>Background

In the past, 'esoteric' has often been interpreted as 'secret,' 'hidden,' or 'occult.'
More recently, its definition has been expanded to mean 'difficult to understand,' 'specialized' and 'obscure.'
I would like to expand it yet further to include 'unexamined,' 'neglected,' and occasionally 'indirectly influential.'

>Project

This site constitutes a project:

1. first, to amass a collection of topics of interest
2. second, to duly research these topics, and
3. lastly, to possibly draw connections between topics and form general hypotheses from these connections

>Topics

1. Origins of Satan

- Zoroastrian influence

- Literary portrayals

- evolution of monotheism:

The evolution of monotheism plays an important role here in the development of the role(s) of Yhwh as well.
Some passages (such as Dt 32:8-9) mention other gods, but by the time of Amos, Yhwh was taking ownership for the exoduses of people other than the Israelites.
(Amos 9:7)
Also, Isaiah focused on the uniqueness of God (Isa 46:9)

Zoroastrianism's influence on the Jewish development of Satan

There is a possibly quite significant influence of Persian dualism (in the form of Zoroastrian teaching) on Hebrew concepts of God and Satan.
Zoroastrianism's "strict monotheism was a fairly radical concept in the Near Middle East...."(85)
"Even more exciting is the possible influence of Zoroastrianism in books such as Job, Zechariah, and Chronicles, all of which feature a satan figure and all of which can be dated to the Persian period."(85) (Again, the dispute about the time period in which Job was written is not mentioned.)

Problems of organization

The democracy of structured sentences, paragraphs and chapters is not what I want. I want a flow and a correspondence of ideas, but not a cheap, visual gimmick.

But...the ideas must be consumed linearally.
What of a way to arrange facts and hypotheses?

(thoughts from reading M Blanchot - authoritarial faux pas)