what would hell be like?

Hell would be a 24-7 techno club offering trips that you can never come down from.

Macarena at 120/minute, anyone?

:m:,
Tiassa :cool:

I think this may make me appear to be the most ignorant person on this board, but I don't care:
Where does it say the devil is violent (only read parts of the OT, not NT)

Originally posted by Nightpoet
Where does it say the devil is violent (only read parts of the OT, not NT)

As far as I know, nowhere.
It doesn't even mention Lucifer being the Devil or Satan.

I took this from a webpage a long time ago, so please forgive me if I can't remember the source.
I can't qualify the validity of the source, but if I am wrong, please let me know, by quoting chapter and verse...


"Lucifer makes his appearance in the fourteenth chapter of the Old Testament book of Isaiah, at the twelfth verse, and nowhere else: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"

In the original Hebrew text, the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah is not about a fallen angel, but about a fallen Babylonian king, who during his lifetime had persecuted the children of Israel. It contains no mention of Satan, either by name or reference. The Hebrew scholar could only speculate that some early Christian scribes, writing in the Latin tongue used by the Church, had decided for themselves that they wanted the story to be about a fallen angel, a creature not even mentioned in the original Hebrew text, and to whom they gave the name "Lucifer."

Why Lucifer? In Roman astronomy, Lucifer was the name given to the morning star (the star we now know by another Roman name, Venus). The morning star appears in the heavens just before dawn, heralding the rising sun. The name derives from the Latin term lucem ferre, bringer, or bearer, of light." In the Hebrew text the expression used to describe the Babylonian king before his death is Helal, son of Shahar, which can best be translated as "Day star, son of the Dawn."

Theologians, writers, and poets interwove the myth with the doctrine of the Fall, and in Christian tradition Lucifer is now the same as Satan, the Devil, and --- ironically --- the Prince of Darkness.

So "Lucifer" is nothing more than an ancient Latin name for the morning star, the bringer of light.

In Latin at the time, "lucifer" actually meant Venus as a morning star. Isaiah is using this metaphor for a bright light, though not the greatest light to illustrate the apparent power of the Babylonian king which then faded."

Hm. i know that an angel (or some such creature) called Satan is in Job, but I had it explained to me that in the Hebrew it was actually HASATAN, The Satan, and his job was to seek out sinners, prove guilt, and punish them.

Where does the idea of Satan as evil and against God come in?

In the KJV and the other offsprings of it, God has done more harm to humankind than Satan had appearances. Perhaps god is a 4 headed monster than a three headed one, no? Father, son, holy spirit, and Satan!

he would probably play that insipidous Ketchup song over and over and over in that techno club, too.

The greater portion of Christian diabology is non-biblical. In Numbers, God sent "a satan" (a stumbling block, an angel of the Lord) to save Balaam. In Job "Satan" appears as a character and apparently of some esteem. It is only late in the game among the Jews that the apocalyptics come to tell stories of the character of Satan.

My two favorite books to recommend about Satan:

Russell, Jeffrey B. Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1984

Pagels, Elaine. The Origin of Satan. New York: Vintage, 1994.

You can probably find both secondhand, and therefore inexpensively, and the Russell book is one of several he wrote about the Devil. The books are so good that he is apparently slightly discouraged that his work about the Devil has eclipsed his more spiritual writings. Lucifer is a great examination of the history of ideas surrounding Satan. Origin is an excellent examination of the history surrounding the Gospels themselves, comparing the imagery of Satan in the New Testament with the events of the day. It's an entertaining and enlightening read.

But it's true, Satan hasn't always been Satan. In addition to Job, the character of Satan appears in 1 Chronicles 21.1 (http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/c/1047162434-4364.html) I noted the Hebrew page at Blue Letter Bible (http://www.blueletterbible.org) because "satan" does not seem to be a name in the Hebrew.

- A note regarding KJV: The Revised Standard Version (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Rsv1Chr.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=21&division=div1) of the Bible also makes Satan a character in 1 Chronicles.

- Incidentally, there's an interesting issue (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Rsv1Chr.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=21&division=div1) related to Satan and the census that I find entertaining ....

Most modern images of the Devil are non-biblical and aggressively propagandist.

I might also recommend Steven Brust's To Reign In Hell (recently reissued in trade paper from TOR) as a sympathetic and entertaining treatment of the mythology of Satan.

:m:,
Tiassa :cool:

lol, yes, if there is this devil and a hell, then yes, we will listen to bad fab music from the 90s. In heaven, we must listen to Celine Dion.

what if the sky falls

WHAT IF THERE WAS NO DEVIL?