Darrell W. Conder's

Things You've Never Heard In Church:

Satan: The Lies, the Myths,
the Human Tragedy!

(From the back cover of the original booklet:)

Is the Christian concept of Satan the Devil a myth? Some few Christians say yes, while the majority seemingly hold tightly to the New Testament teaching: Satan is the adversary of God and man; he stalks this earth as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; he is the god of this world; he is the serpent of Eden who brought about the fall of mankind with his lies; he is the father of lies, and is that red dragon of Revelation. Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness; Satan is the evil one with whom all humanity must contend before they can hope for salvation.

As a former fundamentalist Christian I once believed and preached the above concept of Satan. In the Devil I found the reason for all this world's ills. This all changed when I was faced with a series of challenges several years ago. In this booklet I will take the reader on a brief but somewhat detailed tour of my journey towards the rejection of Christianity's Satan doctrine and the realization that, good or bad, we are all completely responsible for our own deeds.

Having been born in the early 1950s I grew up in a world of Nikita Khrushchev, atomic bombs and a Communist behind every tree. It was a time when hundreds of thousands of Americans built fallout shelters in their backyards and stockpiled canned food. It was a time of air-raid drills in schools and finally the assassination of President Kennedy. The time was ripe for an end-of-the-world fundamentalist Christian cult to profit and grow.

It was in the 1950s that a former advertising executive turned-radio-preacher by the name of Herbert W. Armstrong was able to reach hundreds of thousands of people with a convincing doomsday message. Unfortunately, my parents were among the thousands who were taken in by the effective preaching of this man, and eventually they joined his Worldwide Church of God (WCG).¹ So, while millions of children read those colorful little books of nursery rhymes, at an early age I was primed on the literature of a doomsday fundamentalist church.² To this day I vividly remember one of their booklets about the "soon-coming" Great Tribulation, complete with cartoonist Basil Wolverton's horrible illustrations of mass destruction.³ One of these depicted thousands of corpses being bulldozed into a large pit, while another showed people, covered with hideous boils, lying in the streets of bombed out cities. This booklet even provided a date when all this was going to happen: It would be in 1975 —when I would be twenty-two years old!⁴ Needless to say, within the doctrinal framework of the WCG I didn't look forward to a bright future. According to their doctrine the only hope for me lay in my diligent and fervent prayers for the favor and forgiveness of Jesus.

To that end, it was my "good fortune" that, of all the churches on earth, Jesus Christ resided at the headquarters of the WCG ("God's true church") and worked through his "chosen apostle," Herbert W. Armstrong. The only stipulation for the favor and forgiveness of Jesus was remaining faithful and loyal to "God's church," which turned out to be a convenient and profitable arrangement for Armstrong and his ministry. On the other hand, should I ever leave "God's church," I was certain to be among those destined for the "Lake of Fire," which was Armstrong's designation for hell.

One of the few doctrines the WCG had in common with other Christian denominations was a shared enemy: At the forefront of this world's problems and dragging us all head-long into the coming Great Tribulation and the end of the world, was a diabolical being called Satan the Devil.

From the beginning of my life I was taught that Satan worked twenty-four hours a day to bring about my destruction. Like billions of Christians before me, I was taught (and fully believed) that the devices of "the Devil" were many. Every pleasure, no matter how innocent it appeared, needed to be carefully examined as it was, likely as not, a tool of the Devil to snare one in sin. The list was almost endless: Most forms of sex, and even sexual desire, which was called lust; eating or drinking too much; eating the wrong kind of food; women with short hair; men with long hair; lipstick, face powder, fingernail polish, tattoos; "the wrong kind of dancing" and the "wrong kind of music" (which primarily meant "rock-and-roll"); gambling; amusement parks; movies and television; the medical profession, prescription drugs (the church taught a strict healing doctrine); the desire to buy something you couldn't afford (which was called coveting); the wrong kind of friends (meaning anyone outside the church); the wrong kind of Bible translation (the church taught that the King James Version was closest to "God's Word"); Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism; "worldly" magazines, comic books; boys playing with dolls or girls playing with toy trucks; women wearing slacks or men wearing clothes that were too girlish (such as bell-bottom slacks); questioning the ministry; failing to pay three tithes to the church; failure to sacrifice for the "work of God," failure to attend church, and too much free time.

Not only did I grow up with a virtual "laundry list" of things that the Devil could and would use in his arsenal to ensnare me, this list was often augmented and expanded according to the whim of a local minister. And, just in case the church had overlooked anything, the New Testament admonition was pounded into my head that I had to be careful and avoid even the appearance of sin—whether or not a sin was being committed! A strict adherence to this last taboo essentially meant that one was forced to live inside a self-made religious prison.

As an adult the doctrines of the Worldwide Church of God (into which I was baptized in 1975) colored my every thought and stood behind every decision. In fact, armed with their doomsday doctrines, I often took the opportunity to "witness" for Jesus. Over the years I cornered countless individuals and preached to them about the wiles of Satan, the soon-coming Great Tribulation and the end of this "sinful" world.

Unfortunately, never having ventured far outside my fundamentalist, cultist roots, I have to say that I spent the first forty years of life viewing the world through a narrow dark tunnel. Satan, sin, hell and eternal damnation—it all formed a four-sided jail cell.

The Big Challenge

The WCG had among its many peculiar doctrines the belief that most Christian denominations had adopted numerous pagan customs as Christian, such as Christmas, Easter and a Sunday Sabbath. This is why all Christian denominations outside of the Worldwide Church of God were deemed as "Satan's churches." Although the church taught this as a fundamental doctrine for over fifty years, after the death of WCG founder, Herbert Armstrong, this attitude began to change.

In an effort of ecumenical reconciliation, a new church administration extended a hand of friendship to other Christian churches by reversing the pagan stigma of Christmas, Easter and a Sunday Sabbath. For we dye-in-the-wool Armstrongites this change was a "Devil-inspired conspiracy" engineered to destroy "God's true church." My personal reaction was to undertake an intensive three year research project to find the truth.

To my relief I found a tremendous amount of evidence to support the old WCG "paganism-in-Christianity" doctrine, which, by the way, wasn't something that Herbert Armstrong had dreamed up. (From the writings of the early church fathers to the scholarly reports inside the most prestigious religious encyclopedias, it is an established fact that numerous pagan customs had been absorbed as Christian doctrine by the early Christian Church — although this fact is virtually unknown to the majority of today's Christians.)

After completing my research, I decided to publish my heavily-referenced findings in a book entitled Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth. The book was an immediate success with those who remained loyal to the old WCG doctrine. There was, however, a problem.

While my book was enjoying wide circulation and acceptance, even to the extent of ministers recommending it to their congregations, I was having conscience problems with some of the evidence it contained. To be blunt, during my research I had found more than I had bargained for. Not only had paganism contaminated many areas of Christianity, but the evidence clearly showed that the entire Christian faith was but an extension of a pagan religious system founded about 3500 years ago in ancient Babylon. As a life-long Christian it was extremely difficult for me to see the undeniable evidence before me and admit the truth. But, there was no getting around it: Christianity, the "faith" that I had lived a life time for, was as phony as a three dollar bill!

Not being the kind of person who can keep quiet about something that I see as the truth, and knowing full well that I stood to loose most of my friends, I spelled out my findings, renounced my Christian faith and embraced the faith of the Old Testament in a second book entitled Mystery Babylon and the Lost Ten Tribes in the End Time.

Predictably, within a week of the book's release there was an immediate and loud reaction. Although I had anticipated a negative and hostile reaction, which did certainly come, to my surprise there was also a good deal of positive interest. Faced with irrefutable evidence hundreds of people and at least a dozen Christian ministers eventually left Christianity. The other side of the coin saw me excommunicated and the immediate target of countless ministers and church groups in their sermons and publications.

From the start, however, those denouncing my book had an uphill road defending the New Testament and Christianity. This was because I had presented pages of evidence for which there were no sound answers. The underhanded solution of my new-found enemies was to distort and, in some cases, to tell outright lies about the contents of my book and my personal life. All of this came as no surprise to me. I had learned over the years that some of the most dishonest people on earth stood cloaked in a robe of religion, and the worst of the lot were often the so-called ministers of Jesus.

Of course the ultimate excuse offered against my book was the argument that Darrell Conder was in league with Satan the Devil to cause the destruction of "true Christians." Darrell Conder was the "anti-Christ," the "servant of Satan." I was one of those that "Jesus Christ" had warned would arise in the end time. One minister even entitled his sermon, "Darrell Conder: A Modern Day Anti-Christ." I took these accusations seriously because at the time I wrote my second book I believed very strongly in the existence of a fallen angel named Satan the Devil.

Because the doctrine of "Satan the Devil" was such an integral part of Christianity, and I genuinely thought that it could be proved from the so-called Old Testament, I had naturally and naively brought it along with me into my new faith. In fact Satan was a main feature in my book and I gave him a "starring" role, if you'll excuse the pun, whereupon I placed the blame for all that was wrong in this world — including the great deception of Christianity. Ironically, it seemed that the only thing I still had in common with Christianity and my new-found enemies was the doctrine of Satan the Devil.

This point was driven home to me one day when I received an e-mail from a Jewish man who had just read my book. He wanted to know how I could have such understanding about the fallacy of the New Testament and still not see the truth about Satan? He went on to explain the Jewish belief about Satan, making points that I had never remotely considered. After a few e-mail exchanges with this man, I ended our correspondence by promising to look into the matter. I also acknowledged to him and to myself that I still had a lot to learn.

Christian Baggage

I recently saw a documentary about the Oregon Trial, which detailed the sufferings that countless groups of American pioneers endured in their quest for a new life. At the beginning of their westward journey the people were all warned not to overload their wagons with personal baggage. Most, however, ignored this warning and brought along all sorts of useless but cherished possessions. Very soon reality set in and along the way they were forced to dump this excess baggage. Piece by piece it was left strewn along the trial. By the time these pioneers had reached their destination all that was left were the necessities — the things they truly needed to build a new life; what seemed important at the journey's start turned out to be just so much excess baggage.

I didn't know it at the time, but when I left Christianity I did so with a great deal of Christian baggage. What I'm saying is that as the months progressed I began to see that my theological reasoning was completely tainted by forty plus years of Christian prejudice. Yes, I had already disposed of the supreme prejudice (that being the myth of Jesus as a savior god, whose blood I had to drink and whose flesh I had to eat in order to be saved), but I had to face the fact that one of the main features of Christianity had remained with me.

