Saturday, October 9, 2021

Son Of The Dawn: The Ambiguity Of Isaiah 14

The nature of Satan's exact backstory is not ultimately of immediate importance when it comes to core Christian metaphysics, ethics, apologetics, and soteriology--in other words, the only parts of Christianity that would directly impact one's life in terms of foundational ideas and actions.  Still, Satan is a fairly important figure in Christian theology even if one does not need to think or read about him at all in order to understand most of Christianity as conveyed by the Bible itself (not tradition).  It is just that even those curious about his background in the overarching story of the Bible or his exact nature will find, if they are willing to not make assumptions about what the text actually says, will find little information outside of extra-Biblical ideas rooted in tradition.

While the New Testament often mentions Satan without giving elaborate information about his creation and fall, two particular parts of the Old Testament, Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, either speak of a grand demonic being or have been almost randomly treated as connected to the Biblical doctrine of Satan.  I have already addressed Ezekiel 28 specifically [1], and this chapter, while it does plainly use language of a superhuman spiritual creature that fell into rebellion against Yahweh, very well might not have anything to do with the Satan mentioned in the New Testament.  Perhaps there are multiple demonic leaders even if Satan is the most popular.  However, Isaiah 14 is more ambiguous than this.

Isaiah is not even as clear as Ezekiel 28, a passage that explicitly references Eden itself and states that the being it is describing was at one point a cherub angel.  At least Ezekiel 28, even if it does somewhat focus on a human ruler, has to partly refer to a demonic entity in some way.  The wording of Ezekiel is much more explicitly tied to a formerly angelic and now demonic being, a being that enjoyed moral perfection and access to Eden before it cared about following its own preferences enough to turn to sin.  At the very least, Ezekiel 28 refers to a demonic figure--yet one that might or might not be Satan--if not a demonic figure and an egoistic human ruler.

In Isaiah 14, a series of statements addressed to the king of Babylon by all appearances literally refer to an actual human ruler, but, as the passage goes on, there is never an indication that it is suddenly referencing a being that visited Eden other than the phrase "O morning star, son of the dawn."  The word Lucifer shared similarities to Latin words for light, but the fact that Christians might call Satan by the name Lucifer and that the wording of Isaiah 14:12 mentions a star and the dawn, both things associated with light, does not mean Satan is being spoken of here.  Moreover, even the way Isaiah 14 describes this king as wanting to surpass God does not make him Satan.

None of this has deterred the typical irrationalistic Christian (now most commonly personified by mainstream evangelicals) from making a host of assumptions about Satan's backstory according to the Bible.  The irony is that the only potential backstory is vague when it comes to the specifics at best and that these possible details about Satan's history are not even necessarily referring to Satan!  Despite their ambiguity, there is still nothing other than the New Testament besides Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 that is directly relevant to this issue.  Lucifer, if that is even an alternate name for Satan in the first place, is at most a being with a past largely unaddressed by the entire Bible.

No comments:

Post a Comment