Was evil present in the Garden of Eden?
Well, not exactly, however, the idea of a tester/tempter was first introduced in Genesis 3:
That was the first sign that there was a creature who questioned the word of God.
This beginning of an evil force was later portrayed by the satan (the accuser, the adversary) against the upright Job. God allowed the satan to test him, Job 1:
The use of a definite article means that
satan was
not a proper personal name. With the definite article, the satan sounds like a job title. Further, the same H7854-satan appears in (ESV) 1 Samuel 29:
Here satan refers to David. Elsewhere, the concept of satan was tied closely to God himself in the Balaam incident in the Aramaic Bible in Plain English Numbers 22:
Later, Satan appeared in 1 Chronicle 21:
There is a parallel account in 2 Samuel 24:
The LORD used satan to directly accomplish his will against David!
Later still, the good prophet Micaiah saw the Lord giving permission for a spirit to lie in the mouths of Ahab's bad prophets in order to deceive Ahab. Micaiah said in 1 Kings 22:
By the time of the exile, something changed fundamentally in Daniel 10:
This was angel against angel. It was an open rebellion. This satan/adversary opposition force opposed not only humans,
There were angelic forces for and against Daniel. These were two distinct wills. Only one was for God.
In the NT, the satan concept became the person Satan, the devil, Matthew 4:
Demons became rampant, Luke 8:
Satan lost his position in heaven, Luke 10:
After Jesus' Cross, Satan who accused us day and night before our God was thrown down to the earth (Rev 12:9-11). Jesus now is our Advocate-Paraclete before God (1 John 2:1, Romans 8:34). Satan no longer had access to God.
Hebrews 2:
Over time in human history, we can see that the role of satan gets more and more independent from God. Even the concept of
testing/tempting has evolved. In the OT, God tested/tempted Abraham. After Satan went rogue, God tested people, and Satan tempted people. Right now, Satan is the
ruler of this world.
Paul used Satan in 1 Timothy 1:
Satan is the dragon in Revelation 20:
In the end, Revelation 20:
The word שָׂטָן (H7854 satan) appears only 27 times. It could be used as a noun, an adjective, or a verb. There is a more common word צָר (H6862 tsar) that often is translated as
adversary. H6862 appears 111 times.