Shortly after taking up the challenge of the Satan question, I clearly saw that the Christian concept of Satan placed him in a role no less equal than that of Jesus Christ himself. In fact, I clearly saw that there could never have been a Christian Church without the persona of Satan. All the doctrines about "Jesus the Christ" would crumble without the excuse of a diabolical being who was continually at war with Jesus in a quest to destroy mankind: Satan stalks this earth as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; he is the god of this world; he is the serpent of Eden who brought about the fall of mankind with his lies; he is the father of lies, and that red dragon of Revelation. Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness or Satan, he is the evil one with whom all humanity must contend before they can hope for salvation. The bottom line is that Christians would have no need of Jesus if there was no Satan.

The question was now before me: Did Satan deserve the role that he had been given by the Christian Church? It was time to do a background check and find out once and for all who and what Satan was before he appeared in the New Testament.

Post-exilic Judaism

To begin the historical quest for the origins of the Christian Satan we must first look at the condition of Judaism at the beginning of the Christian era. We must also understand the mind-set of the average Jew of this time, because it was first century Judaism, called rabbinical Judaism, that gave birth to primitive Christianity. To do this we must go back to the time of the Babylonian captivity of the Tribe of Judah.

Shortly after the Jews were taken captive to Babylon they became the property of the Persians, who conquered the Babylonian empire in 538 BC. Shortly after this the Persian king, Cyrus the Great, allowed a small remnant of the original tribe of Judah to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. An important fact here is that very few Jews returned to their former homeland. The majority remained in lands that had become part of the Persian empire.

The second fact of relevance is that the captive Jews of Babylon were heavily influenced by the religion of their captors. This not only included the Babylonian mystery religion, but also a religion that was at its height by the time a handful of Jews returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple of Solomon.

As it is not the purpose of this booklet to outline Jewish religious history, I will offer a brief summary by quoting from the well-respected Jewish scholar and kabbalist, Professor Adolphe Franck. In his book, The Kabbalah, Franck concludes that if any people had exercised a profound religious influence upon the Jews, it was the Chaldeans (or Babylonians) and Persians "united into one nation by the arms of Cyrus and the religion of Zoroaster."⁵

Noting that Zoroasterism was at the height of popularity within the Persian empire at the very time the first group of Jews gained their independence, Professor Franck further concludes that this group, followed by the second wave of Jewish exiles returning to Jerusalem, brought numerous doctrines of Zoroaster with them. He asks: "And indeed, can we think of an event in the life of a people more likely to change its moral constitution and modify its ideas and customs than the memorable exile that has been called the Babylonian Captivity? Could the seventy years' sojourn of the Israelites, priests and laymen, teachers and common people, in the land of their conquerors have exerted no influence on either side? We have already cited a Talmudic passage where the elders of the synagogue openly acknowledge that their ancestors brought with them from the land of their exile the names of the angels and the [calendar] months, and even the letters of the alphabet."⁶

Professor Franck explains that the Jewish captives, crushed under the weight of their misfortune," could not have "remained indifferent to events in the land of their exile. The Scriptures themselves point with some satisfaction to the Hebrew captives' instruction in all the sciences and, consequently, ideas of their conquerors, which admitted them to the highest offices of the empire. This was precisely the case with Daniel, Zerubabel and Nehemiah, the latter two of whom played such an active part in the deliverance of their brethren. This is not all. Forty thousand returned to Jerusalem under Zerubabel; a second emigration, headed by Ezra, took place under the reign of Artaxexes Longimanus, about seventy years after the first one. During this interval the religious reform of Zoroaster had time to spread to all parts of the Babylonian empire and to take deep root in the minds of the people. From their return to Palestine until their conquest by Alexander the Great, the Jews remained subject to the Persian kings. And even after the conquest, until their total dispersion, they seem to have looked upon the Euphrates, whose banks they once bathed with their tears, as their second fatherland. The Babylonian synagogue arose under the civil and religious hegemony of the Leaders of the Captivity, and it cooperated with the synagogue in Palestine towards the definite organization of rabbinic Judaism."⁷

Professor Franck also makes it clear that, "The same schools produced the Babylonian Talmud, the final and most complete expression of Judaism. We may conclude that no nation exerted so deep an influence on the Jews as the Persians; that no moral power could have penetrated more deeply into their spirit than did the religious system of Zoroaster with its long procession of traditions and commentaries."⁸

This is quite an admission considering that Zoroasterism can boast of no other heritage than pure paganism!

Citing the ancient Persian holy book, Zend Avesta, Professor Franck goes on to enumerate the customs of Zoroasterism, which were obviously borrowed by rabbinical Judaism (the ancestor of present-day Judaism). He also notes that both religions have almost identical stories of creation, such as the six days of creation and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (the Persian account says that a demon in the shape of a serpent, "kindled revolt in the soul of our primal parents"). Franck accounts for this by mentioning an older tradition from which both religions borrowed—by which he means the traditions of ancient Babylon, the empire that the Persians had just conquered, and in which both they and the Jews were living at the time of the captivity of Judah, and where and when the first editions of the "Holy Scriptures" were being produced.⁹

Speaking of Satan and other related myths, Professor Franck notes that the "rich and learned mythology" of the Chaldeans and Persians was adopted by the Talmud and is widespread in the Mishna. "Side by side with the wisest maxims on the ways of life, and the most consoling thoughts on mercy and divine justice, we find in Judaism traces of the darkest superstition; we must look for their source in the terror instilled by demonology." Professor Franck outlines these demonic Jewish traditions, and comments: "Now in all such ideas there is a perfect similarity between the Jewish traditions and the Zend Avesta [which is to say, the holy book of pagan Zoroasterism].... The great question of the origin of evil, until then untouched by Judaism, is, so to speak, the center and starting point of the Persian religion. Must it not have acted powerfully on the imagination of these people of the Orient, accustomed to explain everything by divine intervention?"¹⁰

Professor Franck makes it abundantly clear that the civilization of ancient Persia left traces on every aspect of Judaism, specifically, "in its celestial mythology, represented by the angels; in its infernal mythology [hell]; and, finally, in the religious practices."¹¹ Franck's observations on rabbinical Judaism combined with the first century history of Judea (the birth place of a sect of Judaism called Christianity) provides a problematic situation for the Christian doctrine of Satan. This is why virtually all religious scholars are unanimous in their conclusion that the Christian Satan came from Babylon by way of Persian Zoroasterism.

Dr. Paul Carus sums it up this way: "The influence of Zoroaster's religion upon Judaism and early Christianity cannot be doubted. Not only does the original text of the book of Ezra directly declare that 'Cyrus, the King, built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, where they worship him with the eternal fire' but there are many Jewish eremonites preserved to the present day, which bear a close resemblance to the ritual of ancient Mazdaism."¹²

Dualism

The Zoroastrian influence that is most often cited as originating the doctrine of a Christian "devil" is that of dualism. Persian dualism put forth that two primal and independent personifications of good and evil existed, very similar to the two trees in the Garden of Eden. The good was manifest in "God" while the evil was manifest in what we now call a devil.¹³

The editors of The Encyclopedia Britannica note: "The conception of Satan belongs to the post-exilic period of Hebrew development, and probably shows traces of the influence of Persian on Jewish thought, but it has also its roots in much older beliefs .... The development of the conception continued in later Judaism, which was probably more strongly influenced by Persian dualism.... . In the book of Enoch, Satan is represented as the ruler of a rival kingdom of evil, but here are also mentioned satans, who are distinguished from the fallen angels and who have a threefold function, to tempt, to accuse and to punish."¹⁴

Although the editors of The Oxford Companion to the Bible note that contemporaneous Persian-inspired Jewish literature had laid the groundwork for the later ideas of an evil being, they largely credit the New Testament with "standardizing" the present concept of Satan the Devil.¹⁵ What the brief statement in Oxford's doesn't mention, however, is the complex influence of Gnostic Christianity on the final version of the New Testament and Christianity as a whole.

Gnostic Christianity was essentially a product of Samaria, a region nestled among the geography of first century Judea. The Samaritans were originally Medo-Persians and were subjects of the Assyrian empire. They came to the region after the downfall of the House of Israel at the hands of the Assyrians, who filled the vacant lands of Israel with these foreigners.¹⁶ Although they brought along their own pagan religion, which was essentially descended from the mythology of ancient Babylon, once in the homeland of Israel these newcomers adopted a good portion of what is now called Judaism. The result was that by the first century AD the Samaritans had a religion that was a curious mixture of Judaism and the ancient Babylonian Mystery Religion wrapped inside Persian theology.

All of this is important to this study because when the primitive Christian faith was being founded, the Samaritans played a key role in its development—especially in the concept of a devil. History remembers their contribution as Gnosticism.¹⁷

Dr. Paul Carus writes: "The Gnostic Christian view of Doomsday and Hell embodies many ancient traditions of Egyptian, Indian, and Persian mythology and foreshadows at the same time the later Roman Catholic view as represented in medieval art, finding its poetical consummation in Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) Divina Comedia [Divine Comedy]."¹⁸ He sums up the whole question thus: "The Gnostic movement and especially its Jewish phase, manifesting itself in sectarian life and in the post-canonical literature, is of greater importance than is generally admitted, for it prepared the way for Christianity."¹⁹

Divine Origins

In the study presented thus far we have concentrated on the part that Persian Zoroasterism played in the concept of Satan. However, as the authorities quoted above have pointed out, the Persians, while adding notable refinements to the concept of an evil god being, didn't invent him. That distinction belongs to the Semitic race—in particular to the ancient Babylonians. Of this there is no doubt because the ancient records of their religious beliefs are available for examination.

Records from ancient Mesopotamian reveal a fact long known to mythologists: The most primitive concept of God (or a divine being) was feminine. That is to say, the oldest unearthed civilizations known to archaeologists tell us that ancient peoples perceived the supreme deity as a female. Their reasoning on this point is somewhat simple, if not logical: By witnessing the miracle of childbirth primitive peoples could see the role women played in repopulating the earth, whereas it was not clearly so with a man. Therefore, to primitive peoples the Creator, or life-giver, had to be feminine.²⁰ From this concept arose matriarchal societies that flourished for many centuries. Such societies were naturally dominated by a female priesthood, which directed worship to the supreme deity known as the Mother Goddess.

Without presenting the long and involved history of the rise and fall of matriarchal cultures, we shall jump ahead to the time when they had given way to male dominated societies. Consequently, religion became the domain of men. When this occurred not only were women demoted to a secondary role, so too was the Mother Goddess. It is from this time that the Mother Goddess is on record as being either defeated and destroyed by a god, or made subservient to him in the role of his consort. In the study of these ancient records one can't help but hear the words of the old adage, "how the mighty have fallen."

