Where does the concept of Hell and the devil come from?

See this thread starting post #77.

 

from Satan?

 

SAAATAN

 

I wonder what you really mean by "the concept of Hell and the devil." Do you mean the pitchfork and horns? Or do you mean a person (of sorts) who is against God?

I'm not going to attempt to answer to the historic origins. Someone mentioned the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, but for obvious reasons that would be hard to draw concensus on. Suffice it to say that early humanity seems to have many similar ideas as well as many different variations of stories such as the flood. This could be because there was a flood or it could be such a colorful story everyone just had to adopt it. Apparently if you collect all the stories of the flood there is a direct correlation between the distance from Mt. Ararat and how close they come to the Biblical account.

As for the devil and Hell within Judaism and Christianity the story is a little complicated. There is the mention of satan in Genesis in the story of Adam and Eve. There he has a role although he is not solely responsible for our predicament. Not only does he have a role but there is a clear suggestion that his presence is going to be an ongoing problem until the seed of the woman crushes his head. After that there are many other references to him having some role such as his torment of Job.
As for Hell the OT talks about Sheol (most in Psalms, as I recall). The specifics do not seem very clear except that it is not a pleasant place.
Fast forward to the the NT the place of an afterlife becomes a little less clear. There are two main factions in Judaism at this time and they do not agree. One group believes in an afterlife and hell and heaven and wants to know about what happens there and the other group doesn't believe anything happens to you when you die. Jesus takes sides on the issue, coming down on the side that yes, there is an afterlife. And no, it is not just like our life now.
At this point early Christianity had basicly a clearer idea of many concepts from the OT. Obviously, much about the Messiah is cleared up but also much about what is meant by God's Kingdom, afterlife and satan. Satan is spoken of as the Angel of Light and the Deceiver. He is never depicted as so easy to identify as walking around in red tights with a pitchfork in hand. Those ideas were adapted from other mythologies and were convenient artistically. If you were painting a mural you could show who was supposed to be a saint by putting a halo around their heads, angels had halos as well but also had wings (and sometimes harps and sat on a cloud), the devil was the red guy with horns. It made it a lot easier to tell your story in pictures if you didn't need the artist there to explain he used Bob as a model for Satan because of his nasty temperament. But these images stick. And for a long time most people were illiterate and spent regular time in churches staring at the art when the sermons got boring. And now, while most of us are literate, few have actually read the Bible and so people make guesses to its content.
For clarification, angels don't wear halos in the Bible. Devils look like angels. Hell is an uncomfortable place at best, you probably don't want to know anything more about it firsthand.

 

Not you, B-Bob

 

Yea! Was just goofing. Seriously, thanks for that post. I am following this thread more closely than my useless quips would lead one to believe.

 

I googled "at first I was like"

 

Not really, at least in Christianity. Satan was an angel and he, along with other angels broke from God and were cast out and are devils. But, God is eternal and created everything including the angels. Satan is qualitatively like his fellow devils and his fellow angels, but God is fundamentally different from the lot of them. To say God is just the head angel (like Satan is just the head devil) doesn't recognize the qualitative difference between God and his creation in the Christian paradigm.

 

Devils?