Where did Beelzebub come from?

Factual Questions
1

www.m-w.com says:

I know that the name Baal Zevuv, (lit. Lord of the Flies) comes from the Second Book of Kings, Chapter 1:

**

Here’s my question - The name Baal Zevuv doesn’t occur anywhere else in the Old Testament other than Kings I. And, in Kings I, it refers to a Pagan God (of the Ekronites), not to Satan (or the Evil Inclination, or whatever).

Could you please help me trace the etymology from Kings I to being another name for Satan?

I’ll admit that this is more than simple curiosity… I am teaching a class on Thursday night that this figures into, so time is of the essence.

Thank You.

2

I don’t think it was that uncommon for the Church to deem that any pagan god was Satan.

{WAG}Beelzebub is fun to say, so it stuck around longer than most.{/WAG}

3

He came from San Diego. We met when we were four years old.

Oops! I thought you were asking about my ex-roommate BeelzeBOB! :smiley:

4

It gets murky, but I’ll sketch the outline.

There is considerable evidence that the ancient Hebrews recognised the existence of other local gods (hence the commandment is worded “have no other gods before me, for the Lord thy God is a jealous God”). Baal was one of these (of Babylonian derivation) as was Moloch and some others.

Later Biblical scholars took a dim view of this implied poytheism, especially Catholic scholars, and therefore concluded that all such beings mentioned must perforce be demons, allied with Satan. Sort of cosmic demotion.

(When the term “Satan” is first introduced it is not a proper name, more like a title, like Prosecuting Attorney, the being charged with presenting a dissenting view, esp. as regards Job. Some authorities claim that Satan is a perfectly respectable angel charged with a task, as the Catholic Church charges the Devils Advocate to make a case that a given person does not deserve canonization.)

Help any? Probably not, like I said, very murky territory.

5

Asimov’s Guide to the Bible says this:

Note the phrase “For some reason”. To me this means that there is was no single satisfying reason known to Asimov, or perhaps no good reasons known at all. From this, about all we can say is this association developed between the time of Kings I and the New Testament.

6

There used to be some sort of trend towards considering all the pagan gods and the like to be fallen angels. Consider Milton’s Paradise Lost which lists numerous deities of the Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Canaanites and other peoples as angels fallen from Heaven after losing the War and now being worshipped as gods. While today, many of us can identify the better known Greek/Roman/Egyptian deities, ones such as Baal, Moloch, Astarte and others are bit more sketchy. In such thinking, it’s easy to see where people linked pagan god = fallen angel = devil = The Devil = Satan.

7

From A Dictionary of Angels including the fallen angels by Gustav Davidson:

So, old Beelzebub would seem to be considered equivalent to Satan by Dante, but not by other writers.

As a bit more reference material, the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend has this to say about the “baal” part of the name:

Another example of this transmutation from pagan “Baal” to Christian demon may be found in Belphegor, or “Lord Baal of Mt. Phegor”, orginally a Moabite god of licentiousness, but who according to cabalists was an agel of the order of Principalities.

As Jophiel mentioned, Moloch and Baal (“Bel”, originally Marduk), got the same transformation treatment. Dagon is another fallen angel who appears in Paradise Lost (I, 457) but who was a national god of the ancient Phoenicians.

Few pagan gods went up rather than down, but the ancient Irish goddess of fire and poetry, Brigit, managed to escape becoming apostate; her personality passed over to the 6th-century Saint Brigit.

8

Interesting etymology: the name Ba’al in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic, representing the despised pagan god, was absorbed into Hebrew as the equivalent of “master.” This is reflected in scholars such as the Ba’al Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name) and in some Yiddish words, such as balabusta (literally: master of the house).

9

Actually, CKDextHavn, considering that “Baal” is the Hebrew word for “owner” or “master,” it’s not very surprising etymology. Assuming that the languages of all Semitic peoples were related, those who considered those beings their deities would use the term on them. And it’s a good or bad term depending on what it indicates the bearer is the owner or master of.

10

On a peripherally related the subject, the original Philistines (the Indo-European invaders ~1200 BC) wore horned helmets. Since these people conquered (and eventually merged with) the coastal Semites and were undoubtedly a scourge to the Hebrews up in the hills, I always thought our custom of portraying the devil with horns was derived from the “demonization” of these people.

11

Is that it?

I don’t come to the SDMB for guesses and close answers… I need the real thing… come on! Can’t anyone give me the Straight Dope!!!

Unca Cece? I believe in you! Will you help me?

:frowning: please? :frowning:

12

Wadda ya want?! The cold, hard, facts of Angelology? How many baalim can dance on the head of a pin? Beelzebub’s shoe size? :slight_smile:

The OP question (boiled down a bit) was: “Could you please help me trace the etymology [of Beelzebub] from Kings I to being another name for Satan?”

As CKDextHavn and cmkeller have noted, the etymology of the name is well understood.

The path from baalim to demon doesn’t appear all that mysterious either, the same transformation has been applied to any number of other deities, Semitic or otherwise.

I will have to leave it to wiser minds to explain the socio-theological reasons for the shift from “our god and their gods” in the Old Testament, to “our one **true **god, and their evil-false-can’t-be-gods-so-must-be-demons” of the New Testament.

