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Satan and the Problem of Evil: From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers
Satan's transformation from opaque functionary to chief antagonist is one of the most striking features of the development of Jewish theology in the Second Temple Period and beyond. Once no more than an "accuser" testing members of the human community, Satan, along with his demons, is presented by Jewish apocalyptic texts and the New Testament as a main source of evil in the world. In Satan and the Problem of Evil , noted scholar Archie Wright explores this dynamic in both its historical and theological trajectories. Interactions with Zoroastrianism led Jewish and Christian writers of the Second Temple Period to separate God from responsibility for evil in the world. This led to the emergence of a heavenly being that is responsible for evil and Satan. Satan and the Problem of Evil charts the development of Satan traditions and the problem of evil from the Hebrew Bible and its various translations in the Greek Septuagint to Jewish literature from the Second Temple Period to the Greek New Testament. It concludes by examining the writings of the early church theologians, from the late first century through the fourth century CE. Wright argues that these latter writers present a shift in the understanding of Satan to one that is significantly different from the Jewish Scriptures, extrabiblical Jewish literature, and the New Testament. Accessibly written and comprehensive in scope, Satan and the Problem of Evil offers researchers, scholars, students, and even the general reader a definitive treatment of a perennial question.
302 pages, Hardcover
Published February 15, 2022
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September 12, 2025Wright, Archie T. Satan and the Problem of Evil: From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers. Fortress Press, 2022.
Archie Wright, an expert on Second Temple Judaism and ancient Ethiopic literature, has given us a breathtaking and exhaustive analysis of the usage of the Satan-figure from the Old Testament through the Apocrypha to the New Testament and beyond. There are few books like it. One need not agree with his analysis at points, but readers will certainly profit from his discussions.
Satan and Job
From a strict reading of the text, Ha Satan is not a malevolent figure in Job. In fact, some of what he says echoes wisdom literature in general. He is an adversary, to be sure, but he is only “doing his job” in the passage. He roams the earth, which befits the later Watcher tradition, and reports back to God.
Wright suggests this echoes the language of the Persian empire, messengers reporting back to the Great King. Aside from the conservative problem of an inspired text borrowing from another culture, the author of Job probably would not have borrowed from the Persians. If anything, Ugarit would have been a more likely candidate.
Satan and the Garden
Wright has an interesting survey of the “snake tradition” in the Bible and the Near East. Serpents are not necessarily bad. They are dangerous, but so is a lion and a lion can be either good or bad in Scripture. If serpents are necessarily demonic, then it is not clear why God had Moses build a bronze serpent to heal the Israelites. That highlights the point: serpents in ancient cultures were associated with healing.
To be sure, the nachash in the garden is bad, but it is probably a fallacy to read all of the later textual connotations back into this one word.
Satan in Isaiah and Ezekiel
Wright argues this refers to the kings of Babylon and Tyre. That is true enough, but it only raises another question: the prophets compare the kings to an earlier scenario. For example, even granting an earthly referent, neither of these kings stood in the garden of God among the stones of fire. There is a character who probably did fit these conditions: Satan.
Intertestamental Literature
References to Belial(ar) could be to a spiritual being or it could be to an abstract force. It is not always clear. While the name Belial never refers to a personal being in the OT, it clearly does in the NT. How would NT writers and readers have made the connection? They did so by means of the intertestamental worldview (Martyr. Is. 2.4; 4.2, etc). By the time of the NT Belial is more or less the same as “Satan.”
Interestingly enough, although there are a handful of references to Belial in the New Testament, and these seem to refer to Satan, neither the New Testament nor the early fathers develop the Belial theme, seeming to go with Satan as the name of the Enemy. For example, much of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs was written after the first century, and it makes extensive use of Belial; the apostolic fathers, writing around the same time, make few references to Belial.
New Testament Usage
This will likely be of the most use to students. Wright analyzes every single usage of “Diabolos,” “Satan,” or some equivalent in the New Testament. One need not agree with him, but it is hard to find another list of analyses in one volume.
Early Church Fathers
Almost all of the pre-Nicene fathers held to the Enochian view that the angels mated with human wisdom. On the other hand, they did not hold to the Enochian view that the fallen angels were a) imprisoned in Tartarus nor b) demons = souls of dead Nephilim.
