Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast.
Speaker 2: The Adversary, Old Scratch, the Lord of Lies, Dark Hory,
Speaker 2: host of the nether World. He's got many names, but
Speaker 2: I think you can guess who we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Could it be right?
Speaker 2: With more than a thousand movies and TV shows and
Speaker 2: countless literary and artistic versions, it might be easy to
Speaker 2: think of him as a fictional character. But to many Americans,
Speaker 2: Satan is a real and present threat, not just to
Speaker 2: our day to day lives, but to our eternal disposition.
Speaker 2: Perhaps you're the kind of person who thinks this has
Speaker 2: little impact on you, or that people who believe in
Speaker 2: the literal existence of the devil are out of touch
Speaker 2: with reality. Recently, Jennifer Senior at New York Magazine interviewed
Speaker 2: American Supreme Court Justice Antony's Kalia. I'll put a link
Speaker 2: to that in the show notes, but here's an excerpt
Speaker 2: presented for you as a dramatic reading, and I think
Speaker 2: it says a lot about the relevance of Satan in
Speaker 2: our real, everyday lives at all.
Speaker 1: Well, whatever you think of the opinion, Justice Kennedy is
Speaker 1: now the third good marshal of gay rights. I don't
Speaker 1: know how, by your lights, that's going to be regarded
Speaker 1: in fifty years.
Speaker 4: I don't know either, and frankly, I don't care.
Speaker 5: Maybe the world is spitting toward a wider acceptance of
Speaker 5: homosexual rights, and here's Scalia standing authwarted, at least standing
Speaker 5: athwarted as a constitutional entitlement.
Speaker 4: But I've never been a custodian of my legacy. When
Speaker 4: I'm dead and gone, I'll hire to be sublimely happy
Speaker 4: or terribly unhappy.
Speaker 1: You believe in heaven and Hell?
Speaker 4: Of course I do. Don't you believe in heaven and Hell? No?
Speaker 3: Oh my?
Speaker 1: Does that mean I'm not going.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, not.
Speaker 1: Wait to heaven or hell?
Speaker 4: Does mean you're not going to hell just because you
Speaker 4: don't believe in it. That's Catholic doctrine. Everyone's going to
Speaker 4: one place.
Speaker 3: Or the other.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to be a Catholic to get
Speaker 1: into heaven or believe in it.
Speaker 3: Of course not.
Speaker 1: Oh so you don't know where I'm going, thank God?
Speaker 4: No, No, I know. I don't know where you're going.
Speaker 4: I don't even know whether Judas is scary it as
Speaker 4: in Hell. I mean, that's what the Pope meant when
Speaker 4: he said to who am I to judge? He may
Speaker 4: have recanted and had severe penance just before he died.
Speaker 3: Who knows.
Speaker 1: Can we just talk about your drafting process.
Speaker 4: I even believe in the devil? You do? Of course,
Speaker 4: he's a real person. Hey, come on, that's standard Catholic doctrine.
Speaker 4: Every Catholic believes that.
Speaker 1: Every Catholic believes this. There's a wide variety of Catholics
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 4: If you are fait faithful to Catholic dogma, that is
Speaker 4: certainly a large part of it.
Speaker 1: Have you seen evidence of the devil lately?
Speaker 4: You know, it's curious. In the Gospels, the devil is
Speaker 4: doing all sorts of things. He's making pigs runoff cliffs,
Speaker 4: he's possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn't happen very
Speaker 4: much anymore. No, it's because.
Speaker 3: He's smart.
Speaker 1: So what's he doing now?
Speaker 4: What he's doing now is getting people not to believe
Speaker 4: in him or in God. He's much more successful that way.
Speaker 1: That has really painful implications for atheists. Are you sure
Speaker 1: that's the devil's work?
Speaker 4: They didn't say that atheists are the devil's work.
Speaker 1: Well, you're saying the devil is persuading people to not
Speaker 1: believe in God. Couldn't there be other reasons to not believe?
Speaker 4: Well, I certainly can be other reasons, but it certainly
Speaker 4: favors the devil's desires. I mean, come on, that's the
Speaker 4: explanation for why there's not demonic possession all over the place.
Speaker 4: That always puzzled me. What happened to the devil? You know,
Speaker 4: used to be all over the place, used to be
Speaker 4: all over the New Testament?
Speaker 6: Right, What happened to him? He just got wilier, He
Speaker 6: got wilier. Isn't it terribly frightening to believe in the devil?
Speaker 4: You're looking at me as though I'm weird, My God,
Speaker 4: you are so out of touch with most of America,
Speaker 4: most of which believes in the Devil. I mean, Jesus
Speaker 4: Christ believed in the devil. It's in the Gospels.
Speaker 5: You travel in circles that are so so removed from
Speaker 5: mainstream America that you are.
Speaker 4: Appalled that anybody would believe in the devil. Most mankind
Speaker 4: has believed in the devil for all of history. Many
Speaker 4: many more intelligent people than you or me have believed
Speaker 4: in the Devil.
Speaker 1: I hope you weren't sensing contempt for me, it wasn't
Speaker 1: your belief that surprised me as so much as how
Speaker 1: boldly you expressed it.
Speaker 4: I was offended. I was offended by that.
Speaker 3: I really was.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 7: A giant, hairy creature. Part eight.
Speaker 3: Part of that.
Speaker 7: In Luckness, a twenty four mile long bottomless lake in
Speaker 7: the Highlands of Scotland. It's a creature known as the
Speaker 7: Luckness Monster.
Speaker 3: More obstrutal.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Monster Talk. I'm your host, Blake Smith. Today
Speaker 2: I present an unusual interview about a monster who, whether
Speaker 2: you believe in his literal existence or not, impacts your
Speaker 2: life on a daily basis. Millions of people around the
Speaker 2: world and throughout history have believed that there's a dark force,
Speaker 2: a dark and powerful entity working against the powers of
Speaker 2: good in the world. Fundamentalists believe that the Bible is
Speaker 2: the literal and infallible word of God and that the
Speaker 2: villain in that tale is a real, impotent enemy of
Speaker 2: the world. And much the same way that they rail
Speaker 2: against evolution, they rail against Satan and Satanic forces too.
Speaker 2: There's a kind of logic era called a tautology, which
Speaker 2: goes like this. The Bible's literally true. How do you
Speaker 2: know because the Bible says it's true. But here's a
Speaker 2: demonstrable fact. The Bible has changed over time, and it's
Speaker 2: a complicated work written by many people in many different times.
Speaker 2: And what I find interesting is that as it has changed,
Speaker 2: so's the content the Bible evolves and its interpretation evolves.
Speaker 2: You don't have to go back thousands of years to
Speaker 2: see this. Merely look back into the eighteen hundreds and
Speaker 2: how the Bible was interpreted to support slavery. The purpose
Speaker 2: of this episode is not to infuriate Christians or to
Speaker 2: cause atheists to gloat, nor to help encourage people to
Speaker 2: question their faith. I just want to examine this villainous
Speaker 2: character who keeps being presented as the orchestrator of all
Speaker 2: kinds of evil in the world, because I think if
Speaker 2: we're honest with ourselves, we'll find that in the end,
Speaker 2: it doesn't take a supernatural boogeyman to cause all the
Speaker 2: evil in the world. We have that dark capacity all
Speaker 2: by ourselves.
