Customer Reviews

Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Cornell Paperbacks)

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It is rare for me to find myself giving a book a very bad rating. For one thing, I reserve one star for books that do more harm than good, and there are really few works that have no redeeming value. For another, I make a real effort not to buy books in that category, since it's a waste of my time. This book, "The Devil," caught me by surprise. I expected one thing and got something else entirely. I'm not sure if it's my expectations or the book itself that are the source of my disappointment, but I will go with my instincts for now.

What did I expect? A good historical and anthropological study about the role of the devil or devils in human history up to the beginnings of Christianity. In particular, I was interested in demonic legends in first millennium BCE Israel. What did I get? I guess the best way to put it is that, had the subtitle should have been "Jeffrey Russell's Perceptions of Evil..." I would have been less surprised.

The reader gets an early warning when, in the preface, Russell starts out with "This is a work of history, not of theology" and then immediately begins discussing theological and metaphysical issues. Russell's style is reminiscent of a Victorian churchman/academic, rambling from one subject to another in mid-paragraph, regularly making portentous statements that seem to have no basis in fact. In fact, one of his most unusual quirks is to state a premise, actually indicate that there is either no or conflicting evidence for it, and then go on to use it for further logical gyrations. This is an argument style better suited to politicians than academics.

Gradually it becomes clear that Russell has at least one hidden agenda. He is intent on making a case for the dualistic nature of God. This causes him to flit from one isolated fact to another, skipping over any material in between that it in conflict with this theory. The worst examples of this are in the section entitled "Hebrew Personifications of Evil." As most people know, outside of the Job and the unfortunate snake, the Old Testament makes very little mention of the demonic. There were some beliefs, but they are discussed more in sacred materials external to the Bible, dating from the Babylonian Exile onward. Russell misses that material, pays attention to Job, and then focuses entirely on several books of the Apocrypha as evidence of Hebrew dualism. In the process he skips an entire millennia or so of Jewish thinking. This is not exactly history.

I don't know quite what to make of an academic historical text which, in the end, turns out to have been a soapbox for a writer's own orations on the nature and place of evil (with a capital E). But I do know that I don't like it one bit. If the volume have been clearly labeled as philosophy or theology, I would have gone on to find something else, and this problem would not have arisen.

The book attempts to cover ancient, classical, Hebrew and early Christian civilization. As it is, regardless of Russell's qualifications as a medievalist, he seems a bit out of his depth in the fields of ancient and biblical history. There is an extensive bibliography, of which I know many of the citations. Surprisingly, it appears that Russell's sources are much less biased than he is himself. If you must buy this book, I suggest you use it to key into other authors and thinkers rather than as a conclusive resource on it's own.

This is a wonderful book that shows how the Christian conception of the Devil can be traced to previous cultures through myths, symbols, and philosophy. The book starts will the definition and how the word has been interrupted through various cultures, including current Jung psychology which Russell favors. The book then progresses through how east and western cultures view the idea of evil. Summerian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Cannanite, Hiittie, Zoroastrianism, Mazdaism, Greek, and Roman mythology and cultures are used for comparison. The book ends with Hebrew personification and the Devil in the New Testament. Many references are mentioned regarding the Inquisition, which Russell picks up in the next book of this series.

Christian readers will probably be offended by Russell's conclusions, because he indirectly shows that ideas presented in the Bible have been presented in other cultures pre-dating Christianity. This historical approach is taken by other authors, but may jar Christians who have not been subjective to this line of thinking. This is my guess why this book has received bad reviews here at Amazon, but receives great reviews on history book lists. Granted that some of Russell's conclusions are subjective, but the history is solid and that is why it's a standard work.

Russell traces the history, myths, and iconography of the devil. It explains how the devil became associated the with pitchfork, horns, and the human goat. Not only is this book well-written, but it also contains many pictures which depict the subject matter at hand.

Russell is highly respected by his peers and is usually reference by other authors. Anyone who is interested in mythology - especially Greek mythology - will love this well-documented book.