This reassignment of roles is manifest in the person of the Babylonian Mother Goddess, Tiamat, who, being known by several different names, was once representative of the supreme deity of Mesopotamia. After the decline of female dominated societies the once benevolent Creator-Goddess, Tiamat, was villainized. Cast in a new, evil role—a dragon—it became necessary for the new and now-dominate male deity to wage war on his former superior. In this mythological battle the new benevolent god, Baal-Merodach, defeated and destroyed the "evil one." However the supposed destruction of the once-supreme goddess is an interesting story in itself because in later Babylonian mythology we find that she didn't quite die. To the contrary. In later myth the Mother Goddess, separated from her evil persona, is brought back to life to fulfill a new and very important role.

A study of mythology and ancient societies will confirm that dead deities are often reborn, reincarnated, redesigned, or regurgitated as the need arose. For a deity, death was never really the end, which can be demonstrated by the dozen or so crucified, dying and resurrected-on-the-third-day savior gods of the ancient pagan world. In the case of the slain Tiamat, the new male-dominated priesthood of Babylon found a need that only she could fill.

The Birth of "Satan"

The primary feature of ancient Mystery religions is the projection of an eternal struggle between good and evil. Such a device bought many benefits for the priesthood in particular, and for religion as a whole. From the beginning men discovered what every generation has since known: People need purpose—something to focus upon. In the case of religion they need a reason for voluntarily becoming subservient to a ministry. Hence, in the minds of men was born a system of reward and punishments, which has developed into the concept of heaven and hell. The catalyst of this new system can be summed up in one word — fear.

It is a fact of history that the iron rule of the most despotic tyrant has never achieved the results of religious fear. Countless God-fearing men and women have faced a life of depredation and sometimes a cruel death to escape eternal torment in the next life. Such was and still is the hold that religion has on the souls of the trusting. The ancient Babylonians discovered this fact and put together a system that succeeding generations have copied.

And so the old, defeated creator goddess, Tiamat, once the epitome of benevolence, was revived in her role as an evil dragon. As such her primary goal now became to seek the destruction of mankind.

In this new religion only the supreme male deity stood between humanity and the reborn evil adversary. Further, the only access to the protection of the male deity was through the offices of self-ordained men. Thereafter the "will of God" and his "holy word" was made known by self-made and self-proclaimed ministers to feed a fear that they, themselves, had created. In this new system salvation was in the hands of men who stood firmly planted between God and humanity.

History readily documents how the Babylonian formula influenced future religious empires, each one adopting, adapting, adding, discarding, and rewriting what was necessary to keep total control of their subjects: "Professor Edward Chiera of the University of Chicago wrote of the Babylonian myth of the creation of heaven and earth by the god Marduk that 'Marduk, the new god of this rather new city, certainly had no right to appropriate to himself the glory of so great a deed ... But in Hammurabi's time Babylon was the center of the kingdom ... Marduk, backed by Hammurabi's armies, could now claim to be the most important god in the land.' Professor Chiera also explained that in Assyria, where the god Ashur eventually became the supreme deity, 'The Assyrian priests gave the honor to Ashur simply by taking the old Babylonian tablets and recopying them, substituting the name of their own god for that of Marduk. The work was not very carefully done, and in some places the name of Marduk still creeps in."²¹

The evidence proves that the Babylonian "devil-dragon" myth was born from nothing more than an evil desire to control the lives of other humans, and that the evil being of Christian theology has never existed except in the minds and actions of mankind. In proof of that last statement we shall now examine the ancient evidence.

Will the Real Creator Please Stand Up?

From the ancient Babylonian Tablets of Creation, which are now housed in the British Museum, we find outlined the origins of the evil dragon deity who evolved into the Christian concept of Satan the Devil.

In the beginning was the supreme Mother-Goddess Tiamat and her consort, Apsu. It was these gods, or elohim (a plural Semitic word meaning gods), that created the universe, which was a vast sea.²² Tiamat was known as the spirit of Chaos (or Tohu Bohu)²³ dwelling in the deep as the great dragon or serpent; she was the supreme creator who created the other deities, both male and female.²⁴

In the course of time the gods Tiamat and Apsu created more gods, or elohim. The most powerful and all-wise of these lessor gods was their son Ea, who was "God of the Deep" and who, in later history, was known as Enki, "Lord of the Earth." He was espoused to his sister, the goddess Damkina, the "Lady of Earth," and was the father of Baal-Merodach the "lord," who would later create mankind.²⁵ At some point these lesser gods, who lived in the highest part of the universal ocean and were therefore called "high gods," took council and decided to bring order to the "chaotic" universe. This could only be accomplished by deposing their parents.

The original hero of the coming conflict was the supreme "high god" Ea, but he is supplanted in later, evolving Babylonian creation legend, by his son Baal-Merodach. This "reassignment" of roles disguises the fact that Baal-Merodach and Ea were originally one and the same deity. It is, therefore, Baal-Merodach who confronts his mother and father in a great battle to gain control of the universe.

When the Great Mother, the dragon of Chaos, learned of the conspiracy to displace her and Apsu, she took council with some loyal children. The decision was made to go on the offensive and confront the high gods. But in the first conflict Baal-Merodach kills his father Apsu, whom he castrates.²⁶ In great anger the dragon Tiamat ascends to the realm of the high gods, or elohim, with her loyal children, the sons of god, who are, in Semitic legend, poetically referred to as stars. A titanic battle ensues and the great dragon Mother Goddess is defeated and killed by Baal-Merodach.

In this ancient Babylonian myth we have the first clue that we are here dealing with the most primitive account of the Christian Satan—or what would become Satan. It is found in the address of Baal-Merodach to his mother. When he confronts his mother the high (or heavenly) god Baal-Merodach addresses her thus: "Thou hast exalted thyself, and with wrathful heart hath prepared for war against the high gods and their fathers, whom thou dost hate in thy heart of evil."²⁷ The connection between these words and the Christian concept of Satan is found within a scripture of the Jewish Tanakh.²⁸

Isaiah 14:12

In the prophetic book of Isaiah (14:12) is found a curious poetic verse. The following translation is from the Jewish Publication Society's Tanakh, and the inset comments [ ] are from the footnotes of these verses: "How are you fallen from heaven, O Shining One, son of the Dawn! [A character in some lost myth] How are you felled to earth, O vanquisher of nations! Once you thought in your heart, I will climb to the sky; higher than the stars of God I will set my throne. I will sit in the mount of assembly, [i.e., the assembly of the gods in council] on the summit of Zaphon: [the abode of the gods] I will mount the back of a cloud, I will match the Most High."

Although both Jewish and Christian scholars understand Isaiah's "falling star" dirge to be allegorical at best, something happened in the year 1667 that caused a different view to dominate the theology of certain Christian sects.²⁹ It came about in the following manner.

In the forth century the great Christian Bible translator, St. Jerome, translated the Hebrew word "heylel" in Isaiah 14:12 as "lucifer" in his Latin Vulgate.³⁰ According to the story "Lucifer" was Jerome's made-up Latin word for "light bringer," which is roughly the meaning of the Hebrew word "heylel." Many centuries later the King James Bible translators kept Jerome's "lucifer" in their rendering of Isaiah 14:12. About fifty years later, in 1667, a Christian writer named John Milton made the connection between Isaiah 14:12 and the history of Satan's origin in his book, Paradise Lost.³¹ According to biblical historians it was at this time that Jerome's Lucifer was merged with Satan. Although it was only Milton's theory, the explanation gained wide acceptance within Protestantism and is still seriously considered valid by many Christians. However, Milton's explanation of Isaiah 14:12 isn't as far-fetched as some religious scholars now maintain.

As noted in the Jewish Publication Society's translation of Isaiah 14:12 the Hebrew word, "heylel," which the editors translate as "O Shining One," does refer to a mythical being. What the editors didn't say is that the mythical being alluded to is directly tied to the great dragon of Babylonian mythology. To offer proof of this point one can look at a Canaanite version of the same poetic dirge, which predates the book of Isaiah by centuries. It is for the fallen Morning Star of Babylon: "How hast thou fallen from heaven, Helel's son Shaher! Thou didst say in thy heart, I will ascend to heaven, above the circumpolar stars I will raise my throne and I will dwell on the Mount of Council in the back of the north; I will mount on the back of a cloud, I will be like unto Elyon."³² (Note that the Hebrew word "heylel," which is translated "shining one" In Isaiah 14:12, is identical to the Canaanite deity named "Helel.")

If there is any doubt about the identity of the Morning Star, the "shining one" or "light bringer" in both the Canaanite and Isaiah dirges, let us simply review the primitive address of Baal-Merodach to the fallen dragon, Taimat: Thou hast exalted thyself, and with wrathful heart hath prepared for war against the high gods and their fathers, whom thou dost hate in thy heart of evil."

What is all-telling, however, is a Jewish version of the same account, which arose either during or after the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people—when Jewish scribes were adopting Babylonian theology as their own, and when the Hebrew "holy" scriptures were being composed!³³

According to Jewish legend God created Adam in his image and then commanded all the heavenly host to bow down and worship him: "Michael addressed Satan: 'Give adoration to the image of God! But if thou doest it not, then the Lord God will break out in wrath against thee.' Satan replied: 'If He breaks out in wrath against me, I will exalt my throne above the stars [sons] of God, I will be like the most high!' At once God flung Satan and his host out of heaven, down to the earth, and from that moment dates the enmity between Satan and man."³⁴ (In this pre-Christian Jewish myth we see the origin of Jesus' words in the New Testament, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.")³⁵

This history shows us that John Milton's 1667 theory is partially vindicated in that he was by no means the one who originated the connection between Isaiah 14:12 and Satan's origins. The connection was made by Jewish scribes, who borrowed from Persian and Babylonian legends as a result of their captivity.

The Fallen One

When the religion of Babylon and Persia made inroads on the religious concepts of the captive Jews, the doctrine of good and evil manifest in the person of a great fallen angel was assigned to the most likely Jewish candidate—an adversarial being long known in Judaism. This being was a functioning member of the heavenly court of God and his title was "satan." Once merged with the ancient Babylonian dragon, who sought to bring evil on all creation by ascending to heaven to wage war on the "benevolent" high gods, this member of God's court became Satan the Devil, the great evil dragon of post-exilic Jewish myth.

However, when the Babylonian and Jewish accounts of a fallen angel are closely examined there are some noticeable differences. One is that by the time the later Jewish myth developed the Great Mother dragon Tiamat had evolved into an evil male dragon—a phenomenon that presents no problem for historians and mythologists.

