Talk:Satan

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Satan has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 15, 2006	Good article reassessment	Delisted
November 14, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed
February 6, 2018	Good article nominee	Listed
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on February 23, 2018. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Satan* frequently appeared as a comic relief figure in late medieval mystery plays, in which he "frolicked, fell, and farted in the background"?*
Current status: Good article

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Satan as a serpent

I believe there is an error with the article, but it is locked so I am unable to edit and correct it.

In the subsection "Patristic era" it says:

Christians have traditionally interpreted the unnamed serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan due to Revelation 12:7, which calls Satan "that ancient serpent".

However, I believe it should be referencing Revelation 12:9 not 12:7 (at least according to The Book of Revelation on Wikisource). 77.44.48.159 (talk) 14:15, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ahistorical use of "Yahweh"

Satan is incorrectly referenced as a subordinate to "Yahweh" in the Hebrew Bible in the introduction section. This confuses modern (or more recent ancient) religious belief with the scholarly reconstruction of the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton in ancient times, which would not have been in common usage by the time the Hebrew Bible was written. "Yahweh" is a reconstruction of the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, which modern Judaism, Islam, and most Christian denominations do not accept as correct, and which no Hebrew holy text states or implies is correct. No indication of the correct usage of vowels is ever given in the Hebrew Bible. I suggest to clarify usage of "Yahweh" and the time period which it applies to, and replace it with "God" throughout the article, or "YHWH" when giving a direct translation of a passage in which the Tetragrammaton is used in the original Hebrew. RRMoon (talk) 21:14, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"modern Judaism, Islam, and most Christian denominations do not accept" And why should we care what they think on a matter of archaeology? The main article on the Iron Age pagan god is Yahweh.Dimadick (talk) 22:58, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This usage would be correct in an article about Iron Age archaeology, however, this article is on "an entity in Abrahamic religions", of which none worship a god named "Yahweh". 2601:647:C801:770:E8C2:DF60:55E2:383D (talk) 03:08, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't the first appearance of Satan related to the Bronce Age Belief in Yahweh? VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 06:31, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If so, it's not in this article, which starts with accounts of the Hebrew Bible. Agwic (talk) 08:08, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The current text is supported by reliable sources. Either you need to demonstrate these sources are cited incorrectly, or provide better sources which back up your assertion. -- The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:01, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraph in the introduction which uses the word "Yahweh" lacks a citation. The "Historical Development" section does cite sources in its mention of that word, of which Kelly 2006 is the only one to use the term "Yahweh". Neither of the other two sources cited in that section(the Bible and Book of Jubilees) use that term, instead referring to the Abrahamic God with the terms typical of their time of translation. The relevant citations of Kelly 2006 are all summary or analysis of the Hebrew Bible. I'm in agreement with AnonMoos's opinion that we do not have to use the same vocabulary choice as this source, when it does not affect the meaning. Agwic (talk) 01:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The form "Yahweh" is an early-19th-century reconstruction by Wilhelm Gesenius of the possible original pronunciation of the 4-consonant-letter name YHWH, and didn't occur in that exact form before Gesenius... Yahweh does occur in the Roman Catholic Jerusalem Bible, but is quite alien to Jewish traditions, where YHWH has been traditionally pronounced as "Adonai" for over 2,000 years... AnonMoos (talk) 08:22, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The source explicitly refers to the Godhead in Iob as "Yahweh". If in question, please provide a better source. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 16:29, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's nice -- the historical facts still remain exactly as I stated them above, and the word "Godhead" conveys very little meaning to most English speakers, and should almost certainly be avoided in Wikipedia articles (except in direct quotes). I'm not sure that because a source used in a Wikipedia article makes a poorly-chosen and ultimately somewhat insensitive vocabulary choice, the Wikipedia article is for that reason strictly required to exactly mimic that terminological awkwardness or infelicity. Surely we can take the meaning from the source (i.e. that the Satan of the book of Job is subordinate to the God of Israel) without mechanically and robotically copying every single problematic superficial fe ature of the source... AnonMoos (talk) 16:47, 15 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Surely we can take the meaning from the source

No, we definitely cannot. Find reliable sources for the change you want to make. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever, dude -- your version of "no original research" appears to be narrowly mechanical and robotic. Changing the terminology used can be a very minor adjustment. If a source used ethnic or racial slurs, then we might want to rely on it for some things, but NOT necessarily exactly copy its terminology. AnonMoos (talk) 21:38, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can somebody source or, if unable to, remove this line?

I don't know if this comes across as nit-picky, but if possible could we get a source on the 4th paragraph line "Nonetheless, belief in Satan has persisted, particularly in the Americas." It is a rather large claim to make without sourcing some study or proof on it. PresidentDuck (talk) 07:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The claim is a summary of the body of text (as per MOS:LEAD) and does not require a citation. The section of Satan in Modernity compares the numbers of those who believe in a literal Satan to other states such as Great Brittain. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 14:46, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. Thank you for the clarification. PresidentDuck (talk) 19:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Restoration of images

I restored most of the iamges recently removed. As mentioned in the edit summary, we should avoid an image-overdose. However, arranged properly, and with the original amount of images, there is no violation of any guidlines. The exchange of images as suggested recently had various issues, ranging from ahistroical and anachronistic interpretations of the images, to an addition of images without any significance to the body of the text. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 15:13, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]