Does Christianity worship the Devil?

This is my latest installment of the: Who is the Devil series.

There are a lot of reasons to think that the god of the Jews and the god of Christianity and Islam is actually what people have come to call the devil, ruler and creator of the earth. 

Jesus tells us this very thing in some Gnostic texts. There may be evidence of it in Babylonian and Sumerian myth. 
After all, any god that would create a world where all things must kill other living things just to eat and survive, where disease kills thousands and where suffering is rampant, where natural disasters devastate entire populations, has got to be cruel beyond belief, inept, or unable to create in any other way. 

The devil is said to be crafty. He is said to have been given the domain over the earth. Why wouldn't he be a jealous god? A tyrant? Threatening everyone with hell who does not obey his whim? The god of the bible is not a nice person. He is vengeful, hardens people’s hearts so he can glorify himself through destruction, has his son murdered as a device for forgiving the sin of eating of a tree.

Let’s look at some passages from: The Hypostasis of the Archons. It is a Gnostic work dating from 300 AD, but has roots much farther back in history, dating back to Babylon.  

“I have sent this (to you) because you inquire about the reality of the authorities.

Their chief is blind; because of his power and his ignorance and his arrogance he said, with his power, "It is I who am God; there is none apart from me." When he said this, he sinned against the entirety.”

Here is the classic idea that someone in high authority claims to be the only god and falls from grace. But this is not the devil Christianity is used to. In this and other stories from the Gnostics, the god of light is a remote god, not interested in much but to be left alone. He is perfect and needs nothing. But he has a goddess counterpart who is itching to create something. So, so creates lesser gods with the god of light’s permission.

In this story she creates an Archon. He has the face of a lion, the body of a man and talons for feet. That’s his image, but he is a spirit being.

“His thoughts became blind. And, having expelled his power - that is, the blasphemy he had spoken - he pursued it down to chaos and the abyss, his mother, at the instigation of Pistis Sophia. And she established each of his offspring in conformity with its power - after the pattern of the realms that are above, for by starting from the invisible world the visible world was invented. “

So, Sofia (ancient goddess of wisdom) created the visible world, and gave him and his offspring power. There are 7 Archons all told. He is their father. They create the earth. Later they see the image of a goddess in the water and want it. So they decide to create that image.

“The rulers laid plans and said, "Come, let us create a man that will be soil from the earth." They modeled their creature as one wholly of the earth. Now the rulers [...] body [...] they have [...] female [...] is [...] with the face of a beast. They had taken some soil from the earth and modeled their man after their body and after the image of God that had appeared to them in the waters. They said, "Come, let us lay hold of it by means of the form that we have modeled, so that it may see its male counterpart [...], and we may seize it with the form that we have modeled" - not understanding the force of God, because of their powerlessness.”

They are unsuccessful in bringing it to life. So god himself breaths into it and it comes alive with a soul. But it was still not conscious. Then the spirit of the high god came down into it and it rose up alive.  Every time the gods intervene, the Archons don’t seem to be aware of it.

“the rulers gathered together all the animals of the earth and all the birds of heaven and brought them in to Adam to see what Adam would call them, that he might give a name to each of the birds and all the beasts.

They took Adam and put him the garden, that he might cultivate it and keep watch over it. And the rulers issued a command to him, saying, "From every tree in the garden shall you eat; yet from the tree of recognizing good and evil do not eat, nor touch it; for the day you eat from it, with death you are going to die."

They [...] this. They do not understand what they have said to him; rather, by the father's will, they said this in such a way that he might (in fact) eat”

So we are getting a completely opposite picture of what Genesis tells us. It is not the real god that makes us and puts us in the garden; it is the rulers and creators of the earth, the Archons that do it. They are also the ones who make Eve from Adam’s rib. The chief Archon has said he is the only god, not knowing the gods. In some stories he does know that there are other gods but tells his followers that he is the only god, which is also blasphemy.

