Do Jews believe in angels and Satan?

Answer 1

Yes and No. According to the Old Testament, there are many Satans (meaning Adversary) whose job it is to carry out God's wrath and to test mankind (as in the story of Job). But its a job-title, not a proper name. Jews do not believe in "the devil" or some "Satan" sitting in Hell plotting how to screw up God's divine plan. That concept of Satan didn't exist until 700 years ago. Early Christians didn't even believe it (and there is no evidence for it in the New Testament either, since Jesus was, you know, Jewish.)

One Satan exists in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. These verses are from the O.T.

1Ch 21:1 Satan wanted to bring trouble on the people of Israel, so he made David decide to take a census.

Job 1:6 When the day came for the heavenly beings to appear before the LORD, Satan was there among them.

Zec 3:2 The angel of the LORD said to Satan, "May the LORD condemn you, Satan! May the LORD, who loves Jerusalem, condemn you. This man is like a stick snatched from the fire."

Early Christians certainly did believe Satan existed, Jesus knew he existed These verses are from the New Testament.

Mat 4:10 Then Jesus answered, "Go away, Satan! The scripture says, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve only him!' "

Joh 13:27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, "Hurry and do what you must!"

Rev 20:2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent---that is, the Devil, or Satan---and chained him up for a thousand years.

As you can see from the last verse Satan has other names in scripture, such as the Devil, or Lucifer, the Adversary, the father of lies, the serpent, the dragon, the tempter, the prince of this world, the god of this world, the evil one, Beelzebub, the deceiver of the whole world.

Jesus said this to the religious rulers of the day:

Joh 8:44 You are the children of your father, the Devil, and you want to follow your father's desires. From the very beginning he was a murderer and has never been on the side of truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he is only doing what is natural to him, because he is a liar and the father of all lies.

So I guess the Jewish leaders of the day believed in Satan.

Answer 2

No. The Devil, as understood by Christianity and Islam, has no place in Judaism. There is the Satan, but he is God's loyal opposition, not enemy. The Satan is the angel who argues against humanity, specifically at God's command, in order that God's decisions can be questioned and humans who arrive at the heavenly court can be properly tried for their misdeeds.

Answer 3

No, Jews do not believe in Satan or the devil.

That being said, the Hebrew word 'sahtan' meands 'adversary' and can be used to describe an angel created by HaShem (The Creator) to give people opportunity to choose good over bad. In Judaism, angels are task specific creations without freewill.

Answer 4

We believe that there exists an angel called Sahtan charged by G-d to tempt man so that man can be rewarded for obedience to G-d's principals.

There are a multitude of references to such an angel found in the Talmud and in the Kabbalistic literature. The Talmud describes Sahtan's mission by way of a parable. There was once a king who wanted to bestow rewards on his only son the prince. He sent him far away from the palace and requested of him to conduct himself in a moral manner. After sending away the prince he commissioned a very beautiful harlot to seek out the prince and attempt to seduce him. The harlot carried out her mission and the prince kept his moral ground and did not succumb to the seduction of the harlot. In fact the harlot herself did want want the beloved prince to fail but nevertheless had to try as hard as she could to seduce him son that he would get his great reward. The Talmud asks, " Who is responsible for the prince getting his rewards? The harlot of course. "

Answer:No, not in the Christian sense. However any Angel whose mission is one we would see as acting as an adversary we would refer to as a sahtan.

Answer 5

The 'devil' is not a Jewish concept and does not exist in Jewish teachings.

Answer:As with some other Christan concepts, the devil can be traced back to certain Jewish traditions. Judaism believes that people are tested by their evil inclination; and that there is an accuser which speaks against people in the Heavenly Court.

Answer 6

Yes, these are concepts rooted in Judaism. The details, however, are different than in Christianity.

To clarify, according to the Jewish teachings, angels are task specific creations without freewill. The idea that angels could rebel against HaShem (The Creator), finds no support in Judaism and the Tanach (Jewish Bible).

The Hebrew word 'sahtan' is not the name of a specific being, it is just the Hebrew word for adversary. In the Tanach, there is an angel referred to as "hasahtan", this angel was created for two reasons: to place stumbling blocks before people to provide them with opportunities to choose to do good over bad and to act in the heavenly court as part of the process by which souls are cleansed after death.

Answer 7

Answer 1

The name is different, and the concept probably is too, but Judaism does recognize the concept of Satan, which is named in the Hebrew Bible.

Answer 2

While the Satan does exist in Judaism, he is a fundamentally different persona than that ascribed to the Christian Devil - Lucifer. Satan in Judaism is an angel who remains in Heaven who argues against the Will of God and does so at God's command. A good metaphor for the Satan is that he is God's loyal opposition. He does not seek God's overthrow or removal and is entirely subordinate to God's will. His opposition to God is Divinely-Mandated. Judaism holds that God is a unity and order, so naturally the true negation of God would not be an organized villain, but would be confusion and chaos. Confusion and chaos is what results explicitly when nobody is in power.

Additionally, Judaism does not have a concept of an inescapable Hell. While Judaism does have a place of pain where people who are wicked live away from God, it is not a place under anyone's authority other than God himself. The lore of Lucifer and the Demons and Heavenly War do not exist in Judaism either.

Answer 8

The word Lucifer (in the KJV Bible) is a bad translation of the original Hebrew reference to the Morning Star, never intended to be conflated with the Devil or Satan.