In this rigorous and erudite work, Russell sets out to explore the origins and early historical development of a concept. To make things easy, he calls it "the Devil", but in fact this is the history of the idea of evil incarnated in a character, as opposed to an abstract concept of "Evil". Although he takes every care to remind us that his is a work of history and not theology, it is impossible not to entertain certain philosophical questions and millenary debates: Why does evil exists? How has every civilization dealt with this insoluble problem? Why are there so many bad people? How is it possible that we humans inflict so much pain to ourselves and our fellows? Is it not God supposed to be good and omnipotent? Why does he allows for so much evil?

Before Christianity, there were two kinds of answers to these questions: in Monism, the One included the totality of the cosmos. God was a coincidence of contraries. God was truly One, and in him were resolved the contradictions between Good and Evil. Ancient polytheistic religions like the Egyptian and the Greek were Monist, since the different gods were nothing but manifestations of the One. According to Russell, these religions did not answer the question satisfactorily, but they did resolve the problem for every day life. The other answer, invented in the VII Century B.C. in Persia, what is now Iran, by the prophet Zarathustra (and above all his Mazdeistic followers), is Dualism. In Dualism, the cosmos is divided in two: one principle of Good (God), and one principle of Evil (which is not yet the Devil). In Persia these were Ahura Mazda (or Ormuz), and Ariman, the lord of Deception. According to this view, the history of Man is the story of the millenary struggle between Good and Evil, and each myth defines the way in which Good will eventually defeat Evil. For centuries on end, the Old World religions influenced one another, until Christianity appeared. In what side does Christianity fall? In neither one properly. It is a hopelessly schizophrenic synthesis (for all its social virtues). Christianity is not Monist because it rejects the assimiliation of Evil into the One God. God is absolutely good and so it can not contain Evil. So, is Christianity Dualist? No sir, there is nothing outside God. So? Aha: God created many beings, including the Angels. One of them rebelled against God, using the free will which God gives us so that we can choose. The rebel angel became the proponent and champion of Evil, in the enemy of God and his creatures. And he is making progress with increasing speed, until the Second Coming of God takes place, the Kingdom of this World ends, Evil dissolves in Nothingness and the good go to Heaven. Very good, but the question remains: If God is omnipotent, why does he allows the presence of Evil? In order to prove us? Thanks so much. So that we grow in the love of God? Thanks again.

Through a fascinating journey across ancient religions, Russell forces us to revisit the primeval questions of civilization. This book awakens sometimes forgotten doubts of our infancy and adolescence, and we come out not with peace in our souls, but with more enlightenment in our minds.

Drawing on many different sources, the author suggests how the concept of the Devil as used in the New Testament took shape.

Clearly, some of the reviewers of this book were very disappointed with it. They did not find what they were looking for. Speaking for myself, I pretty much did. Russell takes some pains early on to say that his work is part of the history of concepts, and even spends time distinguishing this from the history of ideas--a distinction that I found to be a bit pedantic and, for me, unhelpful.

However, in the rest of the book I mostly found what I hoped to find: an inventory and discussion of the ideas and images that contributed to the concept of the Devil as he appeared in the Judeo-Christian world by New Testament times.

Since the Devil came to be known as the source and personification of evil in the world, Russell starts off very well by discussing what he means by "evil": the immediate and unjust suffering of an individual. For Russell this is an immediate and visceral experience, not a philosophical conclusion or theological category. We know evil when we see it, and there's no mistaking it.

Having set these terms of reference, Russell goes on to discuss how evil and its related mythological characters were portrayed in various ancient societies, from India to Iran to Mesopotamia to Egypt, among others. Along the way he shows how various characteristics were eventually echoed by the Biblical portrait of the Devil. For example, in Egypt the god most identified with evil was Seth, killer of Osiris. Seth was pictured as red, the color eventually taken on by Satan. Seth was also "twinned" with Horus in a close antagonism, as the Devil eventually came to be regarded as the dark "twin" of the good God.

Russell is clear that these links are only suggestive. There is no way of knowing exactly how ideas arrived at the minds of the writers of the ancient texts, or how they combined there. Rather, the ancient writers, having a need to explain or demonstrate certain things, reached into the bank of images and ideas of which they were aware, and made use of those that fit their purpose. Over time the Devil gradually took shape, acquiring more definite features as his role in the evolving theological system developed.

Here and there Russell makes declarations or assumptions that are not necessarily backed up by authority. He declares, for example, that in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece there was one God who manifested in the multifarious guise of the gods of mythology. It's not clear to me how true this is, or in what sense.

He also refers to "the God" and "the Devil" as near-universal concepts for many cultures, underlying specific figures such as Yahweh and Satan. Again, it's not clear to me that there really is a universal concept underlying these different manifestations.

However, these ideas are not unreasonable, and I was certainly willing to entertain them in order to engage with Russell's argument. The author did a lot of homework and a lot of thinking in preparing this book, and for me earned some credit. The idea of gods' appearing as twins or doublets in the process of unconscious contents' becoming differentiated en route to consciousness is intriguing, plausible, and backed up by the thinking of Jung and Erich Neumann, among others.

There is a certain diffuseness to the book that comes from the fact that ideas usually cannot be linked with certainty. The process is probabilistic. Russell assembles myths, images, ideas from various places, and there is a feeling that he is preparing to launch into a more definite account which never actually happens. Or maybe it does happen--in the subsequent books of the series.

In this one, the outlines of the Devil appear gradually, as though he were walking slowly toward us out of a fog.

Though I find myself having many negative things to say about this book in this review, a few pervasive aspects of Russell's assiduous research and writing inevitably atones for these negative aspects.

Russell opens his four volume series spending ¾ of this book discussing evil in ancient cultures other than in Israel. Only in the last quarter does Russell discuss anything relating to the Biblical Satan. Though this is defiantly interesting material, it left me wondering what it had to do with the stated purview. This material would make a fine piece of literature outside this series, but it had nothing to do with the Biblical devil. Not even Russell discusses its relevance. The first ¾ could have been cut from the book without any consequence, Russell would have just as easily make his case without it. When Russell does occasionally mention outside influences on Old Testament he admits that there are only a few at most, and what few that do exist are tentative and speculative anyway. The only influences that are mentioned seem only to be on the apocryphal texts any way.

Russell does a marvellous job as a historian, but whenever he goes off on excursions into theology one can see that he is out of his depth. The mere fact that he goes on these excursions raised my eyebrow when one remembers that the *very first* words of this book state that "This is a works of history, not of theology".
It's not the actual excursions that disappoint me, it is the combination of the two facts that 1) his explicit statements that he isn't going to but does, and 2) his orate diatribes against Yahweh, most of which are frivolous and at the very least invalid. Though it is inevitable that one has to ask theological questions such as "why does God allow evil" as Russell does, it makes me wonder why he asserted at the beginning and the end that theology is untouched in this book.
I was left a little bewildered by these theological excursions, on the one hand he brings up many fine and well articulated arguments, and on many occasions treats these points in authoritative and impartial manner, but on the other hand he makes use sophistry, intentionally or not I do not know.

On page 185 Russell asserts that the religion of the ancient Hebrews was more polytheistic the monotheistic. Russell quotes a passage from Psalms (82:1-7) as evidence. Russell quotes God as referring to other angelic beings as "Gods", whereas the actual passage uses only lower case `g'. To the uninitiated this may seem negligible if not irrelevant, but as most educated readers will know the upper case `G' denotes of the supreme Biblical god, whereas the lower case `g' denotes a false god or idol. So contrary to Russell's implicit assertion that God in the passages referring to other `gods' the fact is that when the passage is not misquoted, God in the passage is actually referring to the fallen angels/demons who were commonly worshipped by humans as false gods' or idols.
I refuse to believe that a learned historian such as Jeffery Russell is ignorant enough make mistakes such as this and fail to make the distinction between the 'God' and `god'. I think that this is a deliberate misquote in order to deceive the readers and to discredit the Bible and/or God himself, if not he has done this to try and give this thesis credence. I hate to say it, but this is what it seems.

On page 199 Russell attempts to portray God and Satan as `work buddies', though Russell acknowledges Satan's obvious opposition to God, but he still goes on to suggest that it is Satan's job to persuade God for two taken morally wrong actions, this is but one interpretation, and questionable at that. It is more likely that God accepted Satan's challenge to prove how righteous Job and actually was, and in doing so Satan's actions and intentions were shown to be malevolent. This proof would be testament to the angels/demons/Satan's and humans that God is omniscient and to be trusted, but Satan is maleficent and devious. Without such proof God's omniscience could be legitimately questioned. Job, as a righteous man, would have been happy to go through such trials for such an ends.

