Talk:Religion/@comment-60.54.124.91-20170102104925/@comment-210.10.220.146-20170115023950

Additionally to Satan (big S for proper noun) there are many 'satans' in the Biblical Texts, referring to people who take an adverserial or oppositional role. This is because the 'name' Satan is derived simply from its use as a noun, marked with 'ha' which turns it from just a noun satan/adversary into either Satan/The Adversary, or Satan as a name, but also because satan is also used as a verb and in verb structures for statements like 'opposing/adversary-ing' (even though adversary-ing isn't a word to us, the meaning would have been roughly apparent to its contemporary listeners)

Also it's very unlikely that the serpent of Eden was meant to be any kind of Satan/satan simply because the word doesn't occur anywhere in the passage, not just in English but also in the masoretic hebrew we have. It's more likely a conflation of later serpent imagery with the motif, but other serpent motifs in Ancient Near Eastern cultures (ie. Hebrews and the other tribes and civilizations around at the time) - (keeping in mind the Genesis text was unambiguously written much later than any possible period of creation you may or may not believe in) were often associated with wisdom and knowledge (this is also present in other faiths and religions the world over) and this seems a more likely reason why it was used as the motif. The ancient cultures loved to borrow symbolism if it worked for them, and in your face jokes, the ancient Hebrew really loved their potty humor.