The rebirth of the slain Mother Goddess, the Chaos dragon, as a living male god in later mythology was due to her dual character. Donald Mackenzie explains one part of that character: "As the origin of good she is the creatrix of the gods. Her beneficent form survived as the Sumerian goddess Bau, who was obviously identical with the Phoenician Baau, the mother of the first man. Another name for Bau was Ma [later mama], and Nintu ... [who] was depicted with 'a babe suckling her breast.'"³⁶ In other words, Tiamat became the Great Mother Goddess of Babylonian mythology, who is best known as the Goddess Ishtar. These facts tell us why Ishtar's resurrected savior-god son, Tammuz, was said to have been born of his mother the "Heavenly Dragon."³⁷ But that Ishtar was the original Goddess Mother Tiamat is seen in this eighteenth century BC poetic prayer addressed to her: "Ishtar the Queen, who suppresses all that is confused. To the Queen of Heaven, the Goddess of the Universe, the One who walked in terrible Chaos and brought life by the Law of Love; And out of Chaos brought us harmony, and from Chaos Thou has led us by the hand."³⁸

The other part of Tiamat's character survived as an evil deity in the form of a male dragon — a fact due to the "dual sexuality" of the Babylonian supreme deity. In other words, throughout Mesopotamian mythology a single deity could at once be both mother-father, or if conceived as two beings, either one could fulfill the role of the other. For instance at times the Goddess Ishtar is both mother and father and is occasionally found to have changed places with Baal-Merodach.³⁹ (It is of interest to note that the Hebrew book of Genesis tells us that God, or Elohim, whose Hebrew name designates a plural deity, created man in his image and after his likeness: "male and female created he them." Logically if God created "male and female" in his image, then "the one God" of the Old Testament—meaning the plural Elohim — must be at once male and female.)⁴⁰

How the slain supreme Goddess Tiamat was reanimated in Babylonian legend can essentially be explained through the legend of her consort, the dragon Apsu. Although slain in the most primitive legend, in later Babylonian myth Apsu is found alive. Indeed, Dr. Ginzberg records yet another variation of the Babylonian myth of Tiamat and Apsu wherein Tiamat is killed but her mate was simply "vanquished by Marduk [Baal-Merodach] and made harmless."⁴¹ In fact, this later myth is built upon in both Jewish and Christian legend.

According to Jewish myth, in the beginning God battled two dragons, a male and female, whom he ultimately defeated. After the battle God killed the female but allowed the male dragon to live. Sounding very much like chapter 12 of the Christian book of Revelation, where a battle ensues in heaven between God and the great red dragon called Satan, Jewish myth says that the male dragon will continue until the last days when he will be slain in a final great battle with God.

When we consider that the two dragons of Chaos, Tiamat and Apsu, were really one and the same being, and that the god Baal-Merodach killed the female but, according to later myth, allowed the male to live, we can then understand how the evil aspect of Tiamat lived on as a male dragon devil, which is what happened in the case of her good aspects when they were transferred to the person of the Mother Goddess Ishtar.

Actually, one can follow the transformation of the great dragon Tiamat into an evil male dragon deity, as defined in late Jewish mythology, by looking at a later Babylonian myth about a dragon god named Zu, who is considered a forerunner of the Greek Father God Zeus. Zu was the Storm Bird, who is also called a seraph (a type of angel), or "fiery flying serpent." According to the later story Zu was punished by the Great Mother Tiamat for coveting the Tablets of Destiny.

In his rebellion Zu said: "I will take the tablet of destiny of the gods, even I; and I will direct all the oracles of the gods; I will establish a throne and dispense commands, I will rule over all the spirits of Heaven."⁴² The noticeable difference in this account and the others we've quoted is that in the later myth it is a male god, Zu, who speaks words earlier assigned to the Great Mother dragon. Further, the depiction of a flying serpent shows that this redefined fallen dragon legend was well on its way in evolving into a story familiar to all Christians.

By simply following the development of Babylonian mythology we find how it came to be that the Great Mother Tiamat, the "dragon" of Chaos, had her "evil" nature developed into a male dragon depicted as the enemy of God and all mankind. This is why the editors of The Encyclopedia Britannica make this comment on the subject: "In Babylonian mythology 'the old serpent goddess 'the lady Nina' was transformed into the embodiment of all that was hostile to the powers of heaven' and was confounded with the dragon Tiamat, 'a terrible monster, reappearing in the Old Testament writings as Rahab and Leviathan, the principle of chaos, the enemy of God and man."⁴³

The Revolt

To continue, let us return to Babylonian mythology and ask what caused the rebellion of Baal-Merodach against the original great dragon in the first place? The cause of his revolt was due to rank jealousy, which came about in this manner: Before the rebellion of the high gods the Great-Mother Tiamat had exalted one of her dragon sons, Kingu, to the status of supreme god. In a familiar Mystery Religion theme Tiamat made Kingu her husband, crowned him ruler of all the gods (of both those who dwelt on high and those dwelling below), and gave him the Tablets of Destiny.⁴⁴ As soon as he is crowned, a haughty Kingu insults his brother, the high god Baal-Merodach, further inciting a growing jealousy.⁴⁵

Jealousy between gods was a theme found in most mythological accounts of heavenly war between rival deities. It is, therefore, to be expected that the reason for Satan's fall is rooted in jealousy and a pride in his majesty, as previously noted in Jewish legend. This is why numerous Christians find a scripture from the prophetic book of Ezekiel as another "proof" of Satan's rebellious origins.

Many Christians maintain that Ezekiel 28 gives up the reason for Satan's rebellion: "You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering ... the workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you ... you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground ..."⁴⁶

To those unfamiliar with the history of the Christian Satan, Ezekiel 28 does indeed sound like it belongs to the legend of his origins. It certainly seems to be an extension of the pagan dirge for the "Morning Star" found in Isaiah 14. In all likelihood this poetic notice is either from a long-lost pagan myth about the "Morning Star's" fall, or it was taken from contemporaneous Jewish mythology on the same subject.

However, the fact is that biblical scholars, both Jewish and Christian, recognize Ezekiel 28 for what it is. They find their answer by simply going to the beginning of the chapter where the prophecy is clearly addressed to the earthly king of Tyre, which is virtually the same situation in Isaiah 14:12. The author of Ezekiel 28 was likely using a well-known current mythological verse to make his point about the king of Tyre and was by no means trying to convey a story on the origins of Satan.

The Demons of Hell

After the defeat of the Mother Goddess Tiamat, Baal-Merodach slew her and deposed his brother Kingu. The great dragon Tiamat's Tablets of Destiny were taken, or "spoiled." Afterward, the so-called "evil gods," who had supported their Creator Mother, were all "stricken with terror and broke into flight." These "gods," or elohim, who were created in their mother's form, meaning they were dragons, were caught and put into bondage—cast down into Hades, or the Underworld, the land of darkness. These defeated gods became the demons of Babylonian mythology and those religions that descend from this source, which, as history clearly supports, includes both Zoroasterism and Christianity.⁴⁷

In words reminiscent of the Christian New Testament the Babylonian Creation Tablets tell us: "Those rebel angels (ili, gods) he [Baal-Merodach] prohibited return; he stopped their service; He removed them unto the gods (ili) who were His enemies. In their room he created mankind."⁴⁸ This story is paralleled in 2 Peter 2:4 "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [Greek tartarus; the pit], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." The defeated and bound demon/gods of Babylon are undoubtedly noted in Jude 13: "Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars [angels] to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." The Babylonian account is also present in Revelation 12:9: "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels [or demons] were cast out with him."

This "war in heaven" and "a cast out devil and his demons" theme was central to most pagan Mystery religions. However, it is within Persian Zoroasterism that the doctrine received a refinement that is recognizable in present-day Christianity. In fact, the concept of a "devil and his demons," with whom the faithful had to contend from cradle to grave, was essentially the backbone of that religion. What is revealing to our study is that this doctrine came directly into rabbinic Judaism.

Professor Adolphe Franck, noting the similarity of the Zoroasterian doctrine and the concept of demons in the Jewish Talmud, writes: "Now in all such ideas there is a perfect similarity between the Jewish traditions and the Zend Avesta [the Persian holy book]. According to the latter, the demons of devils, those children of Ahriman [the Persian counterpart of Satan] and darkness, are as numerous as the creatures of Ormuzd [the Persian god]. There are more than a thousand species that present themselves in all manner of form and wander the earth spreading disease and sickness among men. 'Where,' asks Zoroaster of Ormuzd, 'is the site of the male or the female devils? Where do the devils roam in mobs of fifty, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, and finally, all over the place?'"⁴⁹

Rabbi Ronald H. Isaacs tells us that the first "full account" of fallen angels, or demons, appears in the Jewish Pseudoepigrapha.⁵⁰ By employing the concept of demons, Isaacs points out that the authors of this collection of books were trying to "disassociate God from Jewish catastrophe." Hence, the "use of angels who had gone bad were the perfect device" to use for the purpose of vindicating God's seemingly bad actions.⁵¹

As with the doctrine of Satan, the "fallen angel" concept is prominent in chapter six of the Jewish apocryphal book of Enoch. However, many scholars carry the doctrine back much further and point out that it grew out of the story in Genesis 6 wherein divine beings (or sons of Elohim) are said to have had sexual intercourse with the daughters of men: "When men began to increase on earth and daughters were born to them, the divine beings saw how beautiful the daughters of men were and took wives from among those that pleased them.... It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth - when the divine beings [sons of God] cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown."⁵² According to the famous medieval biblical Jewish commentator, Rashi, the word "Nephilim" is derived from the Hebrew verb "nafal" (to fall), by which he concludes that the Nephilim are the fallen angels.⁵³

Such a notice by Rashi, combined with the history of Judaism, sows some discord in present-day Jewish doctrine, which essentially dismisses the notion of demons and a devil.

To be blunt, Zoroasterism and rabbinic Judaism is why all Christians must daily struggle against the Prince of Darkness and his demons until these "forces of evil" are at last defeated in a final end-time great battle and cast into a bottomless pit, and/or into the "Lake of Fire."⁵⁴ Speaking of Satan being cast into fire, "coincidentally" Kingu, the supreme dragon-son of Tiamat, was cast into fire along with his dragon brethren when he was defeated by the supreme god Baal-Merodach.⁵⁵

The Heavens and the Earth

Going back to the Babylonian Creation Tablets, we again pick up the story of the great dragon of the deep. After Tiamat's defeat and "death" Baal-Merodach cut her body into two pieces, which are designated in Babylonian mythology as the upper water and the lower water.⁵⁶ He then took the skin of Tiamat and stretched it out to form the "canopy of Heaven." This act confined "the waters that caused rain" above the canopy.

