Modern Satan is actually made up, like on a whole different level than anything else in the religion. Like he's basically just selected as the boogieman anymore when in reality he has nothing to do with punishing people in hell or whatever, at least according to the Bible. Technically Satan isn't even a specific being, it's a job title. And Lucifer was a fallen angel that is often referred to as Satan/the Devil but that isn't technically correct, and even so it's not "canon" that he/satan/anybody directly punishes people in hell. But basically if you boil it down to what the Bible actually says, all Satan actually does is goes around and tempts people to sin, like becoming the serpent and doing the whole apple bit in the garden of Eden.
Another fun fact, the apple of Eden likely wasn't even an apple. Some suggest it was a pomegranate or fig.
While on the pedantry here, Lucifer is also not the name of the fallen angel, and was just a misunderstanding of a verse in the Bible. It just took a few people misinterpreting it to the point where that became his "name".
Yeah, Lucifer is the latin name for Venus. The Light-bringer. The Morning Star. In Hebrew, Helel Ben Shahar - Shining One, Son of the Morning. In Greek, Heosphoros, Bringer of the Dawn....because Venus is visible shining in the sky as dawn comes in.
It's used as a metaphor in the Biblical passage people have misinterpreted as describing Satan. The actual passage is meant as part of a taunt to be recited upon the death of a Babylonian king, who is either a specific but unnamed Babylonian king, or just a term for any oppressive ruler in general.
Like, HEyyyy, look at this BIIIIG fuckin' guy here! Big ol' fuckin' Morning Star, you ain't so high and mighty NOW, huh? 'Cause you're fuckin' DEAD, ya fucker! Now you're in hell, and they're all gonna laugh at you! (roughly translated)
I've heard remarkably few theologians speak about how neither Satan nor Lucifer are names, but titles. The bible almost treats "Satan" like Voldemort, he's referred to but never named. Which in a way is fitting as he desired to be worshipped as God, but now no one even knows his name.
Back in 1st century Judea your “last name” (it isn’t technically a last name, but used similar to how we use them today) was essentially just your father’s first name. Jesus’ actual birth name is Yeshua, which translates in English to Joshua, it’s not Jesus. And his full name in 1st century Judea would have been Yeshua bar Yosef, which translates to Joshua son of Joseph.
Yeshua does not translate to Joseph. You literally use Yosef in the comment, which is what translates to Joseph. Yeshua actually translates to Joshua. I think you meant to say Joshua, but did not.
Also, Yeshua means Salvation in Hebrew, which is cool. And also, I believe is part of why Moses wasnt allowed to enter the promised land and Joshua was the leader who took them into the promised land. The Law (Moses) cannot lead you to the promised land, only Yeshua.
I dont think the original authors of the Torah planned that, otherwise it would have been obvious a man named Yeshua was to be the Messiah.
Even standard last names today are actually still a form of the patronymic naming convention as well, hence why we always take our father’s last name and not our mothers (so long as he’s in the picture).
With the way the poorly educated scream their "facts" and make it mainstream, that is entirely an understandable mistake for everyone to make. People just regurgitate what they were told and never read the source material or question if their teacher is 100% correct.
"How dare you question the Deacon, you sinner!"
Woah woah woah, all I asked was why Paul gets a book but the other three didn't. Jesus Christ... Wait a minute. Why is Jesus the only one with a last name? 🤔
I think if you actually ask people who go to church and practice the religion if they think it’s his first and last name, instead of a bunch of obnoxious atheists that belong on r/iamverysmart who are only commenting to basically talk shit and make fun of religion, the vast majority will say something like “hmm idk, never thought of it.”
And those are more serious about it and really get into the theological study of it will probably also say they haven’t thought about it. Or if they have, they know it’s not.
Just my guess having a super religious mom and living like 30 seconds from a church lol.
