King of the God-Gate

Lucifer is not Satan. 

In this week study, we dig into the Hebrew name translated Lucifer in the king James Bible, Helel Ben Shachar. Scholar William Gallagher showed in a peer reviewed paper more than 30 years ago that Helel was the West Semitic (i.e., Hebrew) transliteration of the Akkadian deity Ellil. 

This entity was known by many names in the ancient Near East, including Dagon, Assur, El, and Milcom (and thus Molech). All of these entities were connected to the underworld whereas Satan is nowhere in the Bible linked to Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, or the abyss. 

The other clue pointing to Ellil et. al is the fact that this polemic is directed at the king of Babylon. In Hebrew, that's melek bab el, which literally means "King of Babel" or "king of the god-gate." 

We realize this is a unique take on a famous and well studied chapter of the Bible. But it's consistent with other scriptures, and it's a good reminder to ask ourselves whether our interpretation of scripture is based on the Bible itself or human traditions. 

Here's the link to the book by David W. Lowe, Deconstructing Lucifer, which shows how our understanding of Satan today is quite different from how the apostles viewed him: https://bit.ly/4cWhW9U 

Question of the week: Why do some scholars call Judea in the time of Jesus "Palestine"?