[Amilius777]

I think you may have something there. But I think that's more of a "fixated" state of Consciousnes that the temple priests and the religion became dominated by
It's called "Tribal consciousness". Majority of organized religions are stuck in this constricted dualistic mentality. Christianity at large is also stuck here.

It's an unfortunate and natural consequence of humanity having a dark past in tribalism. Many people evolve out of this mind set in their later years but some stay here. Many world religions came out of the tribal age which ranges between the time of many ancient empires to the time of the Englightenment during the 1800s.

Tribal people are extremely conversative. God is always Out There . They are usually for these people and against those. They marganlized the less fortunate. They believe in blood sacrifice or that they needed one. They think in dual terms. They buy into the illusion of THIS world of separation more than those at a naive infant consciousness. They also are part of Belonging Groups.

I would say that they don't reflect the image of the true face of God, they reflected an egotistical, self-centered, dualistic God or Energy that is dividing. The word for the "devil" or diablos is "to tear apart". The devil is the dualistic, lower, negative manifestation of Spirit that has a force and energy of its own or as long as people allow it to exist in the world and themselves. It all comes from Fear as you say. and they feared Jesus' power because he did one up every other healer and miracle person at that time. This energy of fear can be likened to an angel or a god in a sense that it is an expansive and collective consciousness. Jesus called this thing "Satan" or "the evil One". It's evil and one because all evil that comes from this mind-set is all the same no matter how small or big the sin. Fear/Self-centeredness.

So I do beleife this energy does take over people and especially religions and governments. Jesus was pointng out how his own people became subjected to such an influence. Negative karma on their part but Israel also had the positive karma to attract such an entity as Jesus to be born among their generation.

Seeing it from that perspective makes more sense to me. This separation Angel or god is the devil and it only exists if we allow fear instead of love to colorize our consciousness which affects our religious outlook, how we see others, treat others and ultimately ourselves