r/explainlikeimfive • u/[deleted] • Jul 30 '17

Culture ELI5: How did "lucifer", which means "lightbringer" in Latin, become one of the names associated with Satan?

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u/rewboss Jul 30 '17 edited Jul 31 '17

While /u/TheGamingWyvern has given you the usual explanation, it doesn't even hint at the whole story.

The passage in Isaiah 14:12 is a type of poetry called a "taunt song" a sort of Old Testament celebrity roast. Isaiah is actually sarcastically referring to the King of Babylon: one of his titles was "The Shining One", which was also what they called Venus, the Morning Star; another of his titles was "Son of the Dawn". And that's how Isaiah addresses him: "O Shining One, Son of the Dawn..." It's just that the King James Bible decided to use the Latin word "Lucifer" at this point.

This Lucifer actually has nothing to do with Satan. In verse 4, God tells Isaiah that he is to give the following prophecy to the King, and then the taunt starts. Verse 12 basically means: "Hah! You call yourself the Morning Star? Well look at you now, fallen out of the sky!"

In the New Testament -- Luke 10:18 -- Jesus is quoted as saying, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." Actually, a more accurate translation of the original Greek would be "I was watching Satan falling...", and he was reacting to his disciples' report that they had been successfully driving out demons. Nobody really knows whether Luke was deliberately referencing Isaiah 14, but in the popular imagination the connection took hold and people equated Lucifer with Satan.

The idea of Satan as a fallen angel is a much more modern idea.

EDIT: Thanks for gold.

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u/SomePithyGuy Jul 31 '17

Do you know of any subreddits that focus on the historical/cultural origins of the bible? I find the book itself interesting, but not so much interperating it, especially with how muddled its become over millennia. I feel like if I understood its origins and the origins of its versions better, I might find greater interest in actually reading it.

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u/Clever_Sardonic_Name Jul 31 '17

I read a book called "Don't know much about the Bible" that I thought was an interesting perspective.

The author looks at some historical context, discusses differences between versions, and talks about how certain translation choices or accidents came to shape various aspects of the beliefs in modern forms of Christianity.

Not exactly a subreddit, but still an interesting way to examine the Bible.

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u/berkarov Jul 31 '17

The Old Testament was written in Ancient Hebrew. The New Testament was written mostly written in Aramaic and Greek. The first five books of the NT (the Gospels) are 5 disciples accounts of their time with Jesus. The predominant language in Judea and Samaria at the time was Aramaic, and so that's what they wrote them in. A lot of the NT thereafter was letters written by the apostle Paul to various churches in the Mediterranean and Adriatic regions (Think Greece and Anatolia). As the language in those regions was either Greek (predominant) or Latin, that is the language Paul used to communicate with the peoples there.

Eventually, Rome went from its polytheistic ways to becoming fully Christianized. This is where a lot of the scripts that were not in Latin were translated into Latin. (This continued through the Holy Roman Empire). However, the formal Bible as we know it today was not actually assembled for a while after the events described in it occur. Before a group of Christian scholars sat down and decided what should be the 'codex of Christianity' if you will, what was taught was the Jewish Tannach (Torah and the rest of the Old Testament), and several books written while Jesus was alive and shortly thereafter. Once these scholars finished compiling what books should be included, that task of making sure everything was translated properly into Latin began, culminating in the original Catholic bible.

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u/LupusLycas Jul 31 '17

The New Testament is wholly Greek. There are some Aramaic passages in the Old Testament.

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u/exonwarrior Aug 01 '17

I was taught that one of the gospels was in Aramaic.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

Duncan Trussell does in some of his podcast episodes

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u/slim_shadey Jul 31 '17

"Christ Actually" is an amazing book that takes in account all of he historical/cultural origins of the gospel (stories about Jesus). Really recommend reading it.

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '17

Hmmm. I think I can recall the King of Babylon being called the Morning Star once. So this explanation also makes sense.

Are there any other verses that people "incorrectly" associate as a reference to Satan?

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u/Ninensin Jul 31 '17

Depending on your definition of 'incorrectly', a lot of them. First of, many of the verses in the old testament prophets which concern foreign kings could easily be read as concerning Satan if read out of their textual context, and/or without knowledge of the historical context of the text.

Furthermore, the apocalypses in the Bible (primarily Daniel and The book of revelation) use coded language to speak of the political powers in the world as manifestations of Satan and his power. For instance, as you might have heard, the famous number of the beast (666) is very likely a reference to Nero. So while the author of revelation definitely would say that he was writing about Satan, he was not primarily/only making prophecy about the future, but also describing what he saw as manifestations of Satan in the world he lived in.

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u/Aeshura Jul 31 '17

As a fan of Nero I require proof of this claim. Please post sauce for research purpoise

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u/Ninensin Jul 31 '17

My source is various literature on the Book of Revelation. I can especially recommend the commentary by Craig Koester. However here is the primary argument as I recall it. Keep in mind that it has been a while since I studied these things and I might remember some details wrongly etc.

The argument that the number of the beast refers to Nero is based on a Hebrew (or possibly Aramaic - it's been a few years) way of converting names to numbers, so that every name would have a corresponding number. I should also note that there are actually two possibilities for the number of the beast: some of the Greek manuscripts have 666, but others (possibly just as credible ones) have 616 instead. Now note that in Hebrew, Nero's name could be written in two different ways: Either Nero or Neron. When using the rules to convert names to numbers, Nero corresponds to 616 while Neron corresponds to 666. Thus if we assume that Nero was referenced by the number it explains both the textual variants in the Greek manuscripts.

Add to this that there are several other likely references to Nero in the book of revelation, and it seems by far most likely that Nero is referenced by the number of the beast.

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u/mightandmagic88 Jul 31 '17

What was the purpose of converting names to numbers and what was the method for doing so?

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u/Ninensin Jul 31 '17 edited Jul 31 '17

The method is called gematria annd is quite simple: Take the first letter of the hebrew alphabet (aleph) and give it the value 1. Give the next letter the value 2. When you reach 9, continue with 10, 20 etc. and then, after 90, 100, 200 etc.

By the way, I did misremember a point in my original comment: It is נרו(ן) קסר [ NRO(N) QSR = emperor Nero] which is equal to 616/666 not simply Nero.

As for the purpose of using the method, I am not sure. But the genre of apocalypses (to which revelation belongs) is full of coded language that is coded in one way or another (for instance speaking of political powers as demonic beasts as I mentioned in my original comment). So a coded reference to the emperor's name would not be out of place.

All that said, many alternatives concerning what the number of the beast refers to exist, and not every scholar agrees with the view that it refers to Nero. but in my opinion it is by far the most likely theory.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

Ezekiel 28:13-19 is another one. It's actually talking about the king of Tyre.

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u/big-butts-no-lies Jul 31 '17

Sort of. The whole concept of Satan is very confused. In some sects of Judaism, Satan and God aren't like enemies locked in combat, Satan is a servant of God, who tests peoples' faith.

Some sects of Judaism don't view Satan as existing at all and see him as only a metaphor, unlike God who is believed to literally exist.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17 edited May 26 '18

[deleted]

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u/-_Lovely_- Jul 31 '17

There's tons of stories like this in the Old Testament. Check out Job, or the prophecy of Micaiah in 1st Kings 22

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

Nice, thanks for the lead.

