Satan: The War in Heaven and the Fall
¨Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born” (Rev. 12.3-4).
"And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” ( Rev. 12.7-9)
John’s vision of Satan’s war with heaven and subsequent fall to earth has been a popular image in Christian culture since its conception. Here, Satan is depicted as a powerful beast that tries to attack heaven and wage war directly with God and his kingdom. This is how the writer of this New Testament letter saw the figure he had come to know as Satan. This is not the only depiction of Satan in the Christian / Hebrew Bible. Over time, Satan has been portrayed in different ways and shown to play different roles. This brief study will attempt to address the development of the Character Satan throughout the Bible, including Old Testament, Inter-Testamental, and New Testament Literature. The following goal is to identify the possible traditions that have influenced John of Patmos’ vision of God’s Cosmic Opponent. The final part will examine how Revelation 12 has been read and interpreted in the years after its conception. The main example will focus on scholarly commentary of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a popular poem with strong reverberations of Revelation 12 throughout its text.
In the Old Testament, the term satan is often used to simply mean “adversary” and does not necessarily represent an independent figure (Pagels 1995, 39). There are several verses, such as 1 Sam 29.4, and 1 Kings 5.16-20, where satan is used in the context to describe human beings who are acting in an adversarial role (Day 1988, 25-26). The term is also used numerous times to describe an angel in God’s heavenly court. Two popular images of this angelic adversary come from Job 1.6-7 and Numbers 22.23-25. In Job, the satan acts almost like an attorney general, accusing Job’s strong faith being founded from his many blessings from God. The satan inflicts many maladies upon Job, but only at the permission of God himself. Neil Forsyth and Elaine Pagels both observe that in Num. 22 the satan blocks Balaam’s path in order to protect him from harm, which is hardly a malevolent act (Pagels 1995, 40-41). In both of these portrayals the satan serves as a roaming angel with a divine purpose, who only acts with God’s Permission. These Old Testament references to an angel in God’s court don’t appear to represent the same Satan depicted in John’s Revelation.
There are certain Old Testament passages, however, that describe the character of Satan in a more similar light to that of John’s Revelation. Many scholars have noted that both Zechariah 3.1-2 and 1 Chronicles 21.1 portray the angelic adversary as a malevolent figure. Pagels suggests that the satan takes on a sinister quality in these passages, and that “his role begins to change from that of God’s agent to that of his opponent” (Pagels 1995, 44). Another well-known Old Testament passage that has been linked to the satan tradition is Isaiah 14.12-15, the fall of the Day Star. In its historical context, many scholars believe these verses to be an ostensible reference to the fall of the earthly kings of Babylon and Tyre (Revard 1980, 32-33). As we shall see, later traditions in Christianity will read the imagery of a falling star as a reference to a falling angel, namely Satan. With Satan linked to this passage, he has taken on a role of direct resistance against God and not just opposition against Man.
Outside of the canonical Hebrew and Christian Bible, there exist many Inter-Testamental texts that contribute to the traditions upon which the character Satan is created. One such text is the Book of Enoch, an apocalyptic work that tells a fuller version of the Genesis flood myth. The first 36 chapters of this work comprise the “Book of Watchers,” which is a story that has many connections to the rebellion myth and the War in Heaven. In this book a group of angels, under the direction of their leader, violate their assigned roles and corrupt the earth by having sexual intercourse with the daughters of men. God thereafter intervenes and sends Michael and his army to fight the fallen angels, and the rebels are eventually imprisoned and forever locked away in torment. While clearly the plot of this text has many similarities with Revelation 12, it also shares much of the same imagery. Forsyth observes that Enoch 21.3-6 makes a similar connection between rebel angels and falling stars, as has been seen in Isaiah 14 (Forsyth 1987, 179-181). Although the character Satan does not make a specific named appearance in the “Book of Watchers,” there are several comparable characters. One such character is Azazel, a leader of the fallen Watcher Angels. Thus, the Enoch tradition is seen by some scholars as an undoubtedly important piece in the development of Satan and his war in heaven.
