What Powers Would You Give Satan?

Not quite. Yahweh is not the only god mentioned in The Bible, but he is the only god that actually existed instead of being imaginary. The whole point of showing off his power to worshippers of those fake gods was to prove that point. Every single supernatural event in The Bible was caused either God himself, Satan, or other various angels/demons, the last of which were misattributed by humans to mythical gods or ghosts (and those instances are not very common, anyway). Interpreting his display of power simply as being more powerful than hordes of other real deities (as opposed to beings that he created himself) is drastically missing the point of why he is so jealous for worship. If somebody gave credit for all the work you have done to an imaginary being, you would probably be pissed off too.

BTW, I really hate it when people try to use exact wording of English as an argument regarding The Bible. Not every translation uses the exact same wording. The one I use says "besides" rather than "before", which gives the verse an exclusive meaning. And the literal translation of the Hebrew phrase is "against my face", which also has an exclusive meaning.

edited 24th Jun '17 6:39:25 PM by shiro_okami

Again no. The book makes a very clear distinction between other gods (who, according to the Bible, exist at least enough that Yahweh can call them into a council and expect them to answer for themselves for not governing the non-Jewish peoples they were giving dominion over properly in his eyes) and false gods (who, according to the Bible, are just made up by humans). They're even separate words in biblical Hebrew.

At any rate the reason why Satan must be another god, rather than an angel, according to the in-universe rules in the Bible is that, explicitly, the main thing that sets humans apart from angels is free will. IF Satan is an angel, it doesn't have free will, which means that absolutely everything it does is pre-ordained by Yahweh.

And then the whole 'everything bad that happens isn't the fault of Yahweh, who is good, but of Satan, who is evil.' thing falls apart.

(I'm an atheist, so I don't really have a dog in this game and I'm just approaching this as I would any other fictional cosmology/magic system.)

So what are these different words then, and what particular passage are you referring to?

Absolutely not true. Angels have just as much free will as humans. The existence of the Nephilim alone proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. If anything, they have more free will than humans because they can actually choose to not be sinful.

edited 29th Jun '17 7:37:46 PM by shiro_okami

There are passages when the god of the bible denounces nations for worshiping false gods while saying he will punish the gods of different other nations, in the same sentence. Basically, some of them actually did exist, supposedly, but none were truly "gods" Because There Can Only Be One.

But Satan. Um, the ability to spit live frogs. If you're doing New Testament style Satan he has to have the ability to spit live frogs. Oh, and to heal multiheaded leopard like beasts from the bottomless pit of near fatal injuries. And to distinguish people with marks.

edited 25th Jun '17 4:43:11 PM by Cider