You see, a translation conveys the actual meaning of the original word, while a transliteration is the way the alphabetical letters are written. This is so that people of the other language can recognize them; but this does nothing to convey the meaning of the word. However, although the definitions of transliterations are not given, when they are used over a period of time in the new language, they usually take on a meaning, and depending on how it is used in that language will determine its definition which may or may not have very little to do with the word from which it came.

Thus, the difference between a translation and a transliteration, and "Satan," is one of those transliterations that became an entity’s name rather than an entity’s definition due to a large part of how it first appeared in the Latin Vulgate. It was, and still is, a word without an accurate definition. It carries the thought of something completely convoluted from its true meaning, for which Catholicism had been largely responsible. Not finding fault with that religious order, just mentioning a bit of history to see from where the word came.

So what does this mean? Very much, to say the least; for instance, the Hebrew Bible, as well as with Judaism, Satan is never portrayed as Western Christendom has come to imagine this infamous character to be. This adversary is never portrayed by either as a narcissistic despot of an evil empire, or as the general of an hostile army of angels and degenerate demons that wages war on God, His creation, and everything that is good. Frankly, such scenarios came from the influence of pagan religions, Catholicism, and continued with Protestantism; but it has never been a apart of the the Old Testament, the Talmud or Jewish thought. It is strange, however, that Islam’s view of Satan is much the same as Christendom’s.

What the majority generally embraces concerning whom or what Satan is, does not make it so. Please know that the Kingdom of God is not a democracy, and the beliefs of the majority are not the factors of rule. The majority does not rule in the Kingdom. He rules, whether His truths conflict with them or not, and one of those truths is that God did not create a good angel that turned bad. He purposely created an adversary to exercise us. Scriptures and experience testifies that Satan is here to make things difficult for us so we can overcome every obstacle. That is a primary purpose of Satan, this agent whose purpose has been determined by God.

Satan is not a fallen angel. Satan is an entity with a dirty job. Satan does not have a rival kingdom. Satan is a servant and is not in competition with God. Satan simply has a job that he was conscripted to do, just like every other angel (messenger) whether flesh or spirit. Angels have no freewill. They do as God has called them.

Some might think that since Judaism uses what we call the Old Testament that they believe very much the same as most of Christianity. But not so. Satan, the devil, is not a main focus in their religion; whereas, so much of Christianity is preoccupied with the devil. In Christianity he is viewed as an enemy of God, a perpetual opposing force, and something very bad, the epitome of evil., Satan has a level of power that is considered almost equal to that of God, and at times more so. But this cannot be. Satan is an agent of God, created by Him for a specific purpose which always turns out as something very good. Satan is not a rival of God, but His servant. Man’s adversary is unable to do anything outside of God’s will. Period!

One has written concerning Judaism’s point of view: "In contrast to Christian literature, where Satan is understood to be an evil force, the archenemy of God, in Jewish literature, he is seen as a blessing to His people. Why? Let’s consider for a moment what Satan means. As mentioned before, the word not only means an adversary, but a stumbling block or an obstacle. What exactly is an obstacle? It is something which is put in our path requiring us to overcome it. Obstacles in this life give us opportunities to stretch our muscles and to grow stronger.

"In the Genesis account of creation, we are told that God saw that each day was good, but on the last day it says that He saw that everything was VERY good. The Jewish Talmud teaches that this even refers to the evil inclination, which would include the serpent/Satan. Why is this good? It is the Evil inclination that provides our passions and desires, it is the evil inclination which is responsible for not only all the evil that transpires in this world, but also for all the good. For if we did not have passions, appetites and desires, we would also have no motivation and we would accomplish very little, either good or bad in this life.

"If you look at the use of Satan in the Hebrew bible, you find that as a concept, it is much more about an experience than a person, an experience where God has put a roadblock in front of us. This is Satan. This is an adversary. So why is this a good thing? Because if we were to go through life without ever experiencing these roadblocks or adversaries, obstacles in life, there would be no potential for virtue in the world. For if we were never tempted to do the things that we are not supposed to do, then not doing them would be of no value to us. It is only in coming up against a desire to do what is wrong and overcoming this that we grow as spiritual people.

"This evil inclination, or Satan, provides friction. Can you imagine a world with no friction, no resistance? Think about a car, how does it go? It is the friction between the tires and the road that allow the car to make progress, to go forward. Now, to the tires the friction is not necessarily a positive thing, the friction slowly destroys the tire, and yet without the friction, the tire is worthless.

"If there is no resistance to overcome, we have no environment for growth. When we come up against an obstacle, either we crash into it and fall (definitely a negative experience – the evil inclination) or we have to climb over it, and by climbing over these obstacles in life, we develop our spiritual muscles, so to speak. If we never exercise our muscles, we atrophy. So these forces in the world, these experiences, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable, are positive and important.

"To reiterate, everything was created by God, both good and evil and everything is under His control. There is only one force, not two, whereas, in Christianity Satan is not under the control of God but is rather, a competing force against Him. Christian theology makes Satan so powerful that he is erroneously given the title, ‘the god of this world.’

"Again, Satan is a servant of God who provides opportunities for us to grow, to respond to our passions and desires by producing things of value in this world and to become stronger spiritual people. (The Jewish View of Satan, Penina Taylor).

More properly, Satan should be called, the Satan, for it is not a proper name, and such is not God’s opponent. Although an opponent to people, the idea that there is anything in existence capable of setting itself up as God's opponent would be considered polytheistic; that is, we are setting up the devil as a god.

