Jesus and Satan Brothers Doctrine

[moksha]

Why do other Christians scoff at the LDS doctrine that Jesus and Satan were brothers?

[Cnsl1]

If I understand basic Christian theology, it's not that they scoff at Satan once being an archangel, but that he is or ever was on a level with God, who took mortal form when He became Jesus, the son. Putting Satan as Jesus's brother diminishes His divinity.

It's ok to be the mother of God and be worshipped, but brothers are right out.

[LSOF]

Christians have the weirdest hangups...

[moksha]

Can they not see the direct relationship between both Thor and Loki as sons of Odin, in relation to the LDS holy family?

[wtfluff]

Putting Satan as Jesus's brother diminishes His divinity.

And without Satan, Jesus' "plan" becomes a complete flop.

So in reality, Satan IS just as important as Jesus.

[Reuben]

Can they not see the direct relationship between both Thor and Loki as sons of Odin, in relation to the LDS holy family?

I'm sure the fact that Odin and Thor are different faces of the same person complicates things.

[Just This Guy]

I wonder if part of the dislike of the idea is what that does to the Trinity idea. If Jesus is God and Satan is Jesus's brother, then Satan has to be on the level as god/Jesus.

The idea does work better in a Godhead setup. Since Jesus is lower than god, Satan being Jesus's brother is more palatable since he is lower than god

[Hagoth]

I wonder if part of the dislike of the idea is what that does to the Trinity idea. If Jesus is God and Satan is Jesus's brother, then Satan has to be on the level as god/Jesus.

The idea does work better in a Godhead setup. Since Jesus is lower than god, Satan being Jesus's brother is more palatable since he is lower than god

Right. Making a big fuss about Satan being Jesus' brother is just a more inflammatory way of pointing fingers at Mormons as not true Christians because they are not trinitarians.

[moksha]

Right. Making a big fuss about Satan being Jesus' brother is just a more inflammatory way of pointing fingers at Mormons as not true Christians because they are not Trinitarians.

These same Christians have no problem with Popeye and Bluto being brothers or Luke Skywalker being the son of Darth Vadar.

[2bizE]

I assume that Jesus and Lucifer were BFFs. They had different views on plans to return to Heavenly Mother and Father. Lucifer presented his plan which included people being exactly obedient in following the covenant path, not allowed to research history, only using approved sources for knowledge, partaking of sacred ordinances only with the right hand, and wearing hot, ill-fitting, and ugly underwear.
Jesus presented a plan to allow people to make mistakes, learn, improve, use intelligence thought, not be judgements, and enjoy life.

I forget which plan was selected by God. Maybe Mother wanted a different plan than the father, there was an argument and mother was not spoken about much after that??

[Hagoth]

[John Hamer]

From a Christian perspective, this proposition doesn't make any sense.

We have to remember that Mormons have re-defined "angel" to mean "ghost," i.e., the spirit of a human either after they are dead or in some cases before they are born. In traditional theology, angels are not human ghosts. Angels are a totally different order of creation, which are sometimes equated with Platonic Ideals or Forms. In Christian theology angels initially had free-will and they exercised it. But just as things were different in the first micro-seconds of the Big Bang, something changed, and some angels became fallen angels (of which Satan is chief) and some retained their pure status. But pure angels lack human free will.

In a traditional Christian perspective, angels and humans (including human spirits which are not angels), are both part of creation. They did not exist at some point and then they did exist because they were created by the Creator (God). However, Christ is not a part of creation. Christ is uncreated, like the Holy Spirit, and is the co-eternal with the Creator and is therefore God, just as the Creator is God.

As a result of these completely different statuses: i.e., being a creation or being co-eternal with the creator, there's no sense at all that Christ has any status comparable to Satan.

[Hagoth]

As long as we're talking about where Mormons and Christians get it wrong, Old Testament angels would have looked more like this:





And those are the least weird ones that only have one head.

[Reuben]

As long as we're talking about where Mormons and Christians get it wrong, Old Testament angels would have looked more like this:

So... a six-winged British barrister robot bird. Very cool.

(Yes, barristers do still wear those silly wigs. It might be a cause of why there are so few British courtroom dramas. Can't take them seriously.)

[John Hamer]

There's an evolution of the idea of angels in Old Testament Judaism. Through most of the First Temple period, Israelites were pagans with many gods totally indistinguishable from the rest of the Western Semitic peoples (Canaanites, Aramites/Syrians, Phoenicians, Moabites, Edomites) as they are all essentially the same people. The Exodus and idea that Israelites are alien to the area is a myth.

The original appearance of "angels" in the earliest parts of the Old Testament is to replace and disguise the idea that Israel worshipped many gods. When history was ret-conned, suddenly all the other gods were demoted to angel-status and the text pretends (wrongly) that the idea of monotheism was ancient rather than the novelty it was.

You're quite correct that in one of the central Old Testament writing periods immediately before and during the Babylonian captivity, angels would have looked like these images as Israelite religion was heavily influenced by Babylonian and other Near Eastern religion.

However, in the Hellenistic age (when the Book of Daniel, for example, was written), the image of angels in Second Temple Judaism had evolved to the way angels are portrayed in the New Testament. This is largely forgotten in Rabbinic Judaism, which rejected the Hellenistic period and rolled the clock back by deciding to keep most of the newer innovations out of their final canon.

But, yes, the Christian view of angels is fundamentally based on Greek philosophy and not on Jewish mythology. The Mormon view of angels is based on 19th century Anglo-American belief in ghosts which developed into Spiritualism.

[moksha]

John, do you have any historical data on why the names Satan and Santa are so similar?



BTW, I love reading your posts because you are so knowledgeable.

[John Hamer]

John, do you have any historical data on why the names Satan and Santa are so similar?

BTW, I love reading your posts because you are so knowledgeable.

Thanks!

"Santa" derives from the Latin "sanctus" (holy) and "Satan" derives from the Hebrew "śāṭān" (accuser). Latin and Hebrew are not related, nor are these roots, so the similarity in English are coincidence, however, poetic, apt, or ironic it may be.

[Hagoth]

John, do you have any historical data on why the names Satan and Santa are so similar?

BTW, I love reading your posts because you are so knowledgeable.

Thanks!

"Santa" derives from the Latin "sanctus" (holy) and "Satan" derives from the Hebrew "śāṭān" (accuser). Latin and Hebrew are not related, nor are these roots, so the similarity in English are coincidence, however, poetic, apt, or ironic it may be.

And both dole out ultimate rewards & punishments based on a naughty/nice list based on the spying of supernatural snitches.

Hail Santa!

[2bizE]

Somewhere along the line, Mormons forgot to worship Jesus as our God as Christians do. Mormons lowered Jesus to the brother of Satan and the brother of humankind.