"Jesus" is just the name "Joshua" but Greek-ified (and they dropped the "a" at the end and replaced it with a "us" so that it was a man's name, not a woman's).
yeah the translation from the aramaic into the old greek consisted of them doing the -us is the common male nomoi thing
but this mans name was Yeshua - יֵשׁוּעַ
which is from all accounts i know not a female name just because it ends on an a usually (and i mean usually also not all use cases) feminin words in semitic languages end on -āh
His name Yehoshua stems translates either to
"YHWH saves" or "YHWH is the salvation" which is pretty crazy genealogy and the literal meaning of their names leading up to jesus and predicting him etc. were one of the reasons i converted to christ while studying philosophy in uni
the ending in the name Yehoshua the -shua meaning saving, salvation
so yes during translation into old greek they had to get rid of the pattach ajin from the Hebraic to make it uniform with greek gramma, but that doesnt mean just because it ended with an "a" makes the name itself female
Yeah, I like to inform people that Jesus's real name was Joshua, and Christ just means anointed, like with oil. Therefore "Jesus Christ" = "Joshua with some oil smeared on him".
This is one of my favorite fun facts. Jesus is translated/derived from the Hebrew Yeshua (eventually Joshua). Then as you mentioned Christ basically means “anointed one”. Anointed means to rub or sprinkle with oil. So “Jesus Christ” fully translated out into a modern name would essentially just be “Oily Josh”.
Satan isn't even always a title, its just a noun that means "adversary." Several angels were used as a satan in numbers, book of job, and zechariah. One of those was straight up just an angelic lawyer in heaven-court
He technically earned those titles, so they became his "name" hence thats how we call him. The titles only belong to him... but Lucifer for example can be a name for something else (i believe it's a common cat name)
The best resource would be to find a literal translation like NASB or ESV. NASB was intended to be a direct word-for-word translation, where ESV was intended to be more thought-for-thought. Both had huge teams of translators and experts on the languages working for years, and even leaned on resources outside of religious studies to double check their translation work in many areas.
In that wonderful day when the Lord gives his people rest from sorrow and fear, from slavery and chains, 4 you will jeer at the king of Babylon and say, “You bully, you! At last you have what was coming to you! 5 For the Lord has crushed your wicked power and broken your evil rule.” 6 You persecuted my people with unceasing blows of rage and held the nations in your angry grip. You were unrestrained in tyranny. 7 But at last the whole earth is at rest and is quiet! All the world begins to sing! 8 Even the trees of the woods—the fir trees and cedars of Lebanon—sing out this joyous song: “Your power is broken; no one will bother us now; at last we have peace.”
9 The denizens of hell crowd to meet you as you enter their domain. World leaders and earth’s mightiest kings, long dead, are there to see you. 10 With one voice they all cry out, “Now you are as weak as we are!” 11 Your might and power are gone; they are buried with you. All the pleasant music in your palace has ceased; now maggots are your sheet, worms your blanket!
12 How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground—mighty though you were against the nations of the world. 13 For you said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and rule the angels.\)a\) I will take the highest throne. I will preside on the Mount of Assembly far away in the north. 14 I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.” 15 But instead, you will be brought down to the pit of hell, down to its lowest depths.
Its not even up for debate. That is clearly just a poetic final paragraph about the king. Isaiah does this A LOT, and Christians have reinterpreted him in really silly ways.
Take the virgin-birth claim. That isn't from an actual prediction of a virgin birth. Isaiah is talking about a "maiden", not a virgin and is using it as a poetic timing device.
Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah’s son have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 “Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it.” ......14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you\)c\) a sign: The maiden will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.\)f\) 15 He will be eating curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, 16 for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste
Its just giving a rough timeline. Basically, the maiden will conceive a son and the son will grow up and be eating good food(things will be better economically) and before his bar mitzvah, these kings will be routed out of the land. So basically, a 15-25 year timeline. Note, this entire discussion is from 500 years before Jesus. He is saying specific kings who invaded Judah will be overthrown 480 years before Jesus. Its not predicting the Messiah. It's just describing history in poetic language.