Speaker 3: More Mobstertal.
Speaker 2: Monster talks proud to welcome back Robert M.
Speaker 3: Price.
Speaker 2: You will likely remember Bob from our Cuthulu episode, which
Speaker 2: so far is our second most popular episode ever, just
Speaker 2: behind our Ancient Aliens episode. In addition to his love
Speaker 2: Craftian scholarship, Bob's also a noted biblical scholar and the
Speaker 2: author of many books on biblical topics, well is the
Speaker 2: popular podcast The Bible Geek. So, Bob, welcome back to
Speaker 2: Monster Talk.
Speaker 7: It's great to be here and to be monstrous again.
Speaker 2: So I'm asking you here today to talk about one
Speaker 2: of the most well known villains in Western civilization, the Devil.
Speaker 2: But I think we need to figure out who we
Speaker 2: mean by the Devil, because there seems to be way
Speaker 2: more stories about him than just those in the Christian Bible,
Speaker 2: and he's recognized as a villain in both Islam and Judaism.
Speaker 2: So who is the Devil?
Speaker 7: Well? Who is he and who was he? Are two
Speaker 7: very different questions the way it's understood now, at least
Speaker 7: in literal supernaturalist Orthodox Christian. I've thought, and I suppose
Speaker 7: Islamic and Orthodox Jewish as well, the ideas that Satan,
Speaker 7: which means the adversary, began as Lucifer, the light Bearer,
Speaker 7: the morning stunner, and that he was the highest of
Speaker 7: the angel princes or archangels, and that he was proud
Speaker 7: of his greatness and decided he could do a better
Speaker 7: job running the show than God could, and staged a
Speaker 7: palace revolution with a third of the angels. He lost
Speaker 7: this bid and was cast down to somewhere now here.
Speaker 7: Opinion divides. Is he supposed to be in Hell, which
Speaker 7: general folklore imagines but the Bible never says, or is
Speaker 7: he in one of the lower concentric heavens that the
Speaker 7: ancients believed in. That's stated at least strongly implied, for
Speaker 7: instance in the Epistle to the Ephesians when refers to
Speaker 7: him as the Prince of the Power of the Air,
Speaker 7: and also in the Book of Jubilees and noncanonical work.
Speaker 7: But at any rate, he's supposed to be a fallen
Speaker 7: angel who is trying to get revenge on God by
Speaker 7: ruining his creation in the human race. In the Qur'an
Speaker 7: there's a bit more to the story, which has I
Speaker 7: as far as I has kind of dropped out of
Speaker 7: the standard Christian account, though there's nothing particularly animical to
Speaker 7: traditional Christian theology in it. The motive for the revolution
Speaker 7: was that when God created Adam as a flesh and
Speaker 7: what being, he summoned all of the angels to bow
Speaker 7: down before him, and Satan and his compatriots thought this
Speaker 7: was insane. He bowed down to this mounculus, not a chance.
Speaker 7: God must have lost his mind. We've got to take over.
Speaker 7: And then that's why, And then why is he so
Speaker 7: against humanity? Well, jealousy, and he's trying to prove that
Speaker 7: God was wrong and he was right, that the humans
Speaker 7: are unworthy of this tension from God. So you almost
Speaker 7: never hear of this anymore. But that's I think, the
Speaker 7: full version of the legend. But it's based on various
Speaker 7: components that have been melded together to create a new
Speaker 7: origin of Satan. It appears in ancient Israel that there
Speaker 7: was this character known as the Satan, since again it
Speaker 7: was not a proper name, just means has Satanas Satan
Speaker 7: that is, and it means Satan the adversary, implying on
Speaker 7: the one hand kind of a chief of sting operations
Speaker 7: and on the other an accuser like an attorney. And
Speaker 7: the point of this is that the Satan was a
Speaker 7: servant of God. He was one of the sons of
Speaker 7: God who would periodically gather, as in the first chapter
Speaker 7: of Job And whereas the others were all appointed the
Speaker 7: heads of the various nations of the Earth. His special
Speaker 7: function was to patrol the earth looking for hypocrites, basically
Speaker 7: in the unworthy, because he didn't want to see God
Speaker 7: made a laughing stock as in job. He says. Well,
Speaker 7: God says to well, if you've been patrolling the earth,
Speaker 7: surely you've come across my servant job. I'm pretty proud
Speaker 7: of him. He's perfect and righteousness, he serves me and
Speaker 7: so on. And the Satan says, don't be naive. With
Speaker 7: all the fringe benefits you give this guy, he would
Speaker 7: be a fool not to worship you. Now, what are
Speaker 7: you saying? And the Satan says, well, let's try a
Speaker 7: little experiment. Take away everything you've given him, and we'll
Speaker 7: see where his heart really is. And so God says
Speaker 7: to well, all right, do your worst, but just don't
Speaker 7: harm him personally. So there's the bunch of there's an
Speaker 7: ambush by a bunch of marauders who kill his cattle
Speaker 7: and stealing it, and he's God, and there's an earthquake
Speaker 7: and his seven children die and it's horrific, and his
Speaker 7: wife is let's see, we've got that detail wrong. She
Speaker 7: At some point, she says, why don't you just end
Speaker 7: it all, curse God and have him kill you. No, no,
Speaker 7: I'm not gonna do that. We've accepted God's gifts when
Speaker 7: we liked them. He's brought these things our way. We're
Speaker 7: going to start refusing delivery. It's up to him. I'm
Speaker 7: happy either way. You're crazy. Well, then the sons of
Speaker 7: God meet again, and God says, well, you loved me
Speaker 7: to destroy old Job without cause, but at least you
Speaker 7: see that I was right. He is faithful to me,
Speaker 7: and Satan says, well again be Satan says, well, you
Speaker 7: stopped me from really doing this experiment. Let me afflict
Speaker 7: him phistically and you'll see how fast he turns. Okay,
Speaker 7: And this time Job is stricken with plagues. He's covered
Speaker 7: with boils, and he's sitting in the wreckage of his
Speaker 7: house and his three friends come over and they tell him, look, obviously,
Speaker 7: you've sinned greatly. God doesn't punish the innocent, and he's look,
Speaker 7: I'm sorry to disappoint you, guys, but I am innocent.
Speaker 7: God is harassing me. He's fascinating. But the idea is
Speaker 7: that the satan is not an opponent of God, he's
Speaker 7: zealous for God's reputation. And the two other instances of
Speaker 7: this he I guess second Chronicles I said, first, I forget,
Speaker 7: where's the source document? First, Samuel had God test David
Speaker 7: by suggesting he take a census of Israel, and that
Speaker 7: was bad because, according to the Holy War idea, you
Speaker 7: didn't trust human resources. You just sort of fanatically went
Speaker 7: into battle because God was on your side. Well, he's
Speaker 7: showing that the lack of faith by seeing what the
Speaker 7: resources are. Well, God then punishes him. But in the
Speaker 7: retelling of it, it says that the Satan tempted David
Speaker 7: to do this. It's not inconsistent. The idea is that
Speaker 7: the writer figure, well, of course the Satan is the
Speaker 7: servant of God who handles these matters, and he wants
Speaker 7: to see where David's heart really is. Then there's another
Speaker 7: one in the prophet Zachariah, there's a vision whereof God
Speaker 7: is about to accept a man named Joshua to be
Speaker 7: the new high priest, and the Satan confronts him and says, no,
Speaker 7: this guy, look at his track record. His priestly garments
Speaker 7: are stained, so he's got something wrong with him. And
Speaker 7: then the Angel of the Lord shows up and rebukes
Speaker 7: him and says, well, you're right, but we're going to
Speaker 7: purify him and then give him the crown. So in
Speaker 7: every case where he appears, it's just three, but that's
Speaker 7: really enough to set the tone. He's God's right hand
Speaker 7: man in some ways. He's trying to weed out the fakes. Now,
Speaker 7: how did we get the idea that he is God's enemy?
