Lucifer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Helel ben Shachar) This article is about the religious figure. For other uses, see Lucifer (disambiguation). Son of Dawn redirects here. For other uses, see Son of Dawn (disambiguation). William Blakes illustration of Lucifer as presented in John Miltons Paradise Lost Lucifer (LEW-sif-ər, /ˈl(j)uːsɪfər/) is the King James Version rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל in Isaiah 14:12.[1] This word, transliterated hêlêl[1] or heylel,[2] occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible[1] and according to the KJV-influenced Strongs Concordance means shining one, morning star.[2] The word Lucifer is taken from the Latin Vulgate,[3] which translates הֵילֵל as lucifer,[Isa 14:12][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][9][10][11] (heōsphoros),[12][13][14] a name, literally bringer of dawn, for the morning star.[15] Later Christian tradition came to use the Latin word for morning star, lucifer, as a proper name (Lucifer) for the Devil; as he was before his fall.[16] As a result, Lucifer has become a by-word for Satan/the Devil in the Church and in popular literature,[3] as in Dante Alighieris Inferno and John Miltons Paradise Lost.[14] However, the Latin word never came to be used almost exclusively, as in English, in this way, and was applied to others also, including Christ.[17] The image of a morning star fallen from the sky, is generally believed amongst scholars to have a parallel in Canaanite mythology.[18] However, according to both Christian[19] and Jewish exegesis, in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 14, the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II, conqueror of Jerusalem, is condemned in a prophetic vision by the prophet Isaiah and is called the Morning Star (planet Venus).[20][21] In this chapter the Hebrew text says הֵילֵל בֶּן-שָׁחַר (Helel ben Shaḥar, shining one, son of the morning).[22] Helel ben Shaḥar may refer to the Morning Star, but the text in Isaiah 14 gives no indication that Helel was a star or planet.[23][24] Contents 1 Etymology, Lucifer or morning star 2 Isaiah 14:12 2.1 Mythology behind Isaiah 14:12 3 Latin word lucifer 4 Literal meaning 5 Intertestamental Period 6 Allegorical interpretation in Christianity 6.1 Christians who identify Lucifer with Satan or the Devil 7 Islam 8 Occultism 9 Taxils hoax 10 Gallery 11 See also 12 References 13 Further reading 14 External links Etymology, 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, Day Star New Revised Standard Version), shining one (New Life Version, New World Translation, JPS Tanakh) or shining star (New Living Translation). The term appears in the context of an oracle against a dead king of Babylon,[25] who is addressed as הילל בן שחר (hêlêl ben šāḥar),[26][27] rendered by the King James Version as O Lucifer, son of the morning! 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![28] 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?[29] 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.[30][31] For the unnamed[32] king of Babylon a wide range of identifications have been proposed.[33] They include a Babylonian ruler of the prophet Isaiahs own time[33] the later Nebuchadnezzar II, under whom the Babylonian captivity of the Jews began, or Nabonidus,[33][34] and the Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon II and Sennacherib.[30][33][35] Herbert Wolf held that the king of Babylon was not a specific ruler but a generic representation of the whole line of rulers.[36] Isaiah 14:12 Mythology behind Isaiah 14:12 In ancient Canaanite mythology, the morning star is pictured as a god, Attar, who attempted to occupy the throne of Baal and, finding he was unable to do so, descended and ruled the underworld.[37][38] 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.[39][40] Hermann Gunkels reconstruction of the myth told of a mighty warrior called Hêlal, whose ambition it was to ascend higher than all the other stellar divinities, but who had to descend to the depths; it thus portrayed as a battle the process by which the bright morning star fails to reach the highest point in the sky before being faded out by the rising sun.[41] Planet Venus rising above the horizon at dawn Similarities have been noted with the East Semitic story of Ishtars or Inannas descent into the underworld,[40] Ishtar and Inanna being associated with the planet Venus.[42] A connection has been seen also with the Babylonian myth of Etana. The Jewish Encyclopedia comments: The brilliancy of the morning star, which eclipses all other stars, but is not seen during the night, may easily have given rise to a myth such as was told of Ethana and Zu: he was led by his pride to strive for the highest seat among the star-gods on the northern mountain of the gods ... but was hurled down by the supreme ruler of the Babylonian Olympus.[43] The Greek myth of Phaethon, whose name, like that of הֵילֵל, means Shining One, has also been seen as similar.[41] 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 Isaiahs 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 Gods 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.[25] This Jewish tradition has echoes also in Jewish pseudepigrapha such as 2 Enoch and the Life of Adam and Eve.[25][43][44] Latin word lucifer As an adjective, the Latin word lucifer meant light-bringing and was applied to the moon.