Lucifer

I recently came across a hilarious site called Demonbuster which claims that the Paisley pattern as known from countless shawls, bedspreads and pyjamas is, in fact, demon possessed (as is anyone who can't stand the music on that site apparently). Fear not - this post isn't about that site but it got me thinking about Satan, Lucifer, His Infernal Majesty - call him what you will - and certain anomalies surrounding his nature. Some are real eye-openers.

If you ask any literalist Christian for their 'proof verse' on Mr D, they will invariably proffer the following from Isaiah 14:12:


This is from the original Hebrew btw where 'Son of the Morning' is used as a synonym for the name 'Lucifer'. Some later translations use 'Lucifer' interchangeably but this is a massive problem because Lucifer is a purely Latin word and Isaiah was written before the development of Latin - actually it is a smoking gun for Biblical tampering but that's not the main whammy.....

All Christians agree that Lucifer is the 'Morning Star'. But what then are we to make of this from Revelation 22:16:


So Jesus is the Morning Star???? As well as Lucifer, instead of, or are they both the same?

Again, Peter weighs in at 2 Peter 1:19:


What's going on here and who cares? Well there's an important point - this is not bashing - it is that literalism cannot be true.

Those who insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible must accept that Jesus is Lucifer - something that cannot be true as it undermines the Bible itself - ergo: literalism is anti-Biblical and the Bible must be symbolic. Moreover - it proves that the symbols are used interchangeably and re-used in different contexts: ie it is not absolutist.

This kind of method can equally be applied to the Qur'an (I don't apply it here because a) it would play into the hands of the Islamophobes and b) very few people here are interested in the Qur'an anyway) and I would argue that it is a potential method of defeating extremism and religious literalism (aka fundamentalism) wherever they arise whether in Islam or Christianity, government or in popular movements.

We discussed this once before where Imams in Yemen challenged Jihadis to a religious debate with the winner accepting the other side's view - the Jihadis always lost (can't find the link) but, more importantly, they reformed! Yemen now has virtually solved their Jihadi problem.

We need something like this now - not just in terms of religion but right across the board: a rebirth of philosophical debate and the methods of critical thought.

Unfortunately to prepare the way for that foundation the literalists have to go.

I think it very well might be.....do you have an aversion to the music on the site?

Apparently, according to the homepage:

That definitely sounds like there might be something awry......

Unfortunately it isn't as easy to dismiss out of hand as that - in fact, this could well be a classic example of the sort of area where critical thought (or, God help us, research) might benefit us all.

According to John J Robinson the mistake occurred in St Jerome's 4th century Vulgate version which was adopted uncritically by the compilers of the King James version and henceforth became the misnomer that is continually perpetuated to this day.

But you fail to address the point (imagine my shock ) - the thing is that either way Lucifer does not exist and never has done.

The name is a mistake on the part of Jerome who mistranslated the name of the morning star and conflated it with the Latin term lucem ferre - ie "bringer, or bearer, of light." - in reality, in the Hebrew original this term was used to describe the Babylonian king Helal, son of Shahar, which is translated as "Day star, son of the Dawn."

So Jerome made a mistake. KJV followed uncritically and no such figure as Lucifer exists in original scripture - hence the reason why Jesus could identify himself with the morning star with impunity.

Oh. Well, how about that demon-possessed Paisley pattern then?

Yes, a view which I would adhere to myself. Which is why (to return to the original purpose) those who hold such a view must speak up against the more simplistic notions that are the bane of contemporary life.

All this talk of 'evil' etc doesn't benefit anyone. It is also a convenient cover for abuses of all kinds - we all know Abu Ghraib and the atrocities there which would undoubtedly have been addressed differently were the victims not tagged as 'evil' (or were white/western), but I was reading today that hate crime in London has increased against Muslims 600% since the first London bombs.

And of course, not only is this minor news but nothing is being done relatively speaking when compared to the steps taken against the 'terror threat'.

Why is this?

They are Persian.....

Actually I agree with you, you make some good points - some parts are meant to be literal and some are clearly metaphoric.

All I know is that some people take it literally just as some take the Qur'an literally, equally erroneously, and it is these people who I'm addressing. It is no way a criticism of Christianity as a whole and doesn't need defending any more than Islam does if someone says the Wahabis are fascists (I don't like the Wahabis - did I ever mention that?) - it has no bearing on the people who follow the religion who are 'allright'.

I also agree with your analysis of creationist debates (please God don't let us go there) - I am a non-literalist creationist myself - in many ways it is just ammo to win a cheap point. But let's move swiftly on....

My point is that this thing called the truth (aka facts) should be paramount and supplant any belief.

If one believes in a religious teaching then it must be susceptible to academic analysis and it must change also in light of discoveries of new facts. That's a problem Islam faces now actually - belief took precedence over facts a few hundred years ago so we have a belief system that is more suited to a few hundred years ago...but I digress.

Oh, and hi BRussell

Or rather good illustration perhaps.....

Yes, apparently the name was in use in Origen's time but the misinterpretation of Jerome still stands - as does the argument that the original Hebrew could not have mentioned the Latinized name. It is moot whether the coining arrived from Jerome's mistake or Jerome's mistake was based on a prior knowledge of the name which predisposed him to make his error.

In any event, Origen was extrapolating - nowhere in Genesis is the serpent claimed to be Satan. A belief in this cannot even approach literalism because the beliefs deriving from the Genesis myth are largely later (Christian) accretions.

Yes, it would.

But we do know quite a bit even from NT sources - there seems very little doubt that we are speaking here of a conflation of Jesus with the morning star. And of course his birth was heralded by a star - and it was the Magi astronomers (ie Zoroastrians - the Jesus/Zoroaster links are also fascinating) that figured largely in the mythos.

It would not be beyond possibility that the original Christological teaching was astrologically influenced and that the later Church redactors neutralised this aspect by conflating it with Satanic overtones - hence the confusion.

Where also Jesus was crucified......

A classic text and a must-read.

Most important is her documenting that Satan was never seen as an opponent of God in the Hebrew view (and still isn't) but rather was described as 'God's faithful servant'.

The transformation into the 'evil one' came in the first 100 years after Christ's death where the Christian faction that was later to consolidate power as the only orthodoxy invented the concept as a means of subjugating all rival views (ie demonizing them as 'evil') in order to gain that power.

That's all there is. They invented the idea of Satan as we know it. It was never part of Old Testament or Christological theology.


Far from it - I am in retirement

It was just to keep any prowling literalists on their toes (not that there would be any round here of course....)

Because the erroneous conflation of Lucifer with the Morning Star in Isaiah occurs in Jerome's translation regardless of whether the name Lucifer was known before and it was Jerome's Vulgate that was drawn upon by the KJV not Origen.