Athenagoras, on the other hand, did believe that the demons were disembodied souls of dead Nephilim. Nonetheless, he did not take the full Enochian interpretation that the Watchers were imprisoned. The early church (and the medieval and Reformation periods) never quite integrated the following claims: some fallen beings are imprisoned in Sheol/Hades/Tartarus and some are currently active. That leads to the obvious inference: these two classes of beings are not the same.
In terms of practical relevance, and this might not be Wright’s main point, but it did seem to be Augustine’s, after the Christianization of the empire the church needed a new way to explain the prevalence of evil. In the time of persecution, the answer was easy: fallen principalities are leading kings to attack the church. That was simple enough, but if the empire is Christian, then that answer no longer works.
Evaluation
I have a few qualms at points. Wright is a critical scholar and avoids harmonizations that one would normally find in evangelical theologies. On one hand, that is fair. One should let the texts speak for themselves. On the other hand, an undue critical spirit towards the text reflects just as much bias.
Archie Wright, an expert on Second Temple Judaism and ancient Ethiopic literature, has given us a breathtaking and exhaustive analysis of the usage of the Satan-figure from the Old Testament through the Apocrypha to the New Testament and beyond. There are few books like it. One need not agree with his analysis at points, but readers will certainly profit from his discussions.
Satan and Job
From a strict reading of the text, Ha Satan is not a malevolent figure in Job. In fact, some of what he says echoes wisdom literature in general. He is an adversary, to be sure, but he is only “doing his job” in the passage. He roams the earth, which befits the later Watcher tradition, and reports back to God.
Wright suggests this echoes the language of the Persian empire, messengers reporting back to the Great King. Aside from the conservative problem of an inspired text borrowing from another culture, the author of Job probably would not have borrowed from the Persians. If anything, Ugarit would have been a more likely candidate.
Satan and the Garden
Wright has an interesting survey of the “snake tradition” in the Bible and the Near East. Serpents are not necessarily bad. They are dangerous, but so is a lion and a lion can be either good or bad in Scripture. If serpents are necessarily demonic, then it is not clear why God had Moses build a bronze serpent to heal the Israelites. That highlights the point: serpents in ancient cultures were associated with healing.
To be sure, the nachash in the garden is bad, but it is probably a fallacy to read all of the later textual connotations back into this one word.
Satan in Isaiah and Ezekiel
Wright argues this refers to the kings of Babylon and Tyre. That is true enough, but it only raises another question: the prophets compare the kings to an earlier scenario. For example, even granting an earthly referent, neither of these kings stood in the garden of God among the stones of fire. There is a character who probably did fit these conditions: Satan.
Intertestamental Literature
References to Belial(ar) could be to a spiritual being or it could be to an abstract force. It is not always clear. While the name Belial never refers to a personal being in the OT, it clearly does in the NT. How would NT writers and readers have made the connection? They did so by means of the intertestamental worldview (Martyr. Is. 2.4; 4.2, etc). By the time of the NT Belial is more or less the same as “Satan.”
Interestingly enough, although there are a handful of references to Belial in the New Testament, and these seem to refer to Satan, neither the New Testament nor the early fathers develop the Belial theme, seeming to go with Satan as the name of the Enemy. For example, much of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs was written after the first century, and it makes extensive use of Belial; the apostolic fathers, writing around the same time, make few references to Belial.
New Testament Usage
This will likely be of the most use to students. Wright analyzes every single usage of “Diabolos,” “Satan,” or some equivalent in the New Testament. One need not agree with him, but it is hard to find another list of analyses in one volume.
Early Church Fathers
Almost all of the pre-Nicene fathers held to the Enochian view that the angels mated with human wisdom. On the other hand, they did not hold to the Enochian view that the fallen angels were a) imprisoned in Tartarus nor b) demons = souls of dead Nephilim.
Athenagoras, on the other hand, did believe that the demons were disembodied souls of dead Nephilim. Nonetheless, he did not take the full Enochian interpretation that the Watchers were imprisoned. The early church (and the medieval and Reformation periods) never quite integrated the following claims: some fallen beings are imprisoned in Sheol/Hades/Tartarus and some are currently active. That leads to the obvious inference: these two classes of beings are not the same.