[6] As a noun, it meant morning star, or, in Roman mythology, its divine personification as the fabled son of Aurora[45] and Cephalus, and father of Ceyx, or (in poetry) day.[6] The second of the meanings attached to the word when used as a noun corresponds to the image in Greek mythology of Eos, the goddess of dawn, giving birth to the morning star Phosphorus.[45] Isaiah 14:12 is not the only place where the Vulgate uses the word lucifer. It uses the same word four more times, in contexts where it clearly has no reference to a fallen angel: 2 Peter 1:19 (meaning morning star), Job 11:17 (the light of the morning), Job 38:32 (the signs of the zodiac) and Psalms 110:3 (the dawn).[46] To speak of the morning star, lucifer is not the only expression that the Vulgate uses: three times it uses stella matutina: Sirach 50:6 (referring to the actual morning star), and Revelation 2:28 (of uncertain reference) and 22:16 (referring to Jesus). Indications that in Christian tradition the Latin word Lucifer, unlike the English word, did not necessarily call a fallen angel to mind exist also outside the text of the Vulgate. Two bishops bore that name: Saint Lucifer of Cagliari, and Lucifer of Siena. In Latin, the word is applied to John the Baptist and is used as a title of Christ himself in several early Christian hymns. The morning hymn Lucis largitor splendide of Hilary contains the line: Tu verus mundi lucifer.[47] Some interpreted the mention of the morning star (lucifer) in Ambroses hymn Aeterne rerum conditor as referring allegorically to Christ and the mention of the cock, the herald of the day (praeco) in the same hymn as referring to John the Baptist.[48] Likewise, in the medieval hymn Christe qui lux es et dies, some manuscripts have the line Lucifer lucem proferens.[49] The Latin word lucifer is also used of Christ in the Easter Proclamation prayer to God regarding the paschal candle: Flammas eius lucifer matutinus inveniat: ille, inquam, lucifer, qui nescit occasum. Christus Filius tuus, qui, regressus ab inferis, humano generi serenus illuxit, et vivit et regnat in saecula saeculorum (May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star: the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son, who, coming back from deaths domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever). In the works of Latin grammarians, Lucifer, like Daniel, was discussed as an example of a personal name.[50] Literal meaning See also: Satan in Judaism The Hebrew words הֵילֵל בֶּן-שָׁחַר (Helel ben Shaḥar, day-star, son of the morning)[2][24] in Isaiah 14:12 are part of a prophetic vision against an oppressive king of Babylon.[51] Jewish exegesis of Isaiah 14:12–15 took a humanistic approach by identifying the king of Babylon as Nebuchadnezzar II.[52] Verse 20 says that this king of Babylon will not be joined with them [all the kings of the nations] in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named for ever, but rather be cast out of the grave, while All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house.[24][53] Intertestamental Period Main article: Intertestamental period See also: Biblical apocrypha, New Testament apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha In the Second temple period literature the main possible reference is found in 2 Enoch, also known as Slavonic Enoch: 2 Enoch 29:3 Here Satanail was hurled from the height together with his angels However the editor of the standard modern edition (Charlesworth OTP Vol.1) pipelines the verse as a probable later Christian interpolation on the grounds that Christian explanations of the origin of evil linked Lk 10:18 with Isa 14 and eventually Gen.3 so vs 4 could be a Christian interpolation... Jewish theology concentrated on Gen 6., and this is prominent in the Enoch cycle as in other apocalypses. Further the name used in 2 Enoch, Satanail, is not directly related to the Isaiah 14 text and the surrounding imagery of fire and stones suggests Ezekiel 28.[54] Other instances of Lucifer in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha are related simply to the star Venus, in the Sibylline Oracles battle of the constellations (line 517) Lucifer fought mounted on the back of Leo,[55] or the entirely rewritten Christian version of the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra 4:32 which has a reference to Lucifer as Antichrist.[56] An association of Isaiah 14:12-18[57] with a personification of the evil, called the Devil developed outside of mainstream (rabbinic) Judaism in Pseudepigrapha and Christian writings.[58] Old Testament Pseudepigrapha are works produced after the closing of the Hebrew Bible canon, they flourished toward the end of the Second Temple period under Roman occupation,[59] particularly with the apocalypses.[60] Old Testament Pseudepigrapha are not accepted as part of Jewish tradition, but are in custodianship of the church. This period before the closing of the Christian canon is also called the Intertestamental Period when the deuterocanonical books were written. Especially Isaiah 14:12, became a dominant conception of a fallen angel motif[61] in Enoch literature. Rabbis, in Medieval Judaism, made every attempt to protect the Jewish community from their currency, strictly rejecting these Enochic phantasms.[59] Rabbinical Judaism rejected any belief in rebel or fallen angels, having a view that evil is abstract.