Scholars point out that the Tiamat myth is paralleled in Genesis 1:7 when Elohim (God), the Hebrew counterpart to Baal-Merodach, divided the waters "which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." (In Genesis God creates a "firmament" to divide the waters above the earth and below on the earth.) The Hebrew word used for "firmament" means "what is spread out" and, as Professor Stephen Langdon notes in his book, volume five of The Mythology of All Races, it "corresponds to the skin of Tiamat used by Marduk to construct the vault of Heaven."⁵⁷

This observation is partially supported by Dr. Gesenius who, in his Hebrew lexicon, notes the following about the "firmament" of Genesis: "the Hebrews believed [that] there was a heavenly ocean."⁵⁸ Clearly the ancient Hebrews believed the Semitic legend that the universe was a vast ocean until the supreme God divided it. Further, as we shall see, they also believed in great dragons who inhabited these waters.⁵⁹

Monsters of the Deep

To begin, let's once again read the quote in The Encyclopedia Britannica about the origins of Satan: "In Babylonian mythology 'the old serpent goddess 'the lady Nina' was transformed into the embodiment of all that was hostile to the powers of heaven' and was confounded with the dragon Tiamat, 'a terrible monster, reappearing in the Old Testament writings as Rahab and Leviathan, the principle of chaos, the enemy of God and man."⁶⁰ The mention of the sea serpents of the "Old Testament" is an interesting point to pursue.

Within the Tanakh the dragons of the deep, which are called Rahab and Leviathan, are personifications of evil. They are the evil with which God has to battle in order to rule the universe, which is the meaning of the term "the deep."

However, before we pursue this point we need to understand that present-day Judaism does not take the Tanakh's mention of dragons literally. According to Judaism, such references are simply allegorical. In other words, the rabbis contend that the various writers of the Tanakh never intended to convey that there was some endless battle between God and dragons for control of the universe. Accordingly, the reason that such analogies are found in the Jewish Bible is because the ancient Israelites were a Semitic people closely akin to the Babylonians, hence the legends of Babylon were widely known and, according to the editors of The JPS Torah Commentary, were widely accepted as fact. Therefore, Jewish scholars have concluded that well-known myths were employed in the Tanakh to make a point to which the primitive Israelites could relate.

Whether or not one cares to accept this rabbinical explanation, the important thing here is that the present-day Bible reader is often totally ignorant of this background. In fact, if he or she happens to be a fundamentalist Christian they may very well have heard sermons explaining that biblical "sea monsters" really did exist in "Bible times." Actually I once heard a sermon in which the minister offered a literal interpretation of "dragons of the deep" by trying to convince his listeners that the so-called Loch Ness Monster might very well exist. And, if this silliness wasn't bad enough, this same man later introduced some very unsound reasoning to try and "prove" that in the distant past fire-breathing dragons once lived and terrorized humans — an argument which he thought supported Job chapter 41!

Absurdities aside, the mention of God's creating the "great sea monsters" in Genesis 1:21 prompts some interesting comments from the editors of The JPS Torah Commentary: "These myths about a cosmic battle [with dragons] at the beginning of time appear in the Bible in fragmentary form, and the several allusions have to be pieced together to produce some kind of coherent unity. Still, the fact that these myths appear in literary compositions in ancient Israel indicates clearly that they had achieved wide currency over a long period of time."⁶¹

Dr. Paul Carus put the subject into perspective when he writes: "Nowhere in extant literature is the myth of Yahveh's [the Creator God of Genesis] combat with the dragon actually narrated. Judaism, the distinctive work of which was the collection of the canon, did not admit myths that savored of heathendom. Nevertheless, the fact that in all the passages that speak of the dragon the myth is not portrayed but simply presupposed, proves that it was very well known and very popular with the people."⁶² In other words, ancient Semitic myths about dragons are in the Tanakh because they were once held as truth by the ancient Hebrews.⁶³

Allegorical or not, the use of mythical Babylonian dragons survives in Psalms 74:13-14: "thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters; thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces..." (Let us here remember that in Babylonian myth "Marduk now returned to the corpse of Tiamat [and] he split her skull.")⁶⁴ Continuing in Psalms 74: "and gavest him [Leviathan] to the be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness." This last part of the verse not only recalls an ancient paralleling Jewish myth, which will be discussed shortly, but again brings to mind that Baal-Merodach ate the flesh of the dragon Tiamat after he slew her.

Let us also notice the following scriptures about a sea monster called Rahab, which is, as the editors of The Oxford Companion to the Bible say, "A name (Hebr. rahab) for the primeval adversary of Yahweh in the battle prior to creation."⁶⁵ In other words, Rahab is another name for Tiamat! Isaiah 51:9 says, "Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and wounded the dragon?" In Job 24: 12-13: we read, "He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud (Rahab). By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens: his hands hath formed (or pierced) the crooked serpent." Again, notice that this mirrors the Babylonian myth of Baal-Merodach running through the dragon Tiamat when he defeated and slew her. Indeed, Jewish legend tell how God supposedly castrated the male leviathan, which instantly recalls the myth of Baal-Merodach castrating his own dragon father after he defeated him.⁶⁶

Armed with this background, the tale of Baal-Merodach slaying the dragon Mother, splitting her in pieces and scattered her followers is likely the inspiration of Psalms 89:10: "Thou has broken Rahab in pieces as one that is slain: thou hast scattered thine enemies [the demons!] with thy strong arm."

The most revealing dragon scripture in the Tanakh is found in Job 41, which records a conversation between Job and God: "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? ... Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee? Will he make a covenant with thee? ... Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants? Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears? Lay thin hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more. Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me? [This notice tells us that God has done these things!] ... Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about. His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.... By his sneezings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.... His heart is as firm as a stone, yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. When he raiseth up himself the might are afraid ... He esteemth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee ... He maketh the deep to boil like a pot. Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride." The Stone Edition of the Tanakh renders that last sentence: "He looks down on everything elevated; he is the king over the haughty." (Emphasis added.)

There is little doubt that the fire-breathing dragon, who has the ability to speak, and who looks down with pride on everything, is in reference to the dragon of Chaos with whom God had to battle, and who developed into the "fiery flying dragon" of later Babylonian mythology. God is in effect telling Job, "look at this terrible monster before whom mankind flees in terror; can you subdue him, as I have?"

There is another noticeable point in Job 41: In the context of the story this dragon is alive, which recalls the great dragon of Jewish mythology who is destined to be defeated by God in the end time. Perhaps we can understand to what degree the ancient Hebrews believed in dragons, and therefore why they are mentioned in the Tanakh, by examining this particular mythical legend.

In ancient Jewish myth Elohim created a sea monster called Leviathan; Dr. Ginzberg writes: "Originally he [Leviathan] was created male and female ... but when it appeared that a pair of these monsters might annihilate the whole earth with their united strength, God killed the female... The real purpose of leviathan is to be served up as a dainty to the pious in the world to come. The female was put into brine as soon as she was killed, to be preserved against the time when her flesh will be needed."⁶⁷

As noted above, this tale not only parallels the story of Baal-Merodach eating the flesh of the slain dragon Tiamat, it also recalls that she, along with her consort Apsu, sought to bring evil upon all creation. Also, in accordance with later Babylonian myth, the male dragon is not killed by God, but is reserved for a later time: "The male is destined to offer a delectable sight to all beholders before he is consumed. When his last hour arrives, God will summon the angels to enter into combat with the monster.... From the skin of leviathan God will construct tents to shelter companies of the pious while they enjoy the dishes made of his flesh."⁶⁸ If this story sounds like the Christian book of Revelation, it is no coincidence.

The Babylonian-inspired Jewish myth of God doing battle with an evil male dragon is found in the book of Revelation: "And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon ... and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth ... And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole word: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."⁶⁹

Jewish scholars would say that the difference between the Christian Bible and the Tanakh is that in the first instance Christian writers literally believed in the much-developed Jewish mythology about dragons, while the authors of the latter book did not. They may note, for example, the Tanakh's theme of good conquering evil, especially in the end-time prophecies when the "kingdom of God" will finally be established throughout the earth. Accordingly, this theme is behind the allegory of an evil dragon adversary as alluded to throughout the Tanakh.

Whatever the explanation, the dragon of the Tanakh is undoubtedly the fallen Goddess Tiamat, reborn as Leviathan and who is destined to eventually battle God and his angels in the end time: "In that day [the end time] the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."⁷⁰

Satan in the Garden of Eden

It is now time to take a close look at Satan as defined in the Tanakh, and yes, the Christian New Testament. To do this we need to start at the beginning, which, in this case, takes us to the creation of humans on earth.

According to the Babylonian Tablets of Creation, after Baal-Merodach had defeated the evil dragon he was proclaimed the greatest of the high gods, or elohim: "... [he] set the Universe in order, and created all things anew. He is therefore Tutu, 'the creator,' a merciful and beneficent god. He is the one who brings the dead to life; who redeems; 'the merciful one'; 'he with whom is salvation'; 'may his word be established, and not forgotten.'"⁷¹ Baal-Merodach set twelve gods, his brothers,⁷² in their stations and created their images in the stars of the Zodiac. He then proceeded to eat part of the Great Mother's flesh, after which he was a able to devise a plan. That plan was the creation of all living things, including humanity.⁷³ In effect, eating the flesh of a deity is partly what gave life to mankind.

Baal-Merodach now turned his attention to his brother Kingu, whom Tiamat had placed in rule over the universe. Baal-Merodach defeats, castrates and then kills Kingu, and then cast him into fire to be burned. From Kingu's blood Baal-Merodach created the first human, a man called Adamu, who was created in the image of Baal-Merodach.⁷⁴ Quite revealing is the fact that the Hebrew name, Adam, which is Adamu in the Semitic Sumerian/Babylonian tongue, means a man made of blood and clay, or "bloody clay."⁷⁵

We may deduce that the blood used to create the first man was taken from the severed penis of Kingu because this same legend is found in several religions that descend from the Babylonian Mysteries. For instance, Egyptian myth declared that the sun god Ra castrated himself to create a race called the Ammiu out of his blood. In Hinduism, a Semitic religion descending from the Babylonian Mysteries, the supreme god Mahadeva created a race of men out of his severed penis, which was mixed with earth.⁷⁶ There are numerous other examples that could be cited, but these two should suffice to demonstrate where the blood came from in the creation of Adamu. Additionally, it is important to notice that these creation myths say that the blood of the male god was mingled with soil, or clay, to produce mankind. In mythology the earth is symbolic of the Mother Goddess. Therefore the mixing of blood from the penis of the male god with "clay" which is the body of the Mother Goddess, is responsible for begetting life.⁷⁷

It is also quite relevant to mention that in the story of Tiamat and Kingu we find the first primitive concept of humanity attaining life from the death, flesh and blood of gods.⁷⁸

The "Fall" of Man

To a Christian, the first mention of Satan is found in the book of Genesis and the infamous Garden of Eden incident. Every Christian knows that it was Satan, disguised as a serpent, who tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. It was he who brought about the "fall of man" and caused all the subsequent evil of this world. What most Christians don't know is that the scholarly consensus (both Jewish and Christian) is that the serpent in the Eden story is not Satan. "The Devil" is nowhere mentioned in the story of Genesis, they will declare. While this is technically true, it by no means tells the whole story.

