (Is 14:12),” ExpTim 42 (1930-31): 172-74; J. Morgenstern, “Mythological Background of Psalm 82,” HUCA 14 (1939): 29-126. Bertoluci (“Son of the Morning”) argues that there is no Mesopotamian, Hittite, Greek or Ugaritic myth of Helel ben Shahar that “reflects the Isaian account in its totality” (p. 109). For his analysis of extrabiblical literature, see esp. pp. 57-98. See also Keown’s analysis of nine parallel myths (Kumarbi, Seth-Horus-Osiris, Enuma Elish, Baal-Yamm-El, Athtar, Shahar and Shalim, South Arabic Athtar, and Phaeton) in “History of the Interpretation,” pp. 119-36. For other cultural variations on these myths, see K. Luomala, Oceanic, American Indian and African Myths of Snaring the Sun (Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 1940).

On Zaphon as the mountain upon which the divine assembly met, see M. H. Pope, Job, 3d ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), p. 183. On the Canaanite background to Elyon, see Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 129-38.

Forsyth, Old Enemy, p. 138.

Bertoluci, “Son of the Morning,” pp. 301-2.

K. L. Schmidt, “Lucifer als gefallene Engelmacht,” TZ 7 (1951): 161-79, translated by Bertoluci, “Son of the Morning,” p. 303. Even Eichrodt (Theology, 2:207) concedes that in this passage, as well as in Genesis 3 and 6:1-4, “there are glimmerings of the idea of a superhuman being hostile to God.”

The phrase may also be a question, as the NIV indicates: “Are you wiser than Daniel? Is no secret hidden from you?”

See Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 140-41; Page, Myth of Cosmic Rebellion, pp. 148-58.

On the parallels with the Eden account in Genesis 2—3, see W. Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary, trans. C. Quin, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), pp. 392-93; N. C. Habel, “Ezekiel 28 and the Fall of the First Man,” Concordia Theological Monthly 38 (1967): 516-24; J. L. McKenzie, “Mythical Allusions in Ezek. 28:12-18,” JBL 75 (1956): 322-27; H. G. May, “The King in the Garden of Eden: A Study of Ezekiel 28:12-19,” in Israel’s Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, ed. B. W. Anderson and W. Harrelson (New York: Harper, 1962), pp. 166-76; A. J. Williams, “The Mythological Background of Ezekiel 28:12-19,” BTB 6 (1976): 49-61. The Masoretic text’s equation of the king and the cherub is now generally rejected. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel 20—48, WBC 29 (Dallas: Word, 1990), p. 95; W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel II, trans. J. D. Martin, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), p. 90.

For several cited parallels, see Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 93-95.

J. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 18-19.

For an exhaustive overview of angels in the world’s religious literature, see G. Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels (New York: Free Press, 1967).

Calvinists have frequently taken Romans 9:18-21 to be an example of God doing what I here deny God is doing: telling human questioners to be stoically silent in the face of radical evil—indeed, in the face of the prospect of their own divinely preordained eternal damnation. On the Calvinist reading, God simply exercises his “right” to choose some people for eternal salvation and “passes over” others, leaving them to eternal damnation. No one can (or had better) question his character in doing so! To an increasing number of modern exegetes, this way of reading Romans 9 is rooted in a myopic, decontextualized and anachronistic understanding of Paul’s purpose in the book of Romans as a whole. See, e.g., the excellent discussion by J. D. G. Dunn in Romans 9—16, WBC 38B (Dallas: Word, 1988), pp. 521-76. See also J. D. Strauss, “God’s Promise and Universal History: The Theology of Romans 9,” in Grace Unlimited, ed. C. H. Pinnock (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975), pp. 190-208.

Such shall be my task in the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Some works that develop and defend aspects of the thesis I here espouse and that I have found to be most helpful (though not necessarily agreeable) are W. Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); C. E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992); J. Kallas, Jesus and the Power of Satan (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968); idem, The Significance of the Synoptic Miracles (Greenwich, Conn.: Seabury, 1961); G. Wingren, The Living Word: A Theological Study of Preaching and the Church, trans. V. C. Pogue, (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1960 [1949]); N. Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), esp. pp. 248-306; J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977); T. Longman III and D. G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995); G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers: A Study in Pauline Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956); H. Berkhof, Christ and the Powers (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1962); O. Böcher, Dämonenfurcht und Dämonenabwehr: Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der christlichen Taufe, BWANT 5 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970); idem, Das Neue Testament und die dämonischen Mächte (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1972); idem, Christus Exorcista (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1972); T. Ling, The Significance of Satan: New Testament Demonology and Its Contemporary Significance (London: SPCK, 1961); H. Schlier, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961); J. M. Robinson, The Problem of History in Mark, and Other Marcan Studies (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), esp. pp. 69-115.

On the covenantal theology that lies behind this conception, see G. W. Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant, NovTSup 20 (Leiden: Brill, 1970), pp. 123-31; as well as D. R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), pp. 120-42.

For several important collections of essays that serve to chronicle the history of the discussion of apocalyptic in the twentieth century, see R. W. Funk, ed., Apocalypticism, JTC 6 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969); K. Koch and J. M. Schmidt, eds., Apokalyptik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgeselllschaft, 1982); P. D. Hanson, ed., Visionaries and Their Apocalypses, IRT (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983); D. Hellholm, ed., Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala, August 12-17, 1979 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1983); J. J. Collins and J. H. Charlesworth, eds., Mysteries and Revelations: Apocalyptic Studies Since the Uppsala Colloquium, JSPSup 9 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991). For an excellent up-to-date survey of the issues and bibliography, see F. J. Murphy, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism: The State of the Question,” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 2 (1994): 147-79. For the following material on the origin and nature of apocalyptic thought I am heavily indebted to the research and insight of my colleague and friend Paul Eddy.

On the problem of definition, see T. F. Glasson, “What Is Apocalyptic?” NTS 27 (1980): 98-105; R. E. Sturm, “Defining the Word ‘Apocalyptic’: A Problem in Biblical Criticism,” in Apocalyptic and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of J. Louis Martyn, ed. J. Marcus and M. L. Soards, JSNTSup 24 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), pp. 17-48. The 1979 colloquium on apocalyptic failed to reach an agreed-upon definition. See D. Hellholm, “Introduction,” in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World, p. 2.

The distinction goes back to P. D. Hanson, “Apocalypticism,” IDBSup, pp. 28-31.

G. Boccaccini, “Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition: The Contribution of Italian Scholarship,” in Mysteries and Revelations, pp. 36-37.

For helpful introductions to Zoroastrianism, see M. Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979); and especially S. A. Nigosian, The Zoroastrian Faith: Tradition and Modern Research (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993). For excerpts of some Zoroastrian texts commonly associated with Jewish apocalyptic themes, see M. Boyce, ed. and trans., Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 80-94.

So it is portrayed, for example, in W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenischtischen Zeitalter, ed. H. Gressmann, 3d ed. (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1926); as well as H. Mills, Zarathustra, Philo, the Achaemenids and Israel (New York: AMS, rpt. 1977); idem, Avesta Eschatology Compared with the Books of Daniel and Revelation (Chicago: Open Court, 1908). Versions of this view still run strong among post-Bultmannian New Testament scholars. See, e.g., H. D. Betz, “On the Problem of the Religio-historical Understanding of Apocalypticism,” in Apocalypticism, ed. Funk, pp. 134-56. On the fallaciousness of construing an exclusivistic monotheism as being “purer” than a form of monotheism that allows for the existence of other lesser good or evil gods, see chapter four above.

See G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D. M. G. Stalker, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1962-1965), 2:301-15; idem, Wisdom in Israel, trans. J. D. Martin (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), esp. pp. 263-83. The thesis is also defended by J. Gammie, “Spatial and Ethical Dualism in Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic Literature,” JBL 93 (1974): 356-85.

H. H. Rowley, The Relevance of Apocalyptic: A Study of Jewish and Christian Apocalypse from Daniel to the Revelation, rev. ed. (New York: Association, 1963); F. M. Cross, “New Directions in the Study of Apocalyptic,” in Apocalypticism, ed. Funk, pp. 157-65; P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975); idem, “Old Testament Apocalyptic Reexamined,” Int 25 (1971): 454-79.

In addition to Rowley, Cross and Hanson cited above, see L. C. Allen, “Some Prophetic Antecedents of Apocalyptic Eschatology and Their Hermeneutical Value,” Ex Auditu 6 (1990): 15-28; Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 142-46; D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), pp. 92-95; D. G. Johnson, From Chaos to Restoration: An Integrative Analysis of Isaiah 24—27, JSOTSup 61 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988). For a recent study of the connection between Old Testament “proto-apocalyptic” material and the earliest Jewish apocalyptic writings, see E. J. C. Tigchelaar, Prophets of Old and the Day of the End: Zechariah, the Book of Watchers and Apocalyptic, OTS 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1996). An increasing number of scholars have been attempting to combine this thesis with elements from the earlier syncretistic view. See, e.g., J. H. Charlesworth, “Folk Traditions in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature,” in Mysteries and Revelations, pp. 91-113; J. J. Collins, “Jewish Apocalyptic Against Its Hellenistic Near Eastern Environment,” BASOR 220 (Dec. 1975): 27-36; R. Bauckham, “The Rise of Apocalyptic,” Themelios 3, no. 2 (1978): 10-23; H. S. Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic: The Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch Figure and the Son of Man, WMANT 61 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1988); D. Winston, “The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha and Qumran: A Review of the Evidence,” History of Religions 5, no. 2 (1966): 192-94.

See, e.g., S. Shaked, “Iranian Influence on Judaism: First Century B.C.E. to Second Century C.E.,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 1, Introduction: The Persian Period, ed. W. D. Davies and L. Finkelstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 308-25; and J. R. Hinnells, “Zoroastrian Influence on the Judeo-Christian Tradition,” Journal of the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute 45 (1976): 1-23. With some justification, Hinnells elsewhere points out that many of the earlier assessments were affected by an anti-Christian prejudice that saw in the Zoroastrian influence theory an opportunity to undermine the uniqueness of Christianity. See “Iranian Influence upon the New Testament,” in Commémoration Cyrus, hommage universel, ed. A. Pagliaro et al., Acta Iranica 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 2:272.

E. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1990), pp. 458-66. See also J. Barr, “The Question of Religious Influence: The Case of Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity,” JAAR 53 [1985]: 201-35, who argues that the parallels are superficial at best. Some have argued that this is true even of the “two spirits motif,” though this has long been considered the most obvious example of Zoroastrian influence. This influential motif is found in the Qumran Manual of Discipline (1QS) and the War Scroll (1QM) and throughout the early Christian tradition. See H. G. May, “Cosmological Reference in the Qumran Doctrine of the Two Spirits and in Old Testament Imagery,” JBL 82 (1963): 1-14; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972).

Indeed, according to Yamauchi (Persia and the Bible, pp. 464-66), many of the important Zoroastrian texts are dated as late as the fifth to the ninth century. For a recent thorough discussion, see J. G. Griffiths, The Divine Verdict: A Study of Divine Judgment in the Ancient Religions, SHR 52 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), pp. 250-53.

D. Wolfer, Deep Things out of Darkness: The Book of Job (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 51-54, argues for a date in the early seventh century B.C., as does J. E. Hartley, The Book of Job, NICOT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 17-20. Similarly, M. H. Pope concludes that the most likely date for the Dialogue is the seventh century B.C. (Job, 3d ed., AB 15 [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973], p. xl). N. M. Sarna (“Epic Substratum in the Prose of Job,” JBL 76 [1957]: 13-25) concludes that the apparent patriarchal setting “must be regarded as genuine and as belonging to the original saga. In brief, the considerable amount of epic substratum indicates that our present narrative framework is directly derived from an ancient “epic of Job” (p. 25). Even G. von Rad minimizes the extent of Persian influence on Job on the basis of the antiquity of the satan material found in the prologue. See his “OT View of Satan,” TDNT, 2:74.

Later Zoroastrianism (viz., that of the Pahlavi texts of the Sassanian period, third to seventh century A.D.) is clearly dualistic, but it is debated to what extent this can be read back into original Zoroastrianism. For a complete discussion, see J. W. Boyd and D. A. Crosby, “Is Zoroastrianism Dualistic or Monotheistic?” JAAR 47 (1979): 557-88.

Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible, p. 460. So R. S. Kluger, Satan in the Old Testament, trans. H. Nagel, Studies in Jungian Thought 7 (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1967), p. 156, who agrees that “if one looks at the two figures— that of the Old Testament Satan and of the Angra Mainyu of the Persian religion— not as separate entities but as embedded in the whole religious pattern, a fundamental difference is apparent.”

So Kvanvig writes: “the apocalyptic universe emerged in a moment when evil was experienced as a power transgressing human limits. It was the experience of non-human evil. . . . As a result, a new kind of hope arose in Jewish society, by which the transcendental impact of evil was confronted with a transcendental power of justice” (Roots of Apocalyptic, p. 613). See also D. Russell, Method and Message, pp. 237-38; idem, “Demonology and the Problem of Evil,” in his From Early Judaism to Early Church (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), pp. 85-98; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, pp. 52-53; E. Langton, Essentials of Demonology: A Study of the Jewish and Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (London: Epworth, 1949), p. 57; J. Russell, Devil, pp. 185-86.

On the development of Jewish angelology and demonology during this time, see G. A. Barton, “The Origin of the Names of the Angels and Demons in the Extra-canonical Apocalyptic Literature to 100 A.D.,” JBL 31 (1912): 156-57; A. Piñero, “Angels and Demons in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve,” JSJ 24 (1993): 191-214; M. J. Davidson, Angels at Qumran: A Comparative Study of I Enoch 1—36, 72—108 and Sectarian Writings from Qumran, JSPSup 11 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992); H. B. Kuhn, “The Angelology of the Non-canonical Jewish Apocalypses,” JBL 67 (1948): 217-32.

I am here following the majority view that the Genesis accounts precede the account in 1 Enoch, though the position is not without its detractors. For discussions see P. S. Alexander and P. Hanson, “Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel, and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6—11,” JBL 96 (1977): 195-233; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6—11,” JBL 96 (1977): 383-405; P. S. Alexander, “The Targumim and Early Exegesis of the ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6,” JJS 23 (1972): 60-71. First Enoch 1—36 (commonly referred to as “The Book of the Watchers”) provides the fullest account of the Watcher Angels, but they are also found in Jubilees, Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Life of Adam and Eve and 2 Enoch, with hints found elsewhere. For discussions see J. Russell, Devil, pp. 186ff.; Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 160-91; F. Gokey, The Terminology for the Devil and Evil Spirits in the Apostolic Fathers, Patristic Studies 93 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1961), pp. 10-13; J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1987), pp. 36-46; S. Kvanvig, “The Book of Watchers,” in his Roots of Apocalyptic, pp. 85-104; M. E. Mills, “Enoch and the Watchers,” in her Human Agents of Cosmic Power in Hellenistic Judaism and the Synoptic Tradition, JSPSup 41 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), pp. 63-77.

See esp. Jubilees 4:15ff. R. Murray has argued that the angelic “watcher” concept can be linguistically traced back to the ancient notion of “guardian gods” who watch over their respective nations/peoples (“The Origin of Aramaic ‘îr, Angel,’” Or 53 [1984]: 303-17).

This account of the origin of evil spirits is found in 1 Enoch 15:8; Jubilees 5:2; 2 Enoch 18:2-5. On demons in intertestamental literature, see E. Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1980), pp. 74-78.

The same is true of other apocalyptic accounts of the Fall. So 2 Enoch 29:4-5 (though it also recites the Watcher tradition in chap. 18). So too the Life of Adam 12—17, which attributes Satan’s fall to jealousy over Adam, a story that was eventually to override the Watcher tradition in the early church.

Jubilees 2:2. See Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols., ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912), 1:13-14.

Testament of Adam 4:2. See OTP, 2:995.

For example, 1 Enoch refers to “spirits” of thunder, sea, frost, snow, mist, dew, wind and rain (60:15-22; 61:10; 66:2; 69:22), as well as angels in charge of seasons (87:7-20). Second Enoch refers to angels of fire, hail, wind, lightning, whirlwinds, snow, rain, day and night, sun, moon, planets and constellations (19:1-6; cf. 15:1). And 4 Ezra speaks of angels of wind, fire and the firmament (6:21; 8:21). On this see J. Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, trans. and ed. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), pp. 181-84; L. Osborn, “Entertaining Angels: Their Place in Contemporary Theology,” TynBul 45 (1994): 286-87.

Wink, Unmasking the Powers, p. 157. Philo identifies each angel of a species with a Platonic form in De Confusione Linguarum 171-75 and De Cherubim 51. For a discussion of similar views in the rabbinic literature, see P. Schäfer, Rivalität zwischen Engeln und Menschen: Untersuchungen zur rabbinischen Engelvorstellung (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975), pp. 56-59; and in early church history, see J. Daniélou, The Angels and Their Mission, trans. D. Heimann (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1953) pp. 68-82. The New Testament clearly shared the first-century apocalyptic belief in the importance of angels (see, e.g., Mk 1:13; Mt 4:6, 11; 13:39-49; Jn 1:51; Acts 7:53; Rom 8:38; 1 Cor 4:9; 11:10; 13:1; 2 Cor 11:14; Gal 1:8; 3:19; 1 Thess 4:16; 2 Thess 1:7; Heb 13:2). Jesus affirmed the existence of guardian angels (Mt 18:10; 26:53) as does the author of Hebrews (1:14). But on the whole the New Testament does not follow the apocalyptic tradition in linking particular angels with particular natural phenomena (though see Rev 7:1; 16:5; 19:17; Heb 1:7? and the Jn 5:4 insertion).

