Satan in the Bible, God's Minister of Justice

Book Description

In this thought-provoking exploration of biblical scholarship, Henry Ansgar Kelly challenges one of Christianity's most fundamental assumptions about the nature of evil. Rather than accepting the traditional view of Satan as God's ultimate adversary, Kelly presents compelling evidence that this interpretation emerged long after biblical times were written.

Drawing directly from scriptural sources, beginning with the Book of Job and extending through the New Testament, Kelly reveals a startlingly different portrait. The biblical Satan appears not as a rebellious fallen angel, but as a functioning member of the divine administration. This celestial figure operates as an investigator and prosecutor within God's justice system, tasked with testing human virtue and exposing hidden corruption.

Kelly demonstrates how Satan's biblical roles encompass multiple functions: he serves as tempter, accuser, and punisher, while simultaneously acting as an obstructer of vice and agent of rehabilitation. Though his methods are often viewed as underhanded and his presence feared, he remains fundamentally accountable to divine authority.

The author argues that later reinterpretations, which transformed Satan into Lucifer the rebel and the Eden serpent, fundamentally altered Christianity's theological landscape. This shift created an unnecessarily dualistic worldview centered on cosmic warfare between good and evil.

For readers seeking deeper understanding of biblical texts and their historical development, Kelly offers a scholarly yet accessible examination that may reshape long-held spiritual assumptions about the nature of divine justice and moral testing.