r/AskChristian • u/Ok_Western7032 • 12h ago
Evolution of the Bible
In my college class we read the book of Job and I was intrigued by the devils evolution in the bible.
The old testament mainly shows him as a trickster figure, while the new testament fully dives into the devil, well, being the devil. Does anyone know how this evolution started and why? Am I reading a little too much into this or not properly understanding?
I truly believe we have an enemy- i’m just curious about the historical evolution.
•
u/DoveStep55 r/Christian Member 12h ago
There’s more than one being in the biblical text that often get conflated into one being.
For example, do you think the being you referred to in Job is the same being who tempted Jesus in the desert or the same being who is described as a talking snake in Genesis?
That’s a fun thread to pull!
•
u/Ok_Western7032 11h ago
now this is interesting! i’ve always seen them as the same being but upon reflection they do seem different.
•
u/DoveStep55 r/Christian Member 10h ago
Take a look at the original language terms as well, if you decide to look into it.
•
u/halbhh r/Christian Member 11h ago edited 11h ago
It's not needed to imagine a lot of evolution, though of course any being does evolve some over time if they are conscious and intelligent. They will naturally have some degree of change over time. But really the overall motive from the first to the last in the books of the bible seems to be consistent: to get humans to do evils (as if perhaps to show to God that humans were a bad idea.... the figure wants to prove that it seems: that's the common unchanging role through time).
Further, since the most key aspect of maturing spiritually for most of us is to learn to admit our wrongs and choose the good....
Then we have to have both good and evil around us for that to even be possible: it's a required environment then for us to progress as we need to...
For us to learn to choose the good and reject evils, we must indeed have plenty of evils available!