Was Lucifer really evil, or was he just an angle that disagreed with YHWH?
meaning , role of lucifer complex, , difficult explain in few short sentences.
arguably, "lucifer" mistranslation , doesn't exist. lucifer appears once in bible, in isaiah 14:12 -
"how art thou fallen heaven, o lucifer, son of morning! how art thou cut down ground, didst weaken nations!"
lucifer latin translation of hebrew word in original text, 'heylel' - meaning planet venus (aka 'the morning star'). venus prominent in sky, , appears in many religious , mythological traditions around world, same sun , moon used in spiritual stories.
@ face value, isaiah 14:12 part of prophetic oracle against king of babylon. "morning star" can form of royal title (like "your majesty'), found in other ancient semitic texts. isn't reference kind of angel or demon. people have taken sentence in isolation , used reference satan or other spiritual being.
israelite religion polytheistic, other ancient religions of levant; in other words, there many gods. god called 'el, or 'el elyon, "god high", father of other gods. yahweh 1 of 'el's children , storm god of edomites. sometime between around 1,000 bc , 650 bc, 'el , yahweh became fused in religion of judah, southern kingdom of israel. collapse of northern kingdom, , traumatic events of babylonian captivity, israelite religion became 'fixed' (so speak) idea of 1 single god, variously known both 'el , yahweh. whereas ancient texts other canaanite peoples, such ugaritic corpus, regard 'el , yahweh 2 separate gods. there have been long list of other spiritual beings in israelite religion: angels , archangels, seraphs , cherubim, etc. whether or not of these characters once though gods in own right interesting question. modern judaism , christianity pre-occupied maintaining strict monotheistic stance, , both struggle explain existence of other classes of spiritual being besides 1 god father.
idea god countered secondary spiritual being called 'satan' comes assimilating persian , zoroasterian ideas during captivity. @ point, satan , 'lucifer' conflated, appear same character. in hebrew 'satan' means "opposer" , appears definite article , ha-satan "the opposer". 'satan' isn't proper name, description or title. in book of job, satan appears member of god's council, playing pious "devil's advocate" role obedient god.
pseudopigraphal book of enoch, found amongst dead sea scrolls, contains elaborate set of stories around morning star, messiah, , other supernatural themes. enoch regarded scripture christians, rejected later founders of jewish canon (tanakh). around time st. jerome started work on vulgate bible (200 300 years later) christian view of "scripture" had settled on following jewish canon , masoretic text, rather more diverse range of ancient books accepted earlier church.
english theologian , old testament scholar margaret barker has explored these questions in great detail on several books (and awarded doctor of divinity degree archbishop of canterbury work, she's not crank :-) barker not easy read, writing dense, complex , assumes knowledge of hebrew. short book "the lost prophet" easy read introduction of these themes.
hope helps.
excuse misspellings. i'm looking academic answer not 1 belief prospective.
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