Does anybody know the difference between Satan and Lucifer? This is a longstanding bet with my friend, and I would appreciate any help given.
“Satan” comes from a Hebrew word meaning “adversary.”
“Lucifer” probably is a reference to a Babylonian king, not the most popular people to the Jews. The Hebrew word, I think, translates to something like “morning star.”
Somewhere along the line (don’t know where), it was assumed that “Lucifer” also referred to guy with the pitchfork, but I don’t know where.
Always thought Lucifer meant “bringer of light”
There was a “Who was Beelzebub” thread a few days ago. The question I have is whether, in contemporary Judeo-Christian religious belief, is their one Bad Guy, and Satan, Lucifer, etc., are other names for him, or whether hell is populated by these different personalities?
V.
Here’s a thread from a while back that has some more info:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=21994
From my reading, here is what I remember:
Lucifer - originally the name represented the greek god Phosporus or Eosphoros, the morning start (Venus). Christians (was St. Jerome the first?) later on applied the name to Satan, maybe because of the description of Satan as an “angel of light” (see below.) (John Milton uses Lucifer in Paradise Lost.)
Satan: from a Hebrew word for “adversary” in the Old Testament, I think in Book of Job. In the new testament the greek word Satanas is used, and he’s the prince of evil spirits who is described as an angel of light.
Beelzebub is a god (of the Philistines?) in the Old Testament, and came to mean “prince of devils”. I think it also can mean “lord of the flies.”
SuaSponte, to answer your question, I can tell you what I remember from my catholic upbringing.
Satan defied God and convinced a host of other angels to participate in his rebellion. All of them were punished by being cast in hell. So there are many “fallen angels”, of which Satan is the leader.
Any one who dies unrepentant in a state of mortal sin will end up in hell and becomes a “devil”. So there would be many devils in hell, but only one Satan.
FWIW, in LDS theology “Lucifer” and “Satan” are two different names for the same being.
I liked John Lovitz as Mephistopheles on SNL many years ago.
“Lucifer” is found in a passage in Isaiah. The passage begins something like “O how you have fallen son of the morning…” If you read the whole passage, it obviously refers to a human king, probably Babylonian. However, in the middle of the passage it uses grandiose language to describe how he wanted to be like God and failed.
Somewhere along the way, I am not sure where, the part about trying to be like God and falling became attached to Satan. This is one of those OT prophesies that have a double intrepretation, like the maiden/virgin passage also in Isaiah that predicts Jesus’ virgin birth. Unlike the virgin birth passage, there is no inspired passage in the OT or the NT that confirms the double meaning, so I take it with a grain of salt.
This is a getting a little off the subject, but maybe some of you biblical scholars can sort out another longstanding argument about The Evil One. The Genesis story about Adam and Eve specifies that a serpent tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. All the time I was growing up, I was assured by parents and CCD instructors that this serpent was actually Satan (the fallen angel, not the SD poster). But Genesis never does relate this information. In fact, Satan (as one of my theology teachers from college pointed out) is an unexplained being and doesn’t actually enter the old testament until late in the story (in “Job” I believe) and that there really is no connection between the two beings. Who is right? My CCD instructor or my college professor?
I’m not sure people become devils any more than they become angels. Humans retain their humanity after death so if relegated to hell, become unredeemed people. Opposite of a saint…?
Fat Angel, the serpent of Genesis is revealed to be the Devil in the Book of Revelation 20:2. This sorta ties in with Isaiah 27:1.
And some other references that seem to tie OT and NT:
Romans 16:20
2 Corinthians 11:14
Luke 10:8
Fat Angel, I have to disagree a little with Mjollnir about the serpent from the GoE being the same as that in Revelation. The serpent form of Satan in Revelation is that of a massive multi-headed dragon whose tail sweeps a third of the stars from the sky (provided of course that the dragon/serpent named Satan that Micheal fights in Rev 12 is the same dragon/serpent named Satan that Micheal fights and enchains in Rev 20). I think it goes without saying that the serpent in Genesis wasn’t quite as imposing and is generally considered to be a typical snake or lizard, or at least something that wasn’t seven headed and bearing seventy horns. Most depictions of Satan as a serpent in Genesis started around medieval times although some postulated that Satan tempted Eve through the serpent. In any event, the mere mention of a serpent in both ends of the Bible doesn’t necessarily denote that the Jews who wrote Genesis were thinking the same thing as the Christians who would write Revelation hundreds of years later.