On the free will strand, see, e.g., Sirach 15:14-16, which states that the Lord “created humankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.” Cf., e.g., also 1 Maccabees 9:30; 12:1; 2 Maccabees 4:38; 5:9; 15:32-33; Wisdom of Solomon 7:7-10; Judith 5:17; Psalms of Solomon 9. Even within apocalyptic texts (e.g., Testament of Simeon 5:2; Testament of Levi 19:1; 2 Apocalypse of Baruch 19:1-3; 54:15, 19; 2 Enoch 7:3) and at Qumran we find strong statements affirming human choice and responsibility (e.g., 1QH 4.6, 24; 5.9; 13.16; 14.26; 16.10). On the deterministic strand, however, see, e.g., Jubilees 10:6, which speaks of evil beings being “created to destroy,” while 15:31 adds that over each nation God has “caused spirits to rule so that they might lead them to stray.” See OTP, 2:76, 87. For discussions on predestination and election in the Qumran scrolls, see E. H. Merrill, Qumran and Predestination: A Theological Study of the Thanksgiving Hymns, STDJ 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1975); D. Dimant, “Qumran Sectarian Literature,” in The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, vol. 2, Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. M. E. Stone, CRINT 2 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 536-38.

See A. E. Sekki, The Meaning of Rua at Qumran, SBLDS 110 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). Sekki argues in meticulous fashion that there is a crucial difference intended between when rûa? is spoken of in the feminine and in the masculine case. When the masculine is used it refers to an angel or demon; when the feminine is used it refers to a human disposition. In more deterministic texts (e.g., 1QS 3-4) the feminine is used. On the basis of parallels with 4Q186, this usage suggests an astrological determinism for humans (see J. M. Allegro, “An Astrological Cryptic Document from Qumran,” JTS 9 [1964]: 291-94), but it does not imply general cosmic determinism.

See Merrill, Qumran and Predestination, pp. 45-58; J. J. Collins, “The Origin of Evil in Apocalyptic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Congress Volume, Paris 1992, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 61 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 25-38; D. A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), pp. 45-83; and esp. G. Maier, Mensch und freier Wille: Nach den jüdischen Religionsparteien zwischen Ben Sira und Paulus, WUNT 12 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1971), who attempts to trace the two strands back to two biblical anthropological motifs, one (Gen 1:26-27) “optimistic” and the other (Gen 2:7) “pessimistic.” I argue that rarely did the “pessimistic” motif work itself out into full-blown determinism. Where we do find full-blown determinism, we have grounds for suspecting that it had more to do with astrological assumptions than biblical teachings. See Allegro, “Astrological Cryptic Document.”

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 54.

W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process, 2d ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957), p. 362.

The identification of this “highest mediating agent” differs between (and even within) apocalyptic texts. For example, 1 Enoch identifies Azazel and Semjaza as leaders of the rebel angels but also speaks of a group of fallen angels called satans (adversaries) headed up by Satan. Jubilees speaks of Mastema but also speaks of the fallen angels being under Satan. Tobit speaks of Asmodeus (who purportedly was in love with a young woman and killed all prospective husbands, 3:8; 6:13-14), a name that also appears in the rabbinic literature. Second Enoch speaks of Satanail, whereas the Martyrdom of Isaiah refers to Sammael along with Beliar and Satan. On this, see esp. Barton, “Origin of the Names,” as well as Ling, Significance of Satan, p. 9; Ferguson, Demonology, pp. 76-78; Langton, Essentials, pp. 119-38; H. Gaylord, “How Satanel Lost His ‘El,’” JJS 33 (1982): 303-9; W. Foerster, “The Later Jewish View of Satan,” in “d??ß????,” TDNT, 2:75-79; J. Russell, Devil, pp. 188-89; S. V. McCasland, “The Black One,” in Early Christian Origins: Studies in Honor of Harold R. Willoughby, ed. A. Wikgren (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1961), pp. 77-80; C. Molenberg, “A Study of the Roles of Shemihaza and Asael in 1 Enoch 6—11,” JJS 35 (1984): 136-46.

Though the members of the infamous Jesus Seminar claim that one of the seven “pillars of scholarly wisdom” is the view that the historical Jesus’ thought world was noneschatological (see R. W. Funk, R. W. Hover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus [New York: Macmillan, 1993], p. 4), J. H. Charlesworth is certainly correct in affirming that “one of the strongest consensuses in New Testament research” involves the conviction that Jesus’ teaching was fundamentally apocalyptic. See his “Jesus Research Expands with Chaotic Creativity,” in Images of Jesus Today, ed. J. H. Charlesworth and W. P. Weaver (Valley Forge, Penn.: Trinity, 1994), p. 10. For a critique of the post-Bultmannian view of Jesus as noneschatological, see my Cynic, Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies (Wheaton, Ill.: Bridgepoint, 1995), pp. 55-56, 145-50; as well as P. R. Eddy, “Jesus as Diogenes? Reflections of the Cynic Jesus Thesis,” JBL 115 (1996): 449-69; and L. Johnson, The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). For several good arguments for an apocalyptic Jesus, see B. F. Meyer, Christus Faber: The Master-Builder and the House of God (Allison Park, Penn.: Pickwick, 1992), pp. 41-80; E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), pp. 222-41, 319-40; B. Witherington, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 59-74, 170-80.

Arnold, Powers of Darkness, p. 81. The phrase is used of Beliar in Martyrdom of Isaiah 2:4 (an early first-century apocalyptic work). See J. H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in IQS 3:13—4:26 and the ‘Dualism’ Contained in the Gospel of John,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 76-106. Charlesworth’s attempt to demonstrate that John represents a move away from a “hypostatic” personal view of the devil strikes me as forced.

See H. Bietenhard, Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum und Spätjudentum, WUNT 2 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1951), pp. 114-15; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 62.

The frequent apocalyptic notion that a particular angel was given charge over all creation may be behind the Synoptics’ concept of the world being “given” to Satan. See Daniélou, Jewish Christianity, pp. 188-89; Gokey, Terminology, p. 50. Many in the early postapostolic church held this view. See Daniélou, Angels and Their Mission, pp. 45-46. In this case, Satan must be seen as telling the truth when he says that all the kingdoms of the world were given to him. In other words, he did not steal the world, as Kallas maintains (Synoptic Miracles, p. 54), and in this sense his power over the world cannot in and of itself be said to be “illegitimate,” as I claimed above. Nevertheless, Satan’s evil tyranny over the world can be seen as illegitimate even if his God-given authority itself is not.

Beelzebul (and its forms Beezebul, Beelzebub) was a frequent name for the ruler of the demonic kingdom in the Talmud, as well as in the Testament of Solomon. There has been much discussion and little agreement as to the etymology of this term and its forms. For several summary discussions with various suggested solutions, see T. J. Lewis, “Beelzebul,” ABD, 1:638-40; W. E. M. Aitken, “Beelzebul,” JBL 31 (1912): 34-53; W. Foerster, “beelzebouvl,” TDNT, 1:605-06; L. Gaston, “Beelzebul,” TZ 18 (1962): 247-55; P. L. Day, An Adversary in Heaven: Satan in the Hebrew Bible, HSM 43 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), pp. 151-59; E. C. B. MacLaurin, “Beelzebul,” NovT 20 (April 1978): 156-60; S. J. Wright, “Satan, Beelzebul, Devil, Exorcism,” NIDNTT, 3:468-76. For a superb argument that this Q pericope essentially goes back to the historical Jesus, see J. D. G. Dunn, “Matthew 12:28/Luke 11:20—A Word of Jesus?” in Eschatology and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of George Raymond Beasley-Murray, ed. W. H. Gloer (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1988), pp. 29-49. The accusation that Jesus was possessed by Satan or a demon is repeated in John 7:20; 8:48, 52; and 10:20. It should be noted that the response to the charge in 10:21, “Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” recalls Mark 3:24 and is predicated on the assumption that blindness is itself a demonic work.

Arnold sees this verse as the key to understanding Christ’s ministry. “Christ has come to engage this ‘strong man’ and plunder his house: that is, to release the captives in Satan’s kingdom” (Powers of Darkness, p. 79). See also J. Ramsey Michaels, “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” in Demon Possession, ed. J. W. Montgomery (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1976), p. 53. E. Ferguson sums up well the picture of the world and of Jesus’ ministry assumed in this passage when he notes that this world is “enemy-occupied territory; Satan as its ruler has a fortress to protect his ill-gotten possessions. But there comes one stronger than he. The conqueror liberates the fortress, takes away Satan’s power, and takes over his possessions for his own use” (Demonology of the Early Christian World, pp. 22-23). See also E. Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 20.

J. Newport, response to Michaels in Demon Possession, p. 90. Forsyth argues that demons are portrayed in the Gospels as “a sort of loosely organized army under their general, Satan” (Old Enemy, p. 293; cf. p. 295). See also J. Russell, Devil, p. 237; Gokey, Terminology, p. 50; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, pp. 67-68. Ling argues that the Gospels differ from previous apocalyptic literature precisely in the intensity with which they affirm that the kingdom of evil is a unified kingdom and focus most of their attention on the head of this kingdom, Satan (Significance of Satan, pp. 12-22). Roy Yates also sees this as one of the main contributions of the Gospels. For Jesus, “exorcisms are no longer to be seen as isolated victories over a series of autonomous demons. . . . Jesus does not have an atomistic view of the world of evil, but sees it as a unity under Satan, whose power is beginning to crumble” (“The Powers of Evil in the New Testament,” EvQ 52, no. 2 [1980]: 99).

See Ferguson, Demonology, p. 12.

The passage likely means that the success of the disciples’ exorcism ministry was evidence that Satan’s kingdom was on its way down. So argues G. E. Ladd, Jesus and the Kingdom (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), pp. 145ff.; and Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 294-95. Ling argues that Jesus was here drawing the disciples’ attention away from their ability to cast out individual demons to “the fact that the kingdom of evil in its entirety was being conquered in the exercise of the authority which was theirs in his name” (Significance of Satan, p. 18). Julian Hills, however, argues in the opposite direction. Jesus was, in effect, saying that the disciples were successful in their exorcisms because the demons saw that their leader was already being dethroned by Jesus’ exorcist ministry. See J. V. Hills, “Luke 10:18—Who Saw Satan Fall?” JSNT 46 (1992): 25-40. This verse, incidentally, is the only reference to the fall of Satan in the Gospels, and it is clearly not about his original fall. This absence of speculation sets the Gospels apart from the apocalyptic literature of their time. That Satan was a fallen angel, however, seems to be taken for granted by the Gospel authors and is made more explicit in other New Testament literature (1 Tim 3:6; Jude 6, 8-10; 2 Pet 2:4; Eph 2:2; 2 Cor 11:13-14).

So Ferguson correctly notes in commenting on this passage, “Evil may have varied manifestations, but ultimately there is only one principle of evil. Instead of a world dominated by many warring demons (a pagan and polytheistic conception), Jesus saw one kingdom of Satan. . . . Jesus saw his work as demonstrating that the whole dominion of evil was being conquered. The demons functioned as part of a larger whole, the dominion of the devil” (Demonology, p. 20).

Later rabbinical tradition had it that demons “surround us like the ridge round a field . . . every one among us has 1,000 on his left hand and 10,000 on his right hand.” Moreover, all manner of evil is attributed to them, everything from weakening in the knees to clothes wearing out to sore feet. See Babylonian Talmud Berakot 6a, cited in Ferguson, Demonology, p. 89. It is unlikely that something of this tradition does not extend back to the first century.

Langton, Essentials, p. 147.

Some take John 9:1-5 to be an exception to this. I argue against this interpretation in chapter seven. But even if this passage does presuppose a divine purpose for this particular person’s blindness, this only slightly qualifies the point being made here.

For several informative discussions on the connection between sickness and Satanic/demonic activity in the New Testament, see R. Brown, “The Gospel Miracles,” in his New Testament Essays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 222-28; E. Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle? Diseases, Demons and Exorcisms,” in The Miracles of Jesus, ed. D. Wenham and C. Blomberg, GP 6 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), pp. 92-93; D. S. Russell, From Early Judaism to Early Church, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), pp. 90-93; and esp. P. H. Davids, “Sickness and Suffering in the New Testament,” in Wrestling with Dark Angels: Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Supernatural Forces in Spiritual Warfare, ed. C. P. Wagner and F. D. Pennoyer (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1990), pp. 215-37. There is now strong evidence that first-century Jews (hence perhaps Jesus himself) were assisted in their inclination to think of sickness and disease as demonically induced by the “Solomon/Son of David as exorcist and healer” tradition. J. H. Charlesworth has noted: “We possess traditions that may well derive from the first century C.E. in which Solomon is hailed as an exorcist who controls demons and the sickness, including blindness, they cause” (“The Son of David: Solomon and Jesus [Mark 10:47],” unpublished paper presented to the Jesus Seminar, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., Oct. 1992, p. 12). See also D. C. Duling, “Solomon, Exorcism and the Son of David,” HTR 68 (1975): 235-52. Thus it may be that Jesus’ title as the “Son of David” is linked with his reputation as a healer/exorcist. See L. Fisher, “Can This Be the Son of David?” in Jesus and the Historian: Written in Honor of Ernest Cadman Colwell, ed. F. T. Trotter (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), pp. 82-87. For evidence of the prevalence within rabbinic Judaism of the view that much sickness was the result of demonic activity, see H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 5 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1922-61), 4:501-35.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 63.

“Gospel Miracles,” p. 224.

Ibid. Cf. Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 79.

For references, see BAGD, p. 495.

My translation. The NIV translates mastix as “flogging” in Acts 22:24 and Hebrews 11:36, and the verbs mastizw and mastigo w as “to flog” in Matthew 10:17; 20:19; 23:34; Mark 10:34; 15:15; Luke 18:32; John 19:1; Acts 22:24-25; and as “to punish” in Hebrews 12:6. But it translates mastix as “suffering,” “disease” and “sicknesses” in the Gospels (Mk 3:10; 5:29, 34; Lk 7:21). Such a translation loses the unique force of this rather unusual usage of this word.

See also Mark 9:29 (parallel Mt 17:21), where Jesus assumes there are different “kinds” of demons.

J. Ramsey Michaels argues on the basis of redaction criticism that possessions became a category of disease, and exorcism a category of healing, by the time Matthew and Luke appropriated Mark’s Gospel. Hence too he argues that Paul does not mention exorcism as one of the gifts of the Spirit because by this time it was subsumed under the category of healing (1 Cor 12:9-10, 38-39). See “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” p. 50. If one accepts Markan priority, his case perhaps has some merit. For example, Mark 1:32-34 mentions the “sick or possessed with demons,” whereas the parallels in Matthew and Luke mention only those “possessed with demons” (Mt 8:16-17; Lk 4:40-41; cf. Mk 1:39; Mt 4:23; Lk 4:44; and Mk 3:7-12; Mt 4:24-25; Lk 6:17-19).

Against Böcher, neither this passage nor the evidence in the Synoptics as a whole necessarily implies that all sicknesses and diseases were seen as being the direct result of Satanic activity (though some obviously were; cf. Lk 13:16; 2 Cor 12:7). See O. Böcher, Dämonenfurcht und Dämonenabwehr (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970), pp. 316-17; idem, Christus Exorcista (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1972), pp. 16, 70. But it does entail that all disorders were seen as being at least the indirect result of Satan’s having taken the world hostage. Hence in coming against them (by healing), Jesus was coming against one crucial aspect of Satan’s reign. For two critical and balanced reviews of Böcher’s argument, see L. Sabourin, “The Miracles of Jesus II: Jesus and the Evil Powers,” BTB 4, no. 2 (1974): 115-75, and Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle?” pp. 92-93. On the distinction between demonization and physical illness, see Ferguson, Demonology, pp. 4-5.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 66.

Wingren, Living Word, p. 53; cf. p. 167.

The centrality of Satan and the cosmic/spiritual warfare motif in the New Testament received an unprecedented amount of attention just prior to, during and after World War II. The classic statement of this position is Gustaf Aulen’s Christus Victor, trans. A. Hebert (New York: Macmillan, 1961). See also from this period R. Leivestad, Christ the Conqueror: Ideas of Conflict and Victory in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1954); J. S. Stewart, “On a Neglected Emphasis in New Testament Theology,” SJT 4 (1951): 292-301; E. Fascher, Jesus und der Satan, Hallische Monographien 11 (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1949); Schlier, Principalities and Powers; Wingren, Living Word. This view has received increasing attention in recent scholarship. For strong contemporary representative statements or arguments on the centrality of Satan and of the warfare motif in general for the New Testament, see R. Hiers, “Satan, Demons and the Kingdom of God,” SJT 27 (1974): 35-47; R. Yates, “Jesus and the Demonic in the Synoptic Gospels,” Irish Theological Quarterly 44 (1977): 39-57; J. D. G. Dunn and G. H. Twelftree, “Demon-Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament,” Churchman 94, no. 3 (1980): 211-15; S. R. Garrett, The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989); H. Kruse, “Das Reich Satans,” Bib 58 (1977): 29-61; Ling, Significance of Satan; P. W. Hollenbach, “Help for Interpreting Jesus’ Exorcism,” SBLSP, 1993, ed. E. H. Lovering Jr. (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1993), pp. 124-26; M. Kelsey, Encounter with God: A Theology of Christian Experience (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1972), pp. 242-45; J. Russell, Devil, pp. 222, 227, 234-39; Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 249, 286, 295-96; Langton, Essentials, p. 156; Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle?” pp. 124-25; Kallas, Jesus and the Power of Satan; idem, Synoptic Miracles; idem, The Satanward View (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966); W. Kirchschläger, Jesu exorzistisches Wirken aus der Sicht des Lukas: Ein Beitrag zur lukanischen Redaktion, Österreichische Biblische Studien 3 (Klosterneuburg: Österreichisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1981); W. G. Kümmel, “Liberation from the Spiritual Powers,” in his Theology of the New Testament, trans. J. E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), pp. 186ff.; J. J. Rousseau, “Jesus, an Exorcist of a Kind,” in SBLSP, 1993, pp. 129-53; Böcher, Christus Exorcista.

