Lucifer(Fallen Archangel)
Lucifer (
/ˈluːsɪfər/ or /ˈljuːsɪfər/) is the King James Version rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל in Isaiah 14:12.[1] This word, transliterated hêlēl orheylel, occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible and according to the KJV-influenced Strong's Concordance means "shining one, morning star, Lucifer".[2]The word Lucifer is taken from the Latin Vulgate,[3] which translates הֵילֵל as lucifer,[4][5] meaning "the morning star, the planet Venus" (or, as an adjective, "light-bringing").[6] The Septuagint renders הֵילֵל in Greek as ἑωσφόρος[7][8] (heōsphoros),[9][10][11] a name, literally "bringer of dawn", for the morning star.[12] Kaufmann Kohler says that the Greek Septuagint translation is "Phosphoros".[3]
Before the rise of Christianity, the pseudepigrapha of Enochic Judaism, which enjoyed much popularity during the Second Temple period,[13] gave Satanan expanded role. They interpreted Isaiah 14:12-15 as applicable to Satan, and presented him as a fallen angel cast out of Heaven.[14] Christian tradition, influenced by this presentation,[14] came to use the Latin word for "morning star", lucifer, as a proper name ("Lucifer") for Satan as he was before his fall. As a result, "Lucifer has become a by-word for Satan in the Church and in popular literature",[3] as in Dante Alighieri's Inferno and John
Lucifer or morning star
Translation of הֵילֵל as "Lucifer", as in the King James Version, has been abandoned in modern English translations of Isaiah 14:12. Present-day translations have "morning star" (New International Version, New Century Version, New American Standard Bible, Good News Translation, Holman Christian Standard Bible, Contemporary English Version, Common English Bible, Complete Jewish Bible), "daystar" (New Jerusalem Bible, English Standard Version, The Message), "shining one" (New Life Version) or "shining star" (New Living Translation).
This development has been decried not only by adherents of the King James Only movement, but also by others, who hold that the King James Version is correct and that Isaiah 14:12 refers to Satan under the name of "Lucifer",[15][16] or who hold that the reference to Satan is preeminent.[17]
The term appears in the context of an oracle against a dead king of Babylon,[18] who is addressed as הילל בן שחר (hêlêl ben šāḥar),[19][20][21][need quotation to verify] [22][need quotation to verify] rendered by the King James Version as "Lucifer, son of the dawn" and by others as "morning star, son of the dawn".
In a modern translation from the original Hebrew, the passage in which the phrase "Lucifer" or "morning star" occurs begins with the statement: "On the day the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labour forced on you, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended!"[23] After describing the death of the king, the taunt continues: "How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit. Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: 'Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?'"[24]
J. Carl Laney has pointed out that in the final verses here quoted, the king of Babylon is described not as a god or an angel but as a man.[25][26]
For the unnamed[27] "king of Babylon" a wide range of identifications have been proposed.[28] They include a Babylonian ruler of the prophet Isaiah's own time[28] the later Nebuchadnezzar II, under whom the Babylonian captivity of the Jews began, or Nabonidus,[28][29] and the Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon II and Sennacherib,[25][28][30] Herbert Wolf held that the "king of Babylon" was not a specific ruler but a generic representation of the whole line of rulers.[31]
Mythology
In ancient Canaanite mythology, the morning star is pictured as a god, Attar, who attempted to occupy the throne of Ba'al and, finding he was unable to do so, descended and ruled the underworld.[32][33] The original myth may have been about a lesser god Helel trying to dethrone the Canaanite high god El who lived on a mountain to the north.[34][35] Similarities have been noted also with the story of Ishtar's or Inanna's descent into the underworld,[35] Ishtar and Inanna being associated with the planet Venus.[36] The Babylonian myth of Etana has also been seen as connected.[37]
The Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible points out that no evidence has been found of any Canaanite myth of a god being thrown from heaven, as in Isaiah 14:12. It concludes that the closest parallels with Isaiah's description of the king of Babylon as a fallen morning star cast down from heaven are to be found not in any lost Canaanite and other myths but in traditional ideas of the Jewish people themselves, echoed in the Biblical account of the fall of Adam and Eve, cast out of God's presence for wishing to be as God, and the picture in Psalm 82 of the "gods" and "sons of the Most High" destined to die and fall.[38] This Jewish tradition has echoes also in Jewish pseudepigrapha such as 2 Enoch and the Life of Adam and Eve.[37][38][39]
Belief systems
Judaism
The Hebrew term הֵילֵל (heylel)[2] in Isaiah 14:12, became a dominant conception of a fallen angel motif[40] in Enochic Judaism, when Jewish pseudepigrapha flourished during the Second Templeperiod,[13] particularly with the apocalypses.[14] Later Rabbis, in Medieval Judaism, rejected these Enochic literary works from the Biblical canon, making every attempt to root them out.[13]Traditionalist Rabbis often rejected any belief in rebel or fallen angels, having a view that evil is abstract.[41] However, in the 11th century, the Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer, drawing on ancient legends of the fallen angel or angels, brought back to the mainstream of rabbinic thought the personification of evil and the corresponding myth.[42] Jewish exegesis of Isaiah 14:12–15 took a more humanistic approach by identifying the king of Babylon as Nebuchadnezzar II.[43]