In terms of practical relevance, and this might not be Wright’s main point, but it did seem to be Augustine’s, after the Christianization of the empire the church needed a new way to explain the prevalence of evil. In the time of persecution, the answer was easy: fallen principalities are leading kings to attack the church. That was simple enough, but if the empire is Christian, then that answer no longer works.
Evaluation
I have a few qualms at points. Wright is a critical scholar and avoids harmonizations that one would normally find in evangelical theologies. On one hand, that is fair. One should let the texts speak for themselves. On the other hand, an undue critical spirit towards the text reflects just as much bias.
August 10, 2025
Probably the most comprehensive scholarly survey, but not as entertaining as Stoke's volume.
February 3, 2023
As pointed out in the introduction, it may seem odd to our modern world to think of evil as personified, but then again, it may have seemed odd to the ancient world to think of evil as principled. So how did this conception of evil personified as Satan in the Judeo-Christian tradition develop?
Wright takes the reader on an exhaustive tour of every instance of the mention of the Satan through the Hebrew Bible, the Aprophycal books, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, the Apostolic Fathers, and the Early Church Fathers and how the conception of this identity developed throughout them all. Admittedly this tour was a little tiring (especially the Dead Sea Scrolls since I’m not familiar with them) until it reached the Apostolic Fathers and Wright begins to demonstrate how the Fathers piece together all these scant & seemingly unrelated references to the Satan into something the modern Christian reader can recognize. Between influences from Zoroastrianism (durning Babylonian exile) & Manichaeism things get pretty muddled — does the existence of the Satan, an omnipotent malevolence, make Christianity decidedly dualistic and make God flawed and weak? For me, it takes until Augustine’s synthesis to reach a place of soundness:
“Evil is corruption, not substance.”
By this Augustine means the Satan was not a being created evil, a sort of dark god who, rivaling the God of light, created an evil world. No, instead this creature was created good but, in prideful rebellion, became corrupted and dragged as much of God’s good creation with him into that corruption. God is not the cause of evil and He is not divided - but one, wholly good.
Wright is not so convinced and he encourages the reader to question the conclusions the Fathers reached. All this talk of "development," "conception," & "influences" may make it sound like we are talking about a pure myth here, but I think these are all ways of making sense of a very true reality of evil. Turns out, there are countless ways Christians can think about this Satan creature, whether it was an angel who led a heavenly rebellion or not, I believe something true is captured when we speak about an evil intelligence, rooted in pride and deception which that wars against all that is good in this world. While this is a textual-historical tour, a fantastic and accessible theology of this Satan can be found in John Mark Comer's Live No Lies.
Wright takes the reader on an exhaustive tour of every instance of the mention of the Satan through the Hebrew Bible, the Aprophycal books, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, the Apostolic Fathers, and the Early Church Fathers and how the conception of this identity developed throughout them all. Admittedly this tour was a little tiring (especially the Dead Sea Scrolls since I’m not familiar with them) until it reached the Apostolic Fathers and Wright begins to demonstrate how the Fathers piece together all these scant & seemingly unrelated references to the Satan into something the modern Christian reader can recognize. Between influences from Zoroastrianism (durning Babylonian exile) & Manichaeism things get pretty muddled — does the existence of the Satan, an omnipotent malevolence, make Christianity decidedly dualistic and make God flawed and weak? For me, it takes until Augustine’s synthesis to reach a place of soundness:
“Evil is corruption, not substance.”
By this Augustine means the Satan was not a being created evil, a sort of dark god who, rivaling the God of light, created an evil world. No, instead this creature was created good but, in prideful rebellion, became corrupted and dragged as much of God’s good creation with him into that corruption. God is not the cause of evil and He is not divided - but one, wholly good.
Wright is not so convinced and he encourages the reader to question the conclusions the Fathers reached. All this talk of "development," "conception," & "influences" may make it sound like we are talking about a pure myth here, but I think these are all ways of making sense of a very true reality of evil. Turns out, there are countless ways Christians can think about this Satan creature, whether it was an angel who led a heavenly rebellion or not, I believe something true is captured when we speak about an evil intelligence, rooted in pride and deception which that wars against all that is good in this world. While this is a textual-historical tour, a fantastic and accessible theology of this Satan can be found in John Mark Comer's Live No Lies.