Speaker 7: The name means adverse, but originally he was the adversary
Speaker 7: of sinners and hypocrits. How did he become what he's called?
Speaker 7: In Second Emoch sethan al the enemy of l Oheim,
Speaker 7: the enemy of God. Well that scene, he never appears
Speaker 7: as such in the Old Testament. The Satan has nothing
Speaker 7: to do with a serpent in Eden. That's a whole
Speaker 7: different thing. And nor is he the fallen being Halal
Speaker 7: the son of the Dawn in Isaiah fourteen. Nor is
Speaker 7: he the fallen king of Tire in Ezekiel twenty eight.
Speaker 7: These passages are all always quoted out of context, as
Speaker 7: if they were about Satan. But they're not, as he
Speaker 7: can easily see by just reading them in context. Well,
Speaker 7: what you don't see between the testaments is the Babylonian exile, Well,
Speaker 7: it does happen like in the Second Kings, but the
Speaker 7: missing pieces the Jews, the Jewish leaders, the priests and
Speaker 7: others were held captive there for about fifty years, they
Speaker 7: and their descendants, and towards the end of that time
Speaker 7: the Persian Empire overcame the Battylonians, and the Persians were Zoroastrians.
Speaker 7: They believed in this apocalyptic sort of monotheistic religion, and
Speaker 7: apparently a lot of their ideas appeal to the Jewish
Speaker 7: priests who learned about them, and they didn't persecute them.
Speaker 7: They got along fine, and among the ideas were resurrection
Speaker 7: of the dead for the final judgment, a supernatural messianic
Speaker 7: figure who would raise the dead, the division of history
Speaker 7: into deterministic, predestined periods of battles of good and evil,
Speaker 7: complex belief in loads of different angels, and especially the
Speaker 7: notion of an evil anti god Zoroaspis and was called
Speaker 7: Ahriman or or Ahreman or Angramineu. Well, he was almost
Speaker 7: the evil of God and his opposite, and the history
Speaker 7: of good and evil fighting throughout history is the two sides,
Speaker 7: and the God versus Ahriman, horamazda versus aframan, and every
Speaker 7: act of human performs is a blow struck on one
Speaker 7: side or the other. Hence it's all a great moral battle. Well,
Speaker 7: apparently Jewish thinkers kind of liked this idea because the
Speaker 7: notion of God had become increasingly rationalized and moralized. The
Speaker 7: holiness of God had originally simply meant the uncanny otherness
Speaker 7: of God. God was really beyond human good and evil,
Speaker 7: like we would be beyond the rules we set for
Speaker 7: our pets not to wet the carpet and all that
Speaker 7: we're not to worry about that. So now thinking of
Speaker 7: God as morally righteous, redefining holiness, now you had some
Speaker 7: explaining to do. Where could evil have come from if
Speaker 7: there is just one God? Well, the Zoroastrian said, well,
Speaker 7: there's kind of two gods. One of them is evil. Yeah,
Speaker 7: that means the good God is not all powerful, though
Speaker 7: he will win in the end. He would eradicate evil
Speaker 7: right now if he could, but he's not unopposed. And
Speaker 7: that sounded pretty good to Jewish thinkers, who said, all right,
Speaker 7: maybe somebody else is the author of evil. And though
Speaker 7: they wanted to be strict monotheists, by that time, so
Speaker 7: they couldn't have a second God. So they said, well,
Speaker 7: how about if there was an angel who fell and
Speaker 7: became God's enemy. That didn't quite solve the philosophical problem,
Speaker 7: but that does seem to be where it came from.
Speaker 7: In other words, they reinterpreted Satan to be afrem on,
Speaker 7: the evil enemy of the good God. And that starts
Speaker 7: appearing in various works that didn't make it into the
Speaker 7: biblical canon, the Book of Jubileese, first and Second Emoch,
Speaker 7: the Life of Adam and Eve, the Apocalypse of Moses,
Speaker 7: and various others. And that's in place by the time
Speaker 7: of the New Testament. And I'll end this in just
Speaker 7: second mercifully. But the New Testament still usually depicts Satan
Speaker 7: as a kind of a one who puts the anointed
Speaker 7: of God through their paces to test them. Not evil,
Speaker 7: just trying to make sure people are what they're cracked
Speaker 7: up to me, which is why he takes Jesus out
Speaker 7: into the desert to test him. If you're the son
Speaker 7: of God, how about this has pretty good idea, is
Speaker 7: and what do you think? And Jesus sees through it
Speaker 7: and won't do it. Satan's not trying to get him
Speaker 7: to do the wrong thing. He's just trying to see
Speaker 7: if he will do the wrong thing. Then let's see
Speaker 7: when Jesus accuses Peter of being Satan. Get behind me, Satan,
Speaker 7: because he's trying to persuade him not to go to
Speaker 7: the cross. Well, that's the whole idea. He will Jesus
Speaker 7: give in to this test and he doesn't. At the
Speaker 7: Last Supper, he warns the disciples they're going to all
Speaker 7: fall away and run away, and he says, Satan has
Speaker 7: demanded his right to test you all like wheat from
Speaker 7: the chaff. Yeah, that's what he does. That's his job
Speaker 7: on God's behalf. Then in the Book of Revelation, we
Speaker 7: have a bit of this idea that Satan is a
Speaker 7: fallen angel. But this battle in Heaven occurs at the
Speaker 7: end of the age, and Satan is called the accuser
Speaker 7: of the Brethren. Well, yeah, and that's the whole idea.
Speaker 7: He's doing a good service to God that way. Satan,
Speaker 7: even in the New Testament, appears only as an evil
Speaker 7: character only when he's been combined with other originally tinct beings.
Speaker 7: One of them is Ahreman. He's not named in the
Speaker 7: New Testament but that's in the background. Then secondly, when
Speaker 7: he's combined with beelzen Bull, the Prince of Demons in
Speaker 7: Mark chapter three, that's a whole separate character that originally
Speaker 7: was some sort of Phoenician god. It didn't really have
Speaker 7: anything to do with the biblical Satan. And the third
Speaker 7: one is in the Book of Revelation where they conflate
Speaker 7: Satan with Leviath and the seven headed chaos dragon that's
Speaker 7: mentioned several times in the Old Testament of this ancient
Speaker 7: creation myth where God like Marduke and Indra and various
Speaker 7: other deities created the earth out of the carcass of
Speaker 7: a dragon that he slew. So when Satan is combined
Speaker 7: with the seven headed serpent, then he's evil, but there's
Speaker 7: no unanimity of thought even in the New Testament, and
Speaker 7: more often the not he's a good guy there. So
Speaker 7: you really have a post biblical development into Satan the
Speaker 7: evil one.
