The Quest for the Historical Satan by Miguel A. De La Torre and Albert Hernandez

In a very real way, the search for the historical Satan is an attempt to justify God's grace while legitimizing the reality and presence of evil in human history.  At least this seems to be what was occurring with the birth and development of Satan in the legends of pre-Christian mythology and across the pages of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sacred texts and Scriptures.  It appears that the development of Satan was, to a certain extent, trying to save God form appearing as the source of evil that is so much a part of the reality of human suffering and death.  The Scriptures attempt to convince us that God is still worthy of our worship despite the presence of evil, even though the most troubling conclusion derived from the Judeo-Christian biblical text is the discovery of a God who is the cause and author of all that is good--and all that is evil.

For Miguel De La Torre and Albert Hernandez, the authors of The Quest for the Historical Satan, the nature of Satan is inextricably tied up with the biggest question about God: if God is both omnipotent and perfectly good, why does evil exist?  Pre-Christian Jewish texts seem to have no problem casting God in a dubious light, as when he encourages Abraham to kill Isaac.  A "Satan" appears in the book of Job, of course, but his relationship to God is awfully ambiguous; is he an agent of God or an adversary?  And if he's an adversary, why is God so willing to do what he suggests and torture poor Job?

In The Quest for Historical Satan, De La Torre and Hernandez trace the growth of the Satan figure over centuries.  When Christian thought begins to demand God's perfect goodness, they argue, conceptions of Satan change.  The story of Lucifer, the fallen angel, gets assimilated into the story of Satan because it allows us to understand how evil comes about, not from God himself, but from a rebellious angel who works to undo God's beneficence and grace.  And yet, this understanding of Satan is troublesome, too.  If Satan is so powerful, a kind of foil to God himself, doesn't Christianity stretch the definition of monotheism?

The authors' history of Satan through the years is as predictable as it is bleak.  Time after time, this version of Satan, with slight ideological and theological emendations, is used as a representation of the political and cultural other.  It begins with the Church Fathers, claiming their opponents are not just heretics but inspired literally by the devil.  In the hands of medieval Christians, Satan becomes a Jew, then a Muslim; in the hands of explorers, the rites of Native Americans become Satanic.  There's a whole thing about witches in Puritan Massachusetts you might have heard about.  Throughout it all, De La Torre and Hernandez stress the continuing development of an ideology that associates Satan with "pure evil," an observation that seems somehow too commonplace and dreary to fully appreciate its implications.

The most interesting part of The Quest for the Historical Satan comes after the authors are done questing: they offer, in place of the popular conception of Satan as an antagonist of God who represents pure evil, an understanding of Satan as a kind of trickster figure, like Coyote or Br'er Rabbit.  Like those legendary figures, Satan uses deception to spur the complacent to reassess their own beliefs and habits--look what happens to Job when Satan convinces God to trick him, after all.  This reimagining of Satan comes from the context of a liberation theology, and fashions a Satan that serves as a goad for powerful and self-righteous people.  I'm not sure I buy it, but it sure is interesting and bold--and a hell of a lot better than the way we think about Satan now, and have been for centuries.