From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!rocheste!sher
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.religion
Title: Re: Christians should quote more often from the old testament
Article-I.D.: rocheste.666
Posted: Tue Feb  8 23:42:52 1983
Received: Fri Feb 11 08:53:07 1983
References: floyd.1165

To defend a fellow Jew, whatshisname (names are not my specialty) got the
spirit right if not the details when he said that the devil is
basically a christian idea.  The devil was completely absent from my
jewish education and apparantly he is largely absent from Jewish
culture (that is the concept not the hypothetical being).  I think the
concept of the devil is not compatible with the Jewish concept of an
all encompassing God.  Evil roles are generally assigned to the angel
of death or perhaps a deamon who tend to be limited to following the
letter of the law of the torah.  Identification of baal or the genesis
serpent with a being which is basically nonexistent in our culture obviously
does not occur in our philosophy.  

On another point the fact that baal was mentioned in the torah 87*10**17
times (exact figures are also a weakness) does not mean that the devil
is mentioned in the torah.  It is my teaching that baal is a false god
who is essentially powerless (there being only one real god).  The
devil on the other hand has all sorts of power in Christianity.  

Some of the misconceptions involved in the current christian/jewish
argument on the net result from the fact that in judaism the emphasis
is placed on the five books of moses (the torah) primarily
then on