Speaker 2: Well, just to let you know you've you've tore through
Speaker 2: about my first five questions almost in exactly the order
Speaker 2: I was going to ask them. This is amazing. So
Speaker 2: I was going to ask one, which was how did
Speaker 2: Satan get so many nicknames? But I think what you
Speaker 2: just said is that after I guess the development of
Speaker 2: the Bible. So when would that have been after? So
Speaker 2: by the time of Jesus he was still considered to
Speaker 2: be a tempter, or at least by the time the
Speaker 2: Gospels were written.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and it's not absolutely clear that he's more than that,
Speaker 7: except in the Beelzebowl controversy or the King James the
Speaker 7: beelzebab those different god where he's they say Jesus is
Speaker 7: casting out demons by magic. He's bound the power of Beelzebo,
Speaker 7: the Prince of demons, which exorcis Saxon. He did. Jesus
Speaker 7: goes on to defend the ideas I read it, you
Speaker 7: can't despoil a man of his goods unless you bind
Speaker 7: him first, and this is the rational for appealing to
Speaker 7: the power of the Prince of the demons to order
Speaker 7: around his subordinates so they no longer infest and possess people. Well,
Speaker 7: so it's not absolutely clear there that Satan is the
Speaker 7: bad guy, but that's about as close as you come
Speaker 7: in the Gospels.
Speaker 2: Wow, So how much of Satan's history actually comes from
Speaker 2: other popular fiction or folklore or I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: else to call it what do you call the sort
Speaker 2: of belief developments that happen after the canonical religious prescription.
Speaker 7: Well, the tricky part is that it happens in a
Speaker 7: kind of a gap between the Old and New Testaments.
Speaker 7: It's a product of folk religious belief, So I guess
Speaker 7: you could say folklore. But it just like the assumption
Speaker 7: of the virgin Mary became in the Perpetual Virginity of Mary,
Speaker 7: it was apparently popular Catholic piety that eventually became official doctrine.
Speaker 7: That seems to be what happened here. That there were
Speaker 7: different theories, for instance, as to who the demons were.
Speaker 7: Of course, it was like an ancient diagnostic category. They
Speaker 7: didn't know anything about abnormal psychology, and especially when people
Speaker 7: had epileptic seizures, they said, oh, a demon has seized,
Speaker 7: because what epilepsy means to be seized upon in Greek?
Speaker 7: And so who were these demons? And various people said, well,
Speaker 7: they must be ghosts of the dead who haven't gone
Speaker 7: on to paradise, and others said no, God just created
Speaker 7: some bodyless creatures at the dawn of creation, and they
Speaker 7: would like to have physical warmth, so they try to
Speaker 7: they're squatters in other people's bodies. They said, no, they're
Speaker 7: the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters
Speaker 7: of men who twisting led to the flood of Noah
Speaker 7: and Genesis six, and then another one was, well, maybe
Speaker 7: they are the sons of God. Back in Genesis six.
Speaker 7: That was originally a story about why a group called
Speaker 7: the Rephaem or the Anachem in Canaan were so tall.
Speaker 7: Most people were shrimpy and these people were over six
Speaker 7: feet and what made him that way? And they kind
Speaker 7: of figured out they must have had divine ancestors, they
Speaker 7: must be descended from demigods. And so you had Genesis six, one, two,
Speaker 7: and four outside of the flood story originally, which said, well,
Speaker 7: these people are the result of the result of the
Speaker 7: mating of the sons of God, the lesser gods, that
Speaker 7: God is appointed in charge of the nations mating with
Speaker 7: mortal women.
Speaker 3: And is it the nephelem, Yeah.
Speaker 7: Which kind of looks like the Hebrew word for fallen.
Speaker 7: So the legend may have grown as an attempt, as
Speaker 7: often happens in the Old Testament, to explain the name
Speaker 7: nobody understood anymore. So they're the fallen ones. But originally
Speaker 7: there's nothing bad about this. It's just like Hercules is
Speaker 7: so strong because he's a demigod, the God, divine Father,
Speaker 7: a mortal mother. And it was no problem. But as
Speaker 7: Judaism crept closer and closer to Monotheism, they couldn't have
Speaker 7: sons of God. There couldn't be seven be subordinate beings
Speaker 7: in charge of the other nations. So they demoted them
Speaker 7: to angels, created beings. And now the idea that they
Speaker 7: should mate with mortal women just seemed pagan and evil,
Speaker 7: and so the story had to be reinterpreted as the
Speaker 7: fall of the angels. Now that's still not Satan, but
Speaker 7: Satan gets tied in with this in the Book of
Speaker 7: Jubilees and First Enoch and so forth, where we're told
Speaker 7: that after Satan rebelled against God, he recruited these sons
Speaker 7: of God. And there are various versions of this in
Speaker 7: the few books we still have from this period. So
Speaker 7: it's like a folkloric embellishment of what is what you
Speaker 7: do see surfacing in the Old Testament here and there,
Speaker 7: especially when people no longer quite understood what the original
Speaker 7: point was and patched some of these stories together. And
Speaker 7: once you bring in Isaiah fourteen and Ezekiel twenty eight
Speaker 7: about some kind of angel or Adam figure or something,
Speaker 7: and you just ignore the original context. Well, suddenly you've
Speaker 7: got a whole biography of Satan here, and a lot
Speaker 7: of it is taken from granted by the New Testament writers.
Speaker 7: First John refers to Caine being a murderer, or where
Speaker 7: did this come from? Why is he such a bad seed? Well,
Speaker 7: because Eve was impregnated by Satan, and the First John
Speaker 7: says that he was of the evil one and that's
Speaker 7: why he murdered his brother. And second Corinthians it says
Speaker 7: that Eve was seduced by Satan, and this is made
Speaker 7: explicit in the Life of Adam and Eve and other
Speaker 7: of these works. So a lot of these are so
Speaker 7: offensive to any kind of theology today that they get
Speaker 7: reinterpreted again to take the barb out of the tale
Speaker 7: of it.
Speaker 2: Well, so, I think, growing up in a very fundamentalist family,
Speaker 2: I had always been told that demons were all fallen angels,
Speaker 2: And I don't think that's actually scriptural. That just seems
Speaker 2: to have come from somewhere like just gets does that
Speaker 2: seem I mean, do you know of any scriptural origin
Speaker 2: for that idea.
Speaker 7: No, it's not unlikely that that's what the gospel writers thought,
Speaker 7: but they don't really say so. And one of the
Speaker 7: most important exorcism story is that of the Gallerine or
Speaker 7: Garrisine demoniac in Mark five. I think it is where
Speaker 7: it implies that the legion of demons infesting this guy
Speaker 7: are the ghosts of the dead in the cemetery that
Speaker 7: he lives in, which is why he lives there and
Speaker 7: why when Jesus threatens to kick him out, they don't
Speaker 7: want to leave the area. Why is that, Well, because
Speaker 7: I think because they're the ghosts of the dead there.
Speaker 7: And so there's a big hint that not everybody in
Speaker 7: the Christian orbit believed that they were fallen angels. The
Speaker 7: idea of the principalities and powers that there are demonic well,
Speaker 7: the heavenly forces of wickedness, as Ephesian says, for instance,
Speaker 7: that is part of the fall of the sons of
Speaker 7: God idea. And this is a profound myth and the
Speaker 7: true Boltmanian sense, that is a myth that that explains
Speaker 7: and articulates a group's understanding of their position in the world.