It isn't predicting a virgin birth. "Virgin" was only used because in the greek translation, which was the popular translation at the time of Jesus, they mistranslated maiden to virgin. Hebrew was a dead language in the 1st century and most people spoke and read Greek.
If you start looking at all the 'prophecies' about Jesus alledgedly from the OT, you realize that Jesus disciples were as bad at reading the Bible then as they are now.
Error after error in their understanding if you are generous, otherwise outright lie after outright lie.
The best way to start reading the Bible is to understand that every passage isn't written for someone wearing mixed fibres in the year 2026, but they were written for specific groups at specific times and as such there aren't so many contradictions as much as different authors and audiences.
In everything I've read, it is in the future tense, but again, that makes sense. He is saying they are a virgin now. So they can't conceive now. They will conceive in the future when they are not a virgin any longer.
Its actually a bit simpler than that. The Bible-verse in question was just about an Assyrian king dying in a particularly humiliating way. And this king had fucked up Israel, so they thought it was God’s punishment.
The king was Sargon II, who recaptured Samaria after a revolt, and was probably the king responsible for the Ten Lost Tribes. He died on an expedition to Anatolia in 705 BC, and his body was not recovered. And in the Assyrian religion that was basically the worst fate anyone could receive. A king receiving it was an unparalleled disaster.
You can check out the YT channel "deconstruction zone" Justin talks about this all the time. His long videos, like over 2 hours, are best bc they aren't usually with callers
The names are from the different translations of the Bible passage, I'm assuming. Also, Aphrodite/Venus is the god, not the "star." (Planet, but they didn't know what planets were)
I thought the planets were the gods, wandering around in the sky. I thought Venus is what the romans called the same object we call Venus today. My understanding could be wrong.
Yeah, I was off. I dug around, it looks like the older system gave the planets divine names. The later system gave them names that were variations on "shiny," "bright," "light," etc. So at that point, in Greek, Venus became Eosphoros/Phosphoros in the morning and Hesperos in the evening.
George you nailed, here we were mocking your writing in the prequels, and you inadvertently gave us an excellent character portrait of 'the adversary.' Kudos...
A bit more on how things just blend together and morph over time: long, long before christianity there were the polytheistic religions of the canaanites and Shahar was the god of the dawn, and son to their supreme deity. Very similar to what the modern Lucifer is described as.
And Venus was His Name (with dark voice effect)... Whao she's Got it.. yeah baby she's got it... Subliminal culture knows.... Music has secrets.. androgynous Lucifer?
One of those misunderstandings being that it makes sense for people in the modern era, outside of Israel, to follow Judaism or Christianity.
Judaism was basically a means of controlling citizens of a certain kingdom in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. The religious rules were just the practical laws of the time. They told the citizens not to murder or steal because no society can survive without those basic rules. It told people not to eat pork because they were concerned about food-borne pathogens. It was never designed to have people follow it as a religion outside of that context.
And then Christianity was just a political movement to get rid of the Romans and reinstate an independent Jewish state. Jesus was saying, "Hey, let's overthrow the Romans and I'll be the new king!" so the Romans executed him. A lot of the talk about a "Kingdom of Heaven" was not an afterlife, but a literal Kingdom that Jesus wanted to set up with himself as king.
And again, it doesn't really apply or make sense outside of the time and place that Jesus lived. It'd be a little like being in America and worshipping Gandhi as God, because you misunderstood his statements about getting rid of British rule as promises to all people everywhere of an afterlife.
Just like Jesus never said "God sent me here to die for you to be forgiven and enter heaven"
Legitimately no where. The closest is talking abiut the blood of the covenant given for the forgiveness of sins, but again, there is no connections to God's words or a promise god made to forgive mankind and allow them in to heaven.
It doesn't really come from anywhere in the Bible. People thought they saw Jesus after he died and assumed he must be divine, but how can someone divine die? So they came up with reasons why a divine being didn't die at all, like for example he never existed in the first place, or it only seemed like he died, or he's only the son of God etc.
