I don't want to say "There is no such thing as the devil," but...

I've apparently been very motivated theologically lately.


The character called "the adversary/the accuser" ("ha-satan," not capitalized and not a proper noun) doesn't show up until Chronicles, which were written after the conquest of Babylon by the Medes and the Persians.

Which resulted in the introduction of Zoroastrianism to Judaism.
Prior to that, Judaism was strictly and utterly monotheistic.
Meaning they treated God as the only force in the universe.
EVERYTHING, good and bad, was attributed to God.
A key doctrine of Zoroastrianism is that the universe is held in constant tension between two equal and opposing forces, one good and one evil.

The introduction of this doctrine influenced monotheistic Judaism to adopt the idea of an opposite-yet-not-equal number for YHWH/Adonai.

Compare 1 and 2 Samuel/1 and 2 Kings with accounts of the exact same events in 1 and 2 Chronicles.

2 Samuel 24 vs. 1 Chronicles 21 is a good example of this.

"Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, 'Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.' So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, 'Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.'"
-2 Samuel 24:1-2

"Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.” So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, 'Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.'"
-1 Chronicles 21:1-2

Events attributed to God in the former writings are attributed to "the accuser/adversary" in the latter.
Apparently, it was only the need for a named spiritual bogeyman upon which to cast all blame which created the tradition of capitalizing "ha-satan."

As well as the tradition of assuming that the serpent in the Genesis creation myth is also "ha-satan," even though there is zero evidence that "the serpent" was given any such negative deification until after the Persian conquest.
Moses made a statue of a bronze snake in Numbers (in response to an invasion of venomous snakes which like everything else pre-Zoroastrian Judaism is attributed to God), and none of the Hebrews are recorded crying "Ha-Satan is here!" or referencing the story recorded in Genesis at all in response to the real snakes or the bronze snake.

Even the accounts of Jesus interacting with "the devil" (in Matthew "ha-satan," in Luke "diabolos," Greek for "slanderer") are from JEWISH sources, who had inherited the centuries-old Zoroastrian-influenced Judaism.

And notice the lack of Jesus-adversary interactions in Mark and John, especially the latter, who in every other way devoted his account to the deeper truths of Christ's life and ministry.


The tradition of treating "ha-satan" as a proper noun was in full force by the time the English language rolled around and needed translations of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.

So it's no surprise that Jesus' rebuke of Peter in Matthew 16:23 / Mark 8:33 is read as "Get behind me, Prince of Darkness/King of Hell/Supreme Demon!" instead of "Get behind me, adversary! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Merely human concerns.
Not hellish concerns, not demonic concerns, not even overtly malicious concerns.
Decide for yourself which interpretation makes more sense.


And this doesn't even get into the fact that there are MEN referred to as "ha-satan" in the Old Testament as well.
Hadad the Edomite in 1 Kings 11:14 and Rezon the Syrian in 1 Kings 11:23 are just a few examples.


We keep ourselves in the dark age of enforced ignorance as long as we continue to pass on cultural myopia, blind adherence to tradition, and refusal to examine the texts we hold sacred with their original writers and readers in mind.