A Lucid Look at Lucifer

New Dawn Magazine: We have to literarily, philosophically and theologically deconstruct certain concepts before we can really understand them. This is a process where we look beneath and beyond the commonly assumed folklore.

Some readers may think Lucifer is a clearly designated biblical character, the same figure as Satan. Lucifer is the fallen angel in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis. Right?

Of course, the answer is no on all counts. Surprisingly, the word Lucifer appears only once in the Bible in Isaiah 14:12, translating the Hebrew word helel meaning shining one. In the Greek Septuagint translation, it was rendered as heosphoros (Ηωσφόρος) or light-bearer.

This word comes from Hesperus, a Greek goddess of the dawn. When the Romans took over the Christian scriptures in the 300s, Jerome translated helel and heosphoros as Lucifer in his Latin Vulgate Bible. Whether in old Hebrew, Greek or Latin, the word was the common name for Venus, the brightest planet, the Morning Star, the Light-Bearer, the Day Star...read more>>>...