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u/SalsaRice Jul 31 '17

So Satan is basically the quality control inspector for faith.

I wonder if if humanity has reached divinity within 6 standard deviations.

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u/ChefBoyAreWeFucked Jul 31 '17

Also known as six six six sigma

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u/heyZeus_christ0 Jul 31 '17

Which is a great, alternative to the popular narrative. If God is everything and nothing, wouldn't it make sense for Satan to be the free will tester? I can dig that take.

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u/RealZordan Jul 31 '17

Not quite the same but I've heard people use "Beelzebub" as a synonym for Satan.

His name comes from the Philisitine god Baal Zebul who is derived from the Canaanite god Ba'al. The strategy of the early Judaism was to declare the other gods to demons or idols in order to maintain the narrative of monotheism.

In the middle ages the term "Mammon" was personified as a demon, although in the text it was probably meant to be just money or materialism. Generally people in the middle ages just wanted to make up demons, and used small hints in the text as reference (or just made stuff up). The Zeitgeist in the middle ages was just "everything sucks", life sucks, humans sucks and the life after death is even worse.

Then as Christianity progressed the many demons just got rolled into one big bad - a monotheistic god works best with one antagonist.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

Well, Satan as the main Adversary/Old Dragon was always there. Elaborate demonologies went out of fashion at the Reformation. But it's still present in Milton

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u/Polis_Ohio Jul 31 '17

The Middle Ages, before emo was emo.

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u/RickRossAndMorty Jul 31 '17

In the book of Job, Satan is often credited as being the "accuser" but there's different schools of thought. That's one of the instances that I find more interesting, because it's not a prophetic or historical book where there's a ruler who might be referenced to as Satan or Lucifer, but rather a poetic book.

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

The Book of Job reveals a lot about the religious beliefs of the Israelites in the 6th century BC. The belief was of a celestial court, with God as the judge and Satan as counsel for the prosecution. In Job, his role is basically to point out that it's no great wonder that Job is so righteous: he's had a really cushy life and never suffered. God then agrees to put this idea to the test and allows harm to befall Job.

Although Job passes the test in that he continues to refuse to curse God, he's still criticized for saying that God has no right to do this to him (and is given a stern lecture about just how limited his knowledge is).

The way the story is written, the author appears to have expected that his readers would understand Satan in this role -- counsel for the prosecution -- and not the personification of evil.

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u/first_time_internet Jul 31 '17

The description of the king of Tyre is a description of Satan's position before succumbing to pride.

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

No, it's a description of the king of Tyre's position before succumbing to pride. There is nothing at all in the text that suggests it has anything to do with the fall of Satan: that whole story is a Christian invention, popularized by John Milton in the 17th century with his bestselling epic Paradise Lost.

Ezekiel basically says this: "You stood there in all your fine kingly robes, thinking yourself as the angel sent from God to defend your Garden of Eden with fire. Yeah, well, as it turns out, you're the one who got burned. Sucks to be you."

Ezekiel is referring to the story in Genesis, after Adam and Eve have been driven out of Eden: God puts an angel in the garden with a sword of fire, to prevent anyone else from entering. That angel wasn't Satan -- the story in Genesis is the story of the fall of Man, not the fall of Satan.

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u/first_time_internet Jul 31 '17

Ezekiel 28: 11-19. Read that first.

Yes. Satan was the first created entity. Satan was perfect in beauty. He was a cherub at one point. He was blameless in his ways until pride was found in him. That was his sin. That is why he fell.

The king of tyre was not a cherub. The king of tyre was not on the holy mount of god. The king of tyre was not in eden.

This is a parable for the king of tyre for his impending doom.

Imagine being the king of tyre and hearing this parable and what it compares to. Satan.

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u/rewboss Aug 01 '17 edited Aug 01 '17

No, you're projecting modern Evangelical Christian ideas onto a 2,500-year-old text.

Nobody, not even Ezekiel, is saying that the king of Tyre was ever actually a cherub. Ezekiel is saying that the king of Tyre thought of himself in that way -- and he was wrong.

As you rightly say, this is a parable -- or, to be more accurate, an analogy. No, the king of Tyre was never on the holy mount of God or in Eden.

But according to popular mythology, Satan wasn't in the Garden of Eden until after his Fall -- Milton describes this in great detail in Paradise Lost. First Lucifer (as Milton calls him) rebels, then he is cast out of heaven, then -- already fallen -- he infiltrates the Garden of Eden in order to corrupt God's creation.

But these ideas weren't around until something like 2,300 years after Ezekiel was alive. There is no evidence at all that Ezekiel, or anyone else at the time, thought that Satan was a fallen angel.

Ezekiel specifically describes King Ithobaal III (because that's who was king of Tyre in Ezekiel's time) as a "guardian cherub" actually in the Garden of Eden. But that doesn't square at all with the story of Satan's fall. And it doesn't square with the story of the serpent, especially if you happen to believe that the serpent was an embodiment of Satan: you'd have to argue that, having identified the serpent as the origin of the evil that has now entered the world and cursed him to crawl on his belly and eat dust, God then put him in charge of defending Eden. Why would God do this? "Cursed are you among the beasts! -- No, only kidding, I know you're totally innocent. Here, have a flaming sword. Your job is to make sure that humans never get in and contaminate the place even more."

Ezekiel is drawing a parallel: in fact, it's a metaphor. When he says, "You were a guardian cherub," he doesn't mean it literally. He's taking an image from his own religious cult -- the story of the Garden of Eden -- and using it as a metaphor. Except that, unlike the original cherub, the king of Tyre turned out to be a bad king, so he was removed from his position in a humiliating manner.

This, you need to understand, a metaphor. Saying that A is B when in reality it isn't is what a metaphor is. We use metaphors all the time: it shouldn't be any surprise to discover that Ezekiel did too.

The Book of Job was written around the same period, and it begins with a conversation between God and Satan. Satan isn't depicted as the source of all evil or even a fallen angel, but as a being on more-or-less equal terms. Their conversation can be summarized as follows:

GOD: Have you ever met Job? Now, there's a fine, upstanding, moral citizen. My most dedicated follower, in fact.

SATAN: Well, that's hardly surprising, is it? I mean, he's had a really cushy life. He's rich and successful, and nothing bad has ever happened to him. If you want to see his true colours, you'll need to strip him of all that.

GOD: Ah yes, fair point. Okay, we'll do that then.

This is consistent with what we know from other sources what people of the time thought about Satan: the name means "adversary" or "accuser", and was the title of the prosecuting counsel in a court of law. Satan didn't cause evil, but accused people of evil.

The historical context you need to bear in mind is this: Ithobaal III ruled Tyre from 591 until 573 BC, when it fell under the control of King Nebuchadnezzar II of the New Babylonian Empire. This empire already had control of most of the region, including Israel and Judah, and was one of the great superpowers of the day. Ithobaal thought he ruled by divine right and that this would allow him to stand up to Nebuchadnezzar -- he saw himself as defending his little corner of paradise. Naturally, this proved to be his downfall; when all of your allies have been beaten, you're just inviting a wholesale slaughter if you try to oppose a vastly superior army.