By the time of the New Testament, Satan had taken on an official role as the chief enemy of the Lord. Jeffery Burton Russell argues that Satan takes on this role because unlike the God of the Hebrew Bible, the God of the New Testament is wholly good and benevolent. The role of evil must then be fulfilled by another figure, who decidedly is Satan, the Devil. Russell states that “the central message of the New Testament is salvation: Christ saves us. What he saves us from is the power of the Devil. If the power of the Devil is dismissed, the Christ’s saving mission becomes meaningless” (Russell 1977, 229). Satan is seen as a tempter, a liar, a murderer, the cause of death and idolatry, and several malevolent roles throughout gospels and epistles of the New Testament. One of the most memorable moments of the Devil in the New Testament is Christ’s temptation in the wilderness, a story found in Matt 4.1-11, Mark 1.13, and Luke 4.1-3. Here Satan is clearly seen as an opponent of Christ and the kingdom of God, and is a fully independent figure bent on the growth of his own power and the destruction of anything that is of God.
Thus far a broad background of the Satan figure has been offered, dating from Old Testament accounts until the writings of the New Testament. Now our attention finally turns to Revelation 12 and John’s vision of the character Satan, God’s cosmic opponent. What traditions were the source for his description of the dragon in 12.4 and 12.7-9? There seems to be a wide array of opinions amongst New Testament scholars, with a great deal of overlap in their ideas. Forsyth argues that Revelation 12 must be read in light of the Enoch traditions, which in turn must be linked to the rebellious son of dawn in Isaiah 14 (Forsyth 1987, 252). Darren Aldridge offers a similar connection of 1 Enoch and John of Patmos’ vision in Revelation 12.7-9 (Oldridge 2012, 22-23). Other theories suggest that these verses are heavily inspired by Greek and Roman myths. There are many distinct similarities between the narrative of Rev. 12 and the myth of Leto, Apollo, and the dragon named Python (Collins 1976, 79-83). Craig Koester also puts forth this interpretation of Revelation 12, and in addition suggests that specifically the war in heaven are inspired by the traditions of Isaiah 14.12-15 and 27.1, Jude 6, Genesis 3, and Luke 10.18-19 (Koester 2001, 118-120). John M. Court recognizes that Revelation 12 might be influenced by one source or numerous sources, but he also suggests that John made these various references apparent and deliberately. The point is “to blend together the various names and characteristics he [Satan] has been known in tradition, and is recognizable in human life, and to add to this a further and immediately relevant characterization (Court 1979, 111). This immediate characterization was that the Devil was very much at work in the current Christian Church. Overall, the consensus seems to be that John is purposefully using imagery from various traditions throughout Revelation 12, and he does so with the intent that his readers will be able to identify those references and see clearly the Satan John is trying to portray; this Satan being God’s cosmic opponent in a universal battle of good against evil.
Since its official canonization, the book of Revelation has been studied and interpreted to great extent. Intellectuals and laity alike have used the book to explain the current events of their time. In addition, the Book of Revelation has played a great role in how various groups of Christians identify the origins of Satan and how he is at work in their current world. A popular instance of this fixation on Revelation and its modern application can be seen by the works of 17th century European poets (Revard 1980, 134-138). With the Thirty Years’ War and increasing conflict between Catholics and Protestants, life was a battle upon earth for the 17th century Christian. For this reason, many people of this time read Revelation, and more specifically chapter 12, to have contemporary significance (Revard 1980, 108-109). One of the strongest examples of 17th century literature that was written in light of Revelation 12 is John Milton’s Paradise Lost, a 10 volume poem that many scholars argue is undeniably dependent on the Book of Revelation.
Paradise Lost tells the story of Satan and his war against heaven, his subsequent fall, and his temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Milton writes Satan as the protagonist of the story, and thus he is at the center of focus throughout each book. Austin Dobbins argues that the events described in Paradise Lost are indeed poetic and epic, but moreover they are scriptural. Specifically, they are tied directly to the New Testament text of Revelation and the books must be read in light of chapter 12. Many of the similarities might seem to the modern reader as strained or simply decorative. Dobbins contends that 17th century readers would not have read Paradise Lost this way, but that they would have recognized Milton’s use of apocalyptic imagery as structural for the whole narrative (Dobbins 1975, 35-37). Michael Fixler argues a similar point to dobbins. His essay, “The Apocalypse within Paradise Lost,” claims that Milton created an elaborate and systematic transformation of Revelation when he wrote Paradise Lost. Furthermore, he suggests that the Revelation and Paradise Lost can both be broken down into 7 cycles, with each cycle in Paradise Lost corresponding to a specific set of chapters within Revelation (Fixler 1969, 250-251). In addition, Forsyth gives a concrete example of how the Milton draws upon Rev. 12.7-9 from the outset of his work. He suggests that the “Infernal serpent” in the opening of Book I is a direct citation of Rev. 12.9. What all this scholarship on Paradise Lost amounts to is that John Milton was clearly impacted by the images of Revelation. Milton’s poetry demonstrates how his the reading of Revelation lead to him creating his own commentary and thoughts on who Satan was and how he came to be.
