Pynchon, Dante and Divine Light

[Dave Monroe]

On 1/9/08, Tim Strzechowski <dedalus204 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Elaine Pagels, in _The Origins of Satan_, does an excellent job of examining
> how the character we have come to call "Satan" was really thanks to the four
> writers whose gospels of Jesus would become part of the NT canon (Mark,
> Matthew, Luke, and John).  She explains how each writer engaged in a form of
> propaganda literature in his effort to promote the changes to Jewish
> tradition proposed by the prophet Jesus.  Gradually, over the hundred or so
> years that span the writing of those four Gospels, "Satan" becomes no longer
> a vague literary device but a specific character, an embodiment of the
> "Other" to which Jewish tradition is alligned.

And see as well, e.g.,  ...

Kelly, Henry Ansgar.  Satan: A Biography.
   New York: Cambridge UP, 2006.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521604024

http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521843393

"Introduction," pp. 1-10

http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/43393/excerpt/9780521843393_excerpt.pdf