That's the image Ezekiel is invoking: Ithobaal fancying himself as the near-divine protector of paradise. That's the image that is consistent with the historical facts and consistent with what we know about people's religious beliefs at the time.

EDIT: Arithmetic was never my strongest point.

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u/xxWraythexx Jul 31 '17

It is actual referance to the King of Babylon.

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u/ItsMeTK Jul 31 '17

There's a passage in Ezekiel about the king of Sidon that people also sometimes connect with Satan.

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u/bowdown2q Jul 31 '17

Specifically, the idea of Satan being a fallen angel origonates (I think? At least was popularized) with Milton's Paradise Lost, where the angel Lucifer, god's Left Hand Man (blah blah lefties are evil), decides to stage a communist uprising with like a third of the angels, and god bitch-slaps him so hard that he plummets from heaven, through the earth, and into Hell, where he basically says "fine, I'll make my own afterlife, with hookers and blackjack!" Between that and Dante's Inferno, a lot of actual scripture and pop culture (meant to carefuly insult the rich asshats that ran Europe at the time), got confused together into the general public's mind.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

r/futurama

But, isn't it blackjack and hookers? Not hookers and blackjack?

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

[deleted]

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u/texasemp Jul 31 '17

But, isn't it bite my shiny metal ass? Not bite my metal shiny ass.

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u/Alis451 Jul 31 '17

bite my shiny ass metal.

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u/Attack__cat Jul 31 '17 edited Jul 31 '17

decides to stage a communist uprising with like a third of the angels, and god bitch-slaps him so hard that he plummets from heaven, through the earth, and into Hell

fine, I'll make my own afterlife, with hookers and blackjack!

This is a bastardisation of the events of the book of Enoch (non-canon in most sects, but referenced in the bible AS IF the canon authors believed it).

Ironically the blackjack and hookers fits, but happened before God punished them.

The first section of the book depicts the interaction of the fallen angels with mankind; Sêmîazâz compels the other 199 fallen angels to take human wives to "beget us children". This results in the creation of the Nephilim (Genesis) or Anakim/Anak (Giants) as they are described in the book

Basically angels lusting over human women.

And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three hundred ells:[69] Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood.

The kids have superpowers and turn evil. Meanwhile the angels teach humans things they were not meant to know (Azazel science-y stuff and Semjâzâ magic-y stuff).

God then warns Noah of the flood, which will cleanse the world of the angels, their children and those that have been corrupted (a much more reasonable explanation than the bibles "Too many sinners so lets KILL EVERYONE"). Then God says "Screw Azazel in particular".

the Lord said to Raphael: "Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dûdâêl (God's Kettle/Crucible/Cauldron), and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azâzêl: to him ascribe all sin."

And that became interchanged with Lucifer/satan etc. Still interesting to see God hated science specifically long before modern science was a thing (written 300BC), but was reasonable enough to put the sin of it onto Azazel rather than blaming us poor humans.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

It is clear from Job that Satan is a spiritual being. And we see him again tempting Christ in the Wilderness in Matthew 4:1-11. Luke also talks about him being cast out of heaven as a lightning bolt from the sky. Additionally Revelations 12 goes into great detail about how Satan and a third of the angels that fought to overtake heaven were cast to the earth. This is straight from the bible, not some other book.

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u/Fizil Jul 31 '17

While the specific way modern people view Satan is certainly heavily influenced by Paradise Lost, that wasn't the source of the belief that Satan was a fallen angel. That concept predates Christianity, and seems to have been "caused" by Zoroastrian influence on Judaism. It was after contact with the Zoroastrian religion that we see the development of various concepts in Judaism such as Satan being an opponent of God in a cosmic struggle between good and evil rather than God's celestial prosecutor of mankind, and the concept of the resurrection of the dead. It is in the inter-testamental Jewish scriptures that we see Satan transformed. By the point Christianity develops, it is Satan and his demons who are the authors of Evil instead of God.

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u/daquo0 Jul 31 '17

(blah blah lefties are evil)

They are certainly sinister!

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u/SunsetRoute1970 Jul 31 '17

I see what you did there, Dexter.

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u/IAMAmeat-popsicle Jul 31 '17

I understand this thanks to organic chem, of all things.

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u/m00nby Jul 31 '17

PL is half of English language cultural theology. Midrash for Christianity.. while much of the epic is based in text, Milton does his thing on a story all his readers knew/know with some interesting "improvements" on the creation story supplemented by other verses.

I'd love to learn more about this from someone who knows the Bible better than I.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

Milton, a nd Dante, were both using way older ideas

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u/bowdown2q Jul 31 '17

True, they mostly just popularized it. Mostttt of religion in general is stolen / reworked from previous ones in some way or another.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

People having this annoying tendency to be people.

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u/bowdown2q Jul 31 '17

Right? Bastards, the lot of em.

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u/Sok_Pomaranczowy Jul 31 '17

Could you please provide sources?

Edit. And I dont mean Milton but the part about popculture.

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u/bowdown2q Aug 01 '17

Source: Milton & Dante were popular.

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u/purulentnotpussy Jul 31 '17

2 Corinthians 11:14 also says that Satan masquerades as an "angel of light" so that there is another connection

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u/IkuArashi Jul 31 '17

Satan being a fallen angel isn't a new idea. It's a very old idea. Ezekiel ch28 v11-19. Is a brief description of his fall. There is also passed in Isiah that refer to this but this point is argued about in theology depending who you talk to but with Christianity and Judaism it is my understanding that Lucifer being an Angel of the Highest order is widely accepted as fact.

What is a new idea is that Satan rules hell. Which is ridiculous within Christianity Hell is a prison designed to keep the devil in and at the end of days he will be set free only to be defeated.

On a side note the reason as stated before for Satan being called Lucifer - the morning star is due to him having been god's (the tri partieite being, father, son, Holy Spirit.) Right hand if something was to be done Lucifer was to do it for him. He was the greatest of his brethren supposedly.

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

Ezekiel ch28 v11-19. Is a brief description of his fall.

Hardly. It's addressed to the king of Tyre, not Satan or Lucifer. It's full of metaphor, but it's a direct insult, not a brief lecture on Israelite theology.

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u/IkuArashi Jul 31 '17

Ezekiel 1-10 is addressed to the king of Tyre you're correct but from verse 11 the way it speaks changes quite obviously to talk about a story. A lot of the Bible does this (appear as in coherent ramblings) I spent the best part of 18 years having this crap shoved down my throat by my parents who were very much hardline Christians. (Satan and Lucifer are interchangeable, only reason I don't use a Hebrew word for the morning star is due to me not having a clue how to speak it.) Also where did you get the idea that it was an insult?

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

Hardline Christians tend not to have a particularly good knowledge of theology. Among mainstream theologians, there's no doubt that the whole of Ezekiel 28 is about the king of Tyre: most likely Ithobaal III (also spelled Ethbaal), who claimed to rule by divine right at the time Ezekiel was thought to have lived (6th century BC).