The hope is that this brief survey of research has demonstrated the depth of the character known as Satan. In some places he is seen as an adversary, and a member of God’s heavenly court who is not inherently malevolent. Satan eventually begins to develop into the role of an independent enemy of God, culminating in the writings of the Christian tradition. The full development of Satan as God’s ultimate rival, and the story of his subsequent fall, is thus seen in the writings of John of Patmos in Rev.12. The modern reader can often have a fixed view of this figure’s role in the Christian religion, but his history throughout scripture shows just how dynamic of a character the Devil can be. In addition, he is still changing and continually being reinterpreted, as is clear from the example of John Milton’s iconic story of the Devil, Paradise Lost.
Annotated Bibliography
Collins, Adela Y. 1976. The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation. Missoula: Scholars Press
This text was extremely helpful in my study of what traditions Revelation specifically draws from. The chapter “The Combat Myth in Revelation 12” had a great deal of information related to the verses my research focused on, especially in regards to the non-biblical influences. Pages 76-83 give a detailed analysis of the Dragon figure and the war in heaven myth, and how John’s depiction could be traced to traditions in the Old Testament, Ugaritic myths, Greek myths, Hittite myths, and many other sources. Essentially, Collins showed just how wide the possible range of sources John of Patmos could have been using. Additionally, her commentary on Isaiah 14.12-15 greatly solidified my existing knowledge about its connection to John’s Revelation and v.4 and v. 7-9.She notes that the application of this myth to the Satan tradition didn’t occur until roughly the first century C.E. Comments like these were extremely helpful in mapping out the rough temporal timeline of the character Satan.
Court, John M. 1979. Myth and History in the Book of Revelation. Atlanta: John Knox Press
This was another text that greatly contributed to my knowledge of the influences and sources most relevant in Rev. 12.7-9. Many of Court’s observations confirmed the findings of other sources I had previously read. In his fifth chapter, “The Woman Clothed in Sun,” he gives a very detailed reading of Rev. 12. The quote cited in the narrative section of this project displays the greatest contribution that this text offered in my research. To reiterate, Court argues that the dragon figure is a purposeful blend of traditions designed to make the reader call upon a wide variety of preexisting knowledge concerning Satan.
Day, Peggy L. 1988. An Adversary in Heaven: satan in the Hebrew Bible. Atlanta: Scholars Press
Much of the information concerning Old Testament references to Satan come from Peggy Day’s study of the subject. Her work goes into an extremely high level of detail, and much of her analysis is hard to comprehend for someone with little background in this field of expertise. However, many of her introductory comments on Job, Numbers, and Zechariah were extremely helpful in understanding each biblical text at a greater level of depth. One interesting aspect that specifically drew me to this text was how Day’s study differs from others in that it sees no end product of the independent figure, Satan. Rather, her work suggests that all of the textual references in the Hebrew bible are for the regular noun satan and nothing more. In other words, her study of satan is not developmentally oriented, like many other studies are.
Dobbins, Austin C. 1975. Milton and the Book of Revelation: The Heavenly Cycle. University: The University of Alabama Press
This book was the second source I found that demonstrated there were scholars who were concerned with studying John Milton’s Paradise Lost with a specific focus on the same subject I was researching. The second chapter, “The War in Heaven,” was specifically helpful in that Dobbins focused heavily on Rev. 12.7-9. He does a lot of comparisons directly with Paradise Lost, and many of these comparisons were adequately explained to where someone who has never read Paradise Lost could follow along. As with most of the sources concerned with John Milton’s poetry, I feel that my appreciation for their insights would increase after a complete reading of the primary text.
Fixler, Michael. 1969. “The Apocalypse within Paradise Lost,” in New Essays on “Paradise Lost,” edited by Thomas Kranidas, 131-178. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
This essay was probably the most technical commentary on John Milton’s Paradise Lost. He did a good job of introducing the main arguments he planned to make throughout his writing, but the actual arguments themselves were difficult to track along with. Once again, this was primarily due to me having read only synopses and short excerpts of Paradise Lost. However, I was intrigued by his idea involving the seven vision cycles of Revelation and the corresponding seven cycles in Paradise Lost. This analysis reminded me of how Craig Koester organized his book, and I found it interesting that other scholars had treated reading Revelation in similar manner.
