Devil and Satan

Few subjects in the Bible are discussed as often as the Devil and Satan, yet few are as poorly understood. The author traces much of the confusion in the Global South to faulty translation. The English Bibles of the seventeenth century were built on earlier errors and misreadings, and he argues these mistakes would have been avoided had translators worked from the original Hebrew and Greek instead of from English. As a result, many people now hold beliefs drawn from Egyptian and Greek mythology, mixed with humanist, pagan and tribal superstition.

The author also points to a wider gap in knowledge. The belief systems of the ancient peoples of the Global South, many of which still persist, have been poorly documented and little understood, partly because the religious zeal behind the witch hunts drove them underground for centuries. Much of the teaching in these regions has come from missionaries sent out from the Global North, namely Europe, the Americas and, more recently, Australia.

Drawing on his own experience, the author recounts his first fifteen years as a missionary, during which he taught the Devil and Satan in Africa exactly as he had in Europe. He came to see that missionaries were repeatedly asked to explain these figures because earlier explanations had not engaged with the older beliefs still alive in the South. Attempts to teach with Northern methods, without first understanding the beliefs of the people being taught, have compounded the problem. The author argues that it is impossible, and arguably unethical or colonial, to argue against a religious conviction one does not understand, and this book is written to correct that approach.