Abraham is known as the father of monotheism. Growing up in a culture of polytheism with both good and bad gods, Abraham declared that there was only one god, YHWH.
Egyptologist Kara Cooney has narrated a Discovery Channel series (now on Youtube) and has said that archaeological evidence has shown that ancient religions have always been polytheistic, believing that gods had both good and bad characteristics. (Hinduism pre-dates Judiasm, for example. Some Hindu temples have been dated to 7000 BC, and some claim it might be 20,000 years old.) However, when people began to be monotheistic, specifically around 3000 years ago, monotheistic believers not only believed in a single God representing all that is good, but made Satan a single individual, encompassing all evil. Polytheistic gods became personalized in a single devil, rather than countless devils, representing all aspects of evil. She said,
No one knows exactly when or where the iconic images we recognize as the devil first appeared but menacing behaviors and physical traits were adopted from a variety of earlier gods, features like the split hooves of the Greek god Pan, the horns of both Pan and the storm god Baal, the pitchfork of the Roman deity Neptune, and the forked tail of the Egyptian god Seth, all features embodies of the modern image of pure evil, Satan.
Christianity seems to have adopted this feature of Judaism, telling ancient Roman citizens that the paganistic gods they worshiped were really representations of Satan. While I certainly recognize the differences between polytheism and monotheism, I hadn’t thought about a mono-devil being a feature of monotheism. From Kara’s perspective, a single devil is a quite modern invention, in archaeological terms.
She also interviews a Muslim scholar. In the Koran, the devil is not represented as a serpent, but instead in human form. In the garden story, the devil tempts both Adam and Eve simultaneously. The bible seems to indicate that Eve was deceived and tempted Adam, but in the Koran, they share equal responsibility for sinning. Of course Islam is a quite modern religion, being founded around 600 AD, and they seem to have jettisoned some of the more mythical parts of the garden story.
Do you think the devil is a “new” invention of monotheism? If the devil is as old as Adam and Eve, why do you think he is missing from the archaeological record until about 1000 BC?
Wheat & Tares 
At the risk of alienating a few folks, I’ll take a stab at this and say that I think Satan is both an invention of monotheism and is the embodiment of the principle of opposition. Mormon theology (in ways similar to Christian theology generally, as well as other Abrahamic religions) depends a great deal not only on inspiring people to be good, but also encouraging them to be afraid of anything which is deemed NOT good. Satan works well in this dynamic and is a good catch-all for whatever any religion might want to label as evil. Rock and roll? The devil’s music. “Traditional” families under attack by whom? Satan and his minions in the form of a variety of permissive practices and beliefs. LDS youth not wanting to attend church anymore? Satan is leading them away.
So Satan’s existence as the embodiment of the principle of opposition makes perfect sense. I’m not certain, however, of the efficacy of using Satan in this manner as I think it vastly oversimplifies complex things and it makes it difficult to create solutions for actual problems. I think it also leads to people being encouraged to think in binary ways about issues and behaviors that aren’t always binary. Maybe this is why I’ve been leaning more towards Buddhism than Mormonism lately.
For most of my life I’ve had an unhealthy fear of the devil. I remember vivid dreams as a child casting satan out of my presence in the name of Jesus as I woke in the middle of the night terrified of this evil influence. I took some comfort in the words that my parents told me that satan couldn’t read thoughts like God can, but even part of me wondered if that was true. Up until a couple years ago, I still had the remnants of much of these beliefs still heavily entrenched in my psyche.
My faith transition thankfully released me from much of the fear and trama I’ve experienced through an unhealthy focus on a satan figure. I no longer believe in satan or demons or minions of evil that posses unrighteous humans and torment and tempt us. I just don’t believe in it. Motivation through fear is morally one of the worst tools for motivation. Unfortunately it is one of the most effective methods to motivate. I refuse to use the fear of satan as motivation any longer, and the faster religions move past these antiquated and morally questionable tactics, the better.
I am very intrigued by seeing the development of theological concepts that we now take for granted, such as the devil and Hell. I usually want to think, “If we know these things have developed over time, accumulating with cultural mixture, etc., then why do we believe them?”
But then I think…well, I guess most religious concepts developed over time, and this development is like advancement in any other field.
I don’t think that ancient religions separated their gods into good and evil. Rather gods were a mixture of good and evil, same as humans.
Perhaps the story of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is an allegory for humanity’s collective separation of good from evil, anthropomorphising them into either God or Satan. Moroni says all good comes from God, and all evil comes from the devil.
2 Nephi 2:11 there must be oposition in all things. That’s how we define things, with relativity.
Define god, define the devil.
Define hosts of angels, for god and the devil.
Heaven and hell.
Church of the lamb, church of the devil.
I don’t see how it could have been taught the monodevil existed prior to monogod existed.
The devil only makes sense in our story.
So, yes…it is as modern as our religion.
I would guess it is missing from archeology out of voldemort fear…if you say his name he’ll appear…so they didnt.
“I don’t think that ancient religions separated their gods into good and evil. Rather gods were a mixture of good and evil, same as humans.”
Yes Nate, you said it better than I did.
Maybe the devil is right, and there is no devil after all? 2 Ne. 28:22.
Zoroastrianism is typically regarded as the first monotheistic religion. It is thought to have given Judaism the concepts of angels, resurrection, Satan, and afterlife. You can’t talk about the origin of good vs. evil in modern religions without giving credit to that system of thought.