[62] In the 11th century, the Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer, an aggadic-midrashic work on the Torah containing exegesis and retellings of biblical stories, illustrates the origin of the fallen angel myth by giving two accounts, one relates to the angel in the garden in Eden, who seduces Eve, and the other relates to the angels, the benei elohim, who cohabit with the daughters of man (Genesis 6:1-4).[63] Allegorical interpretation in Christianity Main article: Devil in Christianity Apart from the literal meaning of Isaiah 14:12, which applies to a king of Babylon, Christian writers applied the words allegorically to Satan. Sigve K Tonstad argues that in the New Testament itself 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.[64] 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.[65][66][67][68] 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,[69] but Lucifer is not among the numerous names and phrases he used to describe the Devil.[70] Even at the time of the Latin writer Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430), Lucifer had not yet become a common name for the Devil.[65] 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 Satans fall from heaven.[71][72] However, the understanding of the morning star in Isaiah 14:12 as a metaphor referring to a king of Babylon continued also to exist among Christians. 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.[73] 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,[74] German,[75] Portuguese,[76] and Spanish.[77] Even the Vulgate text in Latin is printed with lower-case lucifer (morning star), not upper-case Lucifer (proper name).[5] Calvin said: The exposition of this passage, which some have given, as if it referred to Satan, has arisen from ignorance: for the context plainly shows these statements must be understood in reference to the king of the Babylonians.[78] Luther also considered it a gross error to refer this verse to the devil.[79] Gustave Doré, illustration to Paradise Lost, book IX, 179–187: ... he [Satan] held on /His midnight search, where soonest he might finde /The Serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found ... Christians who identify Lucifer with Satan or the Devil Adherents of the King James Only movement and others who hold that Isaiah 14:12 does indeed refer to the devil have decried the modern translations.[80][81][82] Treating Lucifer as a name for the devil or Satan, they may use that name when speaking of such accounts of the devil or Satan as the following: - Satan inciting David to number Israel (1 Chronicles 21:1) - Job tested by Satan (Book of Job) - Satan ready to accuse the high priest Joshua (Zechariah 3:1-2) - Sin brought into the world through the devils envy (Wisdom 2:24) - The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2) - The god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). - The devil disputing with Michael about the body of Moses (Jude 1:9) - The dragon of the Book of Revelation who is called the devil and Satan (Revelation 12:9;20:2) They may also use the name Lucifer when speaking of Satans motive for rebelling and of the nature of his sin, which Origen, Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine attributed to the devils pride, and Irenaeus, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Cyprian, and again Augustine attributed to the devils envy of humanity created in the image of God.[83][84][85] Jealousy of humans, created in the divine image and given authority over the world is the motive that a modern writer, who denies that there is any such person as Lucifer, says that Tertullian attributed to the Devil,[86] and, while he cited Tertullian and Augustine as giving envy as the motive for the fall, an 18th-century French Capuchin preacher himself described the Rebel Angel as jealous of Adams exaltation, which he saw as a diminution of his own status.[85] Islam In Islam the Devil is known as Iblīs (Arabic: إبليس, plural: ابالسة abālisah) or Shayṭān (Arabic: شيطان, plural: شياطين shayāṭīn). He has no name corresponding in meaning to that of the Latin word lucifer to associate him with the Morning Star, but the accounts of him resemble the fallen-angel accounts in Enochic and Christian literature. Iblis is banished from heaven for refusing to prostrate himself before Adam. Thus, he sins after the creation of man. He asks God for a respite until the Last Day rather than being consigned to the Fire of Hell immediately. God grants this request, and Iblis then swears revenge by tempting human beings and turning them away from God. God tells him that any humans who follow him will join him in the Fire of Hell at Judgement, but that Iblis will have no power over all mankind except who wants to follow Iblis. This story is cited multiple times in the Quran for different reasons. Islamic literature presents divergent ideas of the nature of Iblis. In one view Iblis is a prominent angel turned devil through disobedience.[87][88] Apart from the idea that Iblis is an angel, there is the commonly held view that Iblis is a jinn, as well as the view that Iblis is neither angel or jinn but uniquely created out of fire,[89] the view that the nature is ambiguous,[90][91][92] and the view that Iblis is an angel transformed into a jinn for disobedience.[93]
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