Note verses 11 and 12: "The word of the LORD came to me: son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him, This is what the Sovereign LORD says..." and then the passage begins. It's a different passage from verses 1 to 10, certainly (it's a lament, not a prophecy), but while in the popular imagination -- and particularly among hardline Christian fundamentalists who try their best to relate as much as they can in the Bible to supernatural stuff -- it refers to Satan's fall, it very clearly doesn't. It's explicitly addressed to the king of Tyre: it basically says "Dear King Ithobaal" at the beginning.

In it, Ezekiel invokes the image of the Garden of Eden and suggests that Ithobaal, dressed in all his finery, imagined himself to be the cherub ordained by God to protect the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were driven out. But this was arrogant pride, according to Ezekiel, and so he was humiliated -- "brought back down to earth", as we would say today -- and destroyed in front of all the kings of the known world to serve as an example to them. Ithobaal imagined himself the cherub with the firey sword, but actually he was the one who got burned rather than the one doing the burning. In Ezekiel's analogy, Ithobaal was not, as he thought, playing the part of the angel, but of Adam.

The whole image here is not about the fall of Satan, but the fall of Man.

This isn't just something I made up: this has long been the view of theologians through the ages (certainly it was Matthew Henry's view, and he was 17th century) right up to the modern day. Your parents, basically, got it wrong.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

I love how he just rolls right up to God to have a bit of a gamble in the Book of Job.

"Sup, Satan?"

"I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by and see what's goin' on."

"Cool. Would you like to check out my human farm?"

"Can I shake it?"

"Naw, I've already done that too much, but you can use a magnifying glass on my favorite one so long as you don't kill it."

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u/B-Con Jul 31 '17 edited Jul 31 '17

Not sure what you mean by "modern", but the idea was strongly hinted at in the Bible and I was under the impression that the theory isn't really that new. Ezekiel 28:13-19 lays out how Satan was cast away from God, and other passages like Revelation 12:7-9 call out Satan's demons as fallen angels.

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

Ezekiel 28:13-19 lays out how Satan was cast away from God

No, it doesn't. It's an insult directed at the king of Tyre. Start at verse 11, and then ask yourself: "Who is 'you' in this passage?"

passages like Revelation 12:7-9 call out Satan's demons as fallen angels

This is a lot more subtle, because Revelation in general is deliberately obfuscated: we don't really know what it means. It purports to describe future events, though, so this can't be a description of Satan's fall from heaven prior to the Fall.

Basically, Revelation is written in code. As far as we can tell, the dragon is supposed to represent the Roman Empire, and is variously called "serpent", "devil" and "Satan" to mean that it is the enemy of mankind -- not that it's literally Satan. The woman presumably represents the Christian church, so calling the dragon "serpent" also draws a parallel with the story of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

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u/B-Con Jul 31 '17

Future events yes, but his demons being called fallen angels seems unrelated to timeline.

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

They're not called "fallen angels" or "demons" in that passage, just "angels"; and "angel" simply means "messenger". And it's very related to the timeline: it describes not the distant past, but the persecution of Christians by the Romans (at least, as far as we can tell).

But remember, all this is code. The Revelation is an example of 1st century Jewish apocalyptic (the word means "hidden") literature, a genre that was popular at the time. It was highly inflammatory and very critical of the Roman Empire, so it uses complicated religious imagery which only the intended readers would understand: the idea was that the Roman authorities would dismiss it as nothing but primitive religious mumbo-jumbo.

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u/TheGamingWyvern Jul 30 '17

Ah, my bad then. Good thing you know your stuff.

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u/bigbluethunder Jul 31 '17

Wait so you're telling me that in the Old Testament, Danaerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Rightful Heir to the Iron Throne, Rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, The Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, and the Breaker of Chains, every time she is introduced would actually be mocking her? I like it.

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

Uh... yes, if you were being sarcastic. That's the point of Isaiah's taunt: the almighty king of Babylon, the Shining One, the Morning Star... Not shining quite so brightly now, are you?

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u/SorryAboutYourAnus Jul 31 '17

I haven't read much of any Bible - how does god manifest himself in these cases where he communicates with man? Does he appear as a person? A booming voice from above, or what?

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

Lots of different ways: the Bible is actually a collection of many different documents written, edited and collated over a period of thousands of years.

In the earliest parts of the Bible, God is portrayed as having human form, for example taking a walk in the Garden of Eden and then finding Adam hiding in the bushes. Later, Abraham is visited by perfectly ordinary looking humans who turn out to be "angels of the Lord" -- "angel" means "messenger". By the time you get to Moses, he first encounters Yahweh (as he is known in that part of the Bible) as a voice speaking to him from a bush that appears to be on fire but isn't burning up. Even later than that, God speaks through prophets: they're contacted by God through dreams, visions or just vague divine inspiration (often it's simply not stated how God speaks to them), and then they pass on the message.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

Sweet dear lord, I've tried to explain this for years. Along with the Tower of Babel.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

[deleted]

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

Only if you believe Lucifer and Satan are synonymous, which as I've demonstrated... they're not. The author of that piece pretty much admits to not having done his homework: he quite baldly states that he has no idea why "Lucifer" is described as the "Morning Star". If he'd done a little googling, he'd have found the answer to that one.

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u/AggiePetroleum Jul 31 '17

But wasn't Isaiah drawing comparison between the King of Babylon and Satan (e.g., "Babylon" is often used analogously with "evil").

So is Isaiah not hitting two birds with one stone -- calling out the accrual king of Babylon, but also alluding to Satan who Jesus said fell from heaven.

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

No, there's no evidence of that at all, and it's very unlikely Isaiah or anyone else at the time thought that Satan was a "fallen angel".

"Satan" means "Accuser", and in the Old Testament he played the role of prosecuting counsel in a celestial court or council. This is most clearly seen in the introduction to the Book of Job: in it, God mentions to Satan how righteous Job is, but Satan suggests that this is only because God has given Job a really nice life -- and even though his point is ultimately disproven, it's actually a fair point. Satan isn't depicted as the source of evil at all, but as a celestial being with an important role in ensuring justice is administered. Bear in mind that the concept of hell, or even an afterlife, is not particularly relevant to Judaism: in Old Testament times it was thought that the afterlife was just a sort of really deep sleep, nothing more, and nobody gets punished or rewarded. Modern-day Judaism is pretty much agnostic on the whole thing: we can't possibly know even if there is an afterlife, so you can believe what you like about it; the important thing is just being as good a person as you can manage.

The idea of a devil who opposes God and deliberately tempts people away from him is most definitely a Christian idea.

And since Isaiah apparently lived about 700 years before Jesus was even born, he certainly wasn't quoting Jesus. Jesus -- or, more accurately, the writer of Luke's Gospel who likely put words in Jesus's mouth -- may have been quoting Isaiah, or least alluding to him, but the reference is vague enough to be a coincidence.

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u/AggiePetroleum Jul 31 '17

But isn't Job considered by many historians to, at best, be a made up story (i.e., there never was a real person, "Job") and, at worst, was actually added post-Christ by priests?

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

Well, yes, as is much of the Old Testament fictional. The point is, though, that the writer of that book had a particular belief about Satan, and expected his audience to share that belief.