Here’s a quote from my Religions of the World textbook (one of my absolute favorite BYU religion classes). Zarathustra was the founder of Zoroastrianism. Ahura Mazda is the main deity:
“Zarathustra was essentially a monotheist who also believed in duality or dualism-the idea that there are two basic principles or powers of the world: Truth versus the Lie. In vision he beheld an adversary that coexisted with Ahura Mazda before the creation of the world: the “Hostile Spirit,” whose name was Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman. With a prophet’s eye, Zarathustra beheld these two in a great battle before the world was physically created.
“Angra Mainyu is an ignorant and totally evil being. He seeks to lead persons away from Ahura Mazda and to bring disorder and destruction to the world. The last thing Angra Mainyu wants is for people to find immortality in the presence of God. In many ways, he is an evil god acting in opposition to the good God, Ahura Mazda. He functions, however, only by permission of Ahura Mazda. Thus, monotheism and dualism are brought together by Zarathustra.”
The order vs. chaos duality was a major theme of most ancient religions. Typically creation of the world/man was viewed as triumph of whoever represented order over chaos. Zoroastrianism was unique in identifying that force of order with moral behavior and the force of chaos with immoral behavior. Usually you just had anthropomorphic deities who were temperamental and unpredictable.
It’s thought that Jews were influenced by the ideas of Zoroastrianism while in exile, and that’s when the relatively neutral “ha-satan” adversary of the book of Job took a nasty turn towards the darkside.
It’s true that you can’t have a single adversary without a single God. For much of the OT, Jehovah was just trying to get it into the thick skulls of his followers that he wasn’t just their patron deity, he was the ONLY deity. Not until the exile when they firmed up their theology around a single god would the concept of a single adversary really have an opportunity to take shape.
I’ll stop commenting now. 🙂
Mary Ann, please don’t stop commenting. I love your perspective. I’ve heard of Zoroastrian religion, and I did a part a while back where scholars postulated that the wise men from the east were Zoroastrians. How old is that religion?
It’s thought to be about 3500 years old, originating in what’s now Iran. The date of Zarathustra’s birth is a bit controversial. Traditionally it’s been placed much later (660-583 BCE), but most scholars are now convinced based on unique characteristics of the religious texts that the origin is in the 2nd millennium BCE. It was the state religion of Persia from 600 BCE through 650 CE. I think that’s why it was always dated in earlier histories to the Persian Empire, since that’s when it was most prominent. Cyrus the Great and the other Persian kings (including the claimed husband of Esther) would have been believers of that tradition.
The bible’s internal chronology puts Abraham at 2000 BCE, but there hasn’t been anything physical to back it up. The Cave of the Patriarchs (Abraham’s traditional burial spot) has artifacts dating back to 1000 BCE – so we can prove activity there back to the time of the United Kingdom at least. I seem to recall one of my more scholarly religion professors having us memorize dates about 1800-1600 BCE for the time of the Patriarchs. Abraham’s origin has always been tied further east (Syria or Iraq depending on which Ur-theory you go with), but not quite to Iran as far as I can tell. I don’t think anyone has really found solid connections between Zoroastrianism and Judaism prior to the exile.
Interesting. In television and movies, we’ve gone from all good or all bad characters to flawed heroes and each person being a combination of good and bad. But in religion, we started out with gods who were both good and bad and moved towards a god that was all good and satan, all bad.
I think entertainment is trending in the right direction. We are all complex creatures capable of both good and evil, like the ancient gods.
And yes, Mary Ann, please keep commenting.
The question I have, what can be understood about the original teachings of Zoroaster or make sense of the Gathas vrs the state religion of the Sasanian Empire.
The Gathas and part of the Yasna are writtin in Gathic Avestan, which is dated about 1500-1200 BC. So these texts belong to the earlier tradition. The writings of ancient historians and archaeological evidence point to a religion observed without temples or statues prior to 400 BC. Althought the Gathas don’t mention anything about funeral ceremonies, later beliefs had rules prohibiting burials, and that seems to have been a feature of the earlier practices based on the lack of burials found by archaeologists. Fire rituals are found in the Gathas and are believed to have been practiced by believers. When temples came into play later, the rituals were focused there (often just called fire-temples). The tomb of Darius I the Great depicts Darius apparently participating in a type of fire ritual, and there are inscriptions testifying of his Zoroastrian belief in Ahura Mazda.
You’re correct that most of the information we have on early Zoroastrianism is from the Sasanian Empire when there was a compilation of older texts (creating the Avesta) and a lot of commentary (kind of like the Babylonian Talmud being written around the same time the Hebrew Bible was getting finalized). Apparently a king at the beginning of the Parthian empire also had done a compilation of Zoroastrian texts, but they haven’t survived. Something cool about the Sasanian commentary is that they quote other ancient Zoroastrian texts that have not survived to today.
So the Sasanian version of Zoroastrianism was a bit different than that of Cyrus the Great and those earlier. The later group had the fire-temples and statues. Also, there seems to have been an elevation of a female deity (Anahita) to the same level of Ahura Mazda in at least two major cities, which definitely conflicts with the strict monotheism emphasized in the Gathas.
The issue of order, tulmutuous and often flaws vs chaos as world ending destructive force is as old as the Indo-European root tongue.
Mystery religions that preach that the pantheon is actually a mask for one God go back quite a bit (consider the pharaoh who tried to introduce that as a state religion.
The story gets very interesting but we are missing so many details.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten Is a mainstream discussion.