December 19, 2023
2.5 stars. An exhaustive survey of all the mentions of satan and related figures from the Hebrew Bible through the early church fathers, including the apocrypha. The take-home message is that there is really no scriptural basis for the contemporary Christian doctrine of Satan as a semi-autonomous being who is at odds with God. While informative, it is extremely dry and unnecessarily repetitive. I think the whole thing could have been summarized in a long table. Lots of good information but not very readable.
April 2, 2025
Interestimg & fun but its a pet topic for me
May 28, 2024
I understand the disappointment from some readers who felt like he rode the fence and never really came down on any interpretation. However, Dr. Wright delivered exactly what I was looking for, which was a relatively dispassionate guide through the OT, 2nd Temple Literature, NT, Apostolic Fathers, and the Early Church Fathers' views on Satan and Evil.
To the extent that the book has a metanarrative over and above the yeoman's work of quoting and summarizing all relevant passages on the topic being traced through Church history, it is that the OT does not have a personal "Satan" figure but the NT does. This is not a problem for me, because I (unlike Dr. Wright) believe that the Holy Spirit is the "true" author of the whole Bible and that it can in fact be read as a single book, rather than lots of individual books that all have limited, human aims and perspectives. Still, I found myself agreeing with him that if you only had the OT (which describes thousands of years' worth of experience of the faithful) you would've been left with a very lightly sketched understanding of the spiritual realm, the afterlife, the devil, and evil. The fact that some of the streams of intertestamental Jewish writings contain versions of Satan/evil that closely resemble Jesus and his apostles' descriptions of Satan is intensely interesting to me. Some of those streams of interpretation did NOT ultimately resemble what later revelation shows to be true, but some does prefigure it pretty nicely. So that leaves one to wonder, did they simply interpret the vague and shadowy OT passages correctly? Or were they heir to extrabiblical interpretations? Or did they have prophetic guidance anticipating Christ's revelations?
It was also intensely interesting to see that the Apostolic and Early Church fathers seemed to have some quite different interpretations of the Satan figure and his role in God's plan.
To roughly summarize some of the main points of interpretation that are analyzed in the book:
-The first place in the Bible to explicitly tie Satan to the Serpent garden seems to be Revelation
-What we see as "Satan" in our Bibles is sometimes, "the Satan" which could be a role that certain servants of God are tasked with to (excuse the pun) play Devil's advocate in the process of testing humans' faith.
-The Lord TESTS but Satan TEMPTS. They achieve the same ends, but are done from different motives.
-Satan and Devil are more or less interchangeable terms meaning "accuser"
-The 2nd Temple Literature contains a multiplication of names for demonic spirits: Belial, Beliar, Mastema, etc. It's hard to tell who's being talked about.
-In the 2nd Temple period, the Jewish writers seem to be trying to "absolve" God of the harsh things being perpetrated against Israel and therefore give a greater degree of power and autonomy to the Satan figure... however, this tends towards a dualism in which there is a good God and a bad one.
Honestly, the "problem of Evil" question never interested me much until I read this book. But seeing the ways the faithful have tried to conceptualize the problem over the years was entrancing. Dr. Wright seems to tip his hat at the end towards the interpretation that there is no personal Satan figure, but just an "Evil inclination" that arises from humans that must be resisted. His presentation of the materials was enough to convince me that that interpretation is not completely ridiculous... Wrong, but not ridiculous.
Highly recommend for anyone who wants a roundup of the various views in the literature covered.
March 31, 2024
The breath of this work is impressive from the Hebrew Bible/LXX to the Dead Sea Scrolls/Second Temple Judaism, to the Pseudepigraphia, to the New Testament ending in the Church Fathers. As a tool for later research this book is incredible. In that way this book receives a 5 star rating.
The author seems to be focused on the person of the “Devil”, the names of the devil, and to a very minor extent the problem of evil. The author does not dig into surrounding issues such as creation, “spiritual” cosmology, sin, and related issues. As a result the work feels very one dimensional and fleeting. The author seems to have the most depth when it comes to the Church Fathers and provides the most context and depth there.
The author often ends with having no clear understanding of the text he is taking on. He’ll often say he is unsure what a passage means, or something is unclear, or this is unknown. This makes this the book feel like there is no solution or possible understanding for the issues at hand.