As for why Beelzebub (rather than Belphegor, or whoever) gets to be another name for Satan, check the Davidson quote: *
Beelzebub is chief of the demons, “prince of the devils” (as in Matthew 12:24), but he is to be distinguished from Satan (just as he is in all magic, medieval or otherwise). *

Looks like Dante did consider him the same, but other writers have not.

On a more serious note… what more information do you require… you said that it was related to a class on Thursday. What other info would help? Would it help to know why Beelzebub was considered a “prince” among demons, or why Dante considered them the same, or…

We will ferret out the SD… Baalcecil or no. :smiley:

PS: I’ve often thought that I’d like to name a cat Beelzebubbles.

13

On a similar note (cat names), what would Lord of the Mice translate to? Beelzemickey? :smiley:

14

Questions? We have answers!

I have gone to the works of the other Great Explainer, He Whose Ego Would Not Shrink in the Presence of Cecil’s, to get answers. Per “Asimov’s Guide to the Bible,”

"…there are at least two explanations of its meaning. One is that the actual name was Baalzebul, meaning ‘Lord of the House,’ that is ‘Lord of the Temple,’ a natural title for people to give their main god. It would then seem that the Biblical writers, unable to bring themselves to give an idol a title which seemed to them to belong only to Yahweh, converted it to Baalzebub by the change of a letter.

"A second explanation is that Baalzebub really did mean ‘Lord of the Flies’ and this was a legitimate title of the chief god of the Philistine city of Ekron, for which it meant he had the power to bring or prevent insect plagues, which were great and fearful realities in the ancient world. It is not unlikely that the ancients noticed the rise in disease incidence where flies were plentiful and a ‘Lord of the Flies’ might be, in general, a god with special powers in the field of health and medicine. This would explain why Ahaziah in his extremity should seek out Baalzebub in particular even though (as he must have known) this would enrage the prophetic party in Israel. And this it did, for Elijah arrived at once to denounce the action.

"For some reason, Baalzebub grew to receive particular attention from the later Jews as the idolatrous god par excellence. Thus, when the reports of Jesus’ ability spread, some said skeptically:

"Matthew 12:24 …This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.

“By ‘prince’ we mean leader or chief so that Beelzebub (the New Testement spelling) was considered the chief devil, the being more familiarly known to us as Satan. In ‘Paradise Lost,’ John Milton makes use of a whole hierarchy of fallen angels, and therefore has Satan and Beelzebub as separate beings, but he makes Beelzebub second only to Satan.”

15

And that is a most interesting piece of puzzle; why does the chief god of the Philistines get to top bad guy?

Was this perhaps caused by very poor relations between the Hebrews and the Philistines, rather than the Moabites, or the Phoenicians, or the Babylonians?

Certainly the Philistines were much feared – them with their fancy bronze weapons and armour, and the poor Hebrews armed with copper – and despite their higher level of technology the name “Philistine” remains today as a synonym for uncultured barbarity, much like “Vandal”.

16

Yowza!!!

The game is afoot…

Apollyon, thanks for getting the baal rolling again (groan)!

I’ll 'splain: On Thursday night I am teaching a class about the Jewish perspective on the Evil Inclination. To kick off, I am using Golding’s Lord of the Flies to introduce the concept of Mankind’s Essential Illness. From there I will jump to Star Trek (The Enemy Within) and from there to the Talmud…

I just thought that an interesting tangent would be to figure out why this particular pagan god became synonymous with Satan.

Thanks (already and in advance), dropzone, Apollyon and all the others!

17

I do not wish to imply disrespect for the writers of the Bible, but if you were naming The Enemy could you resist a pun like Baalzebul/Baalzebub? By changing a single letter you get to totally diss the chief god of your worst enemy!

What also got me thinking in Dr Ike’s book was how the last vestiges of polytheism in the early Jews is not quite stamped out by later editing. Elohim is, after all, plural. And, despite St Pat and the shamrock, I never could buy the whole Trinity spiel. Then the whole Marian cult? Polytheism was never completely wiped out in the Judeo-Christian tradition. But that’s another thread.

18 
Holy Bat-References! Anyone using these sources is a genious. I kneel before thee- nobody uses Star Trek, and Talmud in the same sentence. Ya got me feeling all warm and fuzzy !!! :D

Cartooniverse

19

Thankee, thankee!

But really, can anyone else get in on this? I have to deliver this class, tomorrow night to an illustrous group of scholars (OK, some scholars)… The key to being academically impressive is volume.

Ergo, I need more sources!!

20

I had always understood that Beelzebub was derived from Ba’al Zebul meaning not ‘Lord of the Flies’ but "Lord of the Shit’ and was a derogatory name for Satan.
Being of a delicate nature the religious leaders of the time substituted ‘flies’ for ‘shit’ - the connection being obvious.

You may want to check out http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02388c.htm which provides more details and is a SOURCE!

NB Most sites on the net that I have had time to look at translate ‘Zebul’ as 'Dung" not shit, but I can’t see how that would offend anyone’s sensibilities. On a related note, manifestations of Satan are supposed to leave an overpowering smell of excrement. This is mentioned in ‘The Amityville Horror’ although no doubt you will find a more reputable source is you search the net!