Author & Distinguished Research Professor
Department of English - UCLA
Henry Ansgar Kelly
SATAN IN THE BIBLE,
GOD’S MINISTER OF JUSTICE
Throughout the ages, Satan has been seen as God's implacable enemy, fiercely determined to keep as many human beings as he can from entering the heavenly kingdom. But according to Henry Ansgar Kelly, this understanding dates only from post-biblical times, when Satan was reconceived as Lucifer, a rebel angel, and as the serpent in the garden of Eden. In the bible itself, beginning in the book of Job and continuing through the New Testament, Satan is considered to be a member of the heavenly government, charged with monitoring the human race. In effect, he is God's Minister of Justice, bent on exposing sin and vice, especially in virtuous-seeming persons like Job and Jesus.
He fills the roles of investigator, tempter (that is, tester), accuser, prosecutor, and punisher, but also obstructer, preventer of vice, and rehabilitator. He is much feared and despised, accused of underhanded and immoral tactics. His removal from office is promised and his eventual punishment hoped for.
The later misreading of Satan as radically depraved transformed Christianity into a highly dualistic religion, with an ongoing contest between good and evil. Seeing Satan in his true nature, as a cynical and sinister celestial bureaucrat, will help to remedy this distorted view.
A world expert on Satan in the Bible, Henry Ansgar Kelly offers the fruits of years of research...
At once learned and provocative, this book is bound to be controversial in probing the biblical foundations of evil.
Mark S. Smith
Helena Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis, Princeton Theological Seminary
Henry Ansgar Kelly traces the story of the biblical Satan from its earliest sources to the post-biblical developments that dominate popular culture... As such, Kelly has written an interesting, accessible and biblically literate book of interest to scholars, students and the general public.
Mary Ann Beavis
Department of Religion and Culture Undergraduate Chair, Religion and Culture Program, University of Saskatchewan, NT and Intertestamentals Book Review Editor, Catholic Biblical Quarterly
