Jesus and Satan, same person? Not far-fetched after all

Several years ago, 1997 to be specific, I wrote a poem with a rather lengthy title (link below) at the end of which I suggested, after drawing a few comparisons from passages in the Bible referring to each of them separately, that perhaps Jesus and Satan were the same person.  It had nothing to do with Process Theology, about which I know very little except that it makes the same claim, as I found out later.

However, I just recently learned that such a comparison is not necessarily unheard of, at least not in the realm of Qabbalah, Jewish mysticism.

There are two words translated into English as “serpent” in the Tanakh/Old Testament:  Seraph, or “Fiery One”, and Nachash”, or “Shiny One”.  Yes, seraph as in singular of seraphim, the highest order of angels; it’s the same word.

The first scene in which the word Nachash appears is in the Garden of Eden, as the tempter of Eve while Adam is standing immediately by her side.  Here, he invites Eve to eat from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In this case, “Knowledge of Good and Evil” does not mean being able to discern the difference between Right and Wrong or to see the line between the Light Side and the Dark Side, but is rather an idiom in Hebrew with the meaning “Infinite Knowledge”.  The counterpart of the Tree of Eternal Life.

Keep in mind that this whole story is an allegory, not a historical account.

Christianity identifies the Nachash of the Garden of Eden with Satan, aka the Devil.  Judaism does too, at least in a roundabout way, but with an entirely different outcome.

Remember, Judaism lacks the dualism of Christianity.  It does not have two sides, one light, one dark, one good, one evil, one ordered, one chaotic.  In Judaism, all things come from God and are of God.  Satan is not the nemesis of God and humanity, but is in fact God’s most loyal servant and humanity’s best friend.  In brief, his purpose is to test humans strength of character and thereby provide them with choice, making free will possible.  Satan does these things not in opposition to God but in obedience to him.

Another Nachash makes a significant appearance in the passage known in Judaism as Parashah Chukat, Numbers 19:1-22:1.  This includes the story of God sending fiery snakes (nachashim in the passage) to plague the Israelites after they complain about being hungry.  When Moses appeals, God has him make a bronze pole serpent (Nachash Bareach) to hold up before the whole nation when the seraphim attack, so that all those bitten who look at it will not die.

The Sefer Yetzirah, the earliest full Qabbalistic work (the Merkava, with which St. Paul was familiar if not adept, was earlier but not fully Qabbalistic) mentions the “Teli” around which the stars and everything in space revolves.  The rabbis identified the Teli with the Nachash Bareach.  A later Qabbalistic tract, the Bahir,  further equates the Teli to the Moshiach (Messiah), who is often called Nachash ha-Kodesh (Holy Serpent), which is the same entity as the Nachash Bareach.

Moshiach is the Hebrew word for the more commonly known, among Christians anyway, title of Christos, meaning “Anointed One”.

It is not too difficult to draw a line from the Nachash Bareach to the Nachash of Eden.  Gnosticism did, in fact, make that analogy, for its adherents saw the Nachash as the Redeemer.

Various midrashim equate the Nachash with the Tanakh figure called Leviathan and with the Shekinah, the Divine Presence in the world, the latter also identified in several places with the and the Moshiach (Messiah).

Credit for much of this info belongs to: http://www.ha-nachash.info/

See the poem to which I referred above, “Random Thoughts: the day after a really weird night that I spent at Kilroy's Coffeehouse, and no, I'm not on acid”, at: http://notesfromtheninthcircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/random-thoughts-day-after-really-weird.html

Or read it here:

I don't really care whether I go to heaven
Or whether I go to hell

I don't believe in that version of reality

Somehow I think the Otherside

If there is one, that is

Would blow the fucking minds

Of the purveyors of guilt and fear

But even if -- and that's a big IF

The truth does conform

To their mythological paranoid psychosexual fantasies

I'd rather burn with the righteous sinners

Than sing with the sanctimonious saints

At least the sinners are honest

About who they are

They're a whole lot more real

Than the ones who sit in judgement

Over the rest of us outside

Worrying about gossip

And what's "appropriate" and "polite"

Serving the capitalist Leviathan

And the conformist Behemoth

With the labor of their hearts and minds

Buying whatever the creeping meatball

Tells them they need

Eating vanilla food and having vanilla sex

Walking the line in the middle of the road

And getting their spirits squashed like a grape

Give me spice, give me pepper

Give me the odd, the strange, the wonderful

Give me the outrageous and offensive

Give me the culturally blasphemous

Give me the really weird

Give me cookies and cunnilingus

—oh wait....for me that's fellatio—

Give me true freedom and liberty

In all their anarchic, iconoclastic, orgiastic splendor

And speaking of hell

Since James Dobson is on such good terms

With the Almighty

Maybe he can tell me the answer

To a question that's just come to mind...

(And here, existing for a moment

In Never-Never-Land

We have to pretend

That heaven and hell are real)

This is my question:

Where does God send sinners who are masochists?

Certainly not to hell

Where await fire and brimstone

Assorted tortures and all manner of pain

The ultimate experience of S&M

An eternal orgasm stretching to infinity

And speaking of torture and pain

Brings to my mind the scourging,

The crowning with thorns,

And the crucifixion

Certainly Christians must all be sadists

Since seeing the crucified victim's agony

Brings them such orgasmic joy

As they torture themselves with

Autoerotic shame and mental emotional pain

Wouldn't it have been tacky

If the Big Boy himself had been a masochist

Bottom to Pilate's top?

And another thing…

If Jesus Christ really DID take all humanity's sins

Upon himself that day

(And good GOD....where would he fit THAT load)

Why do Christians these days

Give Satan such a bum rap

Laying all their sins

At his feet and at his door

How would you like to be the Devil

Hearing what they say?

A story in the Talmud teaches

That Satan is God's most loyal servant

Testing the faith of his children

By tempting them to sin

Courting ridicule, scorn, and outright hatred

And by offering them a choice

Making real their gift of free will

Like the prostitute hired by the king

To test his heir and find out his worth

No, it's not false witness that they fear

Coming from the "Father of Lies"

But rather that he'll tell the truth

So they would condemn the Accuser

Who holds up the mirror

Showing them their true selves

Come on, people, grow up

Take some fucking responsibility

Don't scapegoat another, even Auld Hornie

After all, the serpent in the Garden

Was the only one who told the truth

I remember a quote from Isaiah's Song

"He was despised and rejected by men

Wounded for our transgressions

And bruised for our iniquities"

And I get a way far out idea

About an intriguing possibility:

If good and evil are really the same thing

Created by God when he formed light and darkness

Since that quote could apply with equal truth

Though perhaps for different reasons

To Lucifer, son of the morning

Or to Jesus, bright morning star

Maybe, just maybe

They're the same person