The author seems to be focused on the person of the “Devil”, the names of the devil, and to a very minor extent the problem of evil. The author does not dig into surrounding issues such as creation, “spiritual” cosmology, sin, and related issues. As a result the work feels very one dimensional and fleeting. The author seems to have the most depth when it comes to the Church Fathers and provides the most context and depth there.
The author often ends with having no clear understanding of the text he is taking on. He’ll often say he is unsure what a passage means, or something is unclear, or this is unknown. This makes this the book feel like there is no solution or possible understanding for the issues at hand.
September 12, 2024
This is the perfect book for any person interested in a detailed grammatical analysis of the ancient texts as they were actually written.
I found this book to be very useful and informative about what was actually written, as opposed to what was extrapolated, misinterpreted, or just flat out wrong.
You should have a basic familiarity with most of the works and the historical context in which they were written if you want to get the most of of this book.
This is a book that is merciless in it's use of academic and theological terms and must have been written with an academic audience in mind.
If you're looking for a book about how people perceived the devil/ evil in their daily lives and how it influenced their world view, this is not the book for you.
The book is painstakingly researched and logically presented and has an excellent conclusion and review at the end.
I wouldn't read again, but as a reference, it's priceless.
I found this book to be very useful and informative about what was actually written, as opposed to what was extrapolated, misinterpreted, or just flat out wrong.
You should have a basic familiarity with most of the works and the historical context in which they were written if you want to get the most of of this book.
This is a book that is merciless in it's use of academic and theological terms and must have been written with an academic audience in mind.
If you're looking for a book about how people perceived the devil/ evil in their daily lives and how it influenced their world view, this is not the book for you.
The book is painstakingly researched and logically presented and has an excellent conclusion and review at the end.
I wouldn't read again, but as a reference, it's priceless.
July 22, 2024
It's great for what it is. It's very well researched with tons of citations. However, I went into this hoping for something a bit more philosophical and less etymological.
This book explains less about the problem of evil and more about how terms such as Belial and Satan should be or were interpreted during early biblical documents. It can get a bit repetitive but it was interesting. It changes gears about 70% in, and reads more like a book than just rattling off occurrences of certain forms of words as it was previously. This is where I really started to enjoy the concepts presented. Unfortunately, I was a little burnt out from the first 70% to enjoy it as much as I could have. I think a skip to the conclusion would be fine and if you find yourself interested in something mentioned there, you can find more about it in the main text.
This book explains less about the problem of evil and more about how terms such as Belial and Satan should be or were interpreted during early biblical documents. It can get a bit repetitive but it was interesting. It changes gears about 70% in, and reads more like a book than just rattling off occurrences of certain forms of words as it was previously. This is where I really started to enjoy the concepts presented. Unfortunately, I was a little burnt out from the first 70% to enjoy it as much as I could have. I think a skip to the conclusion would be fine and if you find yourself interested in something mentioned there, you can find more about it in the main text.
June 3, 2024
Wow, what a snoozer! This book does an exhaustive retelling of all mentions of the name Satan or its similar personification in ancient texts. It is hyper repetitive and fails to educate the reader in any substantive way. I was very interested in this topic going in at the start of this book but I feel like I took such a beating upon finishing it that the subject matter is just no longer that interesting to me. I fail to understand the author's purpose in writing this book. I do not recommend it to anybody.
June 3, 2024
Good survey of thoughts on Satan (or figures seemingly connected, such as Beliel) from the Hebrew Bible to the church fathers. While not all we agree with his interpretations, the ground his canvasses makes this a good reference work for consulting the various views on Satan.
July 16, 2025
Wright breaks with the traditional interpretative model and takes it a step further by arguing that Satan should be understood as executioner.
I've been recommending this to friends in lieu of Pagel's Origin of Satan.
I've been recommending this to friends in lieu of Pagel's Origin of Satan.
September 30, 2025
comprehensive, but not engaging.
i felt like it didn't pull all all the detail together into a helpful story.
like i know know which verb forms 2nd jubilees uses to refer to 'diablos', but I'm still not clear on how the idea of satan developed over the 2nd temple period.
lost in the weeds.
i felt like it didn't pull all all the detail together into a helpful story.
like i know know which verb forms 2nd jubilees uses to refer to 'diablos', but I'm still not clear on how the idea of satan developed over the 2nd temple period.
lost in the weeds.
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