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{"id":36706,"date":"2020-08-10T01:23:16","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T05:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=36706"},"modified":"2020-07-06T11:27:35","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T15:27:35","slug":"demons-part-thirty-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2020\/08\/10\/demons-part-thirty-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Demons!– Part Thirty Three"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

MICHAEL: As I say in the book, I don\u2019t feel like I can say Zoroastrian dualism played no role in any Second Temple Jewish thinker\u2019s mind. I don\u2019t know of any basis for drawing such a drastic conclusion. But I can say that all the elements needed for the \u201cSatanology\u201d and demonology we see in the Second Temple period can be found in the Old Testament. Zoroastrianism isn\u2019t a necessary source. It might have been a source for someone, but it\u2019s not necessary. I think scholars too quickly default to Zoroastrian thought. Getting to where the Second Temple authors get with their theology of the powers of darkness really depends on (a) what questions they were asking, and (b) how they imagined the data points of the Old Testament might address those questions. For example the Fall of Eden and conclude that, since everything now dies (it\u2019s a reversal of Eden), then that original rebel, long associated with death and the Underworld \u201cowns\u201d the whole world (everything and everyone dies), then it\u2019s not hard to see how they could conceive of that rebel as (a) the god of this world, and (b) the chief \/ opposite rival to the God of the Bible, the One who created Eden. These are simple thought trajectories that arise from asking some pretty simple questions. You don\u2019t need a foreign system of thought to plant those questions and thoughts into the Jewish skull. They were alert enough readers to think such thoughts without Zoroastrianism. Since succeeding divine rebellions contribute to the \u201cdeath destination\u201d through depravity and idolatry (one brings self-destruction, the other steers people away from the only cure for the death problem, the mercy of the true God), the other powers of darkness derivative from the other two rebellions can be construed as sharing the original rebel\u2019s agenda, or being in cahoots. Again, this isn\u2019t theological rocket science. It\u2019s looking at the data and asking some obvious questions.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"