I know there are people in Infinite Roots (the Spells8 coven) that believe in Lucifer and I do not want to attack or demean their beliefs. There is even a very interesting and insightful thread from anneshakargupta I recommend we all read.
But I want to take a different look at this character from the Bible. I am only speaking of my beliefs as I learned them from another branch of Christianity. This is because the ideas that Satan was in the garden and that Satan is Lucifer are not ideas shared by the entirety of Christianity. Why does this matter? Witchcraft has a big tent with all sorts of beliefs. No one person believes exactly the same as another person. Hopefully this thread helps witches that don’t believe Satan is real.
For the branches of Christianity that do not believe Satan is real, they believe that the passage about Lucifer is wildly taken out of context. They also believe the snake was just that, a snake. The only passage that refers to the snake as Satan is in Revelation, a book they don’t believe should be taken literally.
Before the Babylon captivity, the concept of a demonic being that opposes YHWH was foreign to the Jewish people. It was there that they ran into beliefs from the Zoroastrians. After their captivity and they started to write about this demonic figure. Those writings are in the Apocrypha. (There is a questionable passage in 1 Chronicles 21. This passage was written roughly 200-300 years of it’s parallel passage in 2 Samuel 24. In 2 Samuel, it is YHWH that directs King David to take a census. In 1 Chronicles the adversary directs King David to take a census.)
Some Christians will ask about Job. There the term used in Hebrew is hassaton. Literally the (or an) adversary. The idea is there is a courtroom and someone needs to represent the prosecution for the narrative. Interestingly enough, in Numbers 22 we see the Angel of YHWH being called hasatan in Hebrew. (Many Christians within the camp that believe Satan is real also believe The Angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Jesus. The Numbers 22 passage calls that into question.)
Beliefs evolved over time. Ideas about God and Satan, Heaven and Hell, and even Jesus evolved over time. So if someone wants to believe Satan is real and that this being is a being of light, they are welcome to. Their beliefs stand on the shoulders of one branch of Christianity which itself stands on a branch of Judaism, which itself stands on ideas from Zoroastrianism. There is nothing wrong with this. My hope is people that do believe in Satan can better understand why some do not.
