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The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics QUOTES

The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics QUOTES

1 " Research for this book has made me aware of aspects of Christianity I find disturbing. "

― Elaine Pagels , The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics

2 " The prophets Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, for example, often used the metaphors of adultery and prostitution to indict those they accused of being “unfaithful” to God’s covenant. "

― Elaine Pagels , The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics

3 " For example, in opposition to the rumor that Jesus was born illegitimate, Matthew and his predecessors found vindication for their faith in Jesus in Isaiah 7:14. There the Lord promises to give Israel a “sign” of the coming of God’s salvation. Apparently Matthew knew the Hebrew Bible in its Greek translation, where he would have read the following: “The Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son; and shall call his name Immanuel—God with us” (Isaiah 7:14). In the original Hebrew, the passage had read “young woman” (almah), apparently describing an ordinary birth. But the translation of almah into the Greek parthenos (“virgin”), as many of Jesus’ followers read the passage, confirmed their conviction that Jesus’ birth, which unbelievers derided as sordid, actually was a miraculous “sign.”21 Thus Matthew revises Mark’s story by saying that the spirit descended upon Jesus not at his baptism but at the moment of his conception. So, Matthew says, Jesus’ mother “was discovered to have a child in her womb through the holy spirit” (1:18); and God’s angel explains to Joseph that the child “was conceived through the holy spirit.” Jesus’ birth was no scandal, Matthew says, but a miracle—one that precisely fulfills Isaiah’s ancient prophecy. "

― Elaine Pagels , The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics

4 " Instead, as we shall see, such figures emerged from the turmoil of first-century Palestine, the setting in which the Christian movement began to grow. "

― Elaine Pagels , The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics