Exactly what it says on the (dramatic) title.
We always hear about Biblically accurate angels: the burning wheels with tons of eyes, the strange looking creatures that sound like they come from the anime “Evangelion”, the cherubim with 4 faces, but I had a thought while watching The Exorcist: Believer (it was…not good for anyone wondering. At all. The disrespect Regan’s mom had towards Merrin and Karras after they died saving her daughter was baffling to listen to, especially…but i digress) a couple of days ago, specifically, if that’s how the demonically possessed are said to more or less act in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, or if they’re they completely different to what we see in movies and games. I’m guessing it’s more than likely the second one, right, but I’m curious about the details like the signs someone’s possessed, the demon’s endgoal, and what they look like, basically everything you can gimme to sate this curiosity or to send me on a rabbit hole, if you’d be so kind?
Off the top of my head, the Bible really says surprisingly little about demons, and various translations will say even less (depending on if the translator thinks an evil spirit=demon or not). Generally, the possessed act either mentally or physically ill, or they get scared of Jesus. Beelzebub is the prince of demons, but that’s about all we know from accepted scripture. Most “Christian” demonology stems from writings that didn’t make the final cut for the Bible, mythology borrowed from other cultures/religion, bored/crazy monks in a position to write things down, and particularly influential works that never claimed to be anything but fiction (namely Dante’s Inferno).
So our picks are either what the translator’s interpretation of a demon was or from outside sources that may or may not be entirely canonical (if at all) to the bible? Huh…i imagined the church would have wanted the faithful to know the enemy a bit more. Wonder why they were hardly mentioned (I mean zero disrespect by this by the way. I may not be Christian, but i respect the faith).
Interesting regardless, and answers why some link possession and mental illness together in media (and i assume IRL)
Due to the nature of how translation works, interpretation will always be inherent to it, especially when we can’t ask the original author for clarification. As for the church wanting the faithful to know more about demons, you could argue that is why they borrowed so much demonology from other sources. As for why it wasn’t included in the Bible itself, any answer will have to be heavily seasoned with speculation. It is important to remember, however, that the New Testament was not intended as a “how to get to heaven” or “how to avoid hell” guide. It was intended as telling the story of why you get to go to heaven in the first place (the Gospels) and letters discussing how to live faithfully. Plus Revelation.
i imagined the church would have wanted the faithful to know the enemy a bit more
By their logic sin is inherent in man. The enemy was never demons.
Sin is inherent in humans after Eden, but Satan is always depicted as a tempter trying to stray the faithful away from the good path towards their basest desires (sin), in fact some denominations believe the snake in Eden to be Satan in disguise, which would make him directly responsible for sin as a whole.
Surprisingly, a lot of the creepy media is fairly accurate, though extreme. Demons aren’t prominent, we know they are angels who rebelled with Lucifer, and were cast out, so that would be their appearance, but in reference to possession, we basically have those that Jesus encountered and a few his apostles drove out in his name later on.
And what we see are people behaving almost like animals, screaming, shouting, with an inhuman strength to break chains or whatever locals have tried to contain them with, and inflicting a lot of self harm. There’s a woman who would throw herself into fires, a man who had 100 demons in him (where “I am legion” comes from") who would throw himself onto rocks and off cliffs and cut himself, etc.
The more manufactured elements are the head twisting, anything to do with pentagrams, and honestly a lot of the hostility to others. People usually steered clear, but demon possessed individuals generally did more self harm than harming others, with cases where Jesus would meet them within cities, and they weren’t surrounded by dead people or a panicking mob or anything. They also don’t “haunt” or hunt people like they do in movies, but are usually extremely obvious.
Anyway, that’s my experience purely from biblical account, off the top of my head, I’m sure others can add more detail or examples.
I loved how detailed this answer is, thank you!
So less “intentionally terrorizing those around the possessed” and more “causing the possessed to suffer physically/mentally”? I’m sensing the pattern that Demons tend to love aping or causing mental illnesses/strange behaviors based on this and other comments. Or well, the animalistic behavior could also be the person’s reaction to having an entity taking him/her over, maybe trying to get it to leave? But…then again, that could also be that thing probably being ecstatic to have a body to move around in, who knows.
Happy to help! I like studying this stuff, and it’s fun to share it when I get the chance.
Honestly, I suspect the “demons torture humans in hell” probably originates from their seeming to want to torture the possessed.
Because in the biblical conception of hell, it’s very much not “demons torture humans” it’s more like a lake of fire to torture the demons, which unfortunate humans are also thrown into. There’s no organization or structure whatsoever. Also, nobody is currently there, humans are just… dead, or in purgatory/Gehenna, a sort of neutral waiting place, waiting to be raised back to life at the end, and sorted then.