“ Then the female spiritual principle came in the snake, the instructor; and it taught them, saying, "What did he say to you? Was it, 'From every tree in the garden shall you eat; yet - from the tree of recognizing good and evil do not eat'? The carnal woman said, "Not only did he say 'Do not eat', but even 'Do not touch it; for the day you eat from it, with death you are going to die.'"

And the snake, the instructor, said, "With death you shall not die; for it was out of jealousy that he said this to you. Rather your eyes shall open and you shall come to be like gods, recognizing evil and good." And the female instructing principle was taken away from the snake, and she left it behind, merely a thing of the earth.

And the carnal woman took from the tree and ate; and she gave to her husband as well as herself; and these beings that possessed only a soul, ate. And their imperfection became apparent in their lack of knowledge; and they recognized that they were naked of the spiritual element, and took fig leaves and bound them upon their loins. Then the chief ruler came; and he said, "Adam! Where are you?" - for he did not understand what had happened.”

So here we see a reversal of roles. God wants them to eat, and through his messenger a female snake/goddess they are told that the ruler is lying. He doesn’t want them to eat because he didn’t want them to be like gods.

And what does the bible say? God gets angry and tells us: “Now lest they also take of the tree of life and become as us…”  It seems clear from the bible this god is angry and jealous and does not want man to be gods.

Notice too that the god of the bible often says of himself that he is a jealous god.   Maybe these people were on to something. But also notice that the god of the bible says he doesn’t want us to be like them, meaning they are more than one.

 “They turned to their Adam and took him and expelled him from the garden along with his wife; for they have no blessing, since they too are beneath the curse. Moreover, they threw mankind into great distraction and into a life of toil, so that their mankind might be occupied by worldly affairs, and might not have the opportunity of being devoted to the holy spirit.”

Sounds right to me. It is also the rulers or Archons who decide to kill off all of mankind, and it is one of the rulers of the forces that decides Noah needs to be told so he can build an arch and survive. They brought the flood only because humans began to improve ourselves and multiply. It was the Archons themselves who tried to mate with human woman but failed to.

The Gnostics were convinced that the god of the Jews was the chief Archon, not the real god. Jesus is supposedly a representative of that real god according to the Gnostics, and in some stories he tells people about the Archons or the Aeons, which are the same thing. In almost all stories there are 7 of them with one being the father of the rest. Of course, in the end, the Archons will die and we will be free of them and free to discover the real god.

So Jesus was not saving us from sin, he was saving us from the Archon that the Jews, Christians and Muslims think is god. But apparently none of them got the message, ignored the Gnostics, and now worship both Jesus and the chief Archon who dared to think of himself as god.   

In ancient times the Archons are 5 of our planets, the sun and the moon. The Zoroastrians tell us about the five planets and moon and sun captured and set into heaven as well. They were or are the Archons. The stories of the Gnostics are influenced by the early Sumerian and Babylonian gods as well as Zoroastrianism. There was a war in heaven. The gods killed their father, a primal element because he wanted to destroy them. Their mother wanted revenge and some of her offspring join in her fight.  Marduk is said to have defeated his mother Tiamat, (Leviathan) something the other gods could not do. He said he would do it for them if they declared him the only god. They were not happy about it but they did it anyway.

Later he created the earth and solar system out of her body. He made mankind from the blood of the fallen brother who had influenced his mother to start a war. So we are of the blood of the fallen and created to work for the gods. What else is new?

This is the same story that appears later in the Greek stories about Zeus killing the god’s parents, the Titans, and becoming the ruler of the gods and of earth.  It is amazing how all these stories can be fit together through the ages and across western cultures. All of which originated with the Sumerian Pantheon.

One cannot help but wonder if the Archons and Enoch’s fallen angels were not a way for the believers of monotheism to turn the old gods into angels and demons, in order to explain them away under a new order.

In the end, perhaps the Jewish version of god is really an archon, and the real devil. Jesus was definitely a big departure from the OT god. Night and day.

Could the present day Christians be worshiping the wrong god? Or the real devil?