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.
Yes but also a subordinate to an omniscient and omnipotent god. He’s a tempter and tester of Job. The ultimate responsibility is in the human themselves to meet the test and they are the ones who fail. The sin was not eating the apple of knowledge as much as deciding to disobey god to eat it. That’s the “free will” and the original sin that is inherent in humans, and the real enemy. The serpent didn’t so much create it as tempt it. I am not a christian, though. I actually believe a god that acts like that is evil.
Gnostics are a bit more interesting, because they view the serpent as a Prometheus figure that shepherded humans to free will while the God that was disobeyed was an evil god.
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.
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.
The Fabio looking hornet demon was a hilarious, albiet terrifying mental image, but yeah as a repeat victim of the business end of a hornet, I can confirm the validity of that description and agree that they’re clearly of the devil lol
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.
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.
Adding that to the Watch later pile, thank you
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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)
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I’ve only gotten to Leviticus in my Bible reading. God that chapter is a slog.
Anyway, if you need to know which part of the goat may be a waved offering and which may be a burnt offering and which may be a meat offering, and which order in which to pile the guts and the cauls and the livers and hearts and bones thereof and all the fat within and all the viscera and connective tissue so that the priest may toss three splashes of blood on the left side and three splashes of blood to the right side and so on and so forth, I might be able to help.
I guess one positive thing about slogging through Leviticus is I now realize how many ways there are to sacrifice a goat.
Not what I was looking for…but TIL lol
Never know when proper goat sacrificing might be needed
Seriously if you want to see the part of the bible that reads like an animal sacrifice operations manual, check out Leviticus
Biblically, demons are simply fallen angels.
Be
notafraid.What makes them fallen?
They were up, now they are down.
Okay, but have they ever been only half way up?
That they fell and now they can’t get up again, maybe?
A quick search shows that “fallen angels” are angels expelled from heaven. Most often, these are angels who sided with Lucifer in his rebellion against God.
Tripping
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Citation needed, especially given that the whole “fallen angels” thing comes from the Enochian apocrypha.
Exactly; no mention of fallen angels anywhere within the bible itself.
There technically is a reference to Satan as fallen in Luke 10:18 (“I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.”), but those New Testament authors really loved their Enochian literature and it’s almost certainly drawing from that as opposed to anything in the Old Testament (it isn’t until the KJV that the Isaiah commentary about the morning star falling is confused for talking about Satan by name of Lucifer).
Metatron has done a video on this ( https://youtu.be/-Mx6TtkgugU?si=7SS7s9JpMupmmpKl ). I don’t think he’s religious, but he knows his stuff when it comes to classical history. I haven’t watched this video in a while, but I think it’s more about the demons in the Bible that are close to modern pop culture demons (horns, big bat wings, etc), rather than the sorts of demons that actually possess people.
If you’re asking what Christians think demonic possession is like today, it’s far more subtle than it is in the Bible. The goal of any demon is to lead people away from God, so openly showing themselves to a secular culture that believes they’re fake is unhelpful. All of the stories I’ve heard of demonic activity have been where three demons imitate actual medical conditions like asthma, migranes, or epilepsy. The way to tell between purely medical conditions and demonic activity is with prayer and God helping you discern what it is. The only tell apart from this would be doctors doing everything they can and the problem only getting worse.
If you want to know more about demons, I recommend the Screwtape letters by C.S. Lewis.
Hmm…so the main targets of possessions would be the Faithful, whereas skeptics and those who don’t follow the Teachings of Christ would be…safe, i guess is the word? They wouldn’t be singled out, for sure.
I imagined they were subtle regardless of it being today or back in the days of Jesus since being bombastic or OTT would likely unnerve people and draw them back towards God…or, well, I know I’d go back to mass if a demon started raving to me like Pazuzu does in The Exorcist lol
Thanks for the rec, I’ll check him out later
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Screwtape letters is excellent, but hardly an authoritative resource on demons. Nor was it intended to be.
Just watched Exorcist 3 last night. Great timing. Sorry that I have nothing to add (atm).
It’s cool! Some interesting nugget might hit ya later.
Legion is a solid film…and probably the only unanimously agreed upon good film in The Exorcist series other than the first. God, this series is like Texas Chainsaw Massacre; It barely gets a break (a break in this case being a good entry that’s not THAT divisive)
I watched this about it recently. Enjoy
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In the bible, the demons are fallen angels so…
Most of the lore you see is from dantes inferno, not the bible.
I’m still hung up on how you managed to type “Bibicially” instead of Biblically without being corrected. How is it pronounced, bib ish allee?
Like judicially, but with more bibles.
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Know why demons always speak Latin instead of ancient Aramaic? Because The Catholic Church made it up. It’s fiction.
Doubt Catholics made them up since there are depictions and writings that talk about demons in ancient mesopotamia. That they threw them in their canon and gave them their own quirks like the Romans did with the Greek Pantheon tho, I can believe. Whether it’s fiction or not is irrelevant info to me tho.
And do the scriptures imply demons speak Latin? Because that, specifically, is the part Catholicism made up.
It’s honestly been a while since I cracked open a Bible and actually sat down to read it, so i couldn’t give ya a definative answer on that (plus, I was a very poor excuse of a Catholic lol).
My opinion? it’s one of the quirks Catholicism threw in when demons were incorporated into their canon.
Not sure it was a quirk. More likely a carefully thought out practice to insure the hold Catholicism had on people. Priests spoke and read Latin while most laypeople did not. Having to address demons in Latin ensured that the average person needed the priest to help them out, for a fee/donation of course.
I was a very poor excuse of a Catholic when I was a kid. But I still remember Latin being spoken in Mass, and I remember the priest discouraging his congregation from reading the bible for themselves, cuz no way would we understand it without his expertise to explain it to us.
Religion is some weird crap, man.
Complete opposite of my expierence lmao. Priest hardly spoke Latin during mass (even if he did, I like to imagine we’d have an inkling of what he said, spanish being our primary language and all), and would encourage everyone to read our Bibles and come to him for questions or doubts.
Pretty swell guy. I remember later having my first beer with him and my pops (well…my first beer that wasn’t snuck over or swapped by my uncles and stuff during parties and get togethers. My first official beer, ya get me?)
But ye, Religion can get weird, I agree there.
Well, I’m 70, and my childhood was spent in a French speaking area of Louisiana, and Louisiana isn’t known for being very forward thinking. It’s possible my experience was limited to my location. 😜
They are legion. But also week af because “yell at them” is super effective.
Hmm…IDK, Chris was yelling at those things in the movie pretty hard and all it got her was pain. Maybe if Jesus or an Exorcist was the one going “I cast you out”, then it’ll work…
Well you have to have official Church authority behind it. Can’t just go around giving lowly common folk the power to combat demons. Who would collect the tithes then?
I meant it more in the “these guys know how to specifically do that, whereas Average Joe over there puffing up his chest and trying it unprepared is gonna go as well as you trying to evict a crackhead off some property (read: probably very badly)” but if you wanna look at it in a more cynical way, sure, that’s also entirely possible. “Never do something you’re good at for free” after all.