Their role biblically seems to be just… acting against God, out of spite for being kicked out, perhaps? They seem to act to tempt humans not to find/love/follow God. Not much is given as to their motivations though, the Biblical authors truly aren’t that interested in them, besides as a warning about temptation. A shame, as they’re obviously just… fascinating to learn about, but it’s not a priority for them to write about.
They also aren’t given much credit, either. Rather than the “epic struggle of God vs Satan” we like to characterize, it’s more like… Satan and demons are permitted to roam about, but are absolutely beneath God, and can/will eventually be rounded up and thrown out very quickly. They’re characterized as accidentally playing a role in Gods plan, and given tentative leash for that reason. Satan apparently is even still allowed to visit heaven, and argues with God? See Job. Him getting locked out of heaven permanently is one of the kickoff moments of Revelation/the biblical apocalypse. Again, not much detail on this relationship, and honestly some of even this much detail is speculation.
The modern conception of “hell” is quite interesting, as it’s mostly just imaginative fiction, likely heavily inspired by pagan cultures that merged with Christianity as it spread across the world.
Ah yeah, there is some of that? Not totally unfounded, although my understanding is more that Angels know God is there, and always have, so they don’t have to have faith, and they don’t have the “sin nature” we do as a result of Adam and Eve eating that apple. Basically they don’t seem to have that natural selfishness we do, so their relationship with God isn’t as personal, and obedience to him comes much more easily. We are more “like God” (“made in his image”, in Genesis terms). As such, those who do follow God will “rank higher” than angels, whatever that actually looks like.
That said… it’s a bit ridiculous to assert that they don’t have any free will, because a bunch of them rebelled against God. It wouldn’t surprise me if Catholic ideology disagrees with me here though, although I don’t think there’s much of that in the actual text of the Bible.
There really isn’t any until the exorcisms of the NT, which is again missing much description.
Even the parts that some people think are describing demons often aren’t.
For example, the locusts of Revelations:
And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit; he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given authority like the authority of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to damage the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months but not to kill them, and the agony suffered was like that caused by a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.
In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months. They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.
Look closely at a few of the details there:
- allowed to torment for five months
- the agony suffered was like that caused by a scorpion when it stings someone
- like horses equipped for battle
- On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold
- faces were like human faces
- hair like women’s hair
- their teeth like lions’ teeth
- scales like iron breastplates
- the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots
- tails like scorpions, with stingers
- in their tails is their power to harm people for five months
- have as king over them
So back in the day, there was no Greek word for a specific hornet, just a general term that applied to any wasps.
But in Judea the equivalent of the murder hornet was Vespa Orientalis.
This hornet, like many wasps, was active outside its nest for 5 months.
At the time, they thought a hive was ruled by a king, not a queen (thanks a lot Aristotle). And their nests are made underground (like the pit in the passage above).
Like most hornets, they had mandibles with large ‘teeth’ like a lion.
Unlike locusts, their faces were more human looking with the placement of the eyes centrally as opposed to on the edges of the head.
They were covered in fine hairs like a woman’s body hair.
Covered in segmented ‘scales’ with stings painful like a scorpion.
They had a yellow stripe across the lower part like a saddle (this was actually used to effectively solar power the insect).
But the most striking similarity between the above passage and this specific insect native to the area was the gold crown marker on its head: https://www.biolib.cz/IMG/GAL/33881.jpg
So while people have had their imaginations running wild with Fabio looking scorpion/horse chimeras for years now, it may have simply been a poetic description of the local murder hornet equivalent being really active and stinging people - a nightmarish scenario for anyone who has been on the wrong end of a hornet before, but not quite the nightmarish people have been dreaming up since.
As a lover if insects and arachnids who spends significant time in nature and the garden, the fear I feel for wasps is indescribable.
The idea someone, two millennia ago, wrote wasps to be the most evil, feared, sadistic thing in their experience of the world resonates with me deeply.
I know about the Lesser Key and some “Alternative Source”, i guess you can call em, texts describing Demons, but was more interested what the official canon had to say regarding demons/possessions. Based on the answers I’ve seen so far, it seems to be not as in depth as I thought, but what is there is very interesting IMO (i dig the animal shapes from the Torah that you brought up. From my very very limited recollection of my Catholic upbringing, they weren’t given a definite shape, tho i could be very wrong…i was a bad Catholic and it’s been years)
So I recently listened to an episode of the Data over Dogma podcast specifically regarding angels and demons. It’s hosted by Dan Beecher (an atheist podcaster) and Dr. Dan McClellan (a Bible scholar), and they discuss how angels and demons are actually depicted/described in the Bible, compared to the extra-biblical descriptions of both that we’ve gotten over the millennia. It’s about an hour but should serve as a nice little primer on the subject, with some recommendations for further study.