Speaker 7: People realized that you couldn't have chaos, an anarchy, the
Speaker 7: war of all against all. It was better to stem
Speaker 7: the chaos with government. But everybody knows government is wicked,
Speaker 7: as we're seeing more and more day, and so it
Speaker 7: may be like the mafia run in Chicago, but it's
Speaker 7: better than just endless violence in the streets. And so
Speaker 7: they had this sophisticated myth that the nations are ruled
Speaker 7: by fallen angels the principalities and powers, and one day
Speaker 7: God will end that rule and rule directly, and then
Speaker 7: the millennia will arrive. But until then even this is
Speaker 7: better than nothing. And so the foreign angels were understood
Speaker 7: to be these evil powers behind the human thrones of
Speaker 7: the nations, not necessarily the pesty demons that caused epileptic fits,
Speaker 7: and seems like in the Exorcist, that's not quite the
Speaker 7: same thing. And yet there is some reason to think
Speaker 7: these guys were believed to be fallen angels. I believe
Speaker 7: it's in the Book of Jubilees, where it says that Mastema,
Speaker 7: who's apparently Satan, is after his big done seat God.
Speaker 7: He is tossed down to one of the lower heavens,
Speaker 7: and most of his minions are going to be cast
Speaker 7: into the nether world of darkness, of a feature drawn
Speaker 7: right out of Hesiod in Greek mythology. But Mastema says, well, look,
Speaker 7: I am to be the scourge of sinners, right, so
Speaker 7: why don't you give me ten percent of the fallen
Speaker 7: angels to do my dirty work? And that would appear
Speaker 7: to be the possessing demons.
Speaker 3: So that.
Speaker 7: Link is made, but that doesn't seem even to be
Speaker 7: the original point of the fall even that seems to
Speaker 7: be an embellishment combining different different myths.
Speaker 2: Well, at least nobody believes that that these powers are
Speaker 2: controlling people today, who, of course are of course, I
Speaker 2: grew up like I grew up with the uh was
Speaker 2: that Hal Lindsey, Yeah, and that that sort of mentality,
Speaker 2: So like in the in the in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: I was really aware of these sort of vast, dark
Speaker 2: Satanic conspiracies which are supposed to be at play in America.
Speaker 3: And it turns out that a lot.
Speaker 2: Of this, especially some of these satanic cults and UH
Speaker 2: stories about children being murdered and stuff, were actually coming
Speaker 2: out of recovered memory, type of behavior which has now
Speaker 2: been shown to be able to make people believe really
Speaker 2: amazingly unlikely or implausible or impossible sort of things. And
Speaker 2: and then some of it seemed to be just a
Speaker 2: really imagic inative but paranoid people I'm going to say,
Speaker 2: making up or confabulating. But in that same time period,
Speaker 2: I heard people say that Jimmy Carter was the Antichrist,
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton was the Antichrist. I hear people saying Barack
Speaker 2: Obama's the Antichrist, so you know, and then there's this
Speaker 2: sort of satanic apocalyptic literature that's super popular, selling lots
Speaker 2: and lots of books. But how's that whole Satanic apocalypse
Speaker 2: coming along?
Speaker 3: I mean, is that working out? Okay?
Speaker 7: Well, I don't know who is still saying that, because
Speaker 7: I'm in less close touch with the people that know
Speaker 7: about it than I used to be. But there were
Speaker 7: various people that at least three of them I can
Speaker 7: think of, that claimed to have been back in the
Speaker 7: late seventies Satanic high priests and all of that, And
Speaker 7: Mike Warnicky was one of them, and he was just
Speaker 7: a con man. He was simply making it up. And
Speaker 7: there were others that appeared to be more paranoids and
Speaker 7: believed it. But there was snow grounds for it, and
Speaker 7: then that was founded by this recovered memory nonsense, which
Speaker 7: is really just like a redo the Salem witch trials,
Speaker 7: that these incompetent shrinks would say, are you sure you
Speaker 7: don't remember your dad's sacrificing your baby's sister in the
Speaker 7: basement literally, and they just it was all leading the witness,
Speaker 7: just planting these memories. Okay, I can picture it. I
Speaker 7: guess I do remember. And so you had utterly dumbfounded
Speaker 7: parents finding themselves in jail for this, and none of
Speaker 7: it ever happened. As to the idea that the illuminati
Speaker 7: are around and they're gonna take over, that of course
Speaker 7: has had a vogue and still does on the extremes
Speaker 7: of both the left and the right. But whether they
Speaker 7: literally demonized that and tied in with Satan as these
Speaker 7: jack chit type fundamentalists did, I don't know how popular
Speaker 7: that is.
Speaker 2: It's Obama Vantichrist is a pretty powerful idea right now.
Speaker 2: I just in fact, right before this interview, I happened
Speaker 2: to be reading an article and one of the pop
Speaker 2: up ads, I guess because of my research, was a
Speaker 2: really graphic image of a giant Barack Obama in front
Speaker 2: of an audience with FEMA people pointing guns at the
Speaker 2: audience and click here for this important video to save
Speaker 2: your family in the future, the dark future that's coming.
Speaker 2: And so I clicked on it, and it was all
Speaker 2: about why we need to be hoarding our food for
Speaker 2: the dark times that are coming, and it.
Speaker 3: Is all you know.
Speaker 2: It fed into the same idea, and there seems to
Speaker 2: be in the conspiracy world. There seems to be kind
Speaker 2: of an interesting split between the people who believe in
Speaker 2: the illuminati, the people who believe in reptilian aliens, and
Speaker 2: the people who believe in a satanic overlord or sort
Speaker 2: of a dark power, spiritual power being behind all the
Speaker 2: bad things that are happening.
Speaker 7: Well, the unfortunate thing about this is that there is
Speaker 7: a point to this stuff if it's not understood in
Speaker 7: a literal and paranoid way, like the notion of the
Speaker 7: principalities and powers. I think this is quite profound. It
Speaker 7: just doesn't have anything to do with a supernatural It's
Speaker 7: a recognition of things that it took twentieth century sociology
Speaker 7: to understand that there are super individual forces politically, culturally, economically,
Speaker 7: in what multinational corporations, agencies of the government, religions, anything
Speaker 7: you want to pick, any institution that it was created
Speaker 7: by humans long ago, but now have taken on a
Speaker 7: power of their own to the point where there's no
Speaker 7: single human face, no concerned individual could hope to change
Speaker 7: these things. So these are I think aptly symbolized and
Speaker 7: maybe even irreplaceably symbolized by the demonic principalities and powers.
Speaker 7: If you reduce it to the omen and think that
Speaker 7: it's literal devils, that trivializes it, but there's a powerful
Speaker 7: I think I heard Jerry Brown say this once, probably
Speaker 7: the only thing you ever said I agreed with, but
Speaker 7: that there really is a point about this. I mean,
Speaker 7: if you're saying, you know, why can't we get those
Speaker 7: fat gats to just repent? It's not a question that
Speaker 7: there's an institutional inertia or institutional racism. You can get
Speaker 7: all kinds of individuals to stop being racist. But if
Speaker 7: there's a structure to it that people have vested interest in,
Speaker 7: this goes way beyond what any individual could do.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 7: Likewise, if you like, when fundamental to say, oh, the
Speaker 7: universal product code is the mark of the beast, or
Speaker 7: something that seems kind of crazy, and it is because
Speaker 7: it taken it literally saying, oh is this the prediction?