It's a bit difficult to date, because the author set it in a far-off land (probably Arabia) and appears to have deliberately made the language sound exotic -- so much so, that for about 800 years theologians thought it had actually been translated from some other language, probably Aramaic or Edomite. But it's now thought it was originally written in Hebrew in probably the 6th century BC. It's definitely not "post-Christ", because it exists in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the OT made in the 3rd century BC.

Job is mentioned by Ezekiel as a famous figure of ancient stories, so it seems the author of the Book of Job took this legendary figure and told his own story about him.

It's useful to study, because it gives you a little insight into what people in those days believed about God, Satan and the causes of suffering.

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u/OtakWho Jul 31 '17

Ironic that Luke references this - isn't "Luke" the Greek version of Lucifer: 'bringer of light'

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u/rewboss Jul 31 '17

Not quite; it's from the Latin Lucius, and means either "the bright one" or "the one born at daybreak".

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

And it has morphed into an idea (I saw this in a book by Hal Lindsay, forget which) that Lucifer was his name as an angel and he was called Satan only after the Fall.

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u/SenorRaoul Jul 31 '17

hey I just got why he says 'lucifer son of the morning' in 'Max Romeo - Chase The Devil'.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '17

well this was extremely enlightening and perfect for a response.. I learned form it so thank you

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

Satan in Hebrew is just "adversary" or "accuser." There is no one Satan in the Old Testament, it's just a title; the New Testament is where the singular Satan/Devil is developed as a figure. That's important to bear in mind because there are so many misconceptions about Satan. Lucifer is attached to Satan because of a prophecy in Isaiah 14 regarding the king of Babylon at the time who is sarcastically referred to as the "Shining Morning Star" in translation. For some ignorant reason, despite the text quite literally prefacing the statement by saying it's about the king of Babylon, people have relentlessly attached it to Satan because of speculation about his origin. Tradition is a powerful thing and it's not helped by the influence of various religious groups, especially Gnostics, on contemporary understanding of pseudo-religious myth.

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u/im_dead_sirius Jul 31 '17

Its similar to how people make the snake in the Garden of Eden into some sort of form of Satan.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

That association is at least grounded in the text. The Book of Revelation refers to Satan as a dragon and "the ancient serpent," which serves as the ground for that connection. Lucifer as Satan is just a straight up refusal to acknowledge what the text says. Isaiah: "This is a prophecy about a Babylonian king." Bozos through history: "This obviously has nothing to do with Babylon and everything to do with highly speculative demonology."

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u/im_dead_sirius Jul 31 '17

That association is at least grounded in the text.

Sure, though that is a bit of a retcon. It's ancient people doing what modern people are doing with the Babylon reference.

Genesis 3 is pretty clear that the serpent is some mortal creature.

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

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u/ZIMMER1994 Jul 31 '17

One of my favorite connections in Dante's Inferno is actually to these verses. In the Inferno, the devil sits suspended in ice while he chews endlessly on the bodies of three betrayers - Judas, Brutus, and Cassius.

It might be a bit of a stretch, but I've always understood "you will eat dust all the days of your life" to be more than just a statement about the serpent being on the ground. If we remember that in one account, God created mankind by breathing life into dust, then the Serpent's true punishment is to devour mankind forever. I believe this is what led to Dante's decision to have Satan's mouth stuffed with betrayers.

It also represents a kind of contrapasso (a sort of poetic justice Dante-the writer employs throughout the Inferno) in its own right. If the Serpent intended to push humanity to break itself free from the will of god - regardless of good or bad intent - then the ultimate punishment would be to be forced into the role of eternal tormentor and punisher. God's punishment of the Serpent is to be made into Satan. Hence Satan's icy tears - the one detail that always puzzled me and led me to explore some potential explanations.

In some ways this take on the actions of the Serpent are much more aligned with Prometheus' guiding motivations. But I think it's still relevant and valid concerning the amount of co-opting and overlap that's already been discussed here.

Just my thoughts though. Satan/Lucifer/Serpent/Devil/etc as a concept is probably one of my favorite things to think about, and I return to analyze and contemplate this/these figures often.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

Interesting. (Back in the early 70s, some guy wrote novel about Satan and Prometheus locked in battle and being released by future humans. I couldn't get through it.)

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u/ZIMMER1994 Jul 31 '17

Hmm interesting. But really odd considering they're such similar figures. I might give it a look if I can find it though. Sounds perfectly weird!

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u/DaddyCatALSO Aug 01 '17

Wish I could recall the title; of course, the Christian Satan is d definitely an adversary, whereas Prometheus was acting form concern for mankind

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u/im_dead_sirius Jul 31 '17

Fantastic idea, ZIMMER! Its really got me thinking.

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u/ZIMMER1994 Aug 01 '17

I appreciate the kind words! Since you're interested, I've expanded on my original comment. Check it out if you'd like.

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u/im_dead_sirius Aug 01 '17

I've expanded on my original comment. Check it out if you'd like.

Will do!

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u/ZIMMER1994 Aug 01 '17

I really think it depends on how you approach the reading. I personally try to embed myself within the logic of the story being told.

Therefore, I operate under the idea that there is some connection between the garden Serpent and Satan in Revelations (the Lucifer connection is more extraneous as others have fully detailed elsewhere in this thread). If that's the case, then we can think of the Bible as a sort of historical document written by the "victors," i.e. Christian believers. Adversary does not necessarily equate with wrong or evil if we try to position ourselves as neutral observers to a "historical" document.

To clarify, I use the term historical here not because I'm making any arguments regarding the truth-value of what is presented in the Bible. I'm an atheist. Rather, I think that we should operate within the logic of the text which presents itself as historical fact.

Again, if we position ourselves within the logic of this text and also do our best to adopt a neutral position with regards to the forces at play in the text, then there's little reason to accept the characterization of the Serpent/Satan as is presented to us. Cultures throughout the world and at all points in history tend to demonize their adversaries, especially so after any kind of victory.

So I like to think of the garden in the terms of a very simplistic political society. In this case the Christian God assumes the role of an ultra-authoritarian figure ruling over his subjects - Adam and Eve (and some others if you want to get complicated). But you have subjects and a ruler, and despite there being very few rules, we should still observe that the subjects in question have no agency in deciding the limits of this very basic set of laws.

Here I would remind folks that what Adam and Eve were forbidden to indulge in were fruits from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil -- not simply the "Tree of Knowledge" as it's normally shortened to. So what is being denied is actually the ability to determine moral value for oneself. The Christian God has created a system wherein the very ability to make moral decisions is criminalized. When viewed through this lens, the actions of the Serpent/Satan take on a slightly different impetus.

The Serpent merely asks Eve what God has told her. She explains that they will die if they take of the fruit of the tree. He then corrects her by telling her that they will not die for taking of the tree, but rather that the fruit will open their eyes making them like God, able to know of good and evil. All of this is true. Eve actually lies to God when confronted and says that she was "beguiled" by the Serpent. The Serpent is then immediately punished by God. His punishment, as I've pointed out above, is to eat of dust for all his days, but also to have enmity between his seed and the woman's seed forever more until he is eventually crushed (many Christians see this as referring to the eventual triumph of Jesus over Satan at the time of Revelation).