The Christian identification of Satan with the serpent of Eden is due to several sources. Although we could examine both the Persian and the Gnostic accounts of man's fall, which offer much the same story as now believed in Christianity, and is, arguably, a more direct source of the Christian myth, we will instead look at the mythological Jewish legends.

Even though present day Judaism discounts the connection of Satan to the serpent of Eden, the fact is that it was their own mythology that made the connection for the Christians of the first century.⁷⁹ Further, in this instance the Jewish myth can be traced directly back to Babylon, via the Captivity and Persian Zoroasterism.

Like the Genesis account, Babylonian myth taught the "doctrine of original sin," which is attributed to Adamu.⁸⁰ In The Mythology of All Races we read that, "The doctrine arose in the orthodox priesthood as a defense of divine providence, when a Babylonian school of philosophers challenged the ancient teaching of the Sumerians, who held that the gods are good and just. It was not they who sent disease and sorrow into the world, not they who created man to die, but pain and mortality originated in the ignorance of a great ancestor, tricked by the jealousy of a god, and so passed forever the great opportunity of mankind."⁸¹

At first glance it would seem that the Babylonian and Hebrew accounts of the Garden of Eden are quite dissimilar. For instance, unlike the Genesis account the Babylonian Adamu did not "fall" on account of his wife and that now infamous serpent. The Babylonian Adamu was tricked into losing his immortality by the jealousy of a god. But, if we carefully examine the facts surrounding the Genesis account we find that Adam is essentially tricked into losing his immortality by the "fallen god" of later Christian mythology.⁸²

We can also see a connection between Genesis and Babylonian myth by noting that the tree of life, the serpent and the woman symbolism is well represented in ancient Babylonian art.⁸³ To this consideration another fact can be added.

While the "fall" of man isn't connected to a serpent, a woman and the "tree of life" in the Babylonian accounts, it is found in the Tagtug legend of Paradise, wherein Adam is called Adaptu. Here we can read that the Creator God, called Anu, wanted to keep man in ignorance of the secrets of heaven and forbade him to eat of the "tree of the knowledge," meaning he would forever be ignorant of evil. But the Father God Ea tricked Adaptu into gaining this forbidden knowledge because certain of the gods were jealous that man could have immortality.⁸⁴ This tale certainly recalls the ancient Jewish myth cited earlier: When Elohim created man the angelic "sons of god" were jealous and rebelled.⁸⁵

At any rate, in Semitic legend humanity fell because of the "sin" of Adam, or Adamu/Adapta, which was effected by the trickery of a god. With this background we can now consider both Zoroasterism and Jewish mythology which ties the "fall of man" in the Garden of Eden to a fallen Christian god named Satan.

Earlier I mentioned the direct influence of Persian Zoroasterism on the Jewish legend of man's fall in the Garden of Eden. Without going into great detail, I will let Professor Adolphe Franck make this point by recounting the Zoroastrian legend, which he connects to the fall of man in Genesis: Zoroasterism taught that God (Ormuzd) created a paradise called "Eeriene Veedjo ... a place of delight and abundance.... This place, more beautiful than the entire world, resembles the Behesht (the celestial paradise)." (The word Behesht is, by the way, almost the same Hebrew word translated as "Genesis" in the Jewish Tanakh.)

Franck continues by noting that the Persian counterpart of Satan, Ahriman, "... descends from heaven to earth in the shape of an adder. It is also Ahriman who seduce the first man, Meshiah, and the first woman, Meshiane. 'He crept over their thoughts, he overthrew their minds, and said to them: 'It was Ahriman who made the water, the earth, the trees and the animals.' Thus Ahriman deceived them at the very beginning, and until the end this cruel one endeavored to seduce them."⁸⁶

After the Captivity, Jewish writers began to produce the first myths about Satan and the fall of man. To document this, let us first recall the Jewish myth about Satan's fall: When God created Adam in his image he commanded all the heavenly host to bow down and worship him. Dr. Ginzberg records: "Satan, the greatest of the angels in heaven, with twelve wings instead of six like all the others, refused to pay heed to the behest of God." Therefore, Satan, along with his followers, were "flung" out of heaven: "from that moment dates the enmity between Satan and man."⁸⁷

Once on earth Satan began a relentless war against humanity. The first destructive act was seducing Eve to her fall. According to Jewish myth, Eve tells the story of that time: The serpent thereupon suspended himself from the wall surrounding Paradise, to carry on his conversation with me from without. And this happened at the very moment when my two guarding angels had betaken themselves to heaven to supplicate the Lord. I was quite alone therefore, and when Satan assumed the appearance of an angel, bent over the wall of Paradise, and intoned seraphic songs of praise, I was deceived, and thought him an angel. A conversation was held between us, Satan speaking through the mouth of the serpent."⁸⁸ The story continues with Eve finally giving in to the words of Satan and eating the forbidden fruit.

Aside from just tempting Eve, in Jewish mythology Satan, in the form of a serpent, is credited with fathering Cain. (This story is undoubtedly related to the notice in Genesis 6 about Nephilim having sexual intercourse with earthly women and fathering "heroes" of old.)⁸⁹

About the serpent of Eden, Jewish mythology tells us that "Like man he stood upright upon two feet, and in height he was equal to the camel."⁹⁰ The myth goes on to recount that the evil Cain was born after an illicit sexual union between Eve and the man-like serpent: "But after the fall of Eve, Satan, in the guise of the serpent, approached her, and the fruit of their union was Cain, the ancestor of all the impious generations that were rebellious toward God, and rose up against Him. Cain's descent from Satan, who is the angel Samael, was revealed in his seraphic appearance. At his birth, the exclamation was wrung from Eve, 'I have gotten a man through an angel of the Lord.'"⁹¹

Such a tale was the natural result of the Jewish legend that it was Cain who had first founded a great apostate mystery religion. Such an evil man had to be the product of an illicit union between Satan and Eve. He could have never been the son of the patriarch Adam, who is painted in Jewish mythology as a rather innocent and righteous man.

Although the rabbis tell us that the fall of man in the Genesis story isn't connected to Satan, the facts of their own history are conclusive. Allegorical or not, the use of Semitic myth by the authors of Genesis, coupled with the later legends of Zoroasterism, is largely responsible for the Christian concept of a fallen god-dragon who caused the downfall of humanity.

Just Who Is the Real Satan?

We have already looked into the extensive history of Satan in Babylonian, Persian, Jewish and Christian mythology. All that is left is to examine Satan as detailed in the Tanakh. Here we shall find that Satan is not depicted as an evil dragon being. Indeed, within the Tanakh, he is not connected to the evil dragons Leviathan and Rahab, but has the distinction of being a servant of God and a member of the heavenly court; Satan merely carries out the will of his Creator, which tells us why present day Judaism strongly discounts its mythological heritage.

As mentioned, when the concept of a dragon creature fighting against God found its way into the imagination of the post-Captivity Jewish people, it was only natural for them to assign this role to an already well-known angelic messenger-servant of God. Within the Tanakh there was a specific angelic being who had the distinction of being the bearer of death and destruction to mankind. He was called the "adversary."

In the Hebrew language the word for "an adversary," or "the accuser," was "satan." The word, or verb, is not a proper name.⁹² This is why "satan" is applied to any adversary — a man, an invading army, a king, and, as we shall now see, even to God himself.

The most interesting use of "satan" in the Tanakh is found in I Chronicles 21:1: "And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel." Let's read this same account in II Samuel 24:1: "And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he moved David against them to say, go, number Israel and Judah." In the latter account Satan and God seem to be one and the same person. Most Jewish scholars will explain this by saying that God sent "Satan" to cause David to sin by numbering Israel, meaning that he was God's agent acting on his behalf. Of course, this isn't, as critics like to point out, what the scripture says. In fact, by going to Isaiah 45:5,7 we read of God: "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me ... I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

If God is the originator of good (peace) and evil, then this alone tells us who and what "Satan" is! Perhaps Isaiah 45 is why Hasidic Judaism teaches that "Satan is but the extension of the left side of God Himself."⁹³

Some say it was unfortunate that the Hebrew verb "satan" was transliterated into a proper name within the Tanakh. For instance, they note that the Christian translation of Zechariah 3:1-2 incorrectly reads: "And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, the Lord rebuke thee, O Satan." To prove this, they compare the scripture to the JPS Tanakh translation: "He further showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and the Accuser standing at his right to accuse him. But [the angel of] of the Lord said to the Accuser, 'The Lord rebuke you, O Accuser.'"

Although it is noticeable that the translators of the JPS Tanakh use the proper meaning of the Hebrew verb "satan," they nonetheless capitalize it to designate that, in this case, there is a specific "angel" acting as an accuser. In effect, this example in Zechariah, combined with the next, is how the being Satan was born within Judaism.

The "accusing" angel, or "Satan," also turns up in the story of Job. Scholars rightly point out the fact that in the book of Job Satan is not evil, but a messenger. Indeed, the editors of The Oxford Companion to the Bible note that Satan "seems to be a legitimate member of God's council."⁹⁴ And how could he be otherwise?

If, as many Christians believe, Satan rebelled and was cast out of heaven to roam the earth before man's creation, then how could he be in the court of heaven as a "son of God" in conversation with God about Job?⁹⁵ Further, notice in the story that Satan complains about Job. If Job was a superficially righteous man, which would make him a "sinner" as "Satan" seems to argue, then it would have been to Satan's advantage to leave him be. Job's sin would have ultimately destroyed him in the course of time. In other words, left alone to live as he was, Job would have been an ally of the "Devil." By interfering, Satan drove Job solidly into the camp of God!

Consider now the mention in I Kings 22:21 of a "lying spirit," who, some Christians say, is Satan. Starting in verse 19 we read: "I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, who shall persuade [king] Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him.... And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.... Now thereof, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets ..."

Who was this "lying spirit?" For one thing he was part of the host of heaven, as was Satan in the story of Job. Other than that, there is no indication of his identity. The only certainty is that this spirit acted on the command of God himself who ordered him to lie to King Ahab in order to cause his death. If anything, one certainly cannot accuse this spirit of being evil. The actions in this story belong to God, which, at the risk of being overly repetitious, again recalls the Hasidic Jewish belief about "Satan" being "but the extension of the left side of God Himself."

Here, then, is the concept of Satan in the Tanakh, and it is not what Christianity teaches! Inside the Tanakh, all power, both good and evil, emanates from God.

Conclusion

Originally I had decided to write this booklet without offering a conclusion to my research. I simply wanted to present the facts and then leave it to the individual reader to make an educated decision. However, while writing this booklet, and especially as I reached the end of this study, I said aloud, "who are you kidding? You, Darrell Conder, have never passed an opportunity to make a comment on anything in your life."