See J. Jeremias’s observation in “The Lord’s Prayer in the Light of Recent Research,” in his Prayers of Jesus, trans. J. Bowden et al., SBT 2/6 (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1967), p. 99. G. E. Ladd (A Theology of the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], pp. 45-56) also draws a strong connection between the coming of the future kingdom and the vanquishing of the evil forces that presently control the world.

In the light of the fact that “the satanic and demonic is a dominant theme of the New Testament,” Newport argues, we must see the New Testament as constituting “at least a limited dualism” (“Satan and Demons: A Theological Perspective,” in Demon Possession, p. 331). Similarly, Kvanvig distinguishes this type of Jewish dualism from the cosmic dualism of Zoroastrianism by casting it as a temporary, eschatological and moral dualism rather than a metaphysical dualism. See Roots of Apocalyptic, pp. 610-11. See also C. S. Lewis’s strong case for a form of biblical dualism in “God and Evil,” in God in the Dock: Essays in Theology and Ethics, ed. W. Hooper (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 21-24. For an argument along similar lines but cast in relationship to Greek philosophical forms of dualism, see A. H. Armstrong, “Dualism: Platonic, Gnostic and Christian,” in Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, ed. R. T. Wallis and J. Bregman (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992), pp. 33-54. For similar assessments of the apocalyptic or New Testament dualism, see J. G. Gammie, “Spatial and Ethical Dualism in Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic Literature,” JBL 93 (1974): 356-59; J. H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in 1QS 3:13—4:26 and the ‘Dualism’ in the Gospel of John,” NTS 15 (1968-69): 389-418; Aulen’s classic Christus Victor, pp. 4-5, 10-11, 76, 89, 108, 148-49.

Garrett, Demise of the Devil, p. 55.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 78. See also pp. 55, 66. See E. Stauffer: “The Kingdom of God is present where the dominion of the adversary has been overthrown” (New Testament Theology, 5th ed., trans. J. Marsh [New York: Macmillan, 1955], p. 124). Similarly, Elaine Pagels notes that for the Gospel authors, “Jesus has come to heal the world and reclaim it for God; in order to accomplish this, he must overcome the evil powers who have usurped authority over the world, and who now oppress human beings” (Origin of Satan, p. 36). See also J. Robinson, “The Exorcism Narratives,” in The Problem of History in Mark, and Other Essays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), pp. 83ff.; Arnold, Powers of Darkness, p. 80; Dunn and Twelftree, “Demon-Possession and Exorcism,” pp. 219-23; Rousseau, “Jesus, an Exorcist,” pp. 150-51. In his recent superb study, Graham Twelftree concludes that “Jesus was the first to make the connection between exorcism and eschatology. For him, his exorcisms were the first or preliminary binding of Satan who would finally be destroyed in the eschaton” (Jesus the Exorcist, pp. 217-24).

So Brown writes, “The miracle was not primarily an external guarantee of the coming of the kingdom; it was one of the means by which the kingdom came. In particular, Jesus’ miracles were the weapons He used to overcome Satan” (“Gospel Miracles,” p. 222). See also Yates, “Powers of Evil,” pp. 106-7.

Against this, Robert Guelich has argued: “We find no hint of any cosmic or ethical dualism in Jesus’ ministry as portrayed in the Synoptics. The Kingdom of God is never juxtaposed to a ‘kingdom of Satan’” (“Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti,” Pneuma 13, no. 1 [1991]: 41). He thus regards Scripture’s warfare motif as strictly metaphorical (p. 34). Interestingly enough, however, Guelich does seem to accept that the coming of the kingdom of God is (literally?) simultaneous with the binding of the strong man and the plundering of his house (pp. 38-39). One of the main reasons Guelich argues against the centrality of the warfare motif in the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus’ ministry concerns what he regards as the absence of any struggle or theme of conquest against Satan in this portrayal (pp. 40-42). “In every case,” he writes, “Jesus is clearly in control of the situation. There is simply no contest” (p. 40). Against this four points can briefly be made: (1) That Jesus (like Yahweh in the Old Testament) at least had to rebuke Satan and demons shows that they are genuine foes who must be conquered. God is (through Jesus) in control, to be sure, but this control has genuine opposition, and it must therefore be established by “a rebuke.” (2) If the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ temptation don’t represent a genuine struggle with Satan, what would? The meaning of Guelich’s observation that “Jesus was vulnerable to Satan’s ‘temptation’ but not to Satan personally” is not clear to me (p. 40). (3) It is, we shall see, possible that in at least one Gospel account Jesus’ exorcistic command did not issue in an immediate exorcism (Mk 5:6-10; see the discussion in chapter seven), and it is certain that the disciples’ exorcisms were not always immediate (Mt 9:17-18). Indeed, one of Jesus’ healings was not instantaneous (Mt 8:24), and Mark implies that on at least one occasion Jesus could not do certain miracles because of people’s lack of faith (Mk 6:5). Hence it seems fair to characterize the ministry of both Jesus and certainly his disciples as a struggle against the enemy. (4) It is clear from the Epistles that followers of Jesus understood themselves to be part of an ongoing cosmic battle and thus to be under constant attack from the enemy (see chapters seven to ten below).

Ferguson speculates that “the use of these titles of Jesus was an effort by the demon to claim power over him,” since knowing someone’s name and office was seen as a form of power (Demonology, p. 7). Hence Jesus sometimes inquires into the name of the demon(s) he is confronting (Lk 8:30).

Forsyth captures the theme well: “the teaching is somehow presented by the event [viz., the exorcism] the people have witnessed—a new teaching: power over the spirits” (Old Enemy, p. 286).

If Pagels is correct, even the interlude discussion about sabbath propriety is not irrelevant to Mark’s warfare perspective, for here (Mk 2:23-26) “Jesus dares claim as precedent for his disciples’ apparently casual action [of picking corn] on the Sabbath, the prerogative of King David himself, who, with his men, broke the sacred food laws during a wartime emergency” (Origin of Satan, p. 18).

Forsyth notes that this is the same apocalyptic cosmic battle motif, but “the battle scheme has now shifted to Christ’s life” (Old Enemy, p. 289). See also Longman and Reid, God Is a Warrior, pp. 91-118. For a fascinating study that draws the literary connections between this portrayal of Satan and Old Testament and apocalyptic warfare motifs, see H. A. Kelly, “The Devil in the Desert,” CBQ 26 (1964): 190-220. Adrio König sees in the temptation narratives a reversal of Adam’s succumbing to temptation, and hence the beginning of a new creation in Jesus’ ministry (New and Greater Things: Re-evaluating the Biblical Message on Creation [Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1988], pp. 106-7). E. Best goes so far as to argue that Mark locates the central confrontation between Jesus and the devil in the temptation narrative (The Temptation and the Passion: The Markan Soteriology, 2d ed., SNTSMS 2 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990]).

Arnold, Powers of Darkness, p. 78.

One remarkable aspect of historical Jesus research since the late 1980s is the almost unanimous consensus that has been reached among even the most critical (viz., skeptical) New Testament scholars that the historical Jesus was indeed recognized as an exorcist and a healer by his contemporaries (even when their worldview presuppositions will not allow them to admit the possibility that he actually was so). For example, J. D. Crossan acknowledges that “Jesus was both an exorcist and a healer. . . . His vision of the Kingdom was but an ecstatic dream without immediate social repercussions were it not for those exorcisms and healings” (The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991], p. 332). See also S. Davies, Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance and the Origins of Christianity (New York: Continuum, 1995); P. W. Hollenbach, “Jesus, Demoniacs and Public Authorities: A Socio-historical Study,” JAAR 49 (1981): 567-88; and esp. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist.

So argues Newport, “Satan and Demons,” p. 59.

Kallas drives home the point when he asks concerning this passage, “What kind of a missionary voyage was this? What were they preaching? Why no summary of their words?” (Synoptic Miracles, p. 60). Their healings and exorcisms, clearly, were their message that “the kingdom of God has come near to you.”

Essentially the same point is made even if Julian Hills (“Luke 10:18—Who Saw Satan Fall?”) is correct in arguing that Jesus is here referring to demons (not he or his disciples) seeing Satan (their captain) being dethroned.

As noted earlier, this is not to say that those critical scholars today who acknowledge that Jesus was perceived to be an exorcist or a healer have necessarily dissociated themselves from an antisupernatural worldview. Many times they have simply expanded a naturalistic worldview and thus account for the supposed exorcisms and healings by psychosomatic and sociological explanations. See, e.g., R. Funk, “Demon: Identity and Worldview,” The Fourth R 5, no. 3 (1992): 15; Hollenbach, “Jesus, Demoniacs,” p. 567; Crossan, Historical Jesus, pp. 310-32; Davies, Jesus the Healer.

Some conservative scholars have argued that Jesus’ deliverance ministry was so distinctive in comparison to the many exorcists of his day that he should not even be classified as an exorcist. See, e.g., A. Konya, Demons: A Biblically Based Perspective (Schaumburg, Ill.: Regular Baptist Press, 1990), pp. 36-37; W. W. Everts, “Jesus Christ, No Exorcist,” BSac 81 (1924): 355-62. While the uniqueness of Christ is a point I shall myself be intent on driving home, the term “exorcism” yet seems to describe best what Jesus did even if it does not capture the uniqueness of how and why he did it. Hence I shall continue to use it.

Matthew, quite typically, notes that there was another demonized person besides the one all three Synoptic narratives center on (Mt 8:28-29). Also, there is in the manuscript tradition disagreement about whether this event took place in Gadara, Gerasa or Gergesa. According to the strongest readings, Mark and Luke have Jesus going to Gerasa, while Matthew has him going to Gadara. Gerasa lies 30 miles off the coast of the sea of Galilee, and Gadara 5 miles, making both difficult to square with the narratives. The most likely solution to the problem seems to be to see the actual town in which the exorcism took place as being Khersa, which is located squarely on the eastern shore. This could be easily spelled Gerasa in Greek (as in Mark and Luke) and could also be included under the territory of Gadara. We can then suppose that Matthew (again, typically) tried to avoid the ambiguity and thus referred only to the larger and much better known region of Gadara. Later scribes, unfamiliar with the territory, then tried to “correct” Matthew’s “solution” and change this to Gerasa, hence the geographical problems as well as the ambiguity in the manuscript traditions. For discussions, see W. H. Mare, “Gadara,” The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology, ed. E. M. Blaiklock et al. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1983), p. 201; C. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987), pp. 149-50; E. J. Vardaman, “Gadara,” Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, 2 vols., ed. C. F. Pfeiffer et al. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1975), 1:643; S. Holm-Nielsen et al., “Gadarenes,” ABD, 2:866-68. For two helpful discussions of this episode, see G. H. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus, WUNT 2/54 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1993), pp. 72-87; H. van der Loos, The Miracles of Jesus, NovTSup 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1965), pp. 382-97.

On the definition of “demonized,” see chapter one, note 42.

So too, as mentioned earlier (chapter six, note 64) Mark suggests that Jesus’ prayer for healing did not always immediately effect a complete healing (Mk 8:22-26). Indeed, he states explicitly that in at least one instance people’s unbelief prevented Jesus from doing many miracles (Mk 6:5). As God-become-man, Jesus was sinless, he exercised ideal faith, and he was perfectly open to the omnipotent Father working through him (Jn 5:19-32; 6:38; 8:28-29). But, as I shall argue more extensively in Satan and the Problem of Evil, God’s power and Jesus’ character are not the only variables in bringing about healings and exorcisms. Other factors such as the strength of faith, the persistence of prayer, and the strength and number of opposing spiritual forces have to be factored in.

This observation stands over against R. Guelich (“Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti,” Pneuma 13, no. 1 [1991]: 40-41), who minimizes the warfare dimension of the Gospels largely on the basis of the supposed absence of conflict between Jesus and Satan and demons. “We find no hint of a struggle in these encounters” (p. 40). Not only the failure of Jesus’ command here but the acquisition of a name (see note 6 below) and the common rebukes of Jesus during exorcism, as well as the temptation narratives (to say nothing of his explicit teachings; see chapter eight), suggest that Jesus was in fact engaged in a genuine struggle. The temptation narratives in the Gospels alone should be enough to tell us this much (cf. Heb 4:15-16; 5:7-10).

In the ancient Near Eastern world, names were generally viewed as inherently reflecting the realities to which they were attached. Thus to know someone’s name was to know the person, and invoking this name could either capture the power of that person’s presence, as when Jesus’ name is used in exorcism (Lk 10:17; Mk 9:38; Acts 19:13), or give one power over that person, as when the name of demons is used in exorcism. Interestingly, Jesus, in contrast to other exorcists of his day, did not rely upon the power of names in his deliverance ministry. See Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist, p. 164. For the invocation of names in exorcisms and magic in the first century, see D. E. Aune, “Magic in Early Christianity,” in ANRW (1980), 2/23.2:1545; J. G. Gager, ed., Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 3-14.

See van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, p. 388.

As in Matthew 12:45, however, the number seven here may be symbolic of “fullness.” In other words, Mary had a plethora of demons within her. So argues E. Langton, Essentials of Demonology: A Study of the Jewish and Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (London: Epworth, 1949), p. 50, who sees it as a synonym for a large group. See also F. X. Gokey, The Terminology for the Devil and Evil Spirits in the Apostolic Fathers, Patristic Studies 93 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1961), p. 49.

Langton, Essentials, p. 147.

J. D. Crossan, who mostly denies the historicity of the Gospel exorcism accounts (though he admits the historical Jesus was something of an exorcist), argues that Roman imperialism is here being symbolized as demonic possession. See Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), pp. 90-91. While his ahistorical, overly symbolic reading of this (and other) passages is unwarranted, he seems correct in making the point that the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel was here seeing the demonic “Legion” as being at least analogous to the legions of Roman guards who occupied and oppressed the territory. As Roman imperialism illegitimately rules over and oppresses Israel, so Satanic imperialism illegitimately rules over and oppresses this man, and ultimately the entire world. For a critique of Crossan’s exegetical methods, see my Cynic, Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies (Wheaton, Ill.: Bridgepoint, 1995), pp. 77-87.

So, e.g., 4 Maccabees 18:8 speaks of a “seducer of the desert.” Cf. 1 Enoch 10:4-5. On this see E. Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1980), p. 2.

This again raises the issue of “territorial spirits” discussed in the introduction. See references in introduction, note 3.

Alongside humans and animals, demons were believed sometimes to inhabit such haunts as the desert, water (seas and wells), the wind, fire, trees, caves, graves and garbage heaps. See van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, p. 346.

Like “the disease germs of modern medicine,” H. A. Kelly argues, demons in the New Testament are “definitely parasitic in nature” (The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology and Drama [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985], 18).

J. Ramsey Michaels, “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” in Demon Possession, ed. J. W. Montgomery (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1976), pp. 53-54.

See Revelation 16:13, which speaks of “three evil spirits” that deceive nations and lead them into war. So too Revelation 20:3, 8, 10 portray Satan (and the legions of demons under him?) as one who “deceives the nations.” Something similar may be implied by Paul’s use of “principalities” and “powers,” as we shall see (chapter ten). The Old Testament conception of “the gods of the nations,” discussed in chapter two, lies behind all this. These gods, we saw, sometimes carry out their national duties well; sometimes they do not. When they do not, they become demonic (e.g., Ps 82; Dan 10). T. Ling takes Matthew 12:45 to mean that Jesus saw his own generation as being possessed by Satan. Hence Jesus is here saying that “although an individual member of this generation be exorcised of an evil spirit by some contemporary exorcist, the power of evil in the common life is such that he will almost certainly become re-possessed, and now more desperately than before” (The Significance of Satan: New Testament Demonology and Its Contemporary Significance [London: SPCK, 1961], p. 21).

For a contemporary discussion surrounding purported cases of “collective possession,” see F. D. Pennoyer, “In Dark Dungeons of Collective Captivity,” in Wrestling with Dark Angels: Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Supernatural Forces in Spiritual Warfare, ed. C. P. Wagner and F. D. Pennoyer (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1990), pp. 249-70.

For discussions see Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist, pp. 91-97; van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, pp. 397-405.

Some manuscripts add “and fasting” to Mark 9:29, and some add “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” to Matthew 17:20.

Langton, for example, argues, “It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the instances [of demonization] mentioned in the Gospels do not stand alone. They have their exact parallels among many peoples in different parts of the world” (Essentials, p. 153). Cf. also idem, Good and Evil Spirits: A Study of the Jewish Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (New York: Macmillan, 1942), pp. 54ff. For similar accounts from a crosscultural and historical perspective, see F. D. Goodman, How About Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988); I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971); M. Ebon, Exorcism Past and Present (London: Cassell, 1974); B. P. Levack, Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology, vol. 9, Possession and Exorcism (Hamden, Conn.: Garland, 1992); T. K. Oesterreich, Possession, Demoniacal and Other, Among Primitive Races, in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern Times (New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1966); G. Twelftree, Christ Triumphant: Exorcism Then and Now (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985). It should be noted, however, that similar accounts are increasingly reported today within contemporary Western culture. Perhaps the most credible recent discussions are M. S. Peck’s People of the Lie (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), pp. 182-253; K. E. Koch, Demonology, Past and Present (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 1973); V. Stacey, “Christ Cleanses Buildings and Delivers People: Four Case Studies,” ERT 16, no. 4 (1992): 342-52. Other accounts (from widely varying perspectives) can be found in M. Martin’s fascinating report Hostage to the Devil (New York: Bantam, 1977); C. F. Dickason, Demon Possession and the Christian (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1987), pp. 169-213; R. Mayer, Satan’s Children: Case Studies in MPD (New York: Putnam’s, 1991); E. Fiore, The Unquiet Dead: A Psychologist Treats Spirit Possession—Detecting and Removing Earthbound Spirits (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987); J. Richards, But Deliver Us from Evil (New York: Seabury, 1974); D. R. Petitpierre, Exorcising Devils (London: Robert Hale, 1976). My own observation of phenomena similar to this has led me, along with many others, to conclude that it is impossible to explain the sometimes supernatural features of such phenomena on a strictly naturalistic basis.

