May 21, 2011

[The Observer]

The problem is the attempt to link the name "Lucifer" to the name of Helal, son of Shahar, which in your cut and paste job, is described as the King of Babylon. However, other sources link these names to a Canaanite pagan god rather than a Babylonian king - and for the record, there are no such names in the historical kings in the line of the various dynasties that ruled over the lands that comprised Babylonia. So it appears your sources are being somewhat dishonest, or are reaching in trying to link it to a Babylonian king. This brings up the question why a Jewish prophet would somehow believe that he would need to address a non-existent god as though he were real; Jewish theology understood and taught that there was only one real God and that all other gods were non-existent. It doesn't make sense, so I expect that is the motivation for trying to pass off the names as being Bablyonian rulers.

Furthermore, the attempt here is to show that Satan as a being in Christianity has no basis since Judiasm does not apparently make reference to this personage in the Old Testament. However this is wrong, because Job, a book out of the O.T. does make reference to Satan as being a being in contention with God and inferior to Him. I Chronicles 21:1 (a Jewish history of the early kingdom of Israel) also mentions Satan.

So the attempt to prove that the accidental/purposeful translation substituting a Roman name for the Hebrew text "morning star" somehow proves that Satan is a made-up Christian belief is patently wrong. Satan is a personage represented in Jewish tradition and writings. Since Jesus Himself was living in a Jewish culture and practicing the Jewish faith, His constant mention of Satan among His Jewish contemporaries does not elicit any surprise, contradictions, arguments against, or denials from His most ardent critics (indeed, at one point His critics accuse Jesus of being possessed by the devil), it is painfully obvious that the concept of Satan was not originally a Christian concept, but pre-dated it.

I also not that even your link shows that the Roman name and the Hebrew text are roughly equivalent in translation. Your source does not consider the fact that the Bible at one time was translated into Latin and this is more than likely the real reason for why the term Lucifer remained in the King James version. Since the names Shahar or Helhal do not appear at all in Isaiah, this also shows the hypocrisy of the writer in condemning translators for their minor slip as opposed to his own sloppy work in failing to show why we should even consider those names as the subject of Isaiah's text.