re: Amazon Prime new cartoon retells the creation story

quote:

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“Lucifer was a dreamer with good ideas for all of mankind” I turned it off on that note

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I must admit I am annoyed at anyone referring to “Lucifer” as a name for any deity such as the adversary of God. Why do people think “Lucifer” is a name for “Satan”?

ETA: the video of the link in the OP is probably adding to the mockery by calling Satan “Lucifer”.

In Isaiah 14:12 “Lucifer” shows up in the KJV, and only the KJV. The other translations mostly render it “morning star” or “son of the morning”. Here’s where it gets very interesting.

The Hebrew text (trans)literally reads “Helel Ben Shahar ”. What is Shahar? In most Bible translations it is rendered “morning”. We do know - mostly from the Ugaritic library (a library mostly in Cuneiform of Canaanites just north of our favorite Canaanite group - the Israelites) that Shahar was the goddess of the dawn. Inscriptions of Shahar were found in Israel too. Helel is normally rendered “shining one” in English but this was really supposed to be a proper name just like Shahar.

When you read “Lucifer” in your KJV Bible, realize the Hebrews were referencing a mythological god named Helel (a play on the Hebrew word for “shining”) who was the son of the dawn goddess Shahar. In the tale, Helel tries to climb mount Zaphon (Isaiah 14:13… you have to look at the Hebrew words to understand) to usurp the gods. Mount Zaphon was… drum roll… the mountain outside of the city of Ugarit where the gods were said to live (like Mount Olympus in Greece). The Hebrews changed Mount “Zaphon” to Mount “Zion” in many places but in their copying of earlier Canaanite mythology they missed some “Zaphons”.

The passage and context in Isaiah 14 is that the author is comparing the king of Babylon, a son of Nebuchadnezzar, to the god Helel who failed to usurp the gods, and Babylon will fail to usurp the nations and itself will fall (to the Persians).