quote:
Originally posted by Garnet FalconDance:
Not precisely.
Demons and 'evil' certainly do predate Christianity. Creatures we now call 'satanic' do as well. HOWEVER, the early Christians, who just happened to be a cult of the Jewish/Hebraic people, borrowed Lucifer from the Old Testament and reassembled him as the Satan we all know and hate today. (The Jewish Lucifer was originally God's chief prosecutor. The word 'saitan' meant 'obstacle'.)
And technically, Christianity *does* include parts of the Babylonian system as well as every other belief system either before the New Testament or after! It is the way in which it mixed them all and approach the idea of salvation through the Christ figure that makes them who they are.
Have to remember that while christianity show Lucifer and Satan as being different names for the same being, Satan in christianity is in my opinion from what I have read a complex construct with bits and pieces pulled in from other older belief systems, the Satan who lies and tricks is one satan, the satan who represents evil is pulled from elsewhere and there are other facets to the christian satan that I again not having my references available I cant bring to mind at the moment [img]smile.gif[/img] Trying to integrate New logical volumes and High Availability software on two servers while trying to comment on religion is proving to be quite dificult [img]smile.gif[/img]