As has been my life-long habit, I certainly have an opinion to offer on the subject of Satan the Devil. Further, I feel that I'm as qualified as anyone alive to offer such an opinion. After all, I've not only lived a life time in the fear of Satan, I've preached this fear to many others. So, for what it's worth, here is my conclusion about the Christian concept of Satan the Devil.

I see no logic in God creating a wondrous planet, crowning it with his majesty and glory, creating men and women in his image to "dress and keep" his creation, and then unleashing the diabolical being painted by Christianity to work full time in an effort to destroy everything he had built. It would be like a man or woman planning, building and laboring on a successful business and then hiring their worst enemy to work full time to destroy it all.

As for we humans, God's turning "Satan" loose on us would be tantamount to a loving mother and father bringing an evil, cunning person into their home, whose ultimate goal was to destroy their defenseless children, and then just sitting back and watching the predictable and horrible scene unfold. According to Christian doctrine this is the situation that God, in his wisdom and mercy, has allowed. I say that it makes no sense! I say that Satan is a fable invented solely for the benefit of a priesthood.

When I look up at the great churches and cathedrals of the world, which were built by extorting money from the ignorant masses fearful of an everlasting hell and a demonic being seeking their eternal lives, when I see on television or read in a religious magazine or pamphlet a so-called minister of God trying to scare people into supporting him with tales of "the Devil," I say damn the society that spawned this plague. And, I say, damn the ignorance that allows it to continue!

The doctrine of Satan the Devil is one of the most cruel hoaxes ever perpetuated on the human race, and I say that it is high time that people take responsibility for their own actions.

Bibliography

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—Book of the Goddess Past and Present, The. Edited by Carl Olson. (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Co. 1992)

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Carus, Paul. The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil. (Avenel, New Jersey: Gramercy Books, 1996: originally published in Chicago in 1900)

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DeLiguori, Alphonsus. The Complete Works of Saint Alphonsus DeLiguori, Volume XII of Dignity and Duties of the Priest Selva. translated from the Italian by Eugene Grimn. (Brooklyn: Redemptorist Fathers, 1927)

DeLiguori, Alphonsus Jno. The Glories of Mary, (Philadelphia: Joseph McVey Publisher, 1902)

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Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. translated from the German Manuscript of Henrietta Szold 5 Volumes, (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1937)

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—Peake's Commentary on the Bible. Edited by Matthew Black and H.H. Rowley. (Walton-on-Thames, Surry, Kent: Thomas Nelson and Sons LTD., 1981)

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Endnotes

1. In the 1950's the Worldwide Church of God was called the Radio Church of God due to the fact that most of its members "attended church" by listening to Herbert Armstrong on the radio. In the 1960's the corporate name was changed to Worldwide Church of God. Headquartered in Pasadena, California, the WCG was a seventh-day Sabbatarian church. It published the highly successful Plain Truth magazine (with a monthly circulation of 8 million copies at its height in the 1980's), operated three Ambassador College campuses, and published millions of pieces of literature every year. The dictatorial grip the WCG ministry had over its members combined with the eclectic doctrines it preached is why the church is often found listed in books detailing Christian cults.

2. With very few exceptions their publications all centered on an end of the world message. Even when the WCG produced a booklet or article on a subject other than the end of the world, it usually had this theme, or something related, mingled in the text. As an example, Herbert Armstrong wrote a booklet denouncing the wearing of makeup as a sin and ended it by threatening the reader with the "Lake of Fire" and eternal death if they continued to wear lipstick and face powder.

3. These drawings were illustrated by a nationally known cartoonist named Basil Wolverton, who was a minister with the WCG.

4. The booklet was entitled 1975 In Prophecy.

5. Franck, Adolphe. The Kabbalah: The Religious Philosophy of the Hebrews. Translated from the French. (New York: Bell Publishing Company, 1940), page 201. This conclusion, by the way, is backed by the majority of scholars.

6. Pp. 201-202.

7. Page 204.

8. op. cit., pp. 204 - 205.

9. op. cit., pp. 205-206. It should again be said that Professor Franck's candid admission about the history of rabbinical Judaism is supported by numerous authorities, including Judaism itself. See related articles in The Jewish Encyclopedia for further information.

10. op. cit., pp. 202-207

11. op. cit., pp. 210-211.

12. Carus, Paul. The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil. (Avenel, New Jersey: Gramercy Books, 1996: originally published in Chicago in 1900), pp. 58-59.

13. Harper's Bible Dictionary, p. 909. Some of these demons are named in Jewish legend as Belial, Mastemah, Apollyon, Sammael, and Asmodeus or Beelzebub.

14. 11th ed., vol. 8, pp. 121-122.

15. See article on "Satan." In the apocryphal Jewish book called The Assumption of Moses is the story of Satan disputing with the archangel Michael over the body of Moses. Although it is simply Jewish fable, and recognized as such by Judaism, the fact is that the story found its way into the New Testament book of Jude. Harper's Bible Dictionary, p. 1168.

16. Josephus records: "for the people of the ten tribes were carried out of Samaria by the Assyrians in the days of king Hoshea; after which the people of the two tribes that remained after Jerusalem was taken, were carried away by Nebuchadnezzar.... Now as to Shalmanezer, [he reigned before Sargon!] he removed the Israelites out of their country, and placed therein the nation of the Cutheans, who had formerly belonged to the inner parts of Persia and Media, but were then called Samaritans, by taking the name fo the country to which they were removed: but the king of Babylon, who brought out the two tribes, placed no other nations in their country, by which means all Judea and Jerusalem, and the temple, continued to be a desert for seventy years; but the entire interval of the time which passed from the captivity of the Israelites to the carrying away of the two tribes proved to be a hundred and thirty years ..." (Bk. X, 9:7.)

17. The Clemetine Homilies tell us that Simon Magus, a Samaritan mentioned in the book of Acts, was an Essene, and a disciple of John the Baptist. He is credited with the founding of Gnostic Christianity. See Darrell Conder's book, Mystery Babylon and the Lost Ten Tribes in the End Times,for additional information about Gnostic Christianity and the history of Simon Magus.

18. op. cit., p. 189. Gnostic Christianity taught that Satan brought true "enlightenment" to the world as the serpent in Eden, which was against God's will. To the Gnostics, it was Satan who was the friend of mankind; he was the "savior" and "revealer of secrets." Much of this doctrine followed Persian theology which taught that the Great Serpent Ahriman imparted knowledge to the first humans in the "Garden of Heden." Ahriman was the twin brother of God, but was cast out of heaven to earth because of his help to humanity. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, pp. 53, 895.

19. op. cit., p. 156.

20. In his book, Mythology's Last Gods, Dr. William Harwood, backed by numerous scholars, demonstrates that the most primitive accounts of the Mother-Goddess (i.e., pre-Babylonian, or Sumerian texts) shows her to be the supreme creator deity. (Harwood, William N. Mythology's Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus, [Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1992].) Another excellent source for this history is Merlin Stone's 263 page book, When God Was A Woman.

21. Stone, Merlin. When God Was A Woman. (New York: Dorset Press, 1990), pp. xvi-xvii.

22. See Harwood's, Mythology's Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus, and Stone's, When God Was A Woman for more information.

23. These Semitic Hebrew words are found in Genesis 1:2: "And the earth was without form (tohu) and void (bohu)—in other words, in chaos.

24. Both Apsu and Tiamat were called dragons of the deep. The Mythology of All Races, vol. V, p. 293. In Genesis 1:2 the Hebrew word "tehom" is designated "the deep." Some scholars have suggested that this word is actually derived from Tiamat. (Harwood, op. cit., p. 57.) The editors of The JPS [Jewish Publication Society] Torah Commentary for Genesis 1 note that the Hebrew tehom means the cosmic abyssal water that enveloped the earth, which is a concept found in the Babylonian creation myth. Interestingly, the commentary's editors draw a parallel between the Hebrew and Babylonian accounts by discussing the Mother Goddess Tiamat. The Mythology of All Races, vol. V, pp. 293-297. The Mythology of All Races is a thirteen-volume set edited by Canon John Arnott MacCulloch and the famous Christian doctor, George Foot Moore. Volume V was written by Stephen Herbert Langdon, a professor (in 1931) of Assyrology at Jesus College, Oxford.

25. Baal is a Semitic word that means "lord." Bel-Merodach is an alternate spelling of the same name.

26. In mythology, castrating a defeated king symbolized depriving him of his power. This symbolism is seen in the story of Noah, who, according to Jewish tradition, was castrated by his son Ham, who sought to displace his father. Sometimes the castration was symbolically carried out by raping the conquered king's wife. This was the reason behind the rape of King David's wives by his son Absalom.

27. Mackenzie, Donald A. Mythology of the Babylonian People. Reprint of the 1915 edition entitled, Myths of Babylonia and Assyria. (London: Braken Books, Random House, UK Ltd., 1996), p. 145.

28. What Christianity calls the Old Testament, is termed the Tanakh by Jews. The word Tanakh comes from the three-fold division of the Jewish Bible (Mesoretic Text): The Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Kethuvim, or the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The first letters of the Hebrew words Torah, Nevi'im, and Kethuvim (TNK) are used, along with added vowels, to form the Hebrew acronym Tanakh. Although they are certainly similar, there are some major differences between the Tanakh and the Christian Old Testament.

29. It should be made clear that the scholarly consensus is unanimous in that in using the well-known Semitic dirge for the Babylonian "fallen star" the author of Isaiah was underscoring his prophetic message about Babylon and its king. He never intended the mention of a fallen angel to be taken as a literal account—much less to be applied to the "origin" of Satan.

30. The name Lucifer was supposedly composed by putting two Latin words together.

31. The editor's of Harper's Bible Dictionary note that we owe the modern Christian concept of Satan to this book, and not, as they say, to "biblical writings." Page 909.

32. Albright, William Powell Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1968), p. 232. The story of Baal-Merodach's rebellion against his creator-mother and father was widespread among many ancient peoples because it turns up in a number of mythological variations. For instance the account of the Greek Father-God Zeus and his battle with the Titans, whom he cast into Tartaros (or hell).

33. There are few scholars who will deny that Ezra, upon his return to Jerusalem, heavily edited what Christians now call the Old Testament. Without going into the detail of that history, I'll quote here from Fred R. Coulter's The Christian Passover: "In compiling the books of Moses into a new lawbook, Ezra was attempting to restore and preserve the knowledge of God's laws. As part of his work, he made changes in the text to make it more understandable for the Jews of his day.... Day after day the reading and translation continued until the task was completed. The great work of Ezra was done. The lawbook of Moses was henceforth accepted as authoritative. Its influence cannot possibly be exaggerated. Whoever may be conjectured as the author of the lawbook, to which in fact many hands through the centuries had contributed, Ezra was rightly considered the second founder of Judaism, inferior only to Moses himself ..." (Hollister, CA: York Publishing, 1994), p. 161, quoting Arthur T. Olmstead's History of the Persian Empire (1959).

34. Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. Translated from the German Manuscript of Henrietta Szold, 5 Volumes (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1937), volume I, p. 64.

35. Luke 10:17-18

36. op. cit., p. 150-151.

37. Lurker, Manfred. A Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils, and Demons. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), p.101.

38. Stone, When God Was a Woman, p. x.

39. Mackenzie, op. cit., pp. 161, 162, 277, 278, 299.

40. Genesis 1:27. The literal translation of the Hebrew "elohim" is "gods." In a recent discovery it was learned that some ancient Israelites worshippers in the northern Sinai peninsula asked for a blessing from Yahweh and his wife, Asherah. The connection of the Hebrew God Yahweh to the Semitic Mother Goddess is hardly news to Hebrew scholars, as the most primitive Israelites apparently believed in and worshipped both. See article in The Signs of the Times, January 1998, page 10.

41. op. cit., volume V, p. 41.

42. Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, Selected Translations. p. 304. To further show how ingrained the new legend of a fallen angel god had become in mythology, historians and mythologists identify the serpent god Zu with the Greek Father-God Zeus, who had to put down the famous rebellion by the Titans. In fact, they recognize that Greek mythology as a close relative of Babylonian mythology, which tells us that, in the case of Zeus, we are reading a later refined variation of the Baal-Merodach/Tiamat rebellion story.

43. 11th ed., vol. 8, p. 121.

44. In the different versions of the Mystery Religions of Asia Minor, all of whose origins can be traced back to Babylon, the Mother Goddess invariably marries her own son, by whom she conceives and bears a savior god.

45. The Mythology of All Races, vol. V, pp. 296-297.

46. Ezekiel 28:13, NKJV.

47. The Mythology of All Races, vol. V, p. 302.

48. Ibid., p. 150. The cast out demons of Babylonian myth are felled to earth, which, prior to being divided, means that they were cast back to the lower firmament wherein they had originally dwelt. When the dry earth appears after creation, these demons are free to dwell among mankind. We should also note that the Babylonian story of mankind being created and given a chance for immortality in place of the fallen angels, is concept that is taught in Christianity. Here we see that doctrine's clear origins!

49. op. cit., pp. 206-210. Recalling that Jesus supposedly cast a legion of devils out of one man, simply harkens back to the doctrine of Zoroasterism, where demons roamed in mobs of a thousand!

50. Pseudoepigrapha: various spurious texts written between 200 BC and AD 200 and attributed to various prophets and kings mentioned in Hebrew scriptures.

51. Isaacs, Ronald H., Ascending Jacob's Ladder (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Publishers, 1998), p. 83.

52. The JPS Tanakh.

53. Isaacs, op. cit., p. 83. The Tanakh, The Stone Edition translates Genesis 6:4: "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days." The JPS Tanakh reads: "It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth—when the divine beings [sons of God] cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown."

54. Revelation 20:10.

55. The Mythology of All Races, vol. V, p. 315.

56. Some scholars believe that the myth of Tiamat's rent body is the origin of the name "Red Sea." The Mythology of All Races, vol. V, p. 303.

57. Vol. V, p. 304.

58. Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, p. 780, #7549.

59. The above presentation is not all-inclusive of the evidence leading scholars to determine that the Semitic legend of Tiamat is alluded to in Genesis. They also consider other Babylonian myths such as the creation of Adam, the Garden of Eden incident and the flood of Noah all of which are found in Genesis. When this evidence is laid side-by-side with the numerous scriptures throughout the Tanakh, wherein an evil dragon dwelling in the deep is mentioned, the evidence is considered conclusive.

60. 11th ed., vol. 8, p. 121.

61. The JPS [Jewish Publication Society] Torah Commentary, volume 1, p. 3. The editors go on to openly acknowledge the presence of Babylonian legends in the Jewish Bible, specifically the Semitic legend of the battle by the high gods against the Great Mother, the dragon of the sea, who was the Chaos vanquished by the Lord. But, they offer that by mentioning these sea monsters "late in the cosmogonic process, the narrative at once strips them of divinity." Ibid, p. 10.

62. op. cit., pp. 72-73.

63. This fact is why numerous Reform Jewish rabbis teach that the Tanakh certainly contains error, but that such error can be explained by understanding that the Tanakh is first and foremost a record of the Jewish people and their attempts to find and understand their God. The Reform Jewish opinion can be summed up thus: Accepting that the Tanakh contains the word of God, along with the history, the legends, the trials, the errors, the opinions and the fallacies of a people known as Israel, is the key to understanding the place the Tanakh should hold within one's life. Yes, the Tanakh has errors—some minor, some major. Yes, it contains the opinions of men—some offering great wisdom, some simply being self-seeking; yes it does contain the words of God, although these are subject to a man's interpretion; but all these writings can be accepted for what they are if one understands what has gone to make up the "holy book" of Israel.

64. The Mythology of All Races, vol. V, p. 303.

65. Page 642.

66. Ginzberg, op. cit., vol. V, p. 41.

67. Ginzberg, op. cit., vol. I, p. 27.

68. Ginzberg, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 27-28.

69. Revelation 12:3-9. It is interesting to mention here that the archangel Michael is first mentioned in the book of Daniel, which dates to a time long after the Babylonian Captivity of Judah. In other words, he is likely a product of the same imagination that produced many of the legends of Satan and his fallen demons.

70. 27:1. See Mackenzie, op. cit., pp. 157-158.

71. Mackenzie, op. cit., pp. 145-149.

72. The reader's attention is called to the fact that the number twelve was a magical number throughout Mesopotamian mythology and theology. This same number, a magical number, became an important symbol in both the Old and New Testaments.

73. Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 147.

74. The JPS Torah Commentary, volume 1, "Genesis," p. 12. Baal-Merodach was unlike his dragon brethren, the lower gods of Babylonian myth. They were created in the image of their mother, the great dragon Tiamat. Baal-Merodach was said to be in the form of a man, the form he copied in his creation of man. As an aside, the ancient Egyptians, who borrowed a great deal from Semitic legend, also believed that man was created in the image of the Creator-God. ibid. Of further interest is that the Babylonian account of man's creation from clay is the last creative act of Baal-Merodach, and so it is in Genesis: The last act of Elohim is the creation of man.

75. This is the opinion of numerous scholars. Dr. Gesenius gives several different meanings for the word Adam. One is "red" or "ruddy," which is taken to refer to the man Adam's complexion. (See #120-121) However, as a variant meaning he says the Hebrew "Adam" also means a color, notably "used of a garment stained with blood." Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon.

76. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, pp.142-143.

77. Walker, op. cit., p. 999.

78. The Mythology of All Races, vol. V, p. 307. This would be a good place to mention that the accounts of Eve being created from the rib of Adam is perhaps paralleled in an ancient account of pre-Babylonian Sumer, where the Mother-Goddess made infants from the ribs of their mother. She was called the "Lady of the Rib and Lady of Life." Walker, op. cit., p. 9.

79. Christian scholars note that the first mention of the Satan of later Christian tradition occurs in the third/second centuries BC within post-exilic Jewish literature, specifically in the apocryphal book, The Wisdom of Solomon. This simply means that the traditions of an evil force embodied under the name of Satan came about after Jewish contact with the religions of Babylon and Persia; it was during at time that Satan evolved into the archenemy of God and of humanity.

80. Or Adapa, which is another form of Adamu.

81. op. cit., p. 183.

82. As to that last statement, we should consider an important fact from the Christian New Testament: Within Christianity Satan is a god. Not only is he called a god in II Corinthians 4:4, the stories surrounding him make this clear. For instance Satan is "omnipresent" as Christianity teaches that he is everywhere at once. Supposedly Satan is tempting every man, woman, and child in every corner of the world at the same time; he sees all, and knows all, and is, in fact, at the root of all evil around the world, of which he is the ruler. Also, we need to understand that Satan is called a "son of God" in the Tanakh. Although Judaism would argue otherwise, the fact is that within any mythology a son of god always denotes that such an individual is as fully a god as his parent.

83. Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 39. See also page 35. Admittedly there hasn't been, to date, the discovery of a Babylonian record of the Garden of Eden episode, but the artistic depiction of a woman, tree and serpent in their mythology along with the stories of Adamu and creation certainly raises the probability that it once was a prime feature of Babylonian mythology. The Babylonian Creation Tablets are in fragmented condition. In several instances a story is interrupted by a broken tablet. This means that the story of the Tree of Life, the serpent and the woman was probably a part of these tablets. The tree of life is a well-known part of ancient mythology in the Near East. The sacred tree of life is representative of fertility, or continuing life, which is parallel to immortality. See Harper's Bible Dictionary, p. 1094.

84. The Mythology of All Races, op. cit., pp. 183-185. The Tagtug legend tells of Nammu, the Mother Goddess of the primeval sea "who gave birth to heaven and earth." It also relates how the first humans "... had not yet conceived heaven and hell, eternal reward and punishment; they offered prayer and sacrifice not for 'eternal life,' but for tangible advantages here on earth. Later legend told how Adapa, a sage of Eridu, had been initiated into all lore by Ea, goddess of wisdom; one secret only had been refused him—the knowledge of deathless life. Another legend narrated how the gods had created man happy; how man, by his free will, had sinned, and been punished with a flood, from which but one man—Tagtug the weaver—had survived. Tagtug forfeited longevity and health by eating the fruit of a forbidden tree." Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage (part one of The Story of Civilization, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963), pp. 128-129.

85. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 1, pp. 52-54, 64.

86. op. cit., p. 206. Franck cites Zend Avest, Vol. III, pp. 351 and 378.

87. Ginzberg, op. cit., volume I, pp. 62-64.

88. Ginzberg, op. cit., vol. I, p. 95.

89. Isaacs, op. cit., p. 83. The Tanakh, The Stone Edition translates Genesis 6:4: "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days." The JPS Tanakh, reads: "It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth—when the divine beings [sons of God] cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown."

90. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 1, p. 71.

91. Ibid, p. 105.

92. See I Samuel 29:4, II Samuel 19:22 and I Kings 5:4; 11:14, 23, 25, etc., for example.

93. Tzvi M. Babinowicz, The Encyclopedia of Hasidism, p. 151. This thought is very close to the doctrine of both Zoroasterism and Gnosticism, which taught that God and Satan were brothers.

94. Page 679. See also Harper's Bible Dictionary, p. 909.

95. Job 1:6.

Copyright © 1998 by Darrell W. Conder, Salt Lake City, Utah. All Rights Reserved.