The origin of Satan

Resource Information

The work The origin of Satan represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Sno-Isle Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The origin of Satan

Statement of responsibility

Elaine Pagels

Creator

• Pagels, Elaine H., 1943-

Author

• Pagels, Elaine H., 1943-

Subject

• Christianity and antisemitism
• Christianity and antisemitism
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Bible, Gospels
• Devil -- Biblical teaching
• Devil -- Biblical teaching
• Bible, Gospels -- Criticism, interpretation, etc

Genre

• Criticism, interpretation, etc

Language

eng

Summary

• Provides an interpretation of Satan, tracing him from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and discussing his role in the Christian tradition
• In the Old Testament, he is merely the Adversary, a forbidding member of God's retinue. How then did Satan become the Gospels' prince of darkness, who brings about the crucifixion of Jesus as part of a cosmic struggle between good and evil? And why did Jesus' followers increasingly identify Satan with their human antagonists--first Jews, then pagans, and then heretics of their own faith? In this groundbreaking work of religious and social history, the author of The Gnostic Gospels traces the relationship between the embattled members of a breakaway Jewish sect and the myth they envoked to explain their persecution. The Origin of Satan is at once a masterpiece of erudition and a book resonant with contemporary implications. For in its pages we come to understand how the gospel of love could coexist with hatreds that have haunted Christians and non-Christians alike for two thousand years.--Publisher description

Cataloging source

JRS

Dewey number

235/.47

Index

index present

LC call number

BS2555.6.D5

LC item number

P34 1996

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography