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Originally Posted by zeek
What one thinks about this entails a philosophy of religion. Are religious symbols like Satan and God invented by people due to social political forces or perhaps economic forces if you're a Marxist? To say that the New Testament writers invented the Satan narrative to exonerate the Romans in the death of Jesus implies as much. Doesn't it? And how far down can we go with this kind of historical hypothesizing? We know some things about the social political facts of the time. But what would do we really know about the writer of the Gospel of Mark for instance? At what point does knowledge shade into guesswork? What are the limits of the historical method for understanding the Bible? Cuz life is short and we're already living it, and we need to answer now.
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You asked a lot of interesting questions that would require a lot of research and a thesis to write about. But I would say this- I do agree religion is a part of culture anc culture is influenced by political forces at the time. Just look at the Medieval times. The Catholic Church used fear (Satan and hell) to keep people in line. This also goes with the Crusades and the Inquisition and those witch hunts. So much of history is tied to religion, which is used to justify behaviors that eventually become part of our history books (Hitler and his getting rid of the Jews, bringing Christianity to fix the savages when Columbus landed on the wrong islands, etc. The fact is we do not jnow who wrote the Gospel of Mark. It would make more sense that there were multiple authors of Mark with a political and ulterior agenda/motive. They didnt want Jesus and his followers to be seen as dangerous and condemning the Jewish subgroups (who already had various beliefs) was a safer way to spread their message and accomplish their goal. Of course we were never there to confirm these facts but it’s like archaelogy; we can infer based on what was handed down to us. I wish time travel were a real thing but no one in our lifetime will figure it out.
Also I’ve never seen awareness and zeek fighting in disagreement before- that was interesting. I think awareness was trying to say that unconsciously humans need a monster under the bed and that became Satan (psychological need).