Get thee behind me, Satan

@Letty,

Well, son of god or not, his eyes still faced forward like a predator's.

If the devil was in front of him, he couldn't see properly.

And, if he thought he was the son of the jewish god, I assume he thought the devil wasn't going away in a hurry...so he might as well be out of the way.

Wink

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@dlowan,

I'm pretty sure "get thee behind me" meant something to the effect of "get out of my way", or ""get lost" in the context of the story about Satan tempting Jesus.

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@dlowan,

Ah, yes, Deb. The predator cat.

http://www.geocities.com/linda1958.geo/SAMAND.jpg

That's what I'm sending my son for his birthday. Know why? because he hasn't used up his nine live yet.

Cool

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@snood,

Thanks, snood. As we have noted, the mysteries of the life of Jesus are still yet to be told.

This is exactly what I wanted, everyone; the chance to get input from those who know, and it has been delightful.

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Chumly wrote:

Quote:

Simply another of numerous examples of how absurd / obtuse the Christian bible is, especially in the light of those expecting substantive meaning (such as Intrepid).

You'd do as well (if not better) collecting stories about UFO's and expecting answers as to Man's greater purpose

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. Regardless of how narrow sighted it may be.

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@Craven de Kere,

maybe playing on symbolic positioning... something in front of you blocks your progress...just metaphorically "stop insinuating yourself between me and my goals/God's work"...and I also think of ethnic customs and folkways like how it is a big insult to show certain people your foot...maybe turning your back on someone was meant to symbolize hierarchical roles...

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@neologist,

Neo wrote:

Quote:

The quote you mentioned was directed, not to Satan the Devil, but to Peter when he tried to advise Jesus that he would not suffer the things he foretold. (Matthew 16:23) Keep in mind that the word satan is a descriptive term meaning adversary, resister, or rebel. Jesus no doubt was dismissing Peter's worldly reasoning. He certainly was not equating Peter with God's chief adversary, for he had just commended Peter only a few verses earlier.

Actually, Neo, you are not totally correct on this. Jesus spoke the words twice. Once to Satan in Luke 4:5-8 (KJV)

4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
4:6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
4:7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
4:8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

He then spoke the words to Peter in Mathew 16:23.

But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

This is also recorded in Mark 8:33
But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.

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@Letty,

I checked the passage in Greek (Koine Greek--the "bridge" version of Greek which lead to modern Greek, and which was used in the earliest versions of the "gospels"), and then looked up the verb which was used. It can mean both to get behind, and to get down and crawl on all fours. In the latter context it is (might be) a pejorative implying that the person so addressed is an animal, and not worthy of participation in human activity. It is entirely possible that later scholars translated the Greek verb as "get behind," rather than "crawl away."

The modern cynical version would be to say someone crawls on their belly like a reptile. This is pure speculation on my part, and i can't do the Greek letters on this keyboard. Also, (if this link works) i've had to translate the French definitions into English. Greek verb referred to in the Greek concordance i consulted. One of the forms of the verb is rendered as grimper à quatre pattes--"to crawl on all four (paws)."

Just a guess, Miss Letty.

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Many bits of the testaments have a translation which is open to question.

"Get thee behind me, Satan" just seems to mean "Get outta my face, dude!"

Let me know if you need any more help with your Bible studies.

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@McTag,

I really appreciate all of the input here about both the literal and metaphorical passage. Setanta, welcome back. How interesting that one interp is the "crawling on your belly" suggestion from the Greek. Didn't the snake in the garden of Eden used to have feet?

McTag, this was not intended to be a Bible study, Brit. It was designed to be a glimpse into the mind of the reader, and also a practice session so that I could get into the feel of the new A2K.

Every opinion is valuable to me, even those who don't agree. I suspect that if everyone were of the same mind set, it would be a rather boring world.

I still smile when I think of one of my students who referred to the rosetta stone as a she.

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Get thee behind me Satan, is a tag line off an infomercial. Pay four payments of $19.99 and get a second thee behind me Satan, free.

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@Letty,

Letty wrote:

McTag, this was not intended to be a Bible study, Brit. It was designed to be a glimpse into the mind of the reader, and also a practice session so that I could get into the feel of the new A2K.

I think I knew that awreddy.

And as you may know about me, I have no religious beliefs other that the belief that it's all baloney (but nicely and persuasively packaged)

Smile

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@Intrepid,

Intrepid wrote:

Neo wrote:
Quote:
The quote you mentioned was directed, not to Satan the Devil, but to Peter when he tried to advise Jesus that he would not suffer the things he foretold. (Matthew 16:23) Keep in mind that the word satan is a descriptive term meaning adversary, resister, or rebel. Jesus no doubt was dismissing Peter's worldly reasoning. He certainly was not equating Peter with God's chief adversary, for he had just commended Peter only a few verses earlier.

Actually, Neo, you are not totally correct on this. Jesus spoke the words twice. Once to Satan in Luke 4:5-8 (KJV)

4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
4:6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
4:7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
4:8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

He then spoke the words to Peter in Mathew 16:23.

But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

This is also recorded in Mark 8:33
But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.

Understandable, since the phrase "Get behind me, Satan" is omitted from many versions of the NT in Luke 4:8 (I had not realized this. I don't ordinarily use the KJV.)

The incident in Mark 8:33 is the same as in Matthew 16:23.

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I always took it to mean "get out of my sight."

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@Intrepid,

Of course, there is something we must remember about the biblical record and it's history of Christianity - prior to the printing press; every single bible was hand written, usually by monks living a secluded lifestyle in a monastery. If anyone had a little dyslexia - Good Heavens, imagine what THAT could've done?? Or perhaps a monk was just a wee bit confused by a passage, he may have attempted to "clarify" or "alter" that passage for future readers, and he then, unknowingly obscured whatever it was that was actually once a spoken history for many years before it became written history -so when all things are considered it's truly a wonder there is a bible at all. And what there is of it, I feel sure - resembles what you get when you play this game I'll describe. In this game, one person is given a sentence to repeat to the person next to him. Then that person repeats the sentence to the one next to him and so on. After about 25 people - the sentence comes out sounding absolutely NOTHING like what was originally actually said in the beginning of the game. Things such as this, I fear, have interfered with the original & true "message" that was intended to be gained from the bible, but the bible as we know it today has been altered too much to make any sense out of it.

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@babsatamelia,

babsatamelia wrote:

. . . but the bible as we know it today has been altered too much to make any sense out of it.

Or, perhaps, God has protected the copying and translating of his word so that the message remains as Paul averred ". . . inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight." (2Timothy 3:16)

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@babsatamelia,

Babs, Welcome back. Of course, we had to wait for the printing press before we got to read it in print. Thanks for the reminder.

I also think about the expression, "we never know what people say behind our backs." that must have come from that Biblical passage as well.

Setanta made me think of the word "satan" for the devil, and now I realize that it could have come from this fellow called a satyr.

Wasn't he Greek?

http://www.deism.com/images/bible%20monsters%20satyr.jpg

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funny how expressions evolve and change according to context. I too took it to mean piss off... or get lost... or get out of my sight in the biblical anecdote..... but squinney's please don't tempt me is the context you most hear it used in today.....and also very well could be the meaning of it in the bible story since that's what Satan was doing....tempting Christ.

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@Intrepid,

There is nothing narrow minded about comparing a superstition such as Christianity to an unsubstantiated belief such as UFOs, in fact rather the opposite is the case.

The narrow mindedness would come in when a Cristian refuses to see the blatant similarities.

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@Setanta,

The Greek verb on the link means "crawl" - presumably Satan was pictured as a snake.

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Get thee behind me, Satan

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