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Apparently it came about that God has to share his throne with the Devil. Can you believe that? Yes I know, I was also totally blown away.
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the Devil. He is not all together that much different from God himself.
There is more then one interpretation of Satan. Below is another interpretation.
I make no claims that this interpenetration is better than any other. However, all monotheistic traditions agree on the concept of God. If the idea of Satan is bothering you one strategy is to learn about God first and figure out your opinions on Satan later.
http://www.jewishanswers.org/ask-the-rabbi-2566/the-jewish-view-of-satan/?p=2566in Judaism Satan is an agent of G-d, created by G-d for a specific purpose, and something very good. Satan is simply an agent of G-d, just as all the other angels are simply agents of G-d...
If we take a look at Isaiah 45:7, we see that Hashem is the creator of everything, as the text says, “bringing forth light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil, I am G-d who does all these things.” In the Jewish bible, everything is under the jurisdiction of G-d and under His power – all forces, even evil forces. Everything comes from G-d, He created everything, good and evil. That being the case, Satan is not a rival of G-d, he is a messenger of G-d and unable to do anything outside of G-d’s will.
In contrast to Christian literature, where Satan is understood to be an evil force, the enemy of G-d, in Jewish literature, he is seen as a blessing to the Jewish people. Why? Let’s consider for a moment what Satan means. As mentioned before, the word not only means an adversary, but a stumbling block or an obstacle. What exactly is an obstacle? It is something which is put in our path requiring us to overcome it. Obstacles in this life give us opportunities to stretch our muscles and to grow.
Let’s take a look at what Judaism has to say about Satan. In the Genesis account of creation, we are told that G-d saw that each day was good, but on the last day it says that G-d saw that everything was VERY good. The Talmud teaches that this refers to the Evil inclination, which it equates with the Satan. Why is this good? It is the Evil inclination that provides our passions and desires, it is the evil inclination which is responsible for not only all the evil that transpires in this world, but also for all the good. For if we did not have passions, appetites and desires, we would also have no motivation and we would accomplish very little, either good or bad in this life.
If you look at the use of Satan in the Hebrew bible, you find that as a concept, it is much more about an experience than a person, an experience where G-d has put a roadblock in front of us. This is Satan, this is an adversary. So why is this a good thing? Because if we were to go through life without ever experiencing these roadblocks or adversaries, obstacles in life, there would be no potential for virtue in the world. For if we were never tempted to do the things that we are not supposed to do, then not doing them would be of no value to us. It is only in coming up against a desire to do what is wrong and overcoming this that we grow as spiritual people.
This evil inclination, or Satan, provides friction. Can you imagine a world with no friction, no resistance? Think about a car, how does it go? It is the friction between the tires and the road that allow the car to make progress, to go forward. Now, to the tires the friction is not necessarily a positive thing, the friction slowly destroys the tire, and yet without the friction, the tire is worthless.
If there is no resistance to overcome, we have no environment for growth. When we come up against an obstacle, either we crash into it and fall (definitely a negative experience – the evil inclination) or you have to climb over it, and by climbing over these obstacles in life, we develop our spiritual muscles, so to speak. If we never exercise our muscles, we atrophy. So these forces in the world, these experiences, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable, are positive and important.
To reiterate, in the Jewish bible, everything was created by G-d, both good and evil and everything is under G-d’s control.