See, e.g., J. B. Cortes and F. M. Gatti, “The Demon-Possessed Epileptic,” in their The Case Against Possession and Exorcism: A Historical, Biblical and Psychological Analysis of Demons, Devils and Demoniacs (New York: Vantage, 1975), pp. 173-86. See also J. Wilkinson, “The Case of the Epileptic Boy,” ExpTim 79 (1967-68): 39-42; van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, pp. 401-6. See esp. p. 401, note 5 for a list of others who adopt a position similar to this.

On the reliability of this account, see G. E. Sterling, “Jesus as Exorcist: An Analysis of Matthew 17:14-20; Mark 9:14-29; Luke 9:37-43a,” CBQ 55 (1993): 467-93. On the reliability of the exorcist accounts in general, see L. Sabourin, “The Miracles of Jesus (II): Jesus and the Evil Powers,” BTB 4, no. 2 (1974): 115-75; and esp. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist, pp. 53-113.

In keeping with general apocalyptic thought, “Christ acknowledges that there are different classes of demons, some of whom had more powers than others” (Gokey, Terminology, p. 49). But he never speculates beyond this point, as the apocalyptic thinkers frequently did.

So argues Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 63; Langton, Essentials, pp. 152-53.

R. Brown, “Gospel Miracles,” in his New Testament Essays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), p. 223.

Langton, Essentials, pp. 171-72.

This assumption is formalized into something of a theological principle in all modernist and postmodernist accounts that understand evil beings to be projections of our own inner evil impulses. If the ontological “otherness” of the demonic is not affirmed, then obviously there can be no genuine victims of the demonic. See, e.g., W. Woods, A History of the Devil (London: W. H. Allen, 1973), who argues that “both gods and devils, are of course [sic] simply different facets of man, made as large as our imaginations can make them” (p. 12). So with Nels F. S. Ferré, Evil and the Christian Faith (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947), p. 33; H. Pendley, “Views of the Demonic in Recent Religious Thought” (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1976), who (despite holding open the possibility of the demonic realm as an objective reality) argues that “human demonization occurs when egocentricity becomes the norm for one’s existence” (p. 220). This unbiblical assumption gets formalized in otherwise biblically centered theologies as well, however. For example, despite Emil Brunner’s many insights concerning the demonic realm, he insists that demonization cannot occur without human complicity. See The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, trans. O. Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), pp. 140-41. While the New Testament generally rejects anything like the excuse that “the devil made me do it”—it assumes people are morally responsible for their actions—it nevertheless depicts radically demonized people in just this fashion. They are casualties of war. See C. Moeller, “Introduction,” in Satan, ed. B. de Jésus-Marie (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1952), p. xix. I shall address the thorny issue of the relationship between demonic influence and human responsibility in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

John Richards drives home the issue poignantly as it concerns demonic possession when he notes: “If there has been one, just one real case of demonic possession in history, then the theologian must have an understanding of God’s world in which such a thing is possible” (But Deliver Us from Evil, p. 51). The point is, if the world is exhaustively controlled by God, such a phenomenon would not be possible. For an excellent exposition of a biblical model of God’s providence which makes the cross its hermenuetical center, see E. F. Tupper, A Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassion of God (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1995).

See J. Geller, Forerunners to UDUG-HUL: Sumerian Exorcistic Incantations, FAS 12 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1985); H. D. Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation Including the Demonic Spells (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); E. Yamauchi, “Magic in the Biblical World,” TynBul 34 (1983): 169-200.

John Rousseau, “Jesus, an Exorcist of a Kind,” in SBLSP, ed. E. H. Lovering Jr. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), pp. 148-49. See also E. Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle? Diseases, Demons and Exorcisms,” in The Miracles of Jesus, ed. D. Wenham and C. Blomberg, GP 6 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), pp. 131-42; G. H. Twelftree, “Demon-Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament,” Churchman 94, no. 3 (1980): 214-15; S. Davies, “Whom Jesus Healed and How,” The Fourth R 6 (Mar.-Apr. 1993): 1; O. Böcher, Das Neue Testament und die dämonischen Mächte, SBS 58 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1972), pp. 35-42; E. Ferguson, “Jesus and the Demons,” in his Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1984), pp. 9-11.

The view that prayer changes only us, not God, goes back at least to the time of Arnobius (Against the Heathen 1.27), who logically drew out the consequences of conceptualizing God as altogether impassible. He was refuted by Lactantius, who argued that such a view makes God dead and prayer inconsequential. See the discussion in J. K. Mozley, The Impassibility of God (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1926), pp. 48-52. At least by scriptural standards, Lactantius was certainly correct. There is, in any event, an increasing awareness in our time concerning the power of prayer to change things. For several accounts, see J. Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993); J. Wimber and K. Springer, Power Healing (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987); K. Springer, ed., Power Encounters Among Christians in the Western World (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988).

The understanding that God’s activity, and therefore the flow of history, is genuinely conditioned by prayer is increasingly being accepted and emphasized, especially by those within the spiritual warfare movement. One of the earliest, most radical, most insightful and most neglected works on the subject is P. Billheimer’s Destined for the Throne (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975), esp. pp. 43-56. See also C. H. Kraft’s excellent book Christianity with Power: Your Worldview and Your Experience of the Supernatural (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1989), pp. 117-32. I shall attempt to work out a theology of prayer that is rooted in this understanding in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Exegetes have largely ignored this line of argumentation, which is surprising given the growing appreciation of the influence of apocalyptic thought on Jesus and his disciples. Kallas has made more use of this line of thinking than anyone. He sees all the miracles of Jesus as being “primarily an attack upon the enemies of God” (Synoptic Miracles, p. 33). See also A. König, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology: Toward a Christ-Centered Approach (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989), pp. 110-27; R. Brown, “Gospel Miracles,” pp. 226-27.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 65. J. Ramsey Michaels argues along the same lines in “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” in Demon Possession, p. 47.

Forsyth argues the “rebuke” here is part and parcel of “the explicit war language of the apocalyptic writings themselves” and ultimately goes back to the Old Testament tradition of Yahweh “rebuking” his cosmic foes (Old Enemy, pp. 286-87). See also König, New and Greater Things, pp. 140-41.

See Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 286-87; König, New and Greater Things, pp. 50, 107. See also B. L. Blackburn (“Miracles and Miracle Stories,” DJG, p. 559), who rightly emphasizes the “eschatological/apocalyptic background for the so-called nature miracles,” and therefore observes, “The two rescue miracles, Jesus’ calming of and walking on the sea, are meaningful against the horizon of Yahweh’s assertion of his sovereignty over the sea in creation (Job 26:12-13; Ps 74:12-15), the Exodus (Ps 77:16-20), and the eschaton (Is 27:1; cf. Rev 21:1).” In short, the Gospel authors had something like Leviathan or Yamm in mind when they portrayed Jesus as rebuking and treading on the sea. See also R. Brown, “Gospel Miracles,” pp. 226-27; and W. O. E. Oesterley (The Evolution of the Messianic Idea: A Study in Comparative Religion [London: Pitman, 1908], pp. 175ff.), who has posited a direct line of development from the Old Testament thôm (Tiamat) to the New Testament view of Satan. See also König, Eclipse of Christ, pp. 115-17; T. Fawcett, “The Satanic Serpent,” in his Hebrew Myth and Christian Gospel (London: SCM, 1973), pp. 98-101; H. Hendrickx, The Miracle Stories of the Synoptic Gospels (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 184-85; R. Latourelle, The Miracles of Jesus and the Theology of Miracles, trans. M. J. O’Connell (New York: Paulist, 1988), pp. 108-9; and G. E. Smith’s classic The Evolution of the Dragon (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1919), pp. 137-38.

A slightly different reading of this episode is to see Jesus as the perfect man restoring to humanity the dominion over the sea that we were created to enjoy but then lost in the Fall. This reading is not necessarily incompatible with the reading here offered, for, as D. G. McCartney sees (“Ecce Homo: The Coming of the Kingdom as the Restoration of Human Vicegerency,” WTJ 56 [1994]: 1-21), the Bible consistently associates the rule of God with the rule of the viceroy he established. If humanity has been dethroned, God has, in effect, been dethroned. From this perspective, then, Jesus is seeking to restore both the rulership of humanity and the rule of God, for they are one and the same. Indeed, one could easily draw an intrinsic connection between this insight and the truth that Jesus was fully God and fully human.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 65.

See, e.g., J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 2, Mentor, Message and Miracle (New York: Doubleday, 1994), pp. 884-96; van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, pp. 688-98. Both scholars doubt the story’s historicity but locate its symbolic meaning to a divine judgment of the temple and the nation of Israel. See also the detailed redactional-critical study of W. R. Telford, The Barren Temple and the Withered Tree, JSNTSup 1 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980).

The theme of cosmic restoration arises even in the Old Testament, a restoration that, among other things, includes nature becoming harmonious and bountiful once again as it was originally created to be. See, e.g., Isaiah 11:6-9; 65:17-25; Amos 9:13-15.

See W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, rpt. 1980), p. 39; König, Eclipse of Christ, pp. 114-15; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 95.

See R. H. Hiers, “Not the Season for Figs,” JBL 87 (1968): 394-400; J. D. M. Derrett, “Figtrees in the New Testament,” HeyJ 14 (1973): 249-65.

It is interesting that Mark explicitly connects the inability of the disciples to grasp Jesus’ power in rebuking the demonic sea with their inability to grasp his power to multiply bread (Mk 6:52). In both instances, Christ was victorious over nature when nature was not doing what it was created to do. See König, Eclipse of Christ, pp. 117-21. Not a few scholars have noted the eschatological import of the “gift miracles” (i.e., the feeding of the five thousand, the wine at the Cana wedding feast). These miracles “actualize and foreshadow the messianic feast . . . characterized by an abundance of bread—the eschatological equivalent of the manna miracle . . . and wine” (Blackburn, “Miracles,” DJG, p. 559).

This is not necessarily to say that physical existence would never have ceased had we not fallen. Theologically speaking, it may be the case that the sort of physical existence we experience now was never meant to be eternal but merely probational. This form of existence was perhaps always meant to metamorphosize into the sort of physical-spiritual existence Jesus enjoyed after his resurrection (and which we shall enjoy after ours). Had we not fallen (viz., failed the Edenic probation) this metamorphosis would not be experienced as “death” as we now experience it. This painful experience of death—this “sting,” as Paul puts it (1 Cor 15:55)—was never intended to be part of God’s creation. For believers, death need no longer have this sting, for in Christ the original transitional nature of death has been reestablished.

T. W. Manson notes that in the passion, “the exousia of Jesus the Messiah comes to last moral grips with the exousia of the demonic world” (“Principalities and Powers: The Spiritual Background for the Work of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels,” NTS 3 [1952]: 14). See also Wingren, Living Word, pp. 50-51, 62, 173.

Emil Brunner is surely correct to see in the horror of the crucified Son of God the clearest evidence of Satan’s existence and diabolical work. See The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, trans. O. Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), p. 145. Pagels argues that inasmuch as Luke sees all opposing forces as under Satan’s power, Luke 13:32 should be read as a challenge to Satan (Origin of Satan, p. 92).

See Kallas, Significance of Synoptic Miracles, pp. 85-86. Similarly, concerning the Gospel of Luke, S. R. Garrett argues that “Luke regarded the death, resurrection, and ascension as an ‘exodus’ because in these events Jesus, ‘the one who is stronger,’ led the people out of bondage to Satan” (“Exodus from Bondage: Luke 9:31 and Acts 12:1-24,” CBQ 52 [1990]: 659).

Very helpful on this theme is Martinus C. de Boer’s study on Paul’s understanding of death in the light of his apocalyptic eschatology: The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in I Corinthians 15 and Romans 5, JSNTSup 22 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988). Here de Boer writes: “Paul understands the anthropological reality of death in accordance with the traditions of Jewish cosmological apocalyptic eschatology as an inimical, murderous, quasi-angelic power that has held all Adamic humanity in subjection and enslavement. Death is hypostasized as a power external to human beings, which nevertheless exerts and manifests its hegemony over and among human beings, most particularly in their ‘moral’ or ‘natural’ bodies” (p. 183). See also A. G. van Aarde, “Demonology in New Testament Times,” in Like a Roaring Lion . . .: Essays on the Bible, the Church and Demonic Powers, ed. P. G. R. de Villiers (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1987), pp. 33-34. Wingren, however, surely goes too far in virtually identifying sin, death and Satan throughout his Living Word.

We should perhaps include here Matthew’s record that a number of “saints” were resurrected when Jesus died on the cross (Mt 27:52-53). Van der Loos captures the motif well: “the resurrections are signs in which the conquering power of the Messianic Kingdom is manifest and by which it is proclaimed to the world that God is a living God, in whose name the son testifies and acts.” See “Miracles of Jesus,” p. 566. J. P. Meier (Mentor, Message and Miracle, pp. 773-873) argues for the basic historicity of the accounts on a historical-critical basis and concludes that they centrally manifest what Jesus was about (see esp. p. 837).

In the second volume of his monumental study of the historical Jesus, John Meier has concluded that Jesus’ eschatology is best described as reflecting “an ‘already/not yet’ tension.” See Mentor, Message and Miracle, p. 451. For several helpful discussions, see G. E. Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974); G. Glorovsky, “The Patristic Age on Eschatology: An Introduction,” in his Collected Works, vol. 4, Aspects of Church History (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1975), pp. 63-78; R. H. Stein, The Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), pp. 68-79; and B. Witherington III, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992).

Several scholars have noted that Jesus was unique in bringing together the phenomenon of exorcism as both a present deliverance and an eschatological event. See, e.g., G. Theissen, The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition, ed. J. Riches, trans. F. McDonagh (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), p. 278; Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist, pp. 217-24.

Wingren, Living Word, p. 62. Cf. p. 164. It is perhaps worth noting here that Scripture does not generally envisage the eschatological kingdom as “above” the earth so much as it envisages it as “on” the earth. All who overcome will “reign on earth” (Rev 5:10). Just as our bodies will be transformed but will still be our bodies (1 Cor 15:35-54), so too the earth will be transformed, but it will nevertheless be our earth (see 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 20:8; 21:1, 24).

For an overview of this motif, see T. Longman III and D. G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 91-118.

In my estimation, Elaine Pagels overestimates the extent to which the Gospel authors “demonize” their opponents because she reads too much into their portrayal of their opponents as demonically inspired. True, Jesus saw his conflict with Jewish religious leaders and others as a conflict with the devil. But the same could be said of Jesus’ conflict with Peter. See her Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995), pp. 82-88, and passim.

On the intimate connection between Jesus’ use of “Hades” here and Satan, see R. H. Hiers’s excellent article “‘Binding’ and ‘Loosing’: The Matthean Authorizations,” JBL 104 (1985): 242-43, as well as his Kingdom of God in the Synoptic Tradition (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1970), p. 47. In fact, no less an authority than W. Manson (Jesus and the Christian [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967], p. 83) renders “gates of hades” in this passage as “Satan-Hades.” A number of ancient Jewish and early Christian writings set a precedent for the intimate linkage of Satan and Hades. See, e.g., Testament of Reuben 4:6-7; 1 Corinthians 15:24-27; Revelation 20:7-10, 13-14. A. Lefevre has also provided strong evidence to suggest that Belial, like Death, was originally a personified monster of the underworld, i.e., Hades personified. See “Angel or Monster? The Power of Evil in the Old Testament,” in Satan: Essays Collected and Translated from “Etudes Carmelitaines,” ed. B. de Jésus-Marie, trans. M. Carroll et al. (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1951), pp. 55-56. R. Bauckham still attempts to dichotomize “powers of evil” and “the power of Hades” in “Hades, Hell,” ABD, 3:15. Similarly, C. Brown argues against a connection between the gates of Hades and the powers of Satan; for Brown, Jesus is here ironically referring to his impending entry into Jerusalem. Though this novel thesis is worthy of attention, it seems both cryptic and speculative. It also does not square as well with the apocalyptic context in which Jesus is speaking as does the warfare reading. For Brown’s case, see “The Gates of Hell and the Church,” in Church, Word and Spirit: Historical and Theological Essays in Honor of Geoffrey W. Bromiley, ed. J. E. Bradley and R. A. Muller (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987), pp. 15-43. See also idem, “The Gates of Hell: An Alternative Approach,” in SBLSP, 1987, ed. K. H. Richards (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), pp. 357-67.

G. E. Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974), p. 161.

The perfect participle of deo (bind) and lyo (loose) can be translated “will have been bound” and “will have been loosed.”

For a summary of the various interpretations of the two “binding” and “loosing” passages in Matthew (16:19; 18:18), see Hiers, “Binding and Loosing,” pp. 233-35; D. C. Duling, “Binding and Loosing: Matthew 16:19; Matthew 18:18; John 20:23,” Foundations and Facets Forum 3, no. 4 (1987): 3-26. Duling’s conclusion that these passages do not go back to the historical Jesus is less than convincing.

Hiers, “Binding and Loosing,” p. 235. Hiers makes his solid case largely on the basis of intertestamental parallels.

This popular title, one should note, is quite inappropriate since the whole passage constitutes instruction given by Jesus to his disciples as to how they should pray. Hence the prayer is spoken in the first-person plural and is intended to be a communal prayer.

J. Jeremias argues convincingly that “the Lucan version [of the Lord’s Prayer] has preserved the oldest form with respect to length, but the Matthaean text is more original with regard to wording” (“The Lord’s Prayer in the Light of Recent Research,” in The Prayers of Jesus, trans. J. Bowden et al., SBT 2/6 [Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1967], p. 93). As the wording of the prayer is what interests us presently, I shall follow the Matthean version.

Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, p. 299. See also Stein, Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings, pp. 72-73.

Jeremias, “Lord’s Prayer,” p. 99.

