Jonathan Burke Responds to My Post on Satan and Demons in the NT (part 1)

Last month, I wrote a brief post reacting to an episode of the Religious Learning podcast in which Christadelphian Jonathan Burke discussed his beliefs on the existence of Satan and demons. As I noted in that piece, while Burke and I are in agreement that neither Satan nor demons exist, we disagree on whether individuals like the apostle Paul or the historical Jesus believed in them. I am convinced that they did while Burke thinks this misses the mark. After reading my post, Burke stated that he would publish a video that would not only respond to my take but would lay out his own views on the matter. Well, today he published the first video in what looks to be a two-part (?) series on the subject.

I’ve got a lot of thoughts about (and disagreements with) Burke’s views but I’d rather wait for part two before I even start to think about putting pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard, but you get the idea). However, I would like to say a couple of things now. First, Burke spends considerable time laying out my view, doing so both charitably and accurately. In fact, as he was working on the video he and I dialogued some via Twitter DMs because he wanted to make sure he got my position exactly right. In the modern culture of click-bait articles and trollish YouTube clips, this is virtually unheard of. So, many thanks to Burke for taking the time to do this. Second, Burke’s presentation is clean, concise, and informative. Not only was he easy to follow, but I learned a few things while watching! He is clearly well read and has a deep appreciation for the texts we are dealing with. It’s one of the reasons I’m posting his response directly to my blog here (and will do so for part two).

The video is 26 minutes so you may have to carve out some time later in the day to watch it. However, I promise you it’ll be worth your while.