Talk:Devil

!

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to Religion-related articles on Conservapedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

False etymology

διαβάλλω is contracted from διά and βάλλω and it means "to throw or carry over or across", but it is literally used to describe a move in wrestling or "to pass over, cross". So generally it is used to describe the throw of a single item, e.g. your opponent when wrestling or yourself (used reflexively as "to cross") - that's not how one creates chaos! Figuratively, it means "to attack a man's character, calumniate", "to speak or state slanderously", "deceive by false accounts", etc. To stress my: διαβάλλω does not mean to create chaos, it has nothing to do with disorder. διάβόλος is a slanderer, διάβόλος doesn't mean creator of chaos. There is no evidence that it is even used literally in the sense of someone passing, etc. (See Liddell-Scott]) --AugustO 09:04, 3 March 2013 (EST)

According to this, the word can also mean "divert from a course of action" and according to your website it could also mean "filled with suspicion against another" i.e creating discord, or chaos in other words. Therefore the interpretation of the word as chaos is valid. - Markman 09:21, 3 March 2013 (EST)

That is very weak indeed! Chaos implies discord, but filling with suspicion doesn't necessarily imply chaos. There is no source which ever has translated διάβόλος as "one who creates chaos" or even "one who throws things around" in the sense of creating the chaos. That's a mixture of clutching straws and wishful thinking, mixed with folk-etymology - it isn't used in that sense.

Indeed, διάβόλος is even one step removed from διαβάλλω - it is generally only used as "slanderer".

--AugustO 09:28, 3 March 2013 (EST)