Fat angel,
your college professor is also wrong in the assumption that the books of the old testament are placed in chronological order
there is a general consesus that Job takes place very early in biblical history, probably before the Great Flood
And Jophiel, satan took the guise of a serpent to communicate with Eve, it is said he can assume a guise pleasing to the eye, he is a spiritual being and therefore not specifically restrained to a physical form
I wasn’t arguing the ability of Satan to change form or make someone think he was in a different form or however you want to believe the mechanics of it, my point was that the word “serpent” in Genesis is referring to a very different animal than it is in Revelation. Leviathan is described as a serpent as well in the book of Isaiah, yet I’ve yet to hear a popular opinion that Leviathan is a name for Satan or a form thereof despite the fact that the massive form of Leviathan is closer to Satan’s dragon form (Christ, now Satan sounds like a Power Ranger) than the serpent in the Gos is. Likewise, I’ve yet to hear anyone say that Leviathan was tempting anyone in the Garden. My point being that the evidence of Satan being the serpent in the GoS is at best circumstancial, being “Well, it was a serpent in Genesis and we know know Satan took on a serpent form in Revelation, so it must be Satan in the Eden!” If you have an early (pre-Christian) Jewish account of Satan being the serpent, by all means let me know but don’t use Christian books to fill in the holes you find in the Jewish faith.
ah…
fair enough
Just to clarify my question a bit, I did know about the Apocalyptic Revelation part, and my college prof did mention that different books of the Bible were written out of the order in which they appear today. what my prof was really pointing out was that there was no specific link in either the Garden of Eden story or Job between the serpent and Satan. (“Job” refers to a being called Satan, but does not identify him as being the serpent from Eden. Likewise, the Genesis story does not add on "And the Most Pernicious Serpent wast named Satan and hee didst go on to plague the devoted servant of the Lord Job in another episode!)I guess I also unthinkingly assumed that everyone shared my agnostic belief that the Bible is mainly literature more than it is the True Revelation of the Lord. I was thinking more along the lines of Jophiel; in that I was wondering if the original Hebrew ( or Babylonian or whoever) writers of Job and Genesis thought they were the same character. since Revelations was unquestionably written long after both Job and the Eden story were, were these two characters – the serpent and Satan – ORIGINALLY considered the same character, or is this a Christian revision of the earlier stories?
Fat Angel, as I said, the earliest accounts I know of where Satan is conclusively named as the serpent in the GoE (I have no idea why I kept typing GoS before) are medieval. From some light research, Gustave Davidson (A Dictionary of Angels) and Matthew Bunson (Angels A to Z) back me up on that one. I have a few other books, but since most modern research books on angels seem to rely heavily on Davidson’s work, I’m going to assume they say close to the same thing. I’ll grant that pretty much anyone with a Christian background is brought up being taught that the serpent was Satan and when you’re shown Revelation, it just seems so obvious, but the fact is that there are no pre-Christian texts to back this up that I know of. If anyone has one, I’ll be glad to change my opinion on the whole matter but until then I’ll assume that the early Jews knew what they were doing and knew who was who without the Christians spelling it all out for them.
Returning to the original question, I have also wondered what exactly is the difference between these various diabolic names? I’ve never read the bible, but reading the various definitions at http://www.dictionary.com, I concluded the following:
Satan (meaning ‘adversary’) is The Devil.
Lucifer (meaning ‘morning star’ - i.e. Venus - or ‘light bringer’) is either a king of Babylon or ‘The Devil’ depending on how you interpret the passage in Isaiah.
Beelzebub (meaning ‘lord of the flies’ or ‘Lord of dung’) is another biblical name for The Devil. However in Militon’s Pardise Lost he is just one of the fallen angels, and is next to Satan in power.
Mephistopheles is the devil in the Faust legend to whom Faust sold his soul.
Like I said, I’ve never read the Bible and don’t wish to have a theological argument, but the dictionary’s information seems pretty straight-forward.