Speaker 7: Oh boy, let's match A with B. That's crazy. But
Speaker 7: think of all this surveillance by the NSSA and the irs,
Speaker 7: all this stuff going on that I never thought was
Speaker 7: going on. This you suddenly see is what these symbols
Speaker 7: were about. When you see a shocking overreach by the authorities,
Speaker 7: then these myths start to click in. And it doesn't
Speaker 7: mean there's a literal Antichrist. There's not. In fact, that
Speaker 7: would just be that would be less relevant. The idea
Speaker 7: is that Hitler was the Antichrist, Mussolini style of these
Speaker 7: guys were the Antichrist because it's a mythic archetype that
Speaker 7: people unfortunately live into and embody. And I do think
Speaker 7: Obama is a dangerous megalomaniac who was shredding the constitution.
Speaker 7: And I can see why superstitious folks say he's literally
Speaker 7: the Antichrist. There is no literal Antichrist, but the symbol
Speaker 7: is handy to make us say, wait a minute, this
Speaker 7: guy is getting too big for his britches. We could
Speaker 7: be in trouble here. No matter who you think. I mean,
Speaker 7: if you didn't like Bush, the utility of the symbol
Speaker 7: would still apply, right, It's it's always a question mark
Speaker 7: to be raised beside leaders. And so that's the utility
Speaker 7: of myth. It's not just scientifically true or false. It's
Speaker 7: stillion kind of a thing.
Speaker 2: Well, it also works for corporations in that they have
Speaker 2: now achieved the kind of personhood legally. But they're right,
Speaker 2: but they don't have they don't have souls, and they
Speaker 2: don't have in a more literal sense, they don't have empathy,
Speaker 2: and they don't have regret so much.
Speaker 7: You know, that's right, that's right exactly.
Speaker 2: So it's certainly a workable metaphor. But I think I'm
Speaker 2: far too well. You live in the South too. But
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just I run into way more people
Speaker 2: who believe this literally in supernatural sense than I do
Speaker 2: who consider it in the metaphorical sense where it might
Speaker 2: be useful.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I just I will admit to that these people
Speaker 7: may have they may also, like Tillick said about naive literalism,
Speaker 7: they may also be getting the real point of it,
Speaker 7: even though they happen to believe in implausible literal applications
Speaker 7: of it. I think that people are nowadays very rightly
Speaker 7: suspicious of government no matter who's in charge, and that
Speaker 7: if they also happen to believe it's going to be
Speaker 7: a literal Antichrist and a rapture, well, I really who
Speaker 7: cares that they might be right about their suspicions of
Speaker 7: the government.
Speaker 2: Anyway, This is going to be the most controversial muster
Speaker 2: talk ever because I think I've avoided religion as much
Speaker 2: as possible in politics almost completely, so this should be interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I know people that like my writing. The minute they
Speaker 7: hear I'm a Republican. They think that I'm an idiot savant,
Speaker 7: that I happen to know something. I'm like the rain Man,
Speaker 7: that it's self evident that no intelligent person could be
Speaker 7: politically conservative. And in return, I think it's seems very
Speaker 7: clear to me that dogmatic political liberalism is a fact
Speaker 7: proof faith position. So it kind of it's a mirror image.
Speaker 7: I guess.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think the issue when just again,
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I try to keep politics off
Speaker 2: is just because I think dogma itself is the problem,
Speaker 2: and that the whole political system seems to have made
Speaker 2: the idea of compromise like a bad word and like
Speaker 2: people are not working together towards right helping America or
Speaker 2: the world for that matter, they're just looking for their
Speaker 2: own personal gain, and that there's way too much selfishness
Speaker 2: and not enough altruism. So I just that's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons I just tend to avoid it because I
Speaker 2: don't have any answers.
Speaker 7: I agree, I agree, you.
Speaker 2: Really covered a lot of what I wanted to ask
Speaker 2: you about, really neatly without me having to ask questions.
Speaker 2: So the devil changes over time and becomes instead of
Speaker 2: being someone who's working towards God's mission, becomes this character
Speaker 2: at least within Christianity or I guess to some extent
Speaker 2: Islam as well, where he is the bad guy who's
Speaker 2: blamed for everything.
Speaker 3: How does that work?
Speaker 2: I mean, is it dangerous for people to ascribe blame
Speaker 2: to this spiritual force instead of taking responsibility for their
Speaker 2: own actions or do people even do that?
Speaker 3: Do you think?
Speaker 7: Well? I know I've heard jokes like the old Flip
Speaker 7: Wilson thing, but Dema made me do it and all that,
Speaker 7: But I have never met anybody that I've certainly never
Speaker 7: met any kind of devout fundamentalists that was trying to
Speaker 7: slide out of responsibility. I regret the I think the
Speaker 7: intellectual errors of fundamentalism of any kind. But my experience
Speaker 7: has been that most of these people of any religion
Speaker 7: who take it so seriously, really are concerned about their
Speaker 7: moral integrity. I mean, there's hypocrites everywhere, but i've i've
Speaker 7: my experience has been that the devil is almost superfluous
Speaker 7: to their belief is a fifth wheel, because they do
Speaker 7: not underestimate the frailty of human nature. And when the
Speaker 7: Epistle of James says where do we get all these
Speaker 7: disputes in this strife? He expects them to say, well,
Speaker 7: of course it's could it be Satan? But he doesn't
Speaker 7: say that. He says, well, of course it's your own desires,
Speaker 7: it's your own nature, as it obviously is. And so
Speaker 7: the fundamentalists do happen to believe in the Satanic mastermind,
Speaker 7: But in my experience, most of them, it almost would
Speaker 7: make no difference to their belief that that wasn't a
Speaker 7: part of it, because they know, oh, yeah, I have
Speaker 7: the potential for sin, I'm tempted by my own weaknesses
Speaker 7: and desires. And they're a little too tough on themselves.
Speaker 2: Well, I know that more than one humorist i've read
Speaker 2: has made the comment about Satan that I don't have time,
Speaker 2: nor am I needed to make up all these terrible ideas.
Speaker 3: People do it there are selves.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and that's an important Christian realization. Once I was
Speaker 7: talking to a professor Gordon Conwell's seminary right after the
Speaker 7: Jonestown horror and he said, but don't you think that's
Speaker 7: evidence of Satan in the world today? And I said,
Speaker 7: I wish it were. That's optimistic. If there was one
Speaker 7: supernatural terrorist we could somehow get rid of everything would
Speaker 7: be okay. But there isn't. This is in human nature
Speaker 7: that this shows the depths to which human beings can
Speaker 7: too easily sink. So the Satan thing, if they took
Speaker 7: it seriously, I think, would be inimical to their theology.
Speaker 2: When we think about how people consider Satan today, the
Speaker 2: image of Satan in our stories of Hell and of
Speaker 2: how Satan got there so much it.
Speaker 3: Seems to be sort of stuck, pulled straight.