See ibid., pp. 82-107; R. E. Brown, “The Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer,” in his New Testament Essays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 270-320; W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, 3 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988ff.), 1:593-94, 599-615; Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, pp. 291-302; P. Bonnard, J. Dupont and F. Refoulé, Notre Père qui es aux cieux, Cahiers de la Traduction Oecuménique de la Bible 3 (Paris: Cerf/Les bergers et les Mages, 1968); D. A. Hagner, Matthew 1—13, WBC 33A (Dallas: Word, 1993), pp. 143-52.

See, e.g., Jeremias, “Lord’s Prayer,” pp. 100-101; Brown, “Pater Noster”; Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, pp. 301, 364-65; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:607-10.

Jeremias argues that this interpretation does not exclude, but rather includes, the petition for “daily bread” (“Lord’s Prayer,” pp. 101-2).

Ibid., p. 103. Cf. pp. 92-93. So argues, on different grounds, Brown, “Pater Noster,” pp. 312-13.

Jeremias, “Lord’s Prayer,” pp. 102-3.

See Brown, “Pater Noster,” pp. 310-12.

Ibid., p. 311. Again, since there is no ultimate bifurcation between this age and the age to come, the request for final pardon includes, rather than excludes, requests for present forgiveness.

B. Gerhardsson, The Testing of God’s Son: An Analysis of an Early Christian Midrash (Lund: Gleerup, 1966), p. 26.

See the foundational study of J. S. Korn, PEIRASMOS: Die Versuchung des Gläubigen in der griechischen Bibel, BWANT 4/20 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1937). For a helpful review of Korn’s work, see M. E. Andrews, “Peirasmos,” Anglican Theological Review 24 (1942): 229-44. See also H. A. Kelly, “The Devil in the Desert,” CBQ 26 (1964): 196-202, 212, 216. On peirasmos as referring to the final “Satanic trial,” as Brown calls it, see Brown, “Pater Noster,” p. 319.

Kuhn is certainly correct in pointing out that these two foci are not mutually exclusive. “When Jesus teaches us to pray: ‘Lead us not into peirasmos,’ no distinction can be made between the Now of the believer in the world and the Then of the final battle to come. Both belong together as one act” (K. G. Kuhn, “New Light on Temptation, Sin and Flesh in the New Testament,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. K. Stendahl [New York: Harper, 1957], p. 111).

First Enoch 69:15 also brings together the activity of “the evil one” with oath taking. On whether poneros in this passage refers to evil in general or to “the evil one” (Satan), see T. Ling, The Significance of Satan: New Testament Demonology and Its Contemporary Significance (London: SPCK, 1961), pp. 22-24. Scholars generally favor the second, but either way, no sharp distinction can be made between them. For, as Ling also argues, the evil in the world was, for Jesus, there ultimately because of “the evil one” (p. 24). See also Hagner, Matthew 1—13, p. 128.

A possible parallel is found in Jubilees 11, where Mastema (a Satan figure) sends birds to devour seed as it is sown.

G. R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 133.

See Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 72. Cf. Brown, “Pater Noster,” p. 319.

G. Schrenk’s article “biavzomai,” TDNT, 1:609-13, is frequently cited as offering the most substantial defense of the passive-voice reading. For a summary of the arguments, see Hagner, Matthew 1—13, pp. 306-7.

P. S. Cameron, Violence and the Kingdom: The Interpretation of Matthew 11:12, Arbeiten zum Neuen Testament und Judentum 5 (Frankfurt: Lang, 1984), p. 2, which also includes a list of other suggestions.

This view has been gaining acceptance among scholars. For several noteworthy defenses, in roughly chronological order, see M. Dibelius, Die urchristliche Überlieferung von Johannes dem Täufer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1911); A. Fridrichsen, “The Conflict of Jesus with the Unclean Spirits,” Theology 22 (1931): 128; A. Wilder, Eschatology and Ethics in the Teaching of Jesus (New York: Harper & Bros., rpt. 1950), pp. 84, 149, 182; C. H. Kraeling, John the Baptist (New York: Scribner’s, 1951), p. 156; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 72; W. Kümmel, Promise and Fulfillment: The Eschatological Message of Jesus, trans. D. M. Barton, 3d ed., SBT 1/23 (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1956), pp. 121-24; N. Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), pp. 171-74; idem, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 46; D. C. Allison, The End of the Age Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), pp. 120-24.

An alternative interpretation, yet taking the “violent ones” to refer to the forces of Satan’s kingdom, is to take the phrase “until now” as implying that the period of violence is going to come to a close with the victory of Jesus over the powers on the cross. “The overthrow of the rule of Satan is assigned to the development of the situation after John, to the phase centering in the ministry of Jesus. . . . Jesus came to see the necessity of his Passion as the finally effective means for the overthrow of the evil powers” (Wilder, Eschatology and Ethics, p. 192).

Thus both Luke and John depict Judas as betraying Jesus under the influence of Satan (Jn 6:70; 13:27; Lk 22:3). Perrin takes this “temporary victory” to be the point of Matthew 11:12 (Kingdom of God, p. 173).

Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, p. 326.

Forsyth, Old Enemy, p. 250. R. H. Gundry combines an astronomical and a cosmic interpretation: “The falling of the stars refers to a shower of meteorites, and the shaking of the heavenly powers to God’s displacing ‘the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places’ (Eph 6:12)” (Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982], p. 487). See also idem, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 782-83; F. W. Beare, The Gospel According to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 471.

Unlike depictions of demonization in the Synoptics, this case of demonization is by Satan, not demons, and it is portrayed as a moral issue. That is, Judas, unlike other demonized people, is portrayed as being himself evil (Jn 17:12). Also unlike other cases of demonization, this case of Satanic possession leads to no abnormal animal-like behavior: it simply leads to evil action. The “prince of demons,” it seems, is far more sophisticated than the demons he rules over, which perhaps also explains why Jesus engages in a prolonged intelligent conversation with Satan in the Gospels (Mt 4:1-11; Lk 4:1-13), while his conversations with demons are only to get information and to then command them to leave. On this see J. Ramsey Michaels, “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” in Demon Possession, ed. J. W. Montgomery (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1976), p. 56. On Judas as a proto-antichrist figure in John, see W. E. Sproston, “Satan in the Fourth Gospel,” in Studia Biblica 1978, vol. 2, Papers on the Gospels, ed. E. A. Livingstone, JSNTSup 2 (Sheffield: University of Sheffield Press, 1979), pp. 307-11.

Ling is likely correct when he argues that John omits all exorcisms because he wishes to direct “the reader’s attention away from . . . the diverse activities of demons, away from what may be called the local subsidiary manifestations of evil in disease or madness or epilepsy. . . . to the real source of such evils, the Devil” (Significance of Satan, p. 31). John is certainly not unaware of demonization, for he records Jesus’ opponents as accusing Jesus of being demonized (Jn 7:20; 8:48-52; 10:20-21). His understanding of demonization, so far as is discernible, is parallel to that of the Synoptics. So argues J. C. Coetzee, “Christ and the Prince of this World in the Gospel and the Epistles of St. John,” in The Christ of John: Essays on the Christology of the Fourth Gospel, ed. A. B. du Toit, Neotestamentica 2 (Potchefstroom, South Africa: SASSNT, 1971), pp. 104-21.

J. L. Kovacs, “‘Now Shall the Ruler of This World Be Driven Out’: Death as Cosmic Battle in John 12:20-36,” JBL 114 (1995): 233. The dualism of John, and even much of his terminology, is strongly reminiscent of (but not identical with) the Qumran community. See J. H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in IQS 3:13-4:26 and the ‘Dualism’ in the Gospel of John,” NTS 15 (1968-69): 389-418, reprinted in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 76-106; R. E. Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. K. Stendahl (New York: Harper, 1957), pp. 183-207.

Coetzee, “Christ and the Prince,” p. 106. For a recent excellent exposition on the centrality of the cosmic warfare motif in John’s Gospel, particularly with regard to the understanding of Jesus’ death, see Kovacs, “Now Shall the Ruler,” pp. 227-47.

As is universally conceded, we have in John much more of a paraphrase of Jesus’ teachings than we have in the Synoptics. Hence it is not always clear where Jesus’ teachings end and John’s commentary on Jesus’ teaching begins. Since for the purposes of this work I am operating from the presupposition of canonical authority, this relative difference has no theological import. In other words, since I regard John’s portrait of Jesus to be divinely inspired, I have no theological interest in attempting to get behind this portrait to discover the “actual words” of Jesus. I am, then, content to speak of John’s portrayal of Jesus.

With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls came the realization that such apparently “dualistic” language would have been quite at home within the context of first-century Jewish monotheism. It does not (pace Bultmann et al.) reflect a Gnostic influence, as Kovacs effectively argues (“Now Shall the Ruler,” pp. 235-46). On the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for undermining the previous overly Hellenistic estimation of John, see J. C. VanderKam, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity,” in Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reader from the Biblical Archaeology Review, ed. H. Shanks (New York: Random House, 1992), p. 200. On the use of the “light/darkness” contrast and other expressions of a cosmic-ethical dualism in the Scrolls and John’s Gospel, see J. L. Price, “Light from Qumran upon Some Aspects of Johannine Theology,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Charlesworth, pp. 18-25; Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison of Dualism”; idem, “Qumran, John and the Odes of Solomon,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 107-36; Brown, “Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel,” pp. 184-95. For several discussions concerning the important issues surrounding the variety of “dualism” and the specific forms that existed in ancient Judaism as a background for contextualizing John’s Gospel, see J. Gammie, “Spatial and Ethical Dualism in Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic Literature,” JBL 93 (1974): 356-85; B. Otzen, “Old Testament Wisdom Literature and Dualistic Thinking in Late Judaism,” Congress Volume, Edinburgh 1974, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 28 (Leiden: Brill, 1975), pp. 146-57. With A. T. Hanson, I would argue that the principal influence on John’s worldview is the Old Testament. See his Prophetic Gospel: A Study of John and the Old Testament (Edinburgh: Clark, 1991), though Hanson’s negative assessments of John’s historicity are not necessary to his thesis, nor (I would argue) are they implied by the available evidence.

See J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 236; Pagels, Origin of Satan, p. 99. Raymond Brown is certainly correct in seeing the whole of Jesus’ ministry in John as a struggle with Satan that culminates in the crucifixion. See his Gospel According to John, 2 vols., AB 29-29A (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966-1970), 1:364-76. Kovacs (“Now Shall the Ruler”) makes a plausible suggestion when she argues that 1:5 refers both to the general cosmic struggle and, more specifically, to the cross, where “the forces of darkness” attempt to “extinguish the light” in a more particular, and climactic, manner (p. 231).

The nature of the warfare thematically introduced with this verse is significantly qualified and compromised, however, if katalambano is translated “understood” (as in the NIV) as opposed to “overcome.” The former suggests a cognitive difficulty on the part of humans confronting Jesus, whereas the latter taps more profoundly into the comprehensive cosmic warfare tradition of Scripture. There are at least five arguments against this translation of katalambano in this context that can be briefly mentioned.

First, the root meaning of the word is to “grasp,” “seize,” “overcome” or “overtake.” While one application of the word can be to express an intellectual grasping (viz. “understanding”), there is nothing in the context to recommend limiting the word to this application here. Second, parallels with the Dead Sea Scrolls suggest that John has in mind a more encompassing warfare conflict with his contrast between light and darkness than the word “understands” allows for. As James VanderKam has convincingly argued, in the light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, katalambano should be translated “overcome” (“Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity,” p. 200). Parallels with other extracanonical literature (e.g., Odes of Solomon 18:6; Wisdom of Solomon 7:29-30) suggest the same.

Third, translating katalambano as “overtakes” or “overcomes” is the meaning most strongly supported by the early fathers. Fourth, though verse 10 notes that the world “did not know him,” nothing in the text itself supports restricting the verb katalambano in verse 5 to the meaning of the verb ginosko in verse 10 (against, e.g., G. R. Beasley-Murray, John, WBC 36 [Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987], p. 11). Verse 10 perhaps describes one illustration of how darkness seeks to encompass the light in verse 5, but there is no grounds for thinking that it exhausts the meaning of this conflict.

And fifth, the NIV itself translates katalambano as “overtakes” in a verse that reads almost like a commentary on John 1:5. In John 12:35 (NIV) Jesus tells his disciples, “You are going to have the light [Jesus himself] just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you.” Now, it is virtually impossibletointelligiblygivekatalambano the meaning of “understand” in this verse. But this forces the question of why it should be translated in its narrower meaning in 1:5.

For these and other reasons, many scholars argue that verse 5 should be understood to be referring to the attempt of demonic forces of darkness to extinguish (“overtake”) the light of God. Among those who concur with this reading are Brown, John, 1:7-8; L. Morris, The Gospel of John, rev. ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 75-77; M. C. Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” in EBC, 9:29-30.

See König’s insightful exposition on the light/darkness conflict that draws heavily on passages rooting in Genesis 1 (New and Greater Things, pp. 92-94). John 1:5 provides “a brief resume of the conflict as well as the victory of light over darkness, a conflict that rages from creation until the advent of the new earth” (p. 94).

John 9:4-5, which speaks of the night overtaking the day in reference to Jesus’ coming crucifixion, is also relevant here. The issue, again, is not one of understanding but of overcoming. Darkness overcomes the light of day when Jesus is crucified (cf. 12:34-36). Until then, light overcomes the darkness; hence John has Jesus heal a blind man in the three verses preceding this teaching (9:1-3). Read as a conflict résumé of Jesus’ ministry, John 1:5 functions as a commentary on the Synoptics as well, as König argues. For here, as in John (but with different terminology), “Jesus expels the evil powers from creation, from nature, and from human beings, in order to set creation free from their menace” (König, New and Greater Things, p. 94).

Coetzee, “Christ and the Prince,” p. 106; C. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 80-81. See G. Delling, “?????,” TDNT, 1:488-89. For an overview of the concept of “the prince of the world” in Judaism (where it is a positive figure) and Christianity (where it is a negative figure), see A. F. Segal, “Ruler of This World: Attitudes about Mediator Figures and the Importance of Sociology for Self-Definition,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. 2, Aspects of Judaism in the Greco-Roman Period, ed. E. P. Sanders, A. I. Baumgarten and A. Mendelson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), pp. 245-68. Like Pagels (Origin of Satan), Segal argues that the Christian identification of “the prince of the world” with Satan arose out of their polemic against the Jews whom they identified as children of the devil.

On the harmony of John’s view of Satan and the views espoused throughout the remainder of the New Testament, see Coetzee, “Christ and the Prince,” pp. 105-6, 109-10.

Kovacs, “Now Shall the Ruler,” p. 231 and passim.

Ibid., p. 233. See R. Bultmann’s seminal article “Die Bedeutung der neuerscholossenen mandäischen und manischäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW 24 (1925): 100-146. For a list and discussion of other works that lean heavily on the Gnostic influence theory, see D. Moody Smith, “Johannine Studies,” in The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters, ed. E. Epp and G. MacRae (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), p. 278. Pagels has demonstrated that the influence flowed from John to Gnostics more than the other way around. See her Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973).

Note that while the Word was with God “in the beginning,” the devil has been a murderer “from the beginning” (Jn 1:1; 8:44). Coetzee is on the mark in emphasizing this distinction (“Christ and the Prince,” p. 111). When exactly this “beginning” of evil occurs we are not told. But the only view that is consistent with the rest of the New Testament, as well as with the intrinsic logic of monotheism, is to understand it as referring to Satan’s original fall.

Ling argues that Jesus’ perfect obedience to the Father is in principle the dethronement of the devil (Significance of Satan, pp. 35-36).

On John’s view of Christ’s death as the means of defeating the devil, see Beasley-Murray, John, pp. 218-19; and Brown, John, 1:477-78. Kovacs (“Now Shall the Ruler”) makes a strong case that the driving out of the devil (not substitutionary sacrifice) was the central meaning of Christ’s death for John. As such, John (as well as Paul) is a predecessor to the Christus Victor motif of the early church (see chapter nine below). R. Recker has attempted to do away with the “already/not yet” tension of Satan’s dethronement, and thereby to argue that Satan is no longer prince of this world. See his “Satan: In Power or Dethroned?” CTJ 6 (1971): 133-55. As we shall see, however, all the disciples and the early postapostolic church work with the ongoing assumption that the victory that Christ has indeed won has yet to be manifested throughout the world. The war has been won, but there are battles yet to fight.

Delling,“??????,” TDNT, 1:489. Delling says that John stretches the tension between the Father and Satan “to the point of almost a transitory dualism.” Noting that the dualism is “transitory” is, in my estimation, sufficient qualification.

The cross, says Kovacs, is “the locus of a cosmic battle, in which Jesus achieves a decisive victory over Satan” (“Now Shall the Ruler,” p. 246).

On the importance and meaning of the “from above/from below” contrast in John and its transitory dualistic implications, see Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison of Dualism,” pp. 89-90; Price, “Light from Qumran,” p. 19. This contrast in John has been likened to the more typical contrast in Jewish eschatology between “this present evil age” and “the age to come,” a motif mentioned by Paul (Gal 1:4). Conceptually speaking, either John has substituted the more common linear contrast for a vertical/spatial one, or he has merely combined them.

This use of kosmos occurs elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g., Mt 18:7; 1 Cor 1:20; 3:19; 2 Pet 2:20) and is close to Paul’s concept of “the present evil age” (Gal 1:4; 2 Cor 4:4; cf. 1 Cor 2:6, 8; 3:18). Its contrast with the common Hellenistic philosophical use of kosmos to denote order and beauty should be noted. For references, see BAGD, pp. 445-47. The pejorative use of kosmos should perhaps be better translated “domination system,” as suggested by W. Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in an Age of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), pp. 51-52, as well as by J. Porffirio Miranda, Being and the Messiah (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1977), pp. 101-2. Ling argues that this use of “the world” in John is closely correlated with the devil himself, to the point where “the devil is . . . the world’s corporate personality” (Significance of Satan, p. 34). Hence John parallels “the world” and “the devil” (ibid., pp. 32-34). On the semidualistic implications of this pejorative use of kosmos, see Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison of Dualism,” pp. 89-92; Price, “Light from Qumran,” pp. 18-23.