Forsyth, Neil. 1987. The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth. Princeton: Princeton University Press
This text was my primary source regarding the Enoch tradition and how it related to Revelation. The chapter “Rebellion and Lust: The Watcher Angels in the Aramaic Enoch Books,” was extensive in its coverage of the Enoch material and how it was developed and received. Forsyth has many concise summaries of the extensive primary text that allowed for easy following of his arguments. Building off of this extensive background chapter, he makes some convincing connections in the chapter titled “Apocalypse and Christian Combat.” Throughout this section, he cites the numerous ways in which Revelation can be read as influenced by or referencing the tradition of the Watcher Angels.
Forsyth, Neil. 2003. The Satanic Epic. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Neil Forsyth is a name that I came across a lot in my research, so when I decided to examine Paradise Lost I knew he was a credible source worth pursuing. There was not as much focus on the specific verses from Revelation as the other sources I had found, but he still gave some original insights Concerning Satan and the war in heaven in his section titles “The Language of ‘Evil.’” On the other hand, the first section of his book, “A Brief history Of Satan,” does an excellent job at synthesizing the findings of a lot of his previous research. Reading through this portion of his book cemented my understanding of some of his observations of Satan’s background in Old and New Testament Literature. The sections “The satan” and “The New Testament” outline the development of the satan adversary to Satan, God’s Opponent.
Koester, Craig R. 2001. Revelation and the End of All Things. Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
This book was my first exposure to scholarly work on the book of Revelation. Koester’s commentary on Revelation 12 was what first prompted me to study the character of Satan in greater depth. I realized that my knowledge of Satan’s history and the development of him as a character in a literary text was lacking. His section on “The Woman, Michael, and the Dragon” was an excellent outline to the verses that interested me the most. Essentially, this section briefly addresses the Greek Myth influences of Leto and Apollo (as seen in Collins as well), and also outlined several Biblical verses that John was likely alluding to. This section was still very brief, and did not go into great detail as to why scholars believe John is pulling form those traditions.
Oldridge, Darren. 2012. The Devil: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Oldridge’s short introduction to the Devil served as a great road map for my research throughout this project. His study addressed some of the leading scholars of this field, Such as Neil Forsyth and Jeffery Burton Russell, and gave short, accurate descriptions of their major studies concerning the Devil. These descriptions helped me greatly when navigating each author’s larger works, and allowed me to more easily search for information relevant to my research. Many of the summaries in this text affirmed my findings in other sources. Ultimately this book demonstrated what the general consensus is on the subject of Satan. In addition, Oldridge referenced Paradise Lost numerous times throughout his book, which further demonstrated to me the importance John Milton had in 17th century apocalypticism and interpretation of Revelation.
Pagels, Elaine. 1995. The Origin of Satan. New York: Random House, Inc.
Whereas Peggy L. Day’s book presented a detailed and focused view of Hebrew texts involving the satan, The Origin of Satan gave a comprehensive macro view of the subject. The chapter titled “The Social History of Satan: From the Hebrew Bible to the Gospels” was especially of use in tracing the traditions of satan, and possibly Satan, in the Various Old Testament books that were covered in the research portion. In this section, Pagels even quotes Forsyth in The Old Enemy, demonstrating somewhat of a consensus in the area of Satan in the Old Testament as an almost beneficial adversary or oppose.
Revard, Stella P. 1980. The War in Heaven: “Paradise Lost” and the Tradition of Satan’s Rebellion. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
This book is what first set me on the path to research more deeply the connection between Paradise Lost and Revelation 12. Revard focuses a lot on the historical context, and it was her chapters “The Warring Saints and the Dragon,” and “War in Procinct” that demonstrated just how important the book of Revelation was to Christian readers throughout the ages. When I initially set out on this research project, I had hoped to uncover a master timeline of the events surrounding Satan and the war in heaven as seen in Revelation. I quickly found that such a timeline is difficult to concretely draw, but Revard’s book did show how some earlier Church members had personally interpreted and created their own timeline in light of Revelation 12. p. 131-135 were most interesting, especially the comments on Gregory the Great.
