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The comparing
of pagan gods to demons doesn’t mean that worship and belief in more than one
god is the cause of Biblically interpreted demonology. Generally, the knowledge
of demons living among humans is already widely known, and the connection of
demons with polytheism (the belief of more than one god) has created a more
extensive research of the subject. Taking a look at the Old Testament in the
Bible will reveal just how unimportant and little polytheism has made an impact
on the Biblical side on demonology.
There is
information about demons in the Old Testament found in Leviticus 16: 21 and 22,
Leviticus 17:7, Isaiah 13:21 and 34:13, Deuteronomy 32:17, and Psalms 106:37.
Genesis says, of Leviticus 16:21, that it is “full of wrath with the numerous
interpretations of verses.” If we accept today’s popular view we will see that
in demonology, superstitions and religions actually come to a consensus, or
meeting point.
This
information from Leviticus was meant to be a representational statement that the
land and those living in it were cleansed from guilt, and that their sins had
been given to an evil spirit to whom they supposedly now belong, and whose home
is in the deep, dark wilderness cut off from any human contact. Not many more
things can be found that could create such an impression as the way that the
religion of Yahweh kept the spirits at a safe distance.
Leviticus 17:7
talks about partaking in the rituals of heathen worship. The two passages in
Isaiah are poetical and don’t really imply anything in the way of the author’s
own beliefs in the subject. The passage suggests that beings, both visible and
invisible, supposedly live in places that are void of man, to provide the
details for a vivid word picture of empty remoteness.
There is no
evidence that demonology has anything to do with the Fall of Man. The suggestion
of one of the researchers says that the mention of current mythological
creatures with animals such as jackals implies “that demons live more or less in
all the animal citizens of the ruins of isolation” is clearly a ridiculous
rumor.
It is almost
surprising to realize that the only things that can be proved of demonology in
the Old Testament is limited to a small group of scripture verses. These
passages are either legal or poetical, and all of them provide examples of the
restraining power that religious ideas have over the minds of the superstitious,
the people that are prone to believing almost anything they are told.
Even if we were to add all the rest of the passages in the Bible in which an
actual existence seems to be given to the pagan gods, the demons, and interpret
them in a severe sense, we still feel compelled to try to prove that the lack of
evidence of demons prevents the formation of any real idea of demons indwelling
this world.
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