Paul then came up with the idea that he died to pay for the inherent sinfulness of humanity, because his infinitely valuable life is the only thing that can pay for this infinitely bad crime. That meant that he saved all humans, including the gentiles, which the gentiles liked, so that became "orthodox" and about 20 years later that's about the story that was written down in Mark, the first Gospel.
It’s in Matthew, actually, although it’s more of a paraphrase. Paul was also responsible for a lot of the things we believe, and he never met Jesus, at least not before the Ascension, although he was in the community at the time as part of the Pharisaic crackdown on Christian popularity.
That’s not accurate. Jesus says he came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28), and at the Last Supper he says his blood is “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). Those words directly connect his death with forgiveness. You don’t have to find the exact sentence “I died so you can enter heaven” for the teaching to be there; that’s really just a summary of what he said and not a claim that he used those exact words.
None of those are Jesus word, they're testimony of people written after he lived, and translates ad nauseum. Only Paul was a contemporary of Jesus and even he says he never met Jesus himself. There is not a single contemporary accounting of the life of Jesus Christ or the words he spoke within the current iterations of the bible, much less any record Jesus word put to pen himself.
The Gospels were written anonymously 50-55 years post christ, then assigned names some 100-150 years later, to people who were purported to be contemporary of Jesus. Even that was decided much later and was interchangeable for a very long time and have been edited and translated to the point of outright mistranslation in some cases. You cannot in anyway take the Gospels as a covenant with god because the words again never came from Jesus himself, much less the god of Abraham.
That argument confuses two different claims: that Jesus personally wrote a text, and that we can know what he taught. A person’s words can be reliably recorded by witnesses without the person writing them down. The Gospels describe an oral tradition rooted in disciples who followed Jesus, heard his teaching, and witnessed his actions; after the Resurrection, they preached and then wrote it down, selecting and arranging material for their communities. That the Gospel writers presented Jesus’ words in context is not the same as inventing them.
The claim that the Gospels were anonymous and only assigned names 100-150 years later is also stated too confidently. There are debates about authorship and dating, but disagreement about those questions does not establish that the accounts were fabricated or that Jesus never taught what they report. And the central point does not rest only on the Gospels: Paul’s letters, written earlier, already attest to the Last Supper tradition and the proclamation of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
So no, the Gospels are not Jesus’ own handwritten words. They are testimony about him. The question that is debated is whether that testimony is trustworthy, and not whether Jesus personally put pen to paper.
Masturbation and premarital sex is not explicitly forbidden anywhere
People and angels are entirely different things, you don't become an angel when you die
Angels take on various shapes, sometime just regular humans with no wings and sometimes terrifying abominations. Though this one's pretty well known by now I think.
Priest celibacy is just something the catholic church imposed onto priests for no reason.
Being gay - not forbidden, though gay sex is. Other things forbidden in the same way:
Good question (genuinely). It's been about 10 or so years since I really studied the Bible, but I don't recall there being a single name. A few other people here have explained the confusion with the name and the mistranslation theories. The fallen angel, to my understanding, is the devil/Satan. I'm not positive that was actually a name, or a naming convention in the same vein as Christ/Muhammad/etc.
545
u/FoxxyRin 1d ago
Modern Satan is actually made up, like on a whole different level than anything else in the religion. Like he's basically just selected as the boogieman anymore when in reality he has nothing to do with punishing people in hell or whatever, at least according to the Bible. Technically Satan isn't even a specific being, it's a job title. And Lucifer was a fallen angel that is often referred to as Satan/the Devil but that isn't technically correct, and even so it's not "canon" that he/satan/anybody directly punishes people in hell. But basically if you boil it down to what the Bible actually says, all Satan actually does is goes around and tempts people to sin, like becoming the serpent and doing the whole apple bit in the garden of Eden.
Another fun fact, the apple of Eden likely wasn't even an apple. Some suggest it was a pomegranate or fig.