Speaker 2: Out of Dante and out of Milton, and I wonder,
Speaker 2: like this is completely fanciful in a sense. But Dante,
Speaker 2: you know, he populated some of the lowest pits of
Speaker 2: Hell with people who were still alive, like their souls
Speaker 2: had left their body and now they were being controlled
Speaker 2: by demons and still walking the earth alive even though
Speaker 2: their souls were in Hell being punished. And and I thought,
Speaker 2: I know, he was making a joke, but it also
Speaker 2: seems like a wonderful metaphor for people who are psychopaths,
Speaker 2: who don't have what we would consider to be like
Speaker 2: the sort of emotional responses we would expect from a
Speaker 2: normal person. Yeah, and I always thought it was a nice
Speaker 2: metaphor for that, even though that's not what he had
Speaker 2: in mind when he made his jokes. But so, how
Speaker 2: much of that does I mean, it seems like most
Speaker 2: of what we think about the appearance of Satan comes
Speaker 2: from medieval and Renaissance art, but not from the Bible,
Speaker 2: and and and just our ideas of hell or the
Speaker 2: hell is I read the Bible was really not very
Speaker 2: well described.
Speaker 7: That's right. There's Tartaros that first Peter mentions, and it's
Speaker 7: the name and the ideas seemed to come right out
Speaker 7: of Hesiod and other Greek writers. Tartaros was the pit
Speaker 7: of darkness where Uranos had imprisoned the giants and some
Speaker 7: of the titans, monstrous offspring that he couldn't unleash on
Speaker 7: the earth, and they're in chains there under the in
Speaker 7: the caverns of darkness, just like First Peter says that
Speaker 7: the fallen angels are I think it's First Peter, maybe
Speaker 7: Second Peter, and that comes right from there or Hades,
Speaker 7: which is usually like of course, the word hell is
Speaker 7: an English word, not a bad translation for Shaol, the
Speaker 7: nether world of the dead in the Old Testament, but
Speaker 7: the idea of a fiery tit of torment that goes well,
Speaker 7: that hades the Greek word used in the Gospels. That
Speaker 7: could mean just the place of the dead, without necessarily
Speaker 7: being a place of torment, as when Jesus says that Capernaium, Bethseda,
Speaker 7: and Koradzen, who spurned his preaching despite miracles, they will
Speaker 7: not rise to heaven. They will be brought down to Hades. Well,
Speaker 7: that's kind of a recollection of Isaiah fourteen. The King
Speaker 7: of Babylon will find himself waking up on the dung
Speaker 7: heap in hate in Shaol. But Gehenna is the one
Speaker 7: where it's a fiery hell, and that's a very old
Speaker 7: idea in the Old Testament's a place. It means the
Speaker 7: valley of the Sons of Hinham, and this was a
Speaker 7: place of valley right at the base of Mount Zion.
Speaker 7: And according to their mythic cosmology, they believe that the
Speaker 7: that Mount Zion with a temple on top, was the
Speaker 7: gateway to Heaven where Jehovah lived, and that tafet or
Speaker 7: Gehenna down below was an opening to the fiery nether
Speaker 7: world of Molek, a god who received human sacrifices infant sacrifices.
Speaker 7: So there was this subterranean fiery realm.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 7: The innocent went there. That's the difference. It wasn't a
Speaker 7: place of post mortem punishment, but eventually I guess it's
Speaker 7: combined with tartaros and so on. But it's not clear
Speaker 7: in too many of the places in the New Testament
Speaker 7: where Hell is mentioned that they're thinking of a place
Speaker 7: where all the wicked will wind up in the clearest
Speaker 7: places in Revelation where it says those who have taken
Speaker 7: the mark of the beast to save their hide will
Speaker 7: ru it because they will be thrown into the lake
Speaker 7: of fire, and the smoke of their torment rises and
Speaker 7: night forever before the lamb and is thrown. But that's
Speaker 7: special treatment given to these people that knuckled under to
Speaker 7: the beast. It doesn't say whether all the unrighteous are
Speaker 7: going to join them there, which is kind of an
Speaker 7: important thing if you're trying to compile this jigsaw puzzle
Speaker 7: of theology out of little postage stamps in the Bible,
Speaker 7: and in Matthew twenty five the Sheep and the Goat's judgment,
Speaker 7: the people that didn't help the least of the son
Speaker 7: of Man's brethren are going into the eternal fire prepared
Speaker 7: for the devil and his angels. Well, who then are
Speaker 7: the goats? Are they the devil and his angels? Are
Speaker 7: we even talking about human beings at all? It's not
Speaker 7: that clear. And the place is in Matthew, where it
Speaker 7: says that people we've thrown into the fiery furnace with
Speaker 7: the blue weeping and gnashing of teeth. These have been
Speaker 7: added by Matthew again and again from a phrase in
Speaker 7: the Queue document that didn't mean quite that originally. When
Speaker 7: the end comes and gentiles are welcomed into the kingdom,
Speaker 7: and Jews, the proper heirs of the kingdom are shocked
Speaker 7: to see it, and these unrighteous Jews will be excluded.
Speaker 7: They will weep and gnash their teeth in anguish. It's
Speaker 7: not about what's going to happen in hell. Matthew applies
Speaker 7: it to that. There's very little said. There is nothing
Speaker 7: in any epistle attributed to Paul about anybody going to hell.
Speaker 7: The dead that are wicked just don't rise. So it's
Speaker 7: really a mixed bag, and it's not at all clear.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about the parable of Lazarus and the
Speaker 2: rich Man, and that's the only place I'm aware of
Speaker 2: where you've got a picture of someone in hell. Also,
Speaker 2: not only are they being tormented, but also able to
Speaker 2: look up and see Heaven and what they're missing out on.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he says, I am in agony in this pit
Speaker 7: of torment. And he figures this wicked brothers, or at
Speaker 7: least his rich brothers, they seem to quite the two
Speaker 7: in Luke. They will die and come to the same
Speaker 7: sad fate. There were hells of torment in ancient Jewish
Speaker 7: and early Christian thought as well. And it's interesting this
Speaker 7: doesn't entail a final judgment. This is yet another version
Speaker 7: of it. This is more like what people think of today.
Speaker 7: You die and go to heaven or hell. Did they
Speaker 7: also think that they would be recalled to their bodies
Speaker 7: one day for a superfluous second judgment rubber stamping the
Speaker 7: one that landed them in heaven or held in the
Speaker 7: first place. That sounds like somebody is trying to stitch
Speaker 7: together disparate ideas in the Bible. But that certainly or
Speaker 7: Jesus in the same gospel tells the repentant thief today,
Speaker 7: you'll be with me in paradise. Nothing about Jesus going
Speaker 7: to the right hand of God. They're just both righteous
Speaker 7: and they're going to go to heaven when they die shortly,
Speaker 7: so it doesn't quite fit in with the rest of
Speaker 7: the scenario. But there is a post mortem suffering passage.
Speaker 7: It is there. It's just not all. Not all of
Speaker 7: them seem to.
Speaker 2: Agree, no, right, right, well, and the different writers different times.
Speaker 3: So should we be afraid of the devil?
Speaker 7: Robert? I don't think so. Only paranoids are. Even in
Speaker 7: terms of orthodox Christianity. If you're afraid of the devil,
Speaker 7: you're not being a very good Christian, because, as First
Speaker 7: John says, he who is in you is greater than
Speaker 7: he who is in the world.
