In this video, Michael Heiser lays out his case that “Satan” in the Old Testament does not refer to God’s chief enemy (the devil), but to a specific adversary who is actually working for God. He spends a great deal of time explaining that “the satan” cannot be “Satan” because the definite article is never used with proper nouns. As a result, he concludes that “the satan” is the title of an angelic being, a member of God’s divine council. Now, to be clear, Heiser does believe in an actual devil, but he bases this belief on what the New Testament says. Check this video out. I’m curious to find out how you think about this?
Thanks to Ken LaPrade for sharing this video with me.
Our 2 cents:
https://youtu.be/SDaOu4qahio
PS: The Greek, diabolus, is used “as a proper noun in intertestamental Jewish texts and appears often with this meaning in the NT (e.g. Matt 4:1).”
Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 1999, p 244.
Thank you, Carlos. We are just beginning to go through Michael Heiser’s book and I was looking for comments on it.