Job, Satan, and Sympathy for the Devil: How Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Traditions Rewrote the Biblical Story

Rabbinic literature typically portrays Satan not as the Devil, but as an accuser trickster. Thus, the Talmud can claim that Satan's grief exceeded Job's own and that Satan acted "for the sake of heaven." However, sympathetic readings of Satan/Iblis also surface in Christianity and Islam. Origen's doctrine of apokatastasis envisions the Devil's eventual eschatological restoration, while the Sufi mystic al Hallāj interprets Iblis's fall as the tragic consequence of uncompromising monotheism. This paper is the first to perform a close comparative reading of these provocative interpretations. It will ask why they show sympathy to Satan and how that impacts their understanding of Job, illuminating how each religious tradition negotiates the boundaries between rebellion and divine justice.

Sivan Nir is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Jewish Studies, University of Vienna, where he works on the FWF-funded project "Job in Early Medieval Jewish Literature."

The project examines the reception and interpretation of the Book of Job in early medieval Jewish literature. Nir's broader research specializes in the reception of biblical characters, narratives, and literary poetics across the Bible, Midrash, medieval Jewish Bible commentaries, and the interreligious environments in which these traditions developed.

His current work on Job provides an especially relevant scholarly context for his EHJ Conference 2026 presentation on Job, Satan, and the transformation of biblical narratives across Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions.

Sivan Nir, Ph.D., is a scholar of Jewish Studies and biblical reception currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Jewish Studies, University of Vienna.

His scholarship focuses on the reception and characterization of biblical figures, the literary poetics of Midrash, medieval Jewish Bible commentary, and the interaction of Jewish exegetical traditions with Christian and Islamic intellectual and literary cultures.

Since November 2025, he has worked on the University of Vienna research project "Job in Early Medieval Jewish Literature," funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

His research has examined figures including Balaam, Jeremiah, Esther, Ruth, David, Hagar, Pharaoh, and Job, as well as broader questions concerning how biblical characters and narratives were reshaped in rabbinic and medieval interpretation.

Nir is the author of two major monographs on biblical reception, Midrash, medieval Jewish exegesis, and rabbinic narrative.