Arnold captures the striking limited dualism of John well when he states that for John, “there are only two masters—God and Satan” (Powers of Darkness, p. 81). He finds the same sort of thought behind Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. Wingren captures the connection between faith and unbelief on the one hand and being from God or from the devil on the other when he writes concerning the act of preaching: “The Word is a decisive act of war, an onslaught on the demonic powers in the world of men, an onslaught against our old man himself. . . . Faith is man when he breaks free from the control of what is alien to him. . . . Unbelief is the Satanic act of war, an onslaught against the work of release, a diabolical attempt to hold man within the prison camps” (Living Word, p. 117).

D. A. Carson, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 362.

J. Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John, trans. T. H. L. Parker, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1959), 1:239.

J. M. Boice, The Gospel of John: An Expositional Commentary, John 9:1—12:50 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1977), pp. 25-26.

On Exodus 4:11, which is also frequently used to ground an omni-causal view of God, see chapter five, note 25.

If we are speaking about an omnicontrolling God who insures that his purposes are meticulously carried out, as the classical-philosophical tradition has held, the distinction between “created” and “allowed” amounts to very little.

Among the other passages that likely use hina in this sense are Mark 12:15-19; 14:49; John 13:34; 1 Corinthians 5:2; 14:1; 16:15; 2 Corinthians 13:17; Colossians 2:4; Titus 3:13; Revelation 14:13. See M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek, trans. J. Smith (Rome: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1963), pp. 141-42, for a discussion favoring this translation. See also C. F. D. Moule, An Idiom-Book of New Testament Greek, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 144-45; and esp. N. Turner’s comments in Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1965), pp. 145ff. Carson argues that taking hina as an imperative clause here is “just barely possible” and “rendered highly unlikely by the parallel in 11:4” (Gospel of John, p. 362). Carson does not spell out his grammatical grounds for judging this reading as “barely possible.” But in any case his argument from the parallel in 11:4 is not strong. For one thing, Jesus explicitly states in 11:4 that Lazarus’s death was “for God’s glory,” and only then does he add, “so that God’s Son may be glorified” (using hina with the aorist passive doxasthe). The preceding statement requires that hina be taken in a purposive (not imperative) sense. But just this is lacking in 9:3. Exegetes who take hina here as a purpose or result clause must assume that Jesus meant simply to modify (not reject altogether) the disciples’ misleading question, and hence (as in NIV) must assume that “this happened so that” is implied in hina. They must assume, in other words, that Jesus thought the disciples were right in looking for a purpose but simply wrong in the purpose they found. But the text certainly does not require this reading. Another relevant point is that in 11:4 Jesus is explaining why he is not going to respond immediately to Lazarus’s sickness and the request of his sisters for him to come (11:6; cf. 21). He is not talking about death as such, only about why he allowed Lazarus to die when he could have prevented it. We cannot, therefore, draw conclusions from this passage about Jesus’ general view of how death figures into God’s providence, and we certainly cannot use it to draw conclusions about Jesus’ general view of how blindness figures into God’s providence on the basis of how this passage (supposedly) parallels 9:3.

Turner, Grammatical Insights, p. 145. As Turner notes (pp. 147-48), this reading also frees us from seeing Judas as fatalistically damned “in order to” fulfill Scripture in John 13:18.

The fact that God can, and sometimes does, use diseases, persecutions and natural disasters to chastise people is assumed throughout the Bible (e.g., the plagues, Ex 7—12; cf. Acts 8:1ff.; Rom 8:28; 2 Cor 12:7-10), and thus we have every reason to assume that Jesus would have believed such. But the force of his teaching here, combined with his general attitude toward evil reflected throughout the Gospels, is to say that one cannot generalize this point into a universal explanation for evil. Most traditional theodicies, unfortunately, are fundamentally rooted in just this misguided generalization.

That John here speaks of a man being delivered from physical darkness is hardly coincidental in the light of this teaching. As we have seen, Jesus’ whole ministry, for John, was about delivering people from darkness. The healing of this man’s physical blindness thus functions as a symbol of Jesus’ vanquishing of darkness in general. It illustrates the truth of John 1:4-5; 3:19-21; 8:12; 12:35, 46; cf. 11:9-10. See Brown, John, 1:379.

K. Heim, Jesus the World’s Perfecter, trans. D. H. van Daalen (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1959), p. 38.

H. Pendley, “Views of the Demonic in Recent Religious Thought” (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1976), p. 38.

This is certainly not to suggest that God cannot, at times, use Satan’s evil intentions, as he clearly does in the crucifixion (1 Cor 2:8) and as he shall in bringing judgment upon the world in the last days (see 2 Thess 3, “delusional spirit”; Rev 9). This follows the pattern of God using evil beings to his own end in the Old Testament (1 Sam 16:14, 22; 18:10-11; 19:9-10; 1 Kings 22:21-23). But to say that God can occasionally use Satan and demons to his own end is very different from saying that God ordains the activity of Satan and demons as a means to his own end. The Bible affirms the former, but never the latter.

For the classic representative statement of the substitutionary view of the atonement—viz., Anselm’s “satisfaction” theory—see Cur Deus Homo 22.1. Reformed Protestant thought eventually developed the “penal substitutionary” version of this general approach. For more recent statements in this vein, see L. Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1956); idem, The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983); M. J. Erickson, “The Central Theme of Atonement,” in his Christian Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1983-1985), 2:802-23; P. Patterson, “Reflections on the Atonement,” Criswell Theological Review 3 (1989): 307-20; and, in my estimation the best expression of this perspective to date, J. R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986).

I am speaking here of a logical priority and emphasis, not a chronological one. In dethroning Satan as ruler of this world, Jesus—the faithful, fully human Son of God—was, at the very same time, saving humanity and reinstating it to its original position as ruler-steward over the earth.

MacGregor, “Principalities and Powers: The Cosmic Background of Paul’s Thought,” NTS 1 (1954): 23. Similarly, J. Y. Lee demonstrates that in Paul’s cosmology, “Jesus was depicted as the Redeemer who came from heaven and died on the cross to rescue not only men but the whole cosmos from thraldom to demonic powers” (“Interpreting the Demonic Powers in Pauline Thought,” NovT 12, no. 1 [1970]: 67).

As I shall argue in Satan and the Problem of Evil, this “Christus Victor” motif encapsulates what was the ruling paradigm for understanding the atoning work of Jesus throughout the first millennium of church history. It has been recovered in our century primarily through the impetus of the landmark work of G. Aulen, Christus Victor: A Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (New York: Macmillan, 1969). Other scholars who have emphasized this approach to the atonement include S. Cave, The Doctrine of the Work of Christ (Nashville: Cokesbury, 1937); Karl Heim, Jesus the Lord (London: Oliver & Boyd, 1959); idem, Jesus the World’s Perfecter: The Atonement and the Renewal of the World, trans. D. H. Van Daalen (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1959); N. Micklem, The Doctrine of Our Redemption (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1943); R. Leivestad, Christ the Conqueror: Ideas of Conflict and Victory in the New Testament (New York: Macmillan, 1954); J. S. Whale, Victor and Victim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960); T. Finger, Christian Theology: An Eschatological Approach, 2 vols. (Nashville: Nelson, 1985), 1:303-48; J. Macquarrie, “Demonology and the Classical Idea of the Atonement,” ExpTim 68 (1956): 3-6, 60-63; D. G. Reid, “The Christus Victor Motif in Paul’s Theology” (Ph.D. diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 1982). The original centrality and later decline of the “Christ the victor” theme in the early church has been recently traced by R. A. Greer, “Christ the Victor and the Victim,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 59, nos. 1-2 (1995): 1-30. It should be noted that the Christus Victor understanding of the atonement has been gaining in acceptance in recent times and has been emphasized even by those who understand the cross primarily in substitutionary terms. See, e.g., A. McGrath, Understanding Jesus: Who Jesus Christ Is and Why He Matters (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1987), pp. 151-60; Stott, Cross of Christ, pp. 227-81. R. E. Webber can thus speak of a “new theological consensus” involving the restoration of the Christus Victor motif that amounts to “a rediscovered emphasis of the lordship of Christ, of His reign over the powers, over the whole of creation, and over history” (The Church in the World: Opposition, Tension or Transformation? [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1986], p. 267).

On the LXX, see R. A. Martin, “The Earliest Messianic Interpretation of Genesis 3:15,” JBL 84 (1965): 425-27. On rabbinic use of the passage, see M. McNamara, The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, AnBib 27 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1966), pp. 217-22; G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1—15, WBC 1 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), p. 80.

See Wenham, Genesis 1—15, pp. 80-81; T. Gallus, Die “Frau” in Gen. 3:15 (Klagenfurt: Carinthia, 1979). For recent defenses of the messianic interpretation of Genesis 3:15, against the traditional historical-critical view that we are dealing here merely with an etiological tale (see chapter four above), see G. Van Groningen, Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1990), pp. 106-15; W. Kaiser, The Messiah in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1996), pp. 36-42.

Writing from within the “already/not yet” tension of the New Testament, Paul could apply this verse to the victory believers will ultimately have in our battle with Satan as well. Hence he tells the Roman Christians: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20). What has in principle already occurred on Calvary will in fact occur in our experience: God will crush Satan, and as we stand “in Christ” this crushing will be underneath our feet (Eph 1:19-22).

See Matthew 22:41-45; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44; Acts 2:34-36; Hebrews 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21. Other passages that show varying degrees of influence from Psalm 110 include Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:62; [16:19]; Luke 22:69; Acts 5:31; 7:55-56; Romans 8:34; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3; 8:1; 10:12-13; 1 Peter 3:22; Revelation 3:21. It is also prevalent among early extracanonical writings as well, such as 1 Clement 36:5 and Barnabas 12:10.

Whereas the “enemies” originally referred to in Psalm 110:1 were undoubtedly human political opponents, there is evidence of a very early (pre-Pauline) tradition that applied Psalm 110 to Christ’s victory over his foes, among whom are counted Satan and the demons, “angelic” powers, as well as wicked humans. For an unsurpassed, comprehensive and insightful exposition on the use of this verse in the New Testament, see D. M. Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), esp. pp. 122-29. Other helpful works include W. R. G. Loader, “Christ at the Right Hand—Ps. 110:1 in the New Testament,” NTS 24 (1978): 208-13; O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, trans. S. C. Guthrie and C. A. M. Hall, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), pp. 222-24. B. A. Stevens argues, with some force, that the Old Testament’s divine warrior motif holds the key to understanding Jesus’ messianic self-consciousness (see “Jesus as the Divine Warrior,” ExpTim 94 [1982-1983]: 326-29). On the broader messianic use of Psalm 110:1 in early Christianity, see D. E. Aune, “Christian Prophecy and the Messianic Status of Jesus,” in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), pp. 404-22; D. Juel, “Christ at the Right Hand: The Use of Psalm 110 in the New Testament,” in his Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), pp. 135-50; Van Groningen, Messianic Revelation, pp. 390-97.

Hay, Glory at the Right Hand, p. 124.

Note that Paul says the hostile powers will be “destroyed” (katargeo). Partly owing to his pacifistic convictions, partly to his denial that “the powers” have an autonomous existence and can autonomously will over and against human beings and social groups, Wink holds that all the powers will ultimately be redeemed. See his Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). This position, I shall later argue, is not supported in Scripture.

O. Cullmann, Christ and Time, rev. ed., trans. F. V. Wilson (London: SCM, 1962), p. 193.

Hence, speaking eschatologically, Susan Garrett writes: “When Jesus ascends to take his seat at the right hand of God—the place traditionally occupied by Satan [see Zech 3:1]—Satan will fall to earth. . . . Jesus will receive the worship that Satan had wrongfully requested [Lk 4:7; 24:52]. It will only be a matter of time until God will put all things in subjection under Jesus’ feet” (“Exodus from Bondage: Luke 9:31 and Acts 12:1-24,” CBQ 52 [1990]: 669).

Paul’s closing reference to “any other creature” clearly entails that he was referring to some sort of demonic beings even with his reference to “height and depth.” A solid case can be made that he was referring to well-known astrological deities whom Paul saw as demonic. On this see J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 1—8, WBC 38A (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1988), p. 513.

Indeed, Jesus is throughout the New Testament called “Lord” for just this reason. He is Lord over all things, including his enemies, “the powers.” All who freely accept his lordship are therefore themselves freed from the tyranny of these powers. Though he does not explicitly refer to Psalm 110, Wingren forcefully expresses the same conviction: “The New Testament kerygma is news of victory in the conflict that is the theme of the Bible as a whole. To say that Christ is Lord of all the Biblical writings is just another way of saying that he is victor in the war that the different writings describe in various ways” (The Living Word: A Theological Study of Preaching and the Church, trans. V. Prague [Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1960 (1949)], pp. 50-51).

The issues surrounding this controversial passage shall be discussed below.

Heim, Jesus the World’s Perfecter, p. 70.

Since J. D. G. Dunn’s work Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), some scholars have questioned the traditional understanding of Philippians 2:5-11 as reflecting a pre-Pauline belief in Jesus’ preexistence. N. T. Wright has effectively demonstrated, however, that even for one who grants an Adam Christology, this passage nonetheless entails a concept of Christ’s preexistence and a strong claim in regard to his divinity. See his “Adam in Pauline Christology,” SBLSP, 1983, ed. K. H. Richards (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983), pp. 359-89; idem, “Jesus Christ Is Lord: Philippians 2:5-11,” in his Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), pp. 56-98. But a number of scholars dispute the claim of an Adam Christology in this passage. See, e.g., I. H. Marshall’s review of Dunn’s book in TJ 2, no. 2 (1981): 241-45; T. F. Glasson, “Two Notes on the Philippians Hymn (2:6-11),” NTS 21, no. 1 (1974): 137-39; M. Erickson, The Word Became Flesh: A Contemporary Incarnational Christology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1991), pp. 475-79; and, on a popular level, my Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1992), pp. 106-8.

The case against a universalistic reading of the New Testament is quite solid, to the point where the majority of New Testament scholars regard the issue as closed. See W. V. Crockett, “Universalism and the Theology of Paul” (Ph.D. diss., University of Glasgow, 1986); idem, “Will God Save Everyone in the End?” in Through No Fault of Their Own: The Fate of Those Who Have Never Heard, ed. W. V. Crockett and J. G. Sigountos (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1991), pp. 159-66; J. Sanders, No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), pp. 81-128; N. T. Wright, “Towards a Biblical View of Universalism,” Themelios 4 (1979): 54-58.

R. P. Roth, “Christ and the Powers of Darkness: Lessons from Colossians,” Word and World 6, no. 3 (1986): 341.

Heim, Jesus the World’s Perfecter, p. 72.

On Paul’s concept of “the heavenlies,” see A. T. Lincoln, “A Re-examination of ‘the Heavenlies’ in Ephesians,” NTS 19 (1973): 468-83. For a helpful study that highlights the cosmic/heavenly dimension of Paul’s understanding of salvation, see A. T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought with Special Reference to His Eschatology, SNTSMS 43 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

Donald Guthrie explains the warfare significance of this verse well when he notes that the “old” and the “new” here refer to “the death of the old creation dominated by adverse spiritual forces, and the emergence of the new creation in which everything is Christ-centered” (New Testament Theology [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1981], p. 648).

Commenting on this verse from a contemporary African context (a context of which talk of demonic powers is part and parcel), B. Abijole writes, “For Paul, Christ’s ministry of reconciliation is not confined in its scope to humanity, it is cosmic. . . . By the death of Christ the powers lost all the control they ever had on man” (“St. Paul’s Concept of Principalities and Powers in African Context,” Africa Theological Journal 17, no. 2 [1988]: 125-26).

Wink takes Ephesians 3:10 to be a mandate to preach to the powers, which he takes to be the “interiority” of human institutions. For example, on the basis of this text he says: “It is part of the church’s task to remind corporations and businesses that profit is not the ‘bottom line,’ that as ‘creatures’ of God they have as their divine vocation the achievement of human benefaction” (Eph 3:10) (Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], p. 68). In response, there is no precedent in the New Testament or, with the exception of Origen, in the early church for the notion that the church is to preach to the powers. Nor is it easy to understand how making known the manifold wisdom of God can be interpreted as trying to get the powers (businesses!) to change.

Among the minority who argue that archonton is most probably referring only to human “rulers” are W. A. Carr, “The Rulers of This Age—I Corinthians 2:6-8,” NTS 23 (1976): 20-35; G. D. Fee, New Testament Exegesis, rev. ed. (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 104-12; T. Ling, “A Note on I Corinthians ii.8,” ExpTim 68, no. 1 (1956): 26; G. Miller, “archonton tou aionos toutou—A New Look at I Corinthians 2:6-8,” JBL 91 (1972): 522-28; S. H. T. Page, Powers of Evil: A Biblical Study of Satan and Demons (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995), pp. 261-62.

Among those who present strong refutations of the “merely human” interpretation of this passage, see Abijole, “St. Paul’s Concept of Principalities,” p. 120; C. Arnold, Ephesians, Power and Magic: The Concept of Power in Ephesians in Light of Its Historical Setting, SNTSMS 63 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 63-64; idem, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 101-4; F. L. Arrington, Paul’s Aeon Theology in I Corinthians (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1978), p. 136, note 51; C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 2d ed. (London: Black, 1971); P. Benoit, “Pauline Angelology and Demonology: Reflections on the Designations of the Heavenly Powers and on the Origin of Angelic Evil According to Paul,” Religious Studies Bulletin 3, no. 1 (1983): 11-12; F. F. Bruce, “Paul and ‘the Powers that Be,’” BJRL 66, no. 2 (1984): 85; G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers: A Study in Pauline Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956), pp. 16-17; O. Cullmann, The State in the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1956), p. 64; M. Dibelius, Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1909), p. 90; J. J. Gunther, St. Paul’s Opponents and Their Background: A Study of Apocalyptic and Jewish Sectarian Teachings, NovTSup 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1973), p. 181; A. J. Hultgren, Christ and His Benefits: Christology and Redemption in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 93-94; W. G. Kümmel, The Theology of the New Testament, trans. J. E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), p. 187; Lee, “Interpreting the Demonic Powers,” p. 58; MacGregor, “Principalities and Powers,” pp. 22-23; Webber, Church in the World, pp. 287, 306, note 6; W. Wink, Naming the Powers (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 40-45.