Christianity
Early Christians were influenced by the association of Isaiah 14:12-15 with the Devil, which had developed in the period between the writing of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament,[44] also called the Intertestamental Period when the Deuterocanonical Books were written. Even in the New Testament itself, Sigve K Tonstad argues, the War in Heaven theme of Revelation 12:7-9, in which the dragon "who is called the devil and Satan … was thrown down to the earth", derives from the passage in Isaiah 14.[45] Origen (184/185 – 253/254) interpreted such Old Testament passages as being about manifestations of the Devil; but of course, writing in Greek, not Latin, he did not identify the Devil with the name "Lucifer".[46] Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225), who wrote in Latin, also understood Isaiah 14:14 ("I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High") as spoken by the Devil,[47] but "Lucifer" is not among the numerous names and phrases he used to describe the Devil.[48] Even at the time of the Latin writer Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430), "Lucifer" had not yet become a common name for the Devil.[46] But some time later, the metaphor of the morning star that Isaiah 14:12 applied to a king of Babylon gave rise to the general use of the Latin word for "morning star", capitalized, as the original name of the Devil before his fall from grace, linking Isaiah 14:12 with Luke 10:18 ("I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven") and interpreting the passage in Isaiah as an allegory of Satan's fall from heaven.[49][50]
However, Christians have continued to understand the mention of the morning star in Isaiah 14:12 as a metaphor referring to a king of Babylon. Theodoret of Cyrus (c. 393 – c. 457) wrote that Isaiah calls the king "morning star", not as being the star, but as having had the illusion of being it.[51] The same understanding is shown in Christian translations of the passage, which in English generally use "morning star" rather than treating the word as a proper name, "Lucifer". So too in other languages, such as French,[52] German,[53] Portuguese,[54] and Spanish.[55] Even the Vulgate text in Latin is printed with lower-case lucifer (morning star), not upper-case Lucifer (proper name).[5]
Islam
In the Quran[56] Najmu thāqibu (Ar. "blazing star") may correspond to the morning star (He. heylel) of Isaiah 14:12.[57]
In Islam, the account of Iblis follows the Lucifer motif. Iblis is banished from heaven and becomes Satan by refusing to prostrate before Adam. Thus, he sins after the creation of man. Satan then swears an oath of revenge by tempting human beings and turning them away from God. However, in contrast to Judaic and Christian beliefs, Iblis is not seen as a fallen angel in Islam but rather aJinn who has disobeyed God. Muslims believe that angels are the servants of God and cannot disobey Him; whereas Jinn, like men, can make choices and can choose to obey or disobey.[58]
Occultism
Luciferianism is a belief system that venerates the essential characteristics that are affixed to Lucifer. The tradition, influenced by Gnosticism, usually reveres Lucifer not as the Devil, but as a liberator or guiding spirit[60] or even the true god as opposed to Jehovah.[61]
In Anton LaVey's The Satanic Bible, Lucifer is acknowledged as one of the Four Crown Princes of Hell, particularly that of the East. Lord of the Air, Lucifer has been named "Bringer of Light, the Morning Star, Intellectualism, Enlightenment."[citation needed]
In the modern occultism of Madeline Montalban,[62] Lucifer's identification as the Morning Star (Venus) equates him with Lumiel, whom she regarded as the Archangel of Light, and among Satanists he is seen as the "Torch of Baphomet" and Azazel.
Author Michael W. Ford has written on Lucifer as a "mask" of the Adversary, a motivator and illuminating force of the mind and subconscious.[63]
Taxil's hoax
Léo Taxil (1854–1907) claimed that Freemasonry is associated with worshipping Lucifer. In what is known as the Taxil hoax, he claimed that supposedly leading FreemasonAlbert Pike had addressed "The 23 Supreme Confederated Councils of the world" (an invention of Taxil), instructing them that Lucifer was God, and was in opposition to the evil god Adonai. Apologists of Freemasonry contend that, when Albert Pike and other Masonic scholars spoke about the "Luciferian path," or the "energies of Lucifer," they were referring to the Morning Star, the light bearer,[64] the search for light; the very antithesis of dark, satanic evil. Taxil promoted a book by Diana Vaughan (actually written by himself, as he later confessed publicly)[65] that purported to reveal a highly secret ruling body called the Palladium, which controlled the organization and had a satanic agenda. As described by Freemasonry Disclosed in 1897:
With frightening cynicism, the miserable person we shall not name here [Taxil] declared before an assembly especially convened for him that for twelve years he had prepared and carried out to the end the most sacrilegious of hoaxes. We have always been careful to publish special articles concerning Palladism and Diana Vaughan. We are now giving in this issue a complete list of these articles, which can now be considered as not having existed.[66]
Taxil's work and Pike's address continue to be quoted by anti-masonic groups.[67]
In Devil-Worship in France, Arthur Edward Waite compared Taxil's work to what today we would call a tabloid story, replete with logical and factual inconsistencies.