In the original Jewish mythology as laid out in the Torah / Bible, Satan is simply an angel. The story of Job even names him as one of the sons of god. There is also a fallen angel in Judaism, but his name is Azazel, not Satan. The Old Testamentarian Satan was never intended to be anything but a loyal servant of the Judaic god Yahweh.
The name Ha-Satan means as much as accuser or prosecutor in Hebrew, and Satan's role was just that. He is the prosecutor of mankind, while Yahweh is mankind's ultimate judge. Satan points out human failings to Yahweh and occasionally tests the faith of individual people, as he does in the Job story. It is important to note that the Judaic god Yahweh created Satan specifically for this purpose. He is not an adversary of Yahweh.
The Judaism-derived Christian mythology later conflated several different entities into one superpowered antagonist of their trinity god. Christians equated Satan with the snake in Genesis, an animal that was never meant to be anything other than a talking snake. The snake is simply a plot device and only acts malevolently because the authors of the Jewish creation myth didn't think very highly of snakes.
Other characters that were thrown in with Satan include the devil aka the father of lies first mentioned by the gospel authors, who were strongly influenced by Greek mythology and also invented the Christian hell based on the Greek Hades. Further mixed in with Satan are several characters from the book of revelations, such as the dragon / serpent and the beast. And then there is a passage in Isaiah, which brings us to the term Lucifer.
In Isaiah 14, the author muses about the rise and fall of (presumably) a Babylonian king. He writes "How you are fallen from heaven, o day star ... you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven ...' but you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit."
When the word "day star" in this passage was translated to Latin, it became "Lucifer" (literally "lightbringer"), the Latin name for the day star / morning star / planet Venus.
Now, it is important to understand that Sheol is not the same as the Hades-inspired Christian hell. Sheol is simply the realm of the dead, a place of peace and tranquility (akin to Hel in Norse mythology) rather than a place of punishment. Ancient Judaism had no heaven or hell. After death, both good and evil souls spent eternity in Sheol. There were even schools of Judaism that didn't believe in an afterlife at all.
In other words, it is clear that Isaiah was talking about a mortal person, a king who thought himself a god but eventually died and ended up in Sheol like everyone else. Yet Christian scholars used this passage to concoct a story about Satan as an usurper who was banned from heaven and thrown into their Hades-inspired fiery hell. And since this passage speaks of the day star, the term Lucifer became one of the many bynames of the Christian devil. I hope this clears up a few things :)
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chilone (17310)
6 years ago
Wow! There are so many holes in what you wrote! You're criticizing Christian scholars yet you say the book of "revelations"? Kids in Sunday school know it's "Revelation". Also using the word "Yahweh"? You might want to read up on that. It's not even a word. It's derived from YHVH which doesn't even have a pronunciation. The Hebrews were totally reverent in actually using God's name (which is WAY too complex to really even say), so much as they often referred to Him as Hashem which means "the name". People who use "Yahweh", "Yeshua", etc., are generally pretentious windbags who want to come across as being "in the know". Oh, your story about the serpent is the most ridiculous thing I've read in a LONG time. Sorry.
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