Ignatius, Tertullian, Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia are among those who illustrate this usage. See Benoit, “Pauline Angelology and Demonology,” pp. 8-11; T. Longman III and D. G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 152-53.

For example, Lee argues, “To interpret ‘the rulers of this age’ as angelic powers which stand behind the state is truly Judaic apocalyptic expression of the cosmic powers” (“Interpreting the Demonic Powers,” p. 58).

H. Conzelmann, I Corinthians, trans. J. W. Leitch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), p. 61. See also D. G. Reid, “Principalities and Powers,” Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. G. F. Hawthorne, R. P. Martin and D. G. Reid (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 748.

H. Thielicke expresses the point well: “we are not the fighters” in the war for our salvation. Rather, “we are the battlefield rather than the heroes in the army. The fight is for us” (Thielicke, Man in God’s World, trans. J. W. Doberstein [New York: Harper & Row, 1963], p. 176). This much-neglected work expresses a good deal of insight on the warfare situation of humanity on the earth. On the centrality of the cosmic battle against Satan in John’s understanding of Jesus’ death, see J. L. Kovacs, “‘Now Shall the Ruler of This World Be Driven Out’: Jesus’ Death as Cosmic Battle in John 12:20-36,” JBL 114 (1995): 227-47. See also Longman and Reid, God Is a Warrior, p. 135.

In arguing against the spiritual warfare movement, R. Guelich attempts to make much of the fact that the metaphor used in this passage (see also 1 Pet 5:8) is that of hunting, not warfare (“Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti,” Pneuma 13, no. 1 (1991): 51. Hence he asks why we don’t now have a movement of spiritual hunting. One could respond by noting that the warfare depiction of our ongoing struggle with Satan and his kingdom is (as we have seen) much more frequent and fundamental throughout the New Testament than is the hunting depiction. But even more fundamentally, one wonders how the point being made is relevant to the criticism Guelich intends toward the spiritual warfare movement. What would be substantially changed within the spiritual warfare movement if it were (somewhat oddly) rather called the spiritual hunting movement?

Hence R. C. Tannehill argues rightly that for Paul, “everything depends on the reality of release from the powers of the old world and incorporation in a new world” (Tannehill, Dying and Rising with Christ: A Study in Pauline Theology, BZNW 32 [Berlin: Töpelmann, 1967], p. 71).

Sozo here implies that “the believer has now been saved from entrapment in the kingdom of the prince of the authority of the air,” spoken of in 2:2-3 (Arnold, Ephesians, p. 149). See also A. T. Lincoln, “Ephesians 2:8-10: A Summary of Paul’s Gospel?” CBQ 45 (1983): 617-30.

Stott, Cross of Christ, p. 233. See also P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, WBC 44 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1982), pp. 124-26.

J. Jeremias, The Central Message of the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1965), pp. 36-37; O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, p. 126.

Some have argued that Christ here strips off from himself the principalities and powers that clung to him as a factor of his taking on human flesh. See, e.g., MacGregor, “Principalities and Powers,” p. 23; Lee, “Interpreting the Demonic Powers,” p. 64. The warfare motif is no less forceful in this view, but it seems to me far more likely that it is the principalities and powers that are being “stripped,” that God in Christ is, as O’Brien says, “utterly divesting them of their dignity and might” (Colossians, Philemon, p. 127). Among other things, there is simply no evidence for the notion that Christ was ever “clothed” with “the powers.” For an insightful discussion, see ibid., pp. 126-28.

For a thorough discussion of the custom, see H. S. Versnel, Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph (Leiden: Brill, 1970), esp. pp. 56-115. So too O’Brien argues that thriambeuo here implies “to lead as a conquered enemy in a victory parade,” rather than “to triumph over them,” as NRSV and NIV translate it (Colossians, Philemon, pp. 128-29). For a similar argument, see L. Williamson, “Led in Triumph: Paul’s Use of Thriambeuo,” Int 22 (1968): 317-32. Such studies conclusively refute two alternative interpretations entertained today. On the one hand, R. B. Egan argues that thriambeuo basically means “to reveal” (“Lexical Evidence on Two Pauline Passages,” NovT 19 [1977]: 34-62). On the other, W. Carr argues that the powers being referred to here are not hostile powers but simply angels (Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase “hai archai kai hai exousiai,” SNTSMS 42 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981], pp. 61-66). So too R. Yates takes thriambeuo to mean that Christ “boldly made an open display of the angelic powers; leading them in triumphal (festal) procession on the cross” (“Colossians 2:15: Christ Triumphant,” NTS 37 [1991]: 573-91, esp. 591). In my estimation, both of these alternative readings are highly improbable.

This, argues Arnold, is the force of Paul’s correlating the Colossians’ possession of divine “fullness” with Christ’s supremacy to the demonic powers (Powers of Darkness, p. 116).

For a thorough sketch of the history of the interpretation of this passage, see C. Skrade, “The Descent of the Servant: A Study of I Peter 3:13—4:6” (Th.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1966), pp. 1-144. My categorization of the differing interpretations follows somewhat that of P. H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter, NICNT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990), pp. 138ff. A number of differently nuanced views are possible within each of these three categories (especially the third), while a number of other views combine elements of these three views.

J. Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews, and the First and Second Epistles of St. Peter, trans. W. B. Johnston, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1963), pp. 292-95.

See, e.g., L. Goppelt, A Commentary on I Peter, ed. F. Hahn, trans. J. E. Alsup (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 258-60. W. Grudem offers a variation on this interpretation by suggesting that the verse refers to Christ’s preaching to human beings before the flood through Noah (The First Epistle of Peter, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], pp. 157-61, 203-39).

The position has a number of variations. See W. J. Dalton, Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits, AnBib 23 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965); J. R. Michaels, 1 Peter, WBC 49 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1988), pp. 194-222; idem, Word Biblical Themes: 1 Peter (Dallas: Word, 1989), pp. 70-77; B. Reicke, The Disobedient Spirits and Christian Baptism: A Study of 1 Peter 3:19 and Its Context (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1946), who suggests that both human and evil angelic spirits associated with the Noachian judgment are intended; Skrade, “Descent of the Servant,” pp. 261-65.

Davids, First Peter, pp. 139-40.

First Enoch 21:6, 10. See Davids, First Peter, p. 140. E. J. Goodspeed (“Some Greek Notes,” JBL 73 [1954]: 91-92) goes so far as to suggest that the original version of this passage had Enoch carrying out the descent.

I shall explore the point fully in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Because I see the “spirits” as nonhuman, and because I understand kerysso to be proclamation instead of evangelization, I’m inclined not to agree with those who would want to find in this verse an apologetic for “postmortem evangelization.” See, e.g., G. Fackre, “Divine Perseverance,” in What About Those Who Have Never Heard? Three Views on the Destiny of the Unevangelized, ed. J. Sanders (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), pp. 81-86.

Even many scholars who argue against seeing Christ’s descent here as a descent into “the underworld” (e.g., Hades) nevertheless find the Christus Victor theme to be the central driving force of the passage. M. Barth, Ephesians 4—6, AB 34A (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974), p. 432, is a case in point. So too F. F. Bruce emphasizes the “victory ode” form of this passage (The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon and to the Ephesians, NICNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984], p. 341).

On the lively history of the interpretation of this passage, see W. H. Harris, “The Descent of Christ in Ephesians 4:7-11: An Exegetical Investigation with Special Reference to the Influence of Traditions About Moses Associated with Psalm 68:19” (Ph.D. diss., University of Sheffield, 1988), pp. 4-48.

Versions of this position are espoused by M. Barth, Ephesians 4—6, pp. 433-34; Bruce, Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, p. 343; R. Schnackenburg, The Epistle to the Ephesians: A Commentary, trans. H. Heron (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), pp. 178-79.

See, e.g., G. B. Caird, “The Descent of Christ in Ephesians 4:7-11,” Studia Evangelica 2, ed. F. L. Cross, TU 87 (Berlin: Akademie, 1964), pp. 535-45; Harris, “Descent of Christ,” pp. 235-65; C. H. Porter, “The Descent of Christ: An Exegetical Study of Eph 4:7-11,” in One Faith, ed. R. L. Simpson (Tulsa, Okla.: Phillips University Press, 1966), pp. 45-55.

This interpretation is embraced by Tertullian, Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Victorinus, Jerome and Aquinas, and is enshrined as doctrine in the Apostles’ Creed. For some contemporary defenders (of some version of this position), see H. Odeberg’s excellent little study The View of the Universe in the Epistle to the Ephesians, LUÅ 29/6 (Lund: Gleerup, 1934), pp. 17-19; R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles ot the Galatians, to the Ephesians and to the Philippians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, rpt. 1961), pp. 521-22; Reicke, Disobedient Spirits, p. 233; J. Schneider, “merovs,” TDNT, 4:597-98; Dunn, Christology in the Making, pp. 186-87; F. W. Beare, “The Epistle to the Ephesians,” in IB, 10:688-90.

See Arnold, Ephesians, pp. 56-58. The concept of a descent to the underworld may also lie behind Revelation 1:18, which portrays Christ as holding “the keys of death and Hades.” See Arnold, Powers of Darkness, pp. 108-9. Paul’s reference to beings “under the earth” in Philippians 2:11 may also be relevant here.

Yet Andrew Lincoln is surely justified in wondering why the superlative of katotera is not then used, especially since it is used in the LXX of Psalm 62:10 and 138:15, which speak of the underworld. See A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42 (Dallas: Word, 1990), p. 245. The objection is strong, but not decisive in overturning the rest of the evidence favoring reading this passage as referring to the underworld.

Dunn, Christology in the Making, p. 187. Taking this instead as a genitive of apposition, Dunn argues, is difficult.

Ibid.

So argues M. Barth: “Who are the ones caught? . . . According to Eph 4:8 those made prisoners are probably the principalities, powers, aeons” (Ephesians 4—6, p. 432. So J. L. Houlden, Paul’s Letters from Prison, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), p. 311; Beare, Ephesians, pp. 688-89.

Odeberg, View of the Universe, p. 19.

This frequently missed dimension of the concept of redemption is captured well by Ethelbert Stauffer in his New Testament Theology, 5th ed., trans. J. Marsh (New York: Macmillan, 1955), pp. 146ff.

Stott, Cross of Christ, p. 176. See the excellent discussion of Leon Morris in The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983), chap. 5, pp. 106-31. On lytron and related terms, see O. Procksch, “luvw,” TDNT, 4:328-35; C. Brown, “Redemption,” NIDNTT, 3:189-200.

This concept of redemption was anticipated in the Testament of Zebulon, which speaks of God redeeming “every captive of the sons of men from Beliar” (9:8).

See my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

J. Kallas, The Satanward View: A Study in Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), p. 74.

Ibid., note 2.

The frequently used (because insightful) analogy of the victory of the cross with D-day in World War II goes back to Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time, trans. F. V. Filson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1949), pp. 139-43. E. Ferguson offers another appropriate analogy when he likens Satan’s defeated state, while he yet rules over the world, to the ending term of office for a “lame-duck” president. “He will not last much longer. But during that time he has all the authority of the office. . . . The devil is the ‘lame-duck’ ruler of this world” (Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World [New York: Mellen, 1984], p. 162).

Most scholars agree that the primary background to the terminology for the angelic and demonic realm in the New Testament is Jewish pseudepigraphal literature. G. H. C. MacGregor, however, has argued for the primacy of astrological beliefs in the first century. See his “Principalities and Powers: The Cosmic Background of Paul’s Thought,” NTS 1 (1954-55): 17-28, a view anticipated by W. L. Knox, St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), esp. pp. 104-7, 220. While this approach clearly sheds the best light on some of Paul’s terminology (e.g., “height and depth,” Rom 8:38), most scholars reject it as the principal source of Paul’s talk about principalities and powers. By contrast, Pierre Benoit has concluded that none of this evidence—the apocalyptic texts, the seemingly parallel references in Qumran, nor the available evidence of astrological beliefs—sufficiently accounts for Paul’s terminology. See his “Pauline Angelology and Demonology: Reflexions on the Designations of the Heavenly Powers and on the Origin of Angelic Evil,” Religious Studies Bulletin 3 (1983): 1-18.

Satan is explicitly named in Acts 5:3; 26:18; Romans 16:20; 1 Corinthians 5:5; 7:5; 2 Corinthians 2:11; 11:14; 12:7; 1 Thessalonians 2:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Timothy 1:20; 5:15; Revelation 2:9, 13, 24; 3:9; 12:9; 20:2, 7.

On the rare term kosmokratores, see C. Arnold, Ephesians, Power and Magic: The Concept of Power in Ephesians in Light of Its Historical Setting, SNTSMS 63 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 65-66. The issue whether exousia in Romans 13:1 refers to angelic authorities, human authorities or both is hotly contested. One of the foremost defenders of the “double-reference” thesis— the notion that exousia refers here both to human rulers and to spiritual rulers that empower them—has been Cullmann. See his Christ and Time, pp. 191-210; idem, The State in the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1956), pp. 95-114. M. Dibelius (Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1909], pp. 189, 193ff.) had preceded Cullmann in this interpretation, and it is in varying degrees supported by Cullmann’s student C. D. Morrison, The Powers That Be: Earthly Rulers and Demonic Powers in Romans 13:1-7, SBT 2/29 [Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1960]), as well as by Benoit, “Pauline Angelology and Demonology,” p. 12; MacGregor, “Principalities and Powers,” pp. 24-25; B. Reicke, “The Law and the World According to Paul: Some Thoughts Concerning Gal. 4:1-11,” JBL 70 (1951): 269. Others have rather argued that Paul has only human rulers in mind here. See, e.g., Arnold, Ephesians, pp. 44-45; F. F. Bruce, “Paul and the Powers That Be,” BJRL 66 (1984): 88-90; W. A. Carr, Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase “hai archai kai hai exousiai,” SNTSMS 42 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); and most recently, T. Page, Powers of Evil: A Biblical Study of Satan and Demons (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995), pp. 262-63.

So translates NRSV; cf. “elemental spirits of the world” (NEB, RSV). The question of the meaning of the phrase stoicheia tou kosmou in Paul’s writings is vigorously debated. W. Wink (“The ‘Elements of the Universe’ in Biblical and Scientific Perspective,” Zygon 13, no. 3 [1978]: 225-48) has noted no fewer than seven different interpretations (p. 227). Generally speaking, however, scholars today roughly divide into three camps: (1) Following the Reformation tradition, some take stoicheia here to refer to the Old Testament law. See, e.g., A. J. Bandstra, The Law and the Elements of the World: An Exegetical Study in Aspects of Paul’s Teaching (Kampen: Kok, 1964). (2) Some scholars take the term to refer to the material components of the cosmos. See, e.g., E. Schweizer, “Slaves of the Elements and Worshipers of Angels: Gal 4:3, 9 and Col 2:8, 18, 20,” JBL 107 (1988): 455-68. (3) Other scholars take the term to refer to personal beings, typically recognized as “astral spirits.” See, e.g., Arnold, Ephesians, pp. 131, 168; Benoit, “Pauline Angelology and Demonology,” p. 13; J. J. Gunther, St. Paul’s Opponents and Their Background: A Study of Apocalyptic and Jewish Sectarian Teachings, NovTSup 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1973), pp. 172ff.; Reicke, “The Law and the World”; and esp. C. J. Kurapti, “Spiritual Bondage and Christian Freedom According to Paul” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1976). Although it is clear that there is no unambiguous usage of stoicheia as referring to angelic or astral spirits until after Paul (e.g., Testament of Solomon 8:1-4; 18:1-4), it can perhaps be located as early as the late first century (see Kurapati, “Spiritual Bondage,” pp. 56-57, 72-74). When one further considers just how enamored intertestamental Judaism was with angelic beings (including their relation to the physical world; see, e.g., Jubilees 2:2; 1 Enoch 60:12-21) and how well taking stoicheia as referring to angelic/astral spirits fits in the Galatian context, the third interpretation of stoicheia seems most probable. For a recent argument in this direction, see C. E. Arnold, “Returning to the Domain of the Powers: Stoicheia as Evil Spirits in Galatians 4:3, 9,” NovT 38 (1996): 55-76. Arnold has recently made a similar argument regarding stoicheia in Colossians; see The Colossian Syneretism: The Interface Between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1996), pp. 158-94.

R. Leivestad only slightly overstates the case when he argues that “Paul has no particular interest in angelology. He pays no attention to their interrelations, and applies the titles indiscriminately” (Christ the Conqueror: Ideas of Conflict and Victory in the New Testament [New York: Macmillan; 1954], p. 93). T. Ling, however, certainly goes too far in arguing that Paul is taking “various contemporary conceptions of spirit powers which were thought of as ruling over the religio-cultural life of men, and is compressing them into one single conception” (The Significance of Satan: New Testament Demonology and Its Contemporary Significance [London: SPCK, 1961], p. 65).

F. I. Andersen, in OTP, 1:134.

E. Issac, in OTP, 1:42.

Arnold, Ephesians, 51-69. Hence the relevance of Greek magical texts for understanding Paul’s concepts cannot be minimized. See W. Grundmann, Der Begriff der Kraft in der Neutestamentlichen Gedankenwelt, BWANT 8 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1932), esp. pp. 32-55. MacGregor (“Principalities and Powers”) attempts to make the case that the Gentile astrological beliefs and writings are the primary source of Paul’s terminology for the spiritual realm. Relevant here as well is T. B. Cargal, “Seated in the Heavenlies: Cosmic Mediators in the Mysteries of Mithras and the Letter to the Ephesians,” SBLSP, 1994, ed. E. H. Lovering (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), pp. 804-21.

