Demon
Old Testament

The existence of demons as inherently malicious spirits within Old Testamental texts is absent. Though there are evil spirits sent by YHWH, they can hardly be called demons, since they serve and do not oppose the governing deity. First then the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, the "gods of other nations" were merged into a single category of demons (daimones) with implied negativity.

The Greek Daimons were associated with demi-divine entities, deities, illnesses and fortune-telling. The Jewish translators rendered them all as demons, depicting their power as nullified comparable to the description of shedim in the Tanakh. Although all these supernatural powers were translated, none were angels, despite sharing a similar function to that of the Greek Daimon. This established a dualism between the angels on God's side and negatively evaluated demons of pagan origin. Their relationship to the God-head became the main difference between angels and demons, not their degree of benevolence. Both angels and demons might be fierce and terrifying. However, the angels act always at service of the high god of the Israelites, differing from the pagan demons, who represent the powers of foreign deities. The Septuagint refers to evil spirits as demons (daimon).
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