Posted by JohnnyC
on January 23, 2008, 7:22 pm
24.249.95.130
I was thinking one day and I thought there are many accounts in the New Testament on Jesus casting out demons but I do not remember anything of the sort in the O.T. So I did a search and all I found was
1Samuel 19:9 Then an evil spirit from the LORD came over Saul while he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. David was strumming a tune.
There are no "demons" in the Old Testament, only idols that are rejected as "no-gods.
The above statement is taken from a good reading located in this link. Read it and give me your opinions.
http://www.cresourcei.org/demonsot.html
So where did the Christian view of demons and the devil come from?
Many scholars believe that Christianity got it from ZOROASTRIANISM I think probably through some of the Jewish sects that had inherited these ideas from when they were in bondage to Persia, In 397 B.C. Ezra, a courtier of the Persian king, was sent from Babylon to Israel
Ezra 7:1 And after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes the king of Persia, Ezra...
Ezr 7:6 this Ezra went up from Babylon: and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which Jehovah, the God of Israel, had given; and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of Jehovah his God upon him.
So we see it was natural for the Israelites to have carried with them some of the Persian ideas, and through this pathway it is possible these ideas came into Christianity. Or it is remotely possible but highly unlikely that the Jews shared these ideas with the Persians.
However their is no concrete evidence either way other then what is seen as a shift in Jewish/Christian Theology after the exile and return to Israel from Persian rule.
Leo Trepp, A History of the Jewish Experience
P. 54
"How did the idea of two opposing forces (Satan & God) originate? It too is the result of conditions during the Hellenistic age, a period when ideas were exchanged widely among various religions and nations. The principle of dualism came from Zoroastrianism, .... This idea spread through the wide open Hellenistic world; the controversy between God and Satan is its reflection in Judaism."
P. 55
"....The people have a heavenly representative, a guardian angel. This is a new concept of Zoroastrian origin. Previously the term `Malakh', angel, simply meant messenger of God."
Opinions anyone????
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