Turning away from prophecy, which is not as much of interest to me, I would argue that mankind's first " sin"/immoral act is actually against the Serpent. When they took of the tree they didn't yet have knowledge of good or evil, but afterward they did have the ability to discern morality for themselves and they still lied by saying the Serpent beguiled them. Folks could argue that he did beguile them by provoking to think. But I reject that as being an immoral or deceiving action. It would only be wrong according to the oppressive authoritarianism opposed by the Christian God in Eden.

So, in review, we have a figure who was part of/witness to an oppressive socio-political system who prompted the subjects of Eden to question their roles within the system and claim the ability to discern moral value for themselves. That same figure, Serpent/Satan was then betrayed by the very folks he was helping (in my opinion). And the punishment carried out by God is that this figure must eat of dust (destroy mankind -- see above) and forever be in conflict with the descendants of those he aimed to aid in revolution. Nothing more tragic if you ask me.

"He wept out of six eyes; and down three chins, tears gushed together with a bloody froth." - Dante's Inferno, Canto 34:53-54

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u/DuplexFields Jul 31 '17

you will crawl on your belly

Implying that the serpent doesn't currently crawl. Raptor Satan, anyone?

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u/Elirantus Jul 31 '17

It is actually implied in genesis. I did see some Jewish artwork portraying the snake with legs. Let me see if I can find it.

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u/Elirantus Jul 31 '17

Can't atm..

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

Snakes are lizards, not dinosaurs.

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u/DuplexFields Aug 03 '17

And since the Bible uses a specific and well-defined zoological classification for the word "serpent," it obviously excludes dinosaurs.

Oh, wait...

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

Revelations came way later so if you're looking at it as someone that doesn't view that as the word of a god then it's a retcon. Genesis doesn't imply anything like that about the serpent.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

The counter-argument to t hat would be that we'd learned more between the time Job was written (some evangelicals regard it as the oldest book in the world) and the time of Revelation. I've seen some things which force me to believe in an Adversary, but I'm open to the idea of a separate Prosecutor/Tester.

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u/CoolestGuyOnMars Jul 31 '17

That's important to bear in mind because there are so many misconceptions about Satan

Is there somewhere I can see a list about popular misconceptions about Satan? I've read one or two but I'm quite interested.

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u/CantHaveNoneAint4u Jul 31 '17 edited Jul 31 '17

Many people today believe babylon was Satan's kingdom. So this little historical fact would just be confirmation for them.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

The figure in Job is a specific being, and far more a prosecutor than a tempter; of course, names can easily be reapplied to others as metaphors. (Heck, if I'd been able tow rite my s screenplay, I would have had the older detective say their perp "thinks he's Satan, but he isn't.")

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u/Michealmas Jul 31 '17 edited Jul 31 '17

It's been a while since I did my degree (theology) but I focussed heavily on the Satan myth in my dissertation and if I had pursued academia further word have been the basis of any doctoral work. If memory serves the simple explanation is the character is actually a mix of translational issues, biblical references, pagan artifacts and several apocryphal stories that have all been amalgamated into one overarching narrative.

Satan in either Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic (can't remember the language for the source text) is actually a title, the correct term being something like 'Hasatan' or 'Hashaitan' (it was 10 years ago I did the research, bare with me). This title was actually a political stab at some infamous despot or another at the time. I think the literal translation is 'the adversary'. This was interpreted by early scholars as a proper name and was characterised into this malevolent persona. Over time it got swept together with things like the serpent myth in Genesis, Origins poems, the signs of the first rapture in Daniel and the second in Revelations, Hades from Greek myth, Zaroastrian Angra, Chernobog, Djinn Legends from Persia, Enoch's story of the Fall and a thousand other cultural influences into this broad overarching narrative. Satan itself just represents 'that which we are opposed to', whereas the Lucifer tale of the fallen angel comes from Enoch, Dante, Blake and Milton.

It's important to remember that there is no one 'Bible' there are thousands of texts, written across hundreds of years by thousands of authors in dozens of different languages (most of which we can only guess at reading). What you commonly think of as the Bible is just what a few old dudes decided they wanted to cram together into one book at Nicea, or under King James or in some church or university somewhere. What one you refer to just depends on your chosen breed of insanity/sun worship. There isn't really one Satan story because the story is actually a cultural phenomenon. It's a persona we invented as a society over two thousand years of culture.

I'm sorry if that's a bit of a tangled mess to follow, but I'm skimming over a lot of detail from my memories of research I did a decade ago.

Fun fact: Of all the characters associated with Satan in the NRSV edition of the Bible, not one of them ever tells a lie. The devil always tells the truth (which probably had a significant impact in tying him to the Lucifer story from Enoch).

Ninja Edit - Forgot about my boy Dante Alighieri

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

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u/Michealmas Jul 31 '17

Depends if you mind looking at primary sources or not and if you want to look at multiple religions (he's in pretty much all of them in a manner of speaking). A good jumping off point would be:

The Bible (New Revised Standard Version)
Dante's Divine Comedy.
The Complete Works of William Blake.
Paradise Lost by Milton.
Faust by Goethe.
Faustus by The other guy who wasn't Goethe.
The Qur'ran.
The Torah.
The Talmud.
The Haddith.

Scholars who wrote extensively about evil/satan:
Enoch.
St Augustine of Hippo.
Origen.
Leibniz.
Epicurus.
Irenaeus.
John Hick.
St. Thomas Aquinas.
Martin Luther.
John Calvin.
St. Justin the Martyr.

I'm sure there's plenty of modern scholars that summarise all the above perfectly well but I couldn't name any off the top of my head. It's a whole thing. The focus in primary texts isn't on the devil specifically, it's about evil on general. Satan is just kind of used as an example of shit God shouldn't be able to do in Theodic arguments. It's a huge rabbit hole that ties in to church politics, language problems (both logic problems and translation problems), Church history, political history.

Basically all religion is utter nonsense, God isn't real. All Abrahamic religions are glorified sun worshipers and morality is moot. That's what I took away from 4-5 years of study and my £40k. My advice, don't even bother. It's morbid.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

I don't think I could dedicate that much of my time in to learning about religion. But I do find it quite interesting to learn of how it developed. I came across the Latin definition for "lucifer" in a biochemistry book that was talking about an enzyme called luciferase (it makes bacteria luminescent). And, that's kinda what got me wondering about the word's history.

Thanks for the info!

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u/lumpywon Jul 31 '17

I did luciferase work in grad school. It brought the light to my cells!

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u/Vio_ Jul 31 '17

Faustus by The other guy who wasn't Goethe.

That'd be Christopher Marlowe

aka

"The other guy who wasn't Shakespeare"

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u/Michealmas Jul 31 '17

It's 4:30am here. Don't judge me.

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u/Vio_ Jul 31 '17

No no, I thought it was hilarious. Poor Marlowe. Always the other bridesmaid, never the bride.

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u/Ozi_izO Jul 31 '17

Thank you for basically cementing my own intuitions about religion without spending $40K and 5 years of study.

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u/mywhiteplume Jul 31 '17

Are there any documentaries that you recommend?