Russell, Jeffery B. 1977. The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press
Jeffery Burton Russell has written numerous books and articles on the subject of Satan, and I came across many such works over the course of my research. However, in terms of information that applied directly to my focus of the Devil’s background and representation in the book of Revelation, I found this text to be the most relevant. The chapter “The Devil in the New Testament” was especially pertinent for completing the narrative of my research. My sources thus far had focused immensely on Old Testament and Inter-Testamental sources in the development of Satan, but Russell’s study in The Devil offered the most succinct and comprehensive analysis of Satan’s various roles in the New Testament. His footnotes citing specific verses that display each of Satan’s traits as seen in the New Testament was particularly helpful in my understanding of the Devil in the Gospels and Pauline Epistles.
This text was extremely helpful in my study of what traditions Revelation specifically draws from. The chapter “The Combat Myth in Revelation 12” had a great deal of information related to the verses my research focused on, especially in regards to the non-biblical influences. Pages 76-83 give a detailed analysis of the Dragon figure and the war in heaven myth, and how John’s depiction could be traced to traditions in the Old Testament, Ugaritic myths, Greek myths, Hittite myths, and many other sources. Essentially, Collins showed just how wide the possible range of sources John of Patmos could have been using. Additionally, her commentary on Isaiah 14.12-15 greatly solidified my existing knowledge about its connection to John’s Revelation and v.4 and v. 7-9.She notes that the application of this myth to the Satan tradition didn’t occur until roughly the first century C.E. Comments like these were extremely helpful in mapping out the rough temporal timeline of the character Satan.
Court, John M. 1979. Myth and History in the Book of Revelation. Atlanta: John Knox Press
This was another text that greatly contributed to my knowledge of the influences and sources most relevant in Rev. 12.7-9. Many of Court’s observations confirmed the findings of other sources I had previously read. In his fifth chapter, “The Woman Clothed in Sun,” he gives a very detailed reading of Rev. 12. The quote cited in the narrative section of this project displays the greatest contribution that this text offered in my research. To reiterate, Court argues that the dragon figure is a purposeful blend of traditions designed to make the reader call upon a wide variety of preexisting knowledge concerning Satan.
Day, Peggy L. 1988. An Adversary in Heaven: satan in the Hebrew Bible. Atlanta: Scholars Press
Much of the information concerning Old Testament references to Satan come from Peggy Day’s study of the subject. Her work goes into an extremely high level of detail, and much of her analysis is hard to comprehend for someone with little background in this field of expertise. However, many of her introductory comments on Job, Numbers, and Zechariah were extremely helpful in understanding each biblical text at a greater level of depth. One interesting aspect that specifically drew me to this text was how Day’s study differs from others in that it sees no end product of the independent figure, Satan. Rather, her work suggests that all of the textual references in the Hebrew bible are for the regular noun satan and nothing more. In other words, her study of satan is not developmentally oriented, like many other studies are.
Dobbins, Austin C. 1975. Milton and the Book of Revelation: The Heavenly Cycle. University: The University of Alabama Press
This book was the second source I found that demonstrated there were scholars who were concerned with studying John Milton’s Paradise Lost with a specific focus on the same subject I was researching. The second chapter, “The War in Heaven,” was specifically helpful in that Dobbins focused heavily on Rev. 12.7-9. He does a lot of comparisons directly with Paradise Lost, and many of these comparisons were adequately explained to where someone who has never read Paradise Lost could follow along. As with most of the sources concerned with John Milton’s poetry, I feel that my appreciation for their insights would increase after a complete reading of the primary text.
Fixler, Michael. 1969. “The Apocalypse within Paradise Lost,” in New Essays on “Paradise Lost,” edited by Thomas Kranidas, 131-178. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
This essay was probably the most technical commentary on John Milton’s Paradise Lost. He did a good job of introducing the main arguments he planned to make throughout his writing, but the actual arguments themselves were difficult to track along with. Once again, this was primarily due to me having read only synopses and short excerpts of Paradise Lost. However, I was intrigued by his idea involving the seven vision cycles of Revelation and the corresponding seven cycles in Paradise Lost. This analysis reminded me of how Craig Koester organized his book, and I found it interesting that other scholars had treated reading Revelation in similar manner.
Forsyth, Neil. 1987. The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth. Princeton: Princeton University Press
This text was my primary source regarding the Enoch tradition and how it related to Revelation. The chapter “Rebellion and Lust: The Watcher Angels in the Aramaic Enoch Books,” was extensive in its coverage of the Enoch material and how it was developed and received. Forsyth has many concise summaries of the extensive primary text that allowed for easy following of his arguments. Building off of this extensive background chapter, he makes some convincing connections in the chapter titled “Apocalypse and Christian Combat.” Throughout this section, he cites the numerous ways in which Revelation can be read as influenced by or referencing the tradition of the Watcher Angels.
