Lucifer is not Satan

First I need to respond to a rule change in round 2, “The only rule for this debate is that the 66 books of the Bible must be trusted as reliable sources of information, as truth.” I absolutely reject this attempt to shift the debate. Lucifer is a Latin word, the theology of Lucifer is predominately Catholic and comes from the Catholic translation tradition. I intend to pull in material from other canons. In particular material from the Old Testament of the Septuagint whose books don’t match the Protestant canon, the Pseudepigrapha, I reserve the right to apocrypha. And most importantly I certainly intend to pull in Catholic understanding. The doctrine of Lucifer my opponent is objecting to, came out of the late 4th to early 5th century translation, long before there was a Protestantism. I reject either a Protestant definition of the bible, sola scriptura or any other automatic assumption of Protestantism as begging the question. That being said I can agree to focus on the 66 Protestant books of the bible and make my arguments mostly from those. There is plenty of material on Lucifer contained within the 66 Protestant books that Pro recognizes as scripture so as a courtesy I’m willing to keep the focus of the debate, though not the entirety of the debate there. _____________ I think that Isaiah 14:12-15 is an excellent place to start the debate. However I think my opponent’s analysis is inaccurate due to lack of context. Derivation is not definition, while I agree with Pro that lucern ferre (lucifer) literally translated is “light-bearer” the term “light-bearer” is far better translated as “Morning Star” or “Day Star”. The Morning Star is the planet we call “Venus”. Venus lies between the Sun and the Earth. Which means it never “rises” high in the sky and can only be seen at dawn or dusk. It is however the brightest object after the moon in the night sky. So an issue of fascination in the ancient world, until the Ptolemaic system, was why Venus wasn’t visible during the night? Lucifer is a Latin poetic term for the “star” we call Venus. … vigil nitido patefecit ab ortupurpureas Aurora fores et plena rosarumatria: diffugiunt stellae, quarum agmina cogitLucifer et caeli statione novissimus exit \Aurora, awake in the glowing east, opens wide her bright doors, and her rose-filled courts. The stars, whose ranks are shepherded by Lucifer the morning star, vanish, and he, last of all, leaves his station in the sky – (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.114–115) or: Et iam Mygdoniis elata cubilibus altoimpulerat caelo gelidas Aurora tenebras,rorantes excussa comas multumque sequentisole rubens; illi roseus per nubila serasaduertit flammas alienumque aethera tardoLucifer exit equo, donec pater igneus orbemimpleat atque ipsi radios uetet esse sorori And now Aurora rising from her Mygdonian couch had driven the cold darkness on from high in the heavens, shaking out her dewy hair, her face blushing red at the pursuing sun – from him roseate Lucifer averts his fires lingering in the clouds and with reluctant horse leaves the heavens no longer his, until the blazing father make full his orb and forbid even his sister her beams) Statius, Thebaid 2, 134–150. The mentions of Venus, day-star, morning star is all over the bible and the Latin Vulgate many times in keeping with Roman tradition translates as lucifer, for example 2Peter 1:19 the term Φωσφόρος (Phōsphoros) is translated by the Vulgate as Lucifer, “et habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem cui bene facitis adtendentes quasi lucernae lucenti in caliginoso loco donec dies inlucescat et lucifer oriatur in cordibus vestris” (We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:) So it is not that Lucifer only appears on one verse but rather the question becomes: why did the KJV translators retail this Latin term in this one verse while dispensing with it elsewhere? The reason is that the KJV translators knew Greek quite a bit better than Hebrew, and thus tended to be more aggressive in translating from the Greek for the New Testament while tending to defer to the Vulgate on Hebrew expressions. In Isaiah 14:12 they encounter, הֵילֵל בֶּן־שָׁחַר (helel ben-shakhar, “Helel son of Shachar”). This can be taken as a title and names, the treatment in some translations, but literally it means “Day star, son of the Dawn." Jewish lore has apparently always held this is part of the metaphor in Isaiah 14, and my opponents analysis was quite metaphorical so this should not be a point of dispute. In the Vulgate 14:12 is translated, “Quomodo cecidisti de cælo, Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris? corruisti in terram, qui vulnerabas gentes?” An English translation of the Latin would read, “How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who rose in the morning? How are you fallen to the earth, that wounded the nations?” Confronting this Latin, the KJV translators decided to keep the expression in its Latin formulation rather than translate and rest in the English and thus, “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!”. Now I should mention that they were not consistent with this treatment of Lucifer in either testament. For example in Job 11:17, “ et quasi meridianus fulgor consurget tibi ad vesperam et cum te consumptum putaveris orieris ut lucifer”, the KJV translators felt comfortable treating lucifer as a mark of brightness, “And your life would be brighter than noonday. Though you were dark, you would be like the morning.” So if we are going to talk about Lucifer we need to address the original languages and the Vulgate not the KJV. Where the KJV uses Lucifer is mainly an accident of translation. “What should we make of the few places that the Latin word ‘lucifer’ manages to be retained in the English” which as my opponent correctly noted is 0 times in more modern bibles, is a uninteresting question, rather the question should be how to handle the references to Venus, the morning star, the day star in the bible and what imagery to draw from them. ____ So leaving behind the English for the rest of this debate we move to the LXX (the Seputegent’s) treatment of Isaiah 14:12 and note that they use the term: Ἑωσφόρος (Heōsphoros) “Dawn-bringer” which is a dialectical version of Ἠωσφόρος (Ēōsphoros) “Dawn-bringer”. Which in classical the Koine Greek of the NT can be translated asΦωσφόρος (Phōsphoros) “Light-bringer” That is Greek god Phosphorus being tied to his Roman counterpart Lucifer. In Canaanite imagery we have the same play, Athtar, their name for the planet Venus, the son of El the high God attempts to steal the thrown of Ba’al (the Sun). There are scholars who have made the connection between the Hebrew version of Isaiah 14 and this legend. This romantic imagery of Lucifer, Phosphorus, Athtar for Venus and its astrological significance provides the context for Lucifer. The story of Lucifer’s fall is not written primarily in the bible it is written primarily in the night and morning sky. The problem for Jerome in creating the Vulgate was how to disambiguate this conflicting imagery. The identification of Jesus with the Sun makes Lucifer his enemy while the imagery of Lucifer is absorb into the Jesus legend. So for example in Revelations 22:16 Jesus identifies himself as the Morning Star, but this time πρωϊνός is not translated as Lucifer in the Vulgate, but left as “morning star”: Ego Jesus misi angelum meum testificari vobis hæc in ecclesiis. Ego sum radix, et genus David, stella splendida et matutina. I, Jesus, have sent my angel, to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and stock of David, the bright and morning star. And it is this disambiguation that I will discuss in round 3 that identifies Lucifer with the Christian devil.