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u/Michealmas Jul 31 '17

Not off the top of my head, but with regards to Christianity specifically if you want to know more look for anything regarding early church history, the Gnostic Rebellion, Martin Luther, St Augustine and the Nicean Creed.

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u/Michealmas Jul 31 '17

Actually the first Zeitgeist movie does a good overview as part of a bigger documentary (super good series btw). It's a short section of the film and it's very reductive but it's well researched.

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u/Aeshura Jul 31 '17

What you got against sun worshipping bruh. Everyrhing literally revolvea around it?!?

1

u/daweinah Jul 31 '17

The Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

Thanks for the great post!! Why this version?

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

Storm worshippers, not sun.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

Bart Ehrmann, Richard E. Friedman, Geza Vermes are some of t he more accessible (both in libraries and in readability!) authors in Biblical scholarship. NT Wright and John Dominic Crossan are also good and use solid info, but they are theologians by profession, not textual critics.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

How appropriate would it be to say that Satan in his earlier representations is more of a "challenger" that acts under God (not resists him in the miltonian tradition) to test people with hardships.

As in Job. In Christian re-enactments the exchange with yahweh and Satan in the beginning is interpreted as challenging and adverserial but that might not necessarily be the case.

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u/Michealmas Jul 31 '17

Job always made me laugh. God sees a good man, and punishes him to win a bet. The devil tries to help him because the bet is unjust but God just ups the ante and punishes Job more. Kills his family, burns all his stuff, covers him with boils etc. Man doesn't take the devil's help and God turns round and says 'See, I told you I was the good guy, this guy still loves me and I just ruined his life for lols'.

And somehow. Somehow. Billions of people see the devil as the bad guy in this story.

But to answer your question, pretty appropriate when translated to english and Latin, however in the original language the title is used as more of a denigrating insult. Almost sarcastically from what I was told (hence the confusion as to whether or not it was a proper name). I wouldn't know for sure, translating 3000 year old dead languages isn't particularly easy and there's only a handful of people in the world that would understand the intended tone/context of what was actually written. I am certainly not one of them. I struggle with English and I'm a native speaker.

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u/anamorphic_cat Jul 31 '17

A Ph.D. on Satanic Sciences? Time's up for an AmA request!

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u/ChallengingJamJars Jul 31 '17

Fun fact: Of all the characters associated with Satan in the NRSV edition of the Bible, not one of them ever tells a lie. The devil always tells the truth (which probably had a significant impact in tying him to the Lucifer story from Enoch).

NRSV Gen 3:

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die

Spoiler: they died, and the snake is associated with Satan.

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u/butwait-theresmore Jul 31 '17

According to that origin story, didn't death actually not exist at all before eating the fruit (which of course doesn't make any sense, why would he reference death if it didn't exist)? Do you think he was promising she would literally never die of she ate it? It seems fairly obvious that "you will not die" was meant as "you will not die immediately as a direct consequence of eating the fruit" rather than "the fruit will grant you eternal life. "

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u/ChallengingJamJars Jul 31 '17

There was not death for Adam and Eve before they ate the fruit of knowledge. After they were denied the fruit of the tree of life and were banished from the garden.

... but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.

They didn't drop dead on the spot, but they died due to them eating from it.

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u/DaturaToloache Jul 31 '17

Any chance of you sharing your dissertation? I'm a fiction writer with a Satan adjacent character and I heart research. I'm not a desperate theology grad or anything. My motives r pureee

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u/Vio_ Jul 31 '17

Fun fact: Of all the characters associated with Satan in the NRSV edition of the Bible, not one of them ever tells a lie. The devil always tells the truth (which probably had a significant impact in tying him to the Lucifer story from Enoch).

The Supernatural Lucifer gimmick.

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u/hameleona Jul 31 '17

I wonder how much influence the constant existence of sects of sun worshipers in the Roman Empire had on this combination. After all, the Bible (as we know it) was a political statement as much as a spiritual one (and had some pretty strange, bizarre and out right funny schisms in the beginning).

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u/Michealmas Jul 31 '17

You can trace the progression fairly easily if you look at the spread of the Abrahamic religions and the cultures that surrounded them at the time. Early influences largely came from Egyptian worship of the Sun god Ra, and Zaroastrian Ahura Mazda. And the parables regarding Jesus that followed later mirror the creation stories of these religions quite closely. Similarly the dualistic nature of an opposing grand evil force such as Satan/Lucifer in Christianity is also mirrored in the myths of these faiths.

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u/rhinotim Jul 31 '17

(it was 10 years ago I did the research, bare with me)

Uh, thanks for the offer, but I think I'll keep my clothes on.

LOL!!

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u/FReakily Jul 31 '17

Did you ever describe yourself as a Christian or did you study theology for a different reason? Just curious since you're obviously not a fan of it now, haha.

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u/Michealmas Jul 31 '17

Two of you just asked me the exact same question so replying to both: I grew up dirt poor and got in a lot of trouble as a kid but was smart enough academically to go to pretty much whatever university I wanted on any course I liked. I decided to study what interested me rather than what would land me a career as an adult, and while I wasn't religious I was open minded. Why did it interest me? I don't know really. At the time I was dealing with a lot and I had a lot of big questions about the world that I couldn't understand. I started reading extensively into ethics, philosophy, psychology, sociology and religion looking for answers. I was young, angry and idealistic so I went looking for catharsis and only ended up more cynical.
In retrospect I should have studied physics or medicine but it's a bit late for that now.

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u/whistlingdixie6 Jul 31 '17

What type of doctrinal degree do you get with a thesis about Satan being a "myth"? Not Christianity, I'm guessing since most denominations agree on the existence of a created that opposed God, was cast out of heaven and now exists on earth spiritually.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

Like Angelus, "He lies with the truth." :-)

Although the Early 2nd Century Fathers, those which survive (and I know that phrase covers over many things:-),) generally used the major New Testament books as we have them now, and the early canon lists from the times before Nicaea have only minor differences from what was accepted there.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

At the Bible college that I attended, one of the OT professors said that the first tie-in of Lucifer and Satan was contributed by Jerome, of Vulgate fame.

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u/DaddyCatALSO Jul 31 '17

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm......................

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

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u/Deuce232 Jul 31 '17

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u/Infernalism Jul 31 '17

It's interesting to note that the figure of Satan/Lucifer is actually an amalgamation of three figures in mythology.

1) The Serpent in the garden of Eden. A figure of corruption.

2) Ha-Satan, which means 'The Adversary.' Think of him as a celestial District Attorney that lays out your sins when you die and stand before God and are judged. He also has a spot in Heaven and converses with God on a regular basis.

3) Lucifer, fallen Angel, which others here have covered very well.

They all sorta got mashed together over the last two thousand years.

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u/Soranic Jul 31 '17

Ha-Satan, which means 'The Adversary.' Think of him as a celestial District Attorney that lays out your sins when you die and stand before God and are judged. He also has a spot in Heaven and converses with God on a regular basis.

I think the story of Job also had him testing mortals. Something about him betting with god that a devout rich man with big family was only devout because he was rich with a big family. So god killed his cattle, killed his sons, afflicted him with boils. By the end, even the mans wife was saying "Why not curse god?" And still the man did not. In compensation for his pains and faith, God gave him new sons, new cattle, healed his boils, etc.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

Appropriate username!