Speaker 2: You know, I had that argument with the I'm not
Speaker 2: going to say who some family members of mine that
Speaker 2: I had some family member who are very very frightened
Speaker 2: a Satanic power, very very and the demons. And my
Speaker 2: reading was if you were a believer in Christ, there
Speaker 2: was no reason to be afraid. And so I never
Speaker 2: understood all the fear at all. I never understood the fear.
Speaker 2: It was so strange.
Speaker 7: I can see concern if you really didn't believe that,
Speaker 7: then again, this could be secular. If you think bar
Speaker 7: Our country is going to hell in a handbasket, well, yeah,
Speaker 7: it was made about that.
Speaker 3: This was supernatural fear. This was the oogie boogie fear.
Speaker 7: Well, were they afraid that the Satanic conspiracy was Gnasha
Speaker 7: in the Great Tribulation and they're just that things were
Speaker 7: going to be awful bad.
Speaker 8: I think they were afraid that that that maybe a
Speaker 8: demon could possess them, that people they knew might be
Speaker 8: under the influencer control of Satan, that that there's very real,
Speaker 8: dark spiritual influence in the world that directly impacted them
Speaker 8: in their life.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I would just if I were still a believer
Speaker 7: in this, I would tell such people that I think
Speaker 7: they're not trusting in Christ. That this is morbid preoccupation,
Speaker 7: akin to the person that's afraid every day they're going
Speaker 7: to die of some germ or whatever, that anything that
Speaker 7: hell are like Christians that don't believe in eternal security
Speaker 7: and said, well, gee, it's possible I might fall away
Speaker 7: and lose my faith. What would happen then? And anything's possible.
Speaker 7: But that's not the life of faith you say you
Speaker 7: signed on for. Isn't the hope of glory Christ in you?
Speaker 7: Isn't Christ powerful where you are weak? And if you
Speaker 7: trust in Christ, what do you have to worry about?
Speaker 7: It seems to me that's they have a poor faith
Speaker 7: in Christ. If they're that, if they're that worried.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they may have also just had perpetual worry situation
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, but it's awful to have it magnified and
Speaker 7: compounded with superstitious fear. And I am the last one
Speaker 7: to say that if you're a Christian you're automatically superstitious.
Speaker 7: I think you've got pre scientific beliefs in some ways.
Speaker 7: But there are a lot of sound, healthy minded people
Speaker 7: that hold these beliefs that, however, is just neurotic morbidity.
Speaker 7: And I hope people like that can sluff off that burden.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, kidding.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting, I mean because again I've typically tried
Speaker 2: to avoid religion and politics on the show, but Satan
Speaker 2: is such a big monster, and he's had such a
Speaker 2: big influence on Western culture in movies in modern times
Speaker 2: and in ancient times, and directly.
Speaker 3: Tied to the witch trials.
Speaker 2: And directly tied to some of the interpretations of religion
Speaker 2: in early America, definitely tied to a lot of things
Speaker 2: that happened after the Exorcist and the sort of cultural
Speaker 2: impact that that had. So it really felt like we
Speaker 2: had touch on this. I mean, it has He's a
Speaker 2: topic that has to be covered.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there is evil in the world, whether whatever you
Speaker 7: think about it metaphysically. I mean, there's certainly stuff happening.
Speaker 7: There's certainly people that it's appropriate to use that that
Speaker 7: word for even if it's just a metaphor. It's it's
Speaker 7: unfortunate to get distracted from that by thinking the real
Speaker 7: issue is whether there's this fallen angel lurking around like
Speaker 7: Lex Luthor somewhere. That's the problem. It's that you can't
Speaker 7: do anything about it. It's possible, you might do something
Speaker 7: about your own character, your own circumstances, and that surely
Speaker 7: should be the place to to concentrate.
Speaker 2: I have a question for you, and that's is the
Speaker 2: devil's greatest trick convincing as he's not real? Or is
Speaker 2: it the recipe for delicious chocolate cake?
Speaker 7: I think I go with the cake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 7: This whole thing is circular. Once a pastor who was
Speaker 7: a friend of mine was saying that the Hammer films
Speaker 7: directed by Terrence Fisher were important. He knew they were
Speaker 7: literally true, but this idea that you know, the vampire's
Speaker 7: greatest strength is that no one believes in them. All that,
Speaker 7: and I said, well, yeah, but there aren't any vampires.
Speaker 7: What point are you trying to make? It's a circular thing.
Speaker 7: Is there any reason to believe in the devil? Because
Speaker 7: if not, you can say, well, the strength of the
Speaker 7: little green men in the moon is that nobody knows
Speaker 7: they're there. Well, how do you know they're there? I mean,
Speaker 7: if there was such an entity, I guess it might
Speaker 7: come in handy. But there's certainly no reason to take
Speaker 7: that seriously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I do like this film.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, yeah, me too, Me too.
Speaker 2: I want to say thank you again for spending almost
Speaker 2: another hour with us. And I do try to ask
Speaker 2: all my guests, and I think we asked you before
Speaker 2: on the Kathu episode. It may have changed with me now,
Speaker 2: but what's your favorite monster?
Speaker 7: I guess it would have to be the Frankenstein monster.
Speaker 3: That's a good monster.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I love him. My daughter Victoria and I watched
Speaker 7: thirty or so monster movies during October as a countdown
Speaker 7: to Halloween, and we watched Frankenstein, Bride of Son of
Speaker 7: Ghost of House of They meet David Costello, Evil of Frankenstein,
Speaker 7: and so on and so on and most of the
Speaker 7: other universals. They're just better and better every time I
Speaker 7: see him. And it's tough to beat the Undying Monster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's and also, you know, man's terrible hubris at
Speaker 2: creating something.
Speaker 7: Now I know how much it was to be God.
Speaker 7: I know.
Speaker 2: I can't get tired of those films. What I just
Speaker 2: realized maybe last year, I think for the first time
Speaker 2: I said down and watch Son of Frankenstein and didn't
Speaker 2: realize how much the mel Brooks Young Frankenstein it was
Speaker 2: really just a riff on Son of Frankenstein.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing, but just.
Speaker 2: It made me want to go watch that film again
Speaker 2: and enjoy it even more so.
Speaker 3: I'm just just fantastic.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for your time. I really
Speaker 2: appreciate it. And this has been a great discussion.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, there's any old time. It's loads of fun.
Speaker 2: All right, have a good evening more Monster t Thank
Speaker 2: you for listening to another episode of Monster Talk. I'm
Speaker 2: your host, Blake Smith, and today you heard me interview
Speaker 2: biblical scholar Robert M. Price about the history of the Devil.
Speaker 2: You can find links to Bob's books and podcasts in
Speaker 2: our show notes at monster talk dot org. The dramatic
Speaker 2: reading at the beginning was performed by Brian Thompson and
Speaker 2: Carry Poppy. Carrie can be heard on the podcast Oh No,
Speaker 2: It's Ross and Carry, and Brian can be seen aimlessly
Speaker 2: wondering the streets of Los Angeles. I promise you the
Speaker 2: views and the opinions expressed on Monster Talk are not
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Speaker 1: Who who is interviewing him?
Speaker 4: Oh, Connie Chung