Do translators leave out the definite article of Satan in the New Testament?

Question

It is well known that in many cases in the Old Testament that whenever Satan is described, it is accompanied by a definite article rendering it as ‘Ha-Satan’ (The Satan).

(This question will not go into the connotations of what this means about the view of Satan in the OT as there are many questions on this already).

However, watching the bible project podcast (see 20:00-22:40) OT scholar Tim Mackie asserts that the actual Greek of the New Testament follows this same tradition of rendering Satan with a definite article, making it The Satan.

Yet in our translations, we only ever see ‘Satan’ as a Proper Name and never a title. I tried to research if this did happen in translation, but information is very scarce.

So, does the original Greek of the NT render Satan as “The Satan”?

Or did it originally render it this way and do our translations of the Greek text word Satan differently?

Answer 1

In addition to Dottard's excellent response regarding the Greek articles, I would point out a few related details from the original Hebrew.

In Hebrew, the article has a grammatical function which converts an otherwise common noun into a proper noun. This is unlike English. In English, if I say "the tree is tall," "tree" is still a common noun. But every Hebrew word prefixed by a definite article is grammatically proper, and made so by the article.

Names in Hebrew do not have articles before them (unlike Greek) because names are already proper.

There are three things that will make a Hebrew word proper (or, more precisely, definite).

1. It is a name.
2. It has a definite article.
3. It has a pronominal suffix.

Any one of these three, or any combination of them, will cause a Hebrew word to become proper. In Hebrew, this has more than just an impact on how "titled" the noun may be. In fact, it has nothing to do with respect at all. It is purely grammatical.

For example, in Hebrew, "the light day" would combine a proper noun "the light" with a common noun "day", thus forming a sentence due to the inequality of the two nouns' "definiteness." The translation would be "the light is day." But if the two juxtaposed nouns are either both common or both proper, and have the same definiteness, they form a Hebrew "construct chain," which means they have a prepositional (e.g. belonging) relationship. So "light day" would be translated as "the light of day."

In the Old Testament, Satan is prefixed by "the" because the word is not a name, and it is made proper, and more specific to "THE" adversary, by the addition of the article. The word "Adam" may help illustrate this, because, without the article, it would generally be translated as "man", yet with the article, which makes it proper, it becomes "Adam." So when we say "the adversary" in Hebrew, the article is what causes it to become a name, i.e. "Satan." (Keep in mind that an article may also be necessary to distinguish between a construct chain and an implied statement of being necessitating the use of "to be" in the translation. However, "Satan" seems not to appear in these forms in the Old Testament.)

Greek articles serve a different function than do Hebrew articles. In Greek, many texts will use the article before Satan, but not all of them do. Greek articles are far more complex than in English, and a definite article in Greek is sometimes properly translated as "the" or as "a/an" or not even translated at all into English.

Essentially, unless one understands Greek grammar well, it would be advisable to be cautious about making unwarranted conclusions from its existence in a particular text. It is not equivalent to English.

Answer 2

First, the rules governing the definite article are quite different in Greek and English. For example, English never has a definite article before a proper name: In English we would never say, "I gave a dress to the Susan".

Yet, in Greek this is commonly the case. That is, quite often, proper names have the definite article. The proper name "Jesus" most often has a definite article. Most other proper names follow a similar pattern.

In the Greek NT, the word Σατανᾶς (Satanas) occurs 36 times, 27 have the definite article, which is not surprising - it follows the rules of Greek grammar which requires the article and English does not.

Here is an example to illustrate the point with my literal translation:

• Matt 3:13 - Then comes the Jesus from the Galilee to the Jordan unto the John to be baptized by the him.

Note that good Greek demands these articles and good English omits them. This is part of the difference between the two languages that translators understand.

Further, there are times when the Greek has no definite article but English demands one, but this is outside the scope of the question.

Here are two more cases:

• Matt 4:10 - Then the Jesus says to him, Get away Satan; for it has been written: Lord the God of you shall worship and Him alone shall you serve.
• Matt 12:26 - And if the Satan casts out the Satan, he is divided against himself. ...

Again, notice that articles are used quite differently in Greek from English.