The notion of an angel having freewill is foreign to the scriptures. There is a debate over whether angels lack the potential for freewill, or whether they simply perceive reality too clearly to have any choices to make. But in any case, without the fence-straddling of the human condition, it is apparent to us that there is no freewill. Satan acts as a servant of God, not as an opponent or even a disobedient angel.

Even so, they both, He and His angel, came as opponents, as adversaries, but not as a two horned, evil eyed, tail swishing devil by the name of Satan. In the first and second chapters of Job there is a sâtân that serves as an obedient servant of the Lord by being an adversary to Job.

The Hebrew word, sâtân, is also found in this verse: "And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel." 1 Chronicles 21:1.

Who, or what, was this Satan? We believe the satan that stood up against Israel and provoked David to sin was a nation, most likely the Philistines that they were at war with during that time. David’s satan/adversary was a real, tangible threat to his kingdom, and he numbered his army, and trusted in it rather than God. It seems that he wanted to see if he stood a chance of winning the war and coming out alive. Since this satan was not named in particular, we can only speculate; but for sure, his adverse satan was not a fairytale demonic being that grew horns, bat wings, and a tail after being thrown out of heaven.

We see that it is transliterated as Satan which can cause the reader to think it is a personal being that is being referred to. The important thing to note is that in the Old Testament Hebrew Satan/sâtân never once describes a particular person. It is not used as a proper noun. It is not used as one’s name. The role of satan is that of a servant which brings about God’s purpose. It is simply an adversary, an opponent. The corresponding Greek word is diabolos which means to throw through, to traduce, to throw [bolos] something across [dia, as in diagonally] one's path. In Spanish the word is transliterated as, Diablo and Satan as Satán.

Hebrew storytellers often attribute misfortune to human sin. Some, however, also invoke adversarial satans that by God’s own order block or oppose human plans and desires. And these messengers are not necessarily evil. In the story of Balaam, God sends a donkey as a messenger, taking on the role of a satan, adversary, to prevent Balaam from disobeying God.

We find in Job 2:1 that God gathered together the sons of God, and verse two states that Satan came also among them. Satan was found in the same classification, position or rank as the sons of God in that he was in the presence of the Lord; but this does not make him equal to God or to the sons of God. Yet he was a created vessel to serve in any realm to which God called him, from the lowest of human depravity to the highest of honor.

Consider these verses: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." Isaiah 45:7. "And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb." Exodus 4:11. "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. " John 1:3. And "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." Colosians1:16-17.

Surely, we don’t think the omniscient, all knowing God would create something that could become a threat, out of His control, and win the majority of the His beloved creation to an everlasting hellfire torment. Satan was one of those things that was created by Him, for His purpose, and by Him consists to do His bidding. Nothing more, nothing less. Take heart and keep in mind what Paul wrote in one of his letters: "And we know that ALL THINGS work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28.

Whether Satan is a spirit, the carnal mind, a man, or a religion, an army, or a nation— they all can serve as an adversary to someone or some thing—and each can be called a satan. For instance, Iran calls America The Great Satan. We are not sure what their mind-set might be on this; but in reality, until the past few years, this nation had been the greatest adversary Iran has ever had. Therefore, they were right on target by calling us The Great Satan.

Jesus was confronted and tempted by His own adversary/satan/the devil when he was led into the wilderness by the Spirit Matthew 4:1-11. On another occasion He pointed out and accused the sons of Satan, as well as shedding light on what their father was and had always been. The International Standard Version has Him saying to the Scribes and Pharisees: "You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and has never stood for truth, since there is no truth in him. Whenever he tells a lie he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies." John 8:44.

It is obvious that Jesus is speaking to a group of people who were not literally fathered by a devilish being during some sort of satanic ritual by their mothers in a place like the Bohemian Grove where the rich and powerful go to misbehave, but they were spiritually related in the sense of their carnal-minded religious schemes and practices. Everything about them was adverse to righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. The whole pit, they and their father were adversaries, satans, devils. Jesus was addressing the issue of enforcing upon the people their dogmatic legalism. They were as whited sepulchers in nature of having a show of righteousness in their hypocrisy; but they were like tombs that held the spiritually dead. They were satans of the lowest kind. They were from beneath, with Satan’s cycle of death in their hands, and Jesus did not mince words with such ilk.

He made it clear that Satan was their father and was a murderer from his very beginning, and at no time had he ever stood in the truth. This is contrary to traditional Christian teaching, this we know; but truth is always contrary to religious fantasies, and so many of their traditions are but fantasies.

Frankly, dear friends, I am so at odds with tradition: religious tradition (tradition of the fathers), politically right tradition, even social tradition, that I sometimes make an effort to rebel against all of it, and I am not of the 1970s hippie generation of rebellion. I thought they were stupid then, and I think many of them still are, but that’s beside the point. Even so, rebellion for the sake of rebellion is not a good thing; but when tradition makes slaves of us, it is an honorable thing and can be abolished as the truth floods our being.

Most of the theologians today believe, traditionally, that Satan was once good, became evil, and then fell. An argument for this is based upon Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, as we noted in our previous article. However, Jesus clearly states that Satan was evil from the beginning. The word beginning here means from the original starting point. The word beginning is in reference to the very beginning, whether it is of Satan or of creation, but not some starting point that came after the beginning. Even though theologians preach the scenario of Satan being good and then falling, it seems that they have not considered another verse, 1 John 3:8,which reads in the NAS, "...For the devil has sinned from the beginning..." This could not be true of any other vessel. For instance, Adam was good and then fell; but Satan is first found as the serpent in the garden and is evil from his very first appearance.