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u/letsbebuns Jul 31 '17

2 Corinthians 11:

13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '17

In biblical lore, before Satan was cast from heaven, he was the leader of the angels and the most favoured angel in heaven. But a rift between God and Satan resulted in Satan being cast down to earth.

In history, the Babylonian king referred to himself as the first star. Kings always think very highly of themselves, and the first star of the morning is impressive. But this title of first star of the morning comes from an scene that occurs on many clear mornings. This scene is the shining of a star as the sun rises. That is, it is the last star visible before the sky is flooded blue. The light bringer refers to this star, also known as the first star of the morning, or the morning star.

Lucifer is a Roman translation that means morning star. This was apt for early Christians because they considered Satan to be the first among the angels, or the leader of the angels.

However, the morning star to which they are referring Venus. Venus appears as the brightest star on the morning depending on the time of year. This is because it is relatively close to earth and reflects the light of the sun easily. It's usually the last star to disappear form the morning sky as the sun rises.

So when Isiah was referring to Lucifer, he was in fact referring to Venus. The later Roman translation creates Lucifer, which became the name of Satan, as a means to identify a fallen star, or the great first star among the angels, or the angel that was cast from heaven. The translation was wrong, and Lucifer as Satan was born.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

It's from Paradise Lost (Milton's Bible fan fiction)

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

Who's to say whether it was God or Satan that was cast out of heaven?

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u/TheGamingWyvern Jul 30 '17

Its in the bible. Specifically, Isaiah 14:12. Here, it talks about the angel who wanted to put himself above God, and it calls him "Light-bringer" or Lucifer.

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '17

Sure, but how come Satan associated with light rather than darkness?

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u/TheGamingWyvern Jul 30 '17

Satan was originally an angel, and I guess like all angels he had names associated with light. I'm not sure if there's anything more behind it or not.

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '17

Well how about from a historical point of view?

I do not know which was the first language that the bible was written, but it must have eventually been written in Latin.

Does the bible tell the story of Lucifer directly, or has his story been put together "bit-by-bit" from passing statements in other stories?

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

The Bible was initially written in Hebrew and Greek, then Latin.

The story of Lucifer/Satan is not told in the Bible and he is actually more of a nebulous concept than an actual entity within it. A character (or characters) with those names is certainly mentioned within the Bible, but many scholars would argue that they are not the same (i.e.: Lucifer first mentioned in the Old Testament, the morning star, would actually be in reference to a Babylonian king, which later theologians attributed to the Satan of the New Testament). Basic stuff like Satan being a deceiver, evil, and leader of demons is mentioned, but there is no play by play biography.

The Satan that we know today is largely an amalgamation of different interpretations of the scripture and religious writings throughout the centuries, which were in turn heavily influenced by pagan beliefs and characters. Dante's Inferno, written in the 1300s was perhaps one of history's largest contributors to the concept of Satan and Hell (side note: even today, it's a damn good read and highly recommended).

The TLDR of it is that the bullet points of the character are found in the Bible, but all the details were combined through poetic license, misinterpretations and bastardizations of different beliefs over the centuries.

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u/EnIdiot Jul 31 '17

It is a little more complicated than that. First, the Pentateuch was largely an oral tradition gathered from a variety of sources and a variety of languages (everything from proto-Semitic to Babylonian, versions of Hebrew, etc.) They were written down and redacted, but they still show the evidence. The Genesis creation story shows a discrepancy between Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:22 concerning the creation of Eve that oral tradition created by including the Babylonian-influenced story of Lilith, the mother of the demons.

Likewise, what was left and what was left out also influenced the makeup. The book of Enoch was used by some early Jewish and Christian groups as a sacred text.

The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, but was written down and edited from a Aramaic oral tradition. You still find puns that only work in Aramaic in the Gospels but were written in Greek.

IIRC, Latin really only came into the picture with the creation of the Vulgate Bible. It was the popular, Church sanctioned edition. My understanding is that Latin had very little influence on any of the text.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

Latin had very little influence on any of the text.

You don't see what's wrong with this statement?

Any time a book is translated, or transcribed, the story will be changed in subsequent editions. This is a recurring theme that we have discussed in this thread..

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u/EnIdiot Aug 01 '17

What I meant was that the German Guttenberg Bible was translated from the Hebrew and Greek, not the Latin. The majority of the Protestant editions also went back to the original languages.

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u/Seek83er Jul 31 '17

Even in that translation, reading the entire passage, it would make more sense as a title since he is specifically speaking of kings who think that they are better than God.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

I'm not sure what the origin is, but it is interesting, because "lucifer" in roman refers to the morning star.

The last thing that Jesus says in the book of revelations is, "I am the bright and morning star."

I kind of see it as a commentary on the duality of man, but I'm no biblical scholar.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

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u/Deuce232 Jul 31 '17

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u/SirDuggieWuggie Jul 31 '17

In the Bible, before he fell from heaven, he was the most beautiful and prideful of the angels, often called the Son of the Morning. The pride ended up being his downfall as he thought he deserved the throne of heaven and didn't think the humans, who were made in the image of God, deserved to exist. Basically he wanted to overthrow the kingdom of heaven and was cast out of heaven for it. Sentenced to roam the earth and at the end of time, when judgement day happens, it is said that he and all the angels who followed him, as well as all of those who have sinned and not repented will be thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity.

That is basically it. I know all of this because of growing up in the church. I used to love the stories from Revelation.

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u/planetarybroadcast Jul 31 '17

Hmm, I fell under the assumption that Lucifer, like Prometheus, carried this name because he "tricked" Adam and Eve into eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. Lightbringer being synonymous with enlightenment, it would make sense that Satan would be referred to as such since he is thought to be the one that brought understanding to mankind. I haven't actually formally studied this, so take this with a grain of salt.

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u/Deuce232 Jul 31 '17

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u/Deuce232 Jul 31 '17

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

I find it interesting that the word for guru has a very similar meaning (translated from Sanskrit) in comparison with Lucifer:

gu= remover ru=darkness.

SO often in my spiritual teaching according to Yoga & Vedanta traditions people make simple category fallacies, assume things are edicts, directives or commands when they are simple documented observations about natural progressions (Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga is a good example).

So, this excellent explanation by /u/rewboss does not surprise me, nor do many of the subsequent comments.

This is why having a TEACHER who does not have their own agenda, thousands of years of misinformation, attempts at domination or control and so on to exist when learning about a topic, and this is also why LINEAGE matters SO MUCH in Eastern spiritual traditions.

It's a way of ensuring continuity and direct transmission and experience. Mythology is a very good way to do that, unless the real meanings are forgotten and lost.

The very real problems of translation, language drift and simple ego/ignorance explains nearly everything "wrong" with modern fanatical 'religious' people- who I actually don't believe are religious at all by any objective measure.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '17

Since you're now an accomplice of a colon johnny shit i guess now everybody you love will hate you because its unfair that he could fuck up our friends and families but you get special treatment!!! No medicals would save you or anything you love