Where did Satan actually come from? (vIDEO)

Welcome to the home of Episode 200 of the Misquoting Jesus Podcast with Bart Ehrman. Below, you can watch the entire episode, read its description, and see links to related resources.

links mentioned in this episode:

What the Hell? Jesus’ Teachings on the Afterlife

episode description

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Episode 200 examines how the relatively minor biblical figure of Satan became Christianity’s supreme embodiment of evil. Bart Ehrman begins with the Hebrew Bible, where ha-satan means “the adversary” and functions as a supernatural servant of God rather than God’s enemy. In Job, for example, Satan acts only with Yahweh’s permission; in 2 Chronicles, Satan even provides an explanation for David’s census.

The episode then traces the transformation of Satan within Judaism between the Hebrew Bible and New Testament periods. Jewish thinkers confronting persecution began to imagine supernatural forces opposed to God, producing a more dualistic conception of good and evil. By the New Testament, Satan appears as Jesus’ tempter and as the leader of the forces of evil.

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One of the episode’s biggest surprises concerns the serpent in Genesis. Ehrman argues that Genesis itself never identifies the serpent as Satan. The connection comes later, particularly through Revelation’s identification of the devil with “the serpent of old,” and Christianity subsequently expanded that association into a much larger Satan theology.

Finally, Ehrman explains how Satan became the horned, pitchfork-wielding ruler of hell. Changing Christian ideas about resurrection, the soul, heaven, and hell helped produce the familiar medieval image, while texts such as the Apocalypse of Peter, the Gospel of Nicodemus, and later Milton's Paradise Lost shaped Christian imagination even further.