Russell asserts that as the social moral situation changed, then the Torah writers suitably changed the nature of Yahweh. This assertion is solely based on the assumption that Yahweh was fabricated entity. Yet is it no less plausible to assume that as the political and military/defence situation changed then Yahweh changed his rules? Both are assumptions based on prior thesis/prejudices, neither of which is any less valid, both are to be taken on faith from one's world view.

Being a born and bred devout protestant, this book became an assault on my prior inherent perceptions of demonology. It was constantly giving me a reality check of where many of the ideas about Satan came from; extrapolation from scripture, not scripture itself. Though there are many instances where Russell's reasoning is below par and invalid, he constantly recovers to deliver many poignant arguments.
Russell makes it clear that the story of Satan has constantly evolved. His impartiality is such that one cannot tell whether Russell believes that Satan himself has gone through this change or if it is just the character/idea of Satan that has evolved, this is a great credit to the clear and unbiased nature of this work.

But overall this book is quite good. Though if I was the editor I would have cut out some rather large chunks that are interesting, but ultimately have no impact whatsoever on Russell's thesis. And on many theological points I would have referred him to a theologian to correct many other parts of his theological reasoning.
For these two above reasons I'm tempted to give this work a rather low rating, but so many times in this book Russell picked himself up and gave some five star material. And for this reason I am somewhat reluctantly giving it a generous four stars.

Russell appears to still be considered an authority in the US on the Devil, and these books are recognised as standard works, but really the whole series is marred by firstly biting off more than one academic can chew (who is able to put such a basic idea as evil into context accross the entire span of human history) and secondly a pseudo-academic objectivity covering for personal belief in supernatural evil which becomes more apparent as you progress into the later volumes.

One minor complaint is that Russell's overview of world history leads to frequent anachronisms (particularly in this volume terms from later on in the history of Christian devil theology). One example is describing Isaiah's falling Babylonian star from 700BC as "Lucifer" - terminology which originated with the Old Latin version and interpreters such as Origen. Even the title of this book "The Devil" (a Septuagint or New Testament term), is slightly out of place when "Satan" (a Hebrew and therefore Old Testament term) is the volume which follows it. That's an obvious example, examples within the text are less obvious - and more misleading.

The major complaint however is that Russell frequently lets his personal belief in fallen supernatural beings overflow into the text. Ch1 (p17-35) presenting in personal terms "The Question of Evil" is fair enough, but later on the reader is sometimes left wondering, is this a straightforward history book or personal theology?

Russell has been writing brilliant and very readable books on the problem of evil for quite some time. Many reviews here go into depth about his theological or philosophical points. I'm signing on only to recommend him to mainstream readers who might welcome a profound yet highly accessible scholar writing about evil in a responsible and compelling fashion. I also recommend Russell's Paradise Mislaid. This is a first rate thinker who is discussing complex metaphysical problems in deeply felt and provocative books.

WOW! What a book, and what a history lesson. The first half of the book covers so much mythology, ancient Eastern views of evil, and enough odd names and stories to make your head spin. Yet all along you start to see some similarities shared and transferred from culture to culture, until you finally hit the second half of the book, which deals with evil in the Hebrew and biblical context.

This was (to me) the most fascinating section, as it is an area I knew a little more about already. The author uses many ancient apocryphal and extra-biblical writings to show the developing mindset that seems to have eventually led to the more modern view of evil and the Devil that is believed today.

It is so hard to clear out the traditional thoughts that you have had all your life, and that made this section a bit harder, though surprisingly revealing too. If you strip away all that you know of the Devil, and simply use the few mentions in the Bible, you will find that the information is quite lacking from the whole story we hear now. Then you start to see how Hellenistic thought started coming in and influencing the text, to build the whole story we mostly now believe in the modern church.

The influence of Dante and Milton adds to the story line, and the details grow and grow to a story that is nowhere to be found in biblical text. Even the non-canonical writings add to the story, filling in many of the gaps that the Bible has in this story. How much emphasis should we put on those extra bits and pieces? Is the "Devil" a member of the heavenly council of God, doing the evil? Is he a fallen angel, and if so, did he fall for pride against God as some tell us, or was it for lust as the book of Enoch displays? Was his fall before the fall of Adam, or just prior to the flood? These and so many more topics are examined in detail, making this a fascinating, and sometimes mind boggling look at the topic.

