kromem , 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

The number of adults in the US that think Satan is a literal being is way too fucking high.

It started as an editor using ‘adversary’ in the place of what was probably the goddess Anat appealing the head of the pantheon to kill the son of the protagonist like in the earlier Canaanite A Tale of Aqhat as an intro into what was an adaptation of the also earlier Babylonian Theodicy in Job.

But we couldn’t have a polytheistic holdover, so suddenly there was a supernatural ‘adversary’ (‘Satan’) in a story.

Which in turn spawned fanfiction during the prophet ages where they referred to the supernatural adversary of Job.

Then Hellenistic ideas around Hades (both the place and figure) get added into the mix, and we get the Enochian literature about fallen angels, where the guided katabasis influenced Virgil which later informs Dante’s Inferno.

Then King James messes up translating Isaiah and the Latin for the morning star (Lucifer) gets mistaken for a proper name, further tying the supernatural adversary to being one of the Enochian fallen angels. And we get Milton’s Paradise Lost.

It’s all just mistranslations and fanfiction.

And yet millions of people believe it’s actually a thing so much so that they freak out at the idea of any references to it as literally being dangerous.

In 2022.

An age filled with things beyond the wildest imagination of those in antiquity dreaming up miracles and wonders.

We’re so beyond fucked as a species.