That's inaccurate. In the Hebrew Bible and traditional Jewish theology, "ha-satan" (השטן) is literally "the adversary" or "the accuser" — a prosecutorial role, not a malevolent cosmic enemy. The Book of Job is the clearest illustration: the satan figure operates with God's explicit permission, essentially as a stress-tester of human faith. He's part of the divine court, not opposed to it.
Christians retconned Satan's role quite a bit, to turn him into a scapegoat for God's responsibility for evil, basically.
You can see it in the Job story. Christians will put all the blame for the atrocities Job experienced on Satan, and praise God for "restoring his fortunes" as a reward for his exemplary piousness.
But what these retellings conveniently leave out, is the inciting moment that turned Job's life into this parade of atrocities: God pointed Job out to Satan and dared him to test Job's faith by giving him license to mess with "everything he has", just not him. So the story of Job was not an incidental tragedy God decided to make whole, it was a bet God made to boast about how devoted his followers are.
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u/piberryboy 1d ago
That's inaccurate. In the Hebrew Bible and traditional Jewish theology, "ha-satan" (השטן) is literally "the adversary" or "the accuser" — a prosecutorial role, not a malevolent cosmic enemy. The Book of Job is the clearest illustration: the satan figure operates with God's explicit permission, essentially as a stress-tester of human faith. He's part of the divine court, not opposed to it.