The Truth About Lucifer
Edip Yaramis
The Truth About Lucifer, by Hadrian Mar Elijah Bar IsraelOur popular culture has a long preserved narrative about a shining morning star, named Lucifer, who fell to Earth and bounced, creating evil upon the Earth and leading men astray. But where is that in the Bible? Those who support this narrative claim it comes from Isaiah 14:12, which the King James Version has as:
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
Although the Hampton Court Conference mandated that the translators use the Textus Receptus for their translation, it seems that they instead chose to use the popular culture version of the verse which was circulating around Europe at that time, from the Latin Vulgate, which reads:
The Catholic Saint Jerome was the first to translate the scriptures into Latin. His translation is still used as the official scripture of the Roman Catholic Church and some other groups. The actual text from the Textus Receptus doesn’t mention Lucifer at all. Jerome translates the Greek word heōsphoros ἑωσφόρος, the "bringer of dawn" as Lucifer thus:
quomodo cecidisti de caelo lucifer qui mane oriebaris corruisti in terram qui vulnerabas gentes
A true translation of the original Hebrew would be:
“How are you fallen from Heaven, O Shining Son of the morning, you who weakened the nations, have been cut down to Earth!” [1]
The term hêlêl הילל the “Shining” one or the “Shining Son” which is used here, was an epithet of the King of Babylon. This verse is thus a reference to the Babylonian captivity, not a fallen angel. (See Jeremiah 50:23 for context.)
So where did our Lucifer story come from? It was Durante Degli Alighieri ( i.e. “Dante” ) who first used the Latin word “Lucifer” to describe a fallen angel in his fictional work, La Divina Commedia, and it is precisely that work of fiction which has passed the Luciferian narrative into our western secular and religious culture.
References
(Isaiah 14:12) The Bible Translated by Hadrian Mar Elijah Bar Israel
From the personal blog of H.E. Hadrian Mar Elijah Bar Israel, Emeritus Metropolitan of the Nazarani Church.