Forsyth, Neil. 2003. The Satanic Epic. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Neil Forsyth is a name that I came across a lot in my research, so when I decided to examine Paradise Lost I knew he was a credible source worth pursuing. There was not as much focus on the specific verses from Revelation as the other sources I had found, but he still gave some original insights Concerning Satan and the war in heaven in his section titles “The Language of ‘Evil.’” On the other hand, the first section of his book, “A Brief history Of Satan,” does an excellent job at synthesizing the findings of a lot of his previous research. Reading through this portion of his book cemented my understanding of some of his observations of Satan’s background in Old and New Testament Literature. The sections “The satan” and “The New Testament” outline the development of the satan adversary to Satan, God’s Opponent.
Koester, Craig R. 2001. Revelation and the End of All Things. Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
This book was my first exposure to scholarly work on the book of Revelation. Koester’s commentary on Revelation 12 was what first prompted me to study the character of Satan in greater depth. I realized that my knowledge of Satan’s history and the development of him as a character in a literary text was lacking. His section on “The Woman, Michael, and the Dragon” was an excellent outline to the verses that interested me the most. Essentially, this section briefly addresses the Greek Myth influences of Leto and Apollo (as seen in Collins as well), and also outlined several Biblical verses that John was likely alluding to. This section was still very brief, and did not go into great detail as to why scholars believe John is pulling form those traditions.
Oldridge, Darren. 2012. The Devil: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Oldridge’s short introduction to the Devil served as a great road map for my research throughout this project. His study addressed some of the leading scholars of this field, Such as Neil Forsyth and Jeffery Burton Russell, and gave short, accurate descriptions of their major studies concerning the Devil. These descriptions helped me greatly when navigating each author’s larger works, and allowed me to more easily search for information relevant to my research. Many of the summaries in this text affirmed my findings in other sources. Ultimately this book demonstrated what the general consensus is on the subject of Satan. In addition, Oldridge referenced Paradise Lost numerous times throughout his book, which further demonstrated to me the importance John Milton had in 17th century apocalypticism and interpretation of Revelation.
Pagels, Elaine. 1995. The Origin of Satan. New York: Random House, Inc.
Whereas Peggy L. Day’s book presented a detailed and focused view of Hebrew texts involving the satan, The Origin of Satan gave a comprehensive macro view of the subject. The chapter titled “The Social History of Satan: From the Hebrew Bible to the Gospels” was especially of use in tracing the traditions of satan, and possibly Satan, in the Various Old Testament books that were covered in the research portion. In this section, Pagels even quotes Forsyth in The Old Enemy, demonstrating somewhat of a consensus in the area of Satan in the Old Testament as an almost beneficial adversary or oppose.
Revard, Stella P. 1980. The War in Heaven: “Paradise Lost” and the Tradition of Satan’s Rebellion. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
This book is what first set me on the path to research more deeply the connection between Paradise Lost and Revelation 12. Revard focuses a lot on the historical context, and it was her chapters “The Warring Saints and the Dragon,” and “War in Procinct” that demonstrated just how important the book of Revelation was to Christian readers throughout the ages. When I initially set out on this research project, I had hoped to uncover a master timeline of the events surrounding Satan and the war in heaven as seen in Revelation. I quickly found that such a timeline is difficult to concretely draw, but Revard’s book did show how some earlier Church members had personally interpreted and created their own timeline in light of Revelation 12. p. 131-135 were most interesting, especially the comments on Gregory the Great.
Russell, Jeffery B. 1977. The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press
Jeffery Burton Russell has written numerous books and articles on the subject of Satan, and I came across many such works over the course of my research. However, in terms of information that applied directly to my focus of the Devil’s background and representation in the book of Revelation, I found this text to be the most relevant. The chapter “The Devil in the New Testament” was especially pertinent for completing the narrative of my research. My sources thus far had focused immensely on Old Testament and Inter-Testamental sources in the development of Satan, but Russell’s study in The Devil offered the most succinct and comprehensive analysis of Satan’s various roles in the New Testament. His footnotes citing specific verses that display each of Satan’s traits as seen in the New Testament was particularly helpful in my understanding of the Devil in the Gospels and Pauline Epistles.