So concludes P. O’Brien in his excellent article “Principalities and Powers: Opponents of the Church,” ERT 16, no. 4 (1992): 353-84, esp. 378.

H. Schlier, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament (Freiburg: Herder and Herder, 1961); H. Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, trans. J. H. Yoder (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1962). So too argues G. B. Caird in his highly influential Principalities and Powers: A Study in Pauline Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956). On the history of this discussion through the twentieth century, see O’Brien, “Principalities and Powers”; T. H. McAlpine, Facing the Powers: What Are the Options? (Monrovia, Calif.: MARC, 1991).

Wesley Carr argues against this, maintaining that the various “powers” are all angelic, not demonic, at least in Colossians and Ephesians. See his Angels and Principalities. A host of exegetical problems attend this thesis. To cite two examples: (1) Carr must argue that apekdyomai (“disarming” or “stripping off”) in Colossians 2:15 does not refer to Christ stripping away the weapons of diabolical powers but (as later Gnostics would contend) to Christ laying aside “his battle-dress (his flesh)” (p. 65). Hence too he must argue that the “public spectacle” of this verse is a positive display (not mockery) and that the triumph here is not over these powers but with these powers. This exegesis is exceedingly stretched. (2) Carr must maintain, on entirely circumstantial grounds, that Ephesians 6:12 is a later Christian interpolation (pp. 104-10). On the integrity of this passage in Ephesians, see C. Arnold, “The ‘Exorcism’ of Ephesians 6:12 in Recent Research: A Critique of Wesley Carr’s View of Evil Powers in First Century AD Belief,” JSNT 30 (1987): 71-87. For other critical reviews of Carr’s unusual thesis, see M. D. Hooker, review of Angels and Principalities by W. Carr, JTS 34 (1983): 606-9; O’Brien, “Principalities and Powers,” pp. 369-72; W. W. Wink, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 39 (1984): 146-50.

See, e.g., V. Eller, Christian Anarchy: Jesus’ Primacy over the Powers (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987); A. H. van den Heuvel, Those Rebellious Powers (New York: Friendship, 1965); R. Sider, Christ and Violence (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1979), who takes Ephesians 3:10 to be a mandate of the church to preach against the “powers” (p. 51), as does Wink, Naming the Powers, p. 89.

Many who argue along these lines contend that the fallen “powers” are held in place by violence and hence can be overthrown only through pacifism. Indeed, according to Wink, C. Myers and others, the pacifistic overthrow of these powers is precisely what Christ in principle accomplished on the cross. See Wink, Engaging the Powers, esp. pp. 173-92, 319-24; C. Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988), pp. 452-53.

Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, p. 23. Both Schlier and Berkhof, however, stop short of completely reducing the “powers” to social structures, though Berkhof argues that even if Paul did hold that the powers were transcendent to these structures, its significance is so marginal as to be negligible (p. 24). G. B. Caird opts for this interpretation in Principalities and Powers, though two decades later he seems to admit the powers are personal beings. See Paul’s Letters from Prison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 96. Also arguing that Paul “demythologized” apocalyptic concepts is J. C. Beker, Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), pp. 189-92.

Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), p. 62.

Ibid., pp. 65-66.

Ibid, p. 104.

Ibid., p. 105.

Schlier, Principalities, pp. 30-32; Wink, Naming the Powers, p. 83.

Arnold, Ephesians, p. 60.

Cited in Arnold, Powers of Darkness, p. 197; cf. idem, Ephesians, pp. 60-62. Arnold especially faults Wink for paying insufficient attention to this evidence. See Ephesians, pp. 50-51.

See, e.g., Ascension of Isaiah 2:2-4, which speaks of Beliar leading Jerusalem astray.

So argues Arnold against Beker, Ephesians, p. 131. Wink, however, understands even Satan, demons and angels along the same lines as the cosmic powers; they are transcendent but not personal or autonomous realities.

The NIV unfortunately interprets rather than translates sarx (lit. “flesh”) as “sinful nature,” making it sound as if even regenerate Christians who are “new creations” in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) still have a sinful nature. In my estimation, a better way of understanding “flesh” is to see it as a way of living, apart from God, rather than something inherent even in the nature of believers.

See E. Schweizer, “s??? ???.,” TDNT, 7:133.

Beker argues in the opposite direction. Because such categories as sin, death and the flesh are frequent in Paul’s thought, and they are not portrayed as independent agents, we should take his apocalyptic terminology in a demythologized fashion. See his Paul the Apostle, pp. 189-92. For a cogent refutation, see Arnold, Ephesians, pp. 129-32. For a helpful book that takes seriously the “structural” aspect of the “powers” without thereby reductionistically denying their personalistic dimensions, see R. E. Webber, The Church in the World: Opposition, Tension or Transformation? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1986).

Arnold, Powers of Darkness, pp. 104-7.

R. Recker raises the question of whether we should say that Satan is “still” the “prince of this world”; see “Satan: In Power or Dethroned?” CTJ 6 (1971): 133-55. While Christ’s accomplished victory must always be emphasized, as it is in the New Testament, it nevertheless remains true that all the verses cited above concerning the rule of Satan are composed after the resurrection. Recker resolves the “already/not yet” tension of the New Testament and thereby loses the eschatological dimension of the dethroning of Satan.

See the discussion in Ling, Significance of Satan, p. 40.

I cite this only as another example of the general view that the demonic kingdom can cause physical afflictions. But it must be noted that the theme of diabolical destruction in the book of Revelation differs significantly from the rest of the New Testament. For while Jesus did not come “to condemn the world” (Jn 3:18), the book of Revelation speaks of a time when this period of grace has come to an end. Here, at the end of time as we know it, Jesus and the Father are no longer fighting for the world to set up their kingdom, but against what remains of the world after it has rejected their kingdom. Hence as the Lord did against the Egyptians when freeing the children of Israel, the Lord here takes the radical measure of sending “woes” upon the earth, and sometimes using the vengeance of demons to do it (e.g., Rev 6:7-8, 12-17; 9:1-20; 20:7-9). Unlike the rest of the New Testament, in which God fights against demonic powers, then, here the demonic powers are for a time specially allowed by God to work their destruction. It is a mistake, however, to adopt this apocalyptic perspective—when God will judge a hopelessly demonic world—when we are trying to understand evil in the gracious interval between the cross and the eschaton—viz., when God is yet working to save the world from the demonic kingdom. In the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil I shall argue that one of the fundamental errors Augustine made was that he adopted just this erroneous perspective. In doing so, he altered the motif of the world as a battlefield to the world as a penal colony. So notes R. Brown, “Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity: From Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages,” in his Religion and Society in the Age of Augustine (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp. 119-42. As a result, the church has by and large seen evil as punishment for sin, and the devil and demons as God’s instruments for bringing this punishment about. This is the perspective of Revelation, but it is difficult to imagine anything further from Jesus’ perspective on the demonic kingdom, and on evil in the world, as he fought (and still fights through the church) to set up his kingdom in this world. For an excellent discussion of the theme of the final victory of the saints through the onslaught of demonic forces in the book of Revelation, see S. L. Homey, “‘To Him Who Overcomes’: A Fresh Look at What ‘Victory’ Means for the Believer According to the Book of Revelation,” JETS 38 (1995): 193-201.

So Ling notes, Significance of Satan, p. 40.

W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam, The Epistle to the Romans, 5th ed., ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1902), p. 431.

On this, see E. Langton, The Essentials of Demonology (London: Epworth, 1949), p. 190.

Pace, e.g., R. Guelich, “Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti,” Pneuma 13, no. 1 (1991): 33-64. Guelich’s argument is interesting because he clearly wants to accept a literal devil as a literal evil leader of a literal multitude of demons who are literally against Christians, yet he wants to argue that the warfare motif in Scripture is a metaphor. Indeed, he is concerned that the “metaphor” of military engagement has been taken with excessive literalness by the modern spiritual warfare movement: “What began as a metaphor for the Christian life has become a movement whose expression is found above all in Frank Peretti’s novel, This Present Darkness” (p. 34). While the portrayal of warfare in Peretti’s novel certainly far outruns anything we find in Scripture (it is, after all, a novel), it does not follow from this that Scripture’s own talk of warfare is not literal.

The traditional ending of Mark has Jesus list “driving out demons” as the first “sign” of those who believe (Mk 16:17). While the text is certainly not Mark’s, it just as certainly reflects an early postapostolic awareness that exorcism was to be a standard part of the church’s ministry. I shall provide a comprehensive review of the role of exorcism in the early church in my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

“Spirit of python” could refer to an ability to predict the future. We know that the divinizing prophetess at Delphi was called “pythia” because it was believed she was inspired by the god Apollo, who, legend had it, defeated a dragon named python. Or it may refer to a “spirit of ventriloquism”—the demon spoke through her—since we know from Plutarch that ventriloquists were sometimes called “pythons.” See E. Langton, God and Evil Spirits: A Study of the Jewish and Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (New York: Macmillan, 1942), p. 159. On the ancient python myth in general, see J. Fontenrose, Python: A Study of the Delphic Myth and Its Origins (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959).

This account seems to stand in tension with Mark 9:38-40 and Luke 9:49-50, where Jesus affirms (against his disciples) the validity of an exorcist who was not following him but who used Jesus’ name in successful exorcisms. Perhaps the Gospel accounts differ from the Acts account in that the solo exorcist in the Gospels seems to have been working, however unknowingly, in league with Jesus. Though not a full-fledged disciple, he was glorifying Jesus. This does not seem to have been the motivation of the seven sons of Sceva. Cf. Matthew 7:21-23.

See the introduction above, note 16.

The success of Christian exorcism, as opposed to the spotty success of their contemporaries, was one of the strongest selling points of Christianity in the ancient world. As Adolf von Harnack observed: “It was as exorcisers that Christians went out into the great world, and exorcism formed one very powerful method of their mission and propaganda. It was a question not simply of exorcising and vanquishing the demons that dwelt in individuals, but also of purifying all public life from them” (The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, trans. and ed. J. Moffatt [New York: Putnam’s, 1908], 1.131). Also significant is that neither Jesus nor his disciples used any of the common techniques for exorcism, e.g., various magical names, formula, potions, charms. See D. E. Aune, “Magic in Early Christianity,” in ANRW (1980), 2/23.2:1545; G. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus, WUNT 2/54 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1993), p. 164; G. Boyd, Jesus Under Siege (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1995), pp. 43-62; E. Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1980), p. 9. The uniqueness of the Christian approach to exorcism, as opposed to all magical techniques, was a point of contention in the early postapostolic church as well. On this see H. Remus, Pagan-Christian Conflict over Miracle in the Second Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1983), pp. 48-72; idem, “‘Magic or Miracle?’ Some Second-Century Instances,” The Second Century 2 (1982): 127-56; E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), pp. 124ff.; E. V. Gallagher, Divine Man or Magician: Celsus and Origen on Jesus (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1982).

As Leivestad argues, there is no reason to take these “arrows” as referring only to spiritual temptations. He contends that they refer to physical tribulations brought on by persecution from the devil or from the hostile earthly people he governs. See Christ the Conqueror, p. 163. For several helpful studies on Ephesians 6:10-12, see Arnold, “The ‘Exorcism’ of Ephesians 6:12 in Recent Research”; A. T. Lincoln, “‘Stand, Therefore . . .’: Ephesians 6:10-20 as Peroratio,” Biblical Interpretation 3, no. 1 (1995): 99-114 (which, interestingly enough, makes the case that this warfare passage sums up the central theme of the whole epistle); R. A. Wild, “The Warrior and the Prisoner: Some Reflections on Ephesians 6:10-20,” CBQ 46 (1984): 284-98.

Ling, Significance of Satan, p. 45, quoting T. K. Abbott. One is reminded of James 4:7: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Guelich argues that the author of this passage “abandons the military imagery of 6:10-17 and calls for the believers to remain alert” with verse 18 (“Spiritual Warfare,” p. 50). It is true that prayer and alertness are not part of the armor of the Christian, but it is difficult to agree for this reason that the author has discontinued the military imagery. For whom is the Christian to remain “alert” if not for the “devil,” the “rulers,” the “authorities,” the “powers of this dark world” and the “spiritual forces of evil” just mentioned five verses earlier?

Beliar or Belial is frequently mentioned in Jewish literature as an alternative name of Satan. The root meaning of the word seems to be “worthlessness.” See H. H. Rowley, The Relevance of Apocalyptic: A Study of Jewish and Christian Apocalypses from Daniel to the Revelation, rev. ed. (New York: Association, 1963), p. 72. A number of scholars argue that these passages may echo an early Christian prebaptism catechism that involved renouncing Satan, such as we find practiced throughout the early postapostolic church. On Ephesians 5:14-16 see H. A. Kelly, The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology and Drama (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 26; D. Mollat, “Baptismal Symbolism in St. Paul,” in Baptism in the New Testament, ed. A. Grail, trans. D. Askew (Baltimore: Helicon, 1968), pp. 81-83. On Romans 13:12 see M. E. Boismard, “I Renounce Satan, His Pomps and His Works,” in Baptism in the New Testament, pp. 107-112. On the Qumran background of 1 Corinthians 6:14-15, see Kelly, Devil at Baptism, pp. 39-40.

On various aspects and perspectives regarding Qumran dualism, especially as portrayed in the “light versus darkness” motif, see K. M. T. Atkinson, “The Historical Setting of the ‘War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness,’” BJRL 40 (1958): 272-97; R. E. Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” CBQ 17 (1955): 183-207; J. J. Collins, “The Mythology of the Holy War in Daniel and the Qumran War Scroll: A Point of Transition in Jewish Apocalyptic,” VT 25 (1975): 596-612.

In the light of all these passages, it is in my view remarkable that Guelich concludes that the warfare motif in Paul and the whole of the New Testament is rare (“Spiritual Warfare,” p. 51). It is, he thinks, surprising “how relatively little Paul has to say about Satan and the ‘rulers and authorities’ and especially how little he actually makes of military metaphors when speaking of Satan and the forces of evil in the light of his consistent portrait of them as adversaries” (ibid). While I can certainly appreciate Guelich’s concern to avoid an overly literal acceptance of “Peretti’s portrait of the demonic” (p. 54)—the central concern of this essay—and thus I can appreciate his emphasis on how reserved Paul (and Jesus) is in terms of his speculations about the unseen enemy, I simply cannot agree with his minimalist reading of the warfare motif in either Paul or the Gospels.

For several helpful discussions on ancient Jewish perspectives, see B. J. Bamberger, Fallen Angels (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1952); S. Revard, The War in Heaven: Paradise Lost and the Tradition of Satan’s Rebellion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980).

I shall argue in Satan and the Problem of Evil that freedom is a “metaphysical given” and is, as such, incapable of further analysis. It thus constitutes a justifiable ultimate principle of explanation.

Whether the connection between Satan and Lucifer in Isaiah 14 had been made at the time of Paul’s writing is a matter of dispute, largely hinging on the dating of the longer recension of the Book of the Secrets of Enoch that clearly makes this connection (29:4-5). This work had been generally dated in the first century, but some recent scholars have argued that it was actually composed much later. See Kelley, Devil at Baptism, p. 18; idem, “The Devil in the Desert,” CBQ 26 (1964): 203-4.

A point to be developed in part three of the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

On Gehenna see D. F. Watson, “Gehenna,” in ABD 2:926-28; L. Bailey, “Gehenna: The Topography of Hell,” in BA 49 (1986): 187-91; C. Milikowsky, “Which Gehenna? Retribution and Eschatology in the Synoptic Gospels and in Early Jewish Texts,” NTS 34 (1988): 238-49.

This biblical motif grounds the annihilationist doctrine of hell that is gaining notoriety today. In this view, the damned are eventually (or immediately) annihilated. Eternal punishment, like eternal redemption, is eternal in consequence, not in experiential duration. The most comprehensive and, in my estimation, the most compelling work defending annihilationism is E. W. Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes: The Biblical Case for Conditional Immortality, rev. ed. (Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster, 1994). See also D. Edwards and J. R. W. Stott, Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988), pp. 312-20; J. Wenham, The Goodness of God (London: InterVarsity Press, 1974), pp. 27-41; idem, “The Case for Conditional Immortality,” in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, ed. N. M. de. S. Cameron (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1992), pp. 161-91; P. Hughes, The True Image (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989), pp. 398ff.; C. Pinnock, “The Conditional View,” in Four Views on Hell, ed. W. Crockett (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1992), pp. 135-66.

The apocalyptic literature that forms the background to the New Testament sometimes speaks of the devil and fallen angels being tormented eternally while other times as being utterly annihilated. First and Second Enoch as well as 4 Maccabees clearly depict both the devil and his angels, along with all human sinners, suffering endless conscious punishment. Most of the Qumran writings, the Sibylline Oracles, Psalms of Solomon and 4 Ezra are quite clear in depicting total annihilation as the fate of the angelic and human rebellion. A host of other documents are either unclear or seem to teach both doctrines. See Fudge, Fire That Consumes, pp. 78-92. For a discussion on how annihilationists handle these verses, see ibid., pp. 93-198.

“If we see the work of Jesus as the defeat of Satan and the destruction of Satan’s grip on this world,” argues Kallas, “then suddenly the life, work, death, and resurrection of Jesus assume an impressive unity. . . . The life of Jesus thus seen is a cohesive, closely knit, ascending battle which reaches its climax in the resurrection” (The Significance of the Synoptic Miracles [Greenwich, Conn.: Seabury, 1961], p. 86).

G. Wingren, The Living Word: A Theological Study of Preaching and the Church (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1949), p. 181.