In the end, I do not know if what I have learned is more for the better or the worse on this topic. There is much more to it that I had originally thought, and now in some ways I am a bit more confused on where I stand on certain aspects. All in all though, a good read that looks at many questions, many histories, gives many answers, and in the end just makes me wonder even more. Fortunately, there are more volumes in this series that might provide further answers; so I will refrain from making any decisions on where I stand on this whole topic.

How evil was personified in the lands of India, the Middle East, and the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome is the subject of this book.

I suppose Russell thought the opening chapter, "The Question of Evil", was formally necessary so we know what needs to be personified. His answer, that evil is "deliberate violence done to a being that can feel pain", leaves something to be desired. Besides the obvious question of war and police violence, it defines as evil violence committed to deter or punish. It doesn't help matters when we cite that great work of 70's pseudoscience, Peter Tompkins' and Christopher Bird's The Secret Life of Plants, as bringing up the idea of evil committed against the vegetable kingdom. More forgiveable, given the age of the book, is the short shrift given to evolutionary psychology's (labeled sociobiology when this book was written) explaination of evil.

Once Russell leaves that behind and gets into the history of the devil, things become more interesting the further you go though Russell repeats himself more than necessary for such a short book.

"The Devil East and West" is the broadest ranging chapter in the book . Looking at myths and the beginnings of religion throughout the world, Russell finds that good and bad qualities are often mixed into the same figures, that deities are often twinned to an opposite, and that generational wars in heave abound with one side judged evil. He even gets into specific, common attributes to these diabolical figures, e.g. black, red, and horned. Nor are these attributes, at this stage in humanity's religion, confined to a single demonic figure. Often legions of lesser demons are affiliated with various evils of disease, death, and the weather.

Zoroastrianism in 600 BC essentially added a new development. To make its deity Ahura Mazda completely good, to rid him of the evil qualities found in other gods, to make him more worthy of worship, the evil qualities were assigned to the evil Ahriman. Of course, this scheme raised other questions. If Ahura Mazda was all powerful, why let Ahriman roam free? If he could defeat Ahura Mazda, why let his evil continue unabated until sometime in the future. And, as Russell details, Zoroastrianism went through many heresies and evolutions.

"Evil in the Classical World" delves into the demonic aspects of Greek religion, the mysterious Orphic cult and the many Greek gods which exhibit good and bad tendencies. Russell also has a concise section (at least to my untutored eye) about Greek thought on the soul and what evil was.

The highlights of the book are the chapters on the Hebrew development of evil and the devil of the New Testament. Russell traces how the Old Testament god, most blatantly on display in Job, has many troubling aspects. If he is not evil, he certainly seems to employ demonic figures and the Devil as servants and advocates in a celestial court judging individual human worth. Gradually, probably under the influence of Zoroastrianism, Yahweh's most fearsome aspects -- his treatment of Job, hardening Pharaoh's heart and provoking others to sin just to punish them -- were assigned to a diabolical figure. In theological terms, evil in the Hebrew cosmos when from monism, a deity uniting good and evil, to dualism with supernatural beings for each moral quality. He supports his argument with reference to apocryphal books as well as the traditional Bible.

When talking of the Devil in the New Testament, Russell talks not only of the specific animals that came to be associated with him, but the questions the Devil raises in Christian thought. Some are the same questions Zoroastrianism had: what is the exact relationship of the good and evil deities? Is one subordinate to the other? (In a valid aside, Russell notes that atheists frequently use the question of evil in their arguments against God, but the logic of those arguments implicitly assumes that a supreme being must have the qualities of a Christian God.) Russell looks at how the iconography of the devil - where he is said to live, what his relationship is to Hell (prisoner or administrator?), what animals are associated with him - developed.

The final chapter, "The Face of the Devil", ends with Russell's not very interesting attempt to bridge his scholarship of the Devil to his personal experience with evil.

I can't judge the worth of Russell's religious, philosophical, and historical scholarship, but I found a couple of the chapters interesting enough, in this short book, to make it worth reading. This edition also has some interesting black and white photos of religious art. Those with a more spiritual or philosophical bent will probably find the question of evil's definition more interesting and practical than I did.