//Continuing our discussion from yesterday about the origins of Lucifer, we reach today’s verse written by Paul. What we’re about to uncover is a fascinating instance of “scripture interpreting scripture” to arrive at the conclusion that the Lucifer of Isaiah 14 (the only place in the Bible where the name Lucifer is used) actually refers to Satan. We’ll do this by examining New Testament texts, written many hundreds of years after Isaiah died. Paul starts us off by informing us that Satan masquerades as an angel of light, similar to the Morning Star of Isaiah.

Then we have Luke 10:18, where Jesus exclaims that he “saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Recall yesterday’s verse: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” Could this be coincidence?

Next we come to this story in Revelation about the dragon:

“And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”

Again, this sounds a lot like Isaiah, doesn’t it? It’s easy to conclude Isaiah was talking about Satan when he used the name Lucifer … though as we discussed yesterday how the name Lucifer didn’t exist in scripture until after Christ arrived, and the translation into Latin.

All this begs the question: If we have used scripture to interpret scripture, fitting the pieces together like a puzzle, erroneously interpreting Isaiah’s writings to be about Satan, then what did Isaiah 14 mean in the first place? We’ll answer that tomorrow.

//Today’s verse is the only place in the Bible where the name Lucifer is used. In fact, it only appears in some translations; primarily the King James version. The word in Hebrew isn’t Lucifer at all, or even close. It’s “helel,” which probably derives from the root “to shine brightly.” 

When the original Hebrew was translated into Greek for the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, before Christ came on the scene), the word became “heosphoros,” meaning Morning star, the name used by many translations today.

Moving on to the next step, the translation to Latin after Christ, the name became Lucifer. The roots of this word are “lux”, meaning “light,” and “ferre,” meaning “to bring.” Lucifer means “bearer of light.” By the fourth century, Lucifer had become another name for Venus, the Morning Star.

When we arrive at the King James version of the Bible, in the year 1611, the name Lucifer remains, but surprisingly became  popularized as another name for Satan! How did we make this jump in logic? Continued tomorrow.

//Mark tells how when Jesus came to Jerusalem, he entered the temple, looked around, and went away for the night. Then he came back and staged his symbolic “attack” on the temple. The same story in Matthew drops the premeditation, and leads one to believe Jesus was incensed when he saw the temple and immediately cast out the money changers et. al.

Mark’s order of events:

Why did Matthew rewrite the order? Is indignant anger better than premeditated attack? What do you think really happened?

//While the Messianic Secret is a theme from all three of the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is most prominent in the first of the three to be written–Mark’s Gospel. Jesus states very plainly that he does not want anybody to know he is the Christ.  “Christ” merely means “Messiah,” and Jesus doesn’t want to be known as the Messiah. That revelation would have to wait until after his death. Matthew, who loves to quote scripture, explains this by referring back to Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy: “He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.”

It may be, however, that both traditions share the truth. In John, Jesus is just as clear as in the Synoptics that he doesn’t want to be made into a king, or thought of as a warrior who will save his people by might. Jesus may therefore have objected to the traditional image of Christ/Messiah, but embraced John’s more gentle, nonmilitary version.

//Ever wonder who these depraved fellows are in the book of Timothy? Tradition names them as the magicians who competed with Moses, performing tricks for Pharoah, as in the following verses:

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. –Exodus 7:10-12

Several Jewish writings after the time of Christ, including Targums and Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, make reference to Jannes and Jambres. Origin, one of the early Church Fathers, refers in his writing Against Celsus to an apocryphal book titled The Book of Jannes and Jambres about the exploits of these two magicians. Origin says that the epistle of 2 Timothy is quoting from that book (Origin assumes authorship of Timothy by Paul). 

The Book of Jannes and Jambres has never been found, and many commentators, defending Sola Scriptura, insist instead that Paul learned their names by divine inspiration.

How does the Church shed its stodgy, antiquated feel while retaining its reverence for 2,000-year-old ritual? How does it jettison denominational pigeonholing and institutionalization while still clinging to Christ?

Answer: Emergence. This seems to be one of the labels that nobody understands; perhaps not even its practitioners. Emergence Christianity is a relatively new worldwide movement in the Christian world, and it’s still evolving. It generally transcends such labels as “liberal” or “conservative,” stepping sideways to address, instead, issues like social activism. It usually emphasizes the “here and now” over eternal salvation, but beyond that, its decentralized structure can make it very hard to tie the movement down in terms of doctrine. Tickle likes to think of Emergence Christianity as “spiritual Christ-knowing,” not as religion. Compared to their secular neighbors, however, Tickle says Emergence Christians are both spiritual and religious.

Maybe it’s best to explain by example. Readers of my reviews may recognize radical Christian leader Shane Claiborne and mega-church pastor Rob Bell, who share the face of Emergence Christianity. However, while the increase in mega-churches probably is a result of the same cultural pressures that evoked the Great Emergence, it would be wrong to put Emergence Christianity entirely in the mega-church corner. Most Emergence Christians may still prefer house churches, and an unwritten doctrine seems to be that the “church is a people to be, not a place to go.” Says Tickle, “Emergence Christians think of themselves as communal and relational more than sacred or holy.”

Still confused? Consider the title of Brian D. McLaren’s recent book: A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/calvinist, anabaptist/anglican, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian.

Yeah. Dig it. If you buy Tickle’s book—and you should—I suggest eating dessert first: in the center of the book is an annotated section of full-color pictures. Start by paging through the pictures of Emergence Christianity in practice, and read there a little about its methodology, before returning to the meat in chapter 1. I particularly loved seeing the communion table in one picture: outdoors, on the grass, lies an American flag rug, and on top of that stands a beautiful chess set. On the chess board sits a small loaf of bread and a glass of red wine. (Scotch, perhaps? For you chess enthusiasts, the opening looks like it’s transposing into the Scotch Gambit. Could this possibly be coincidence? Did anyone else notice this?)

This book hit the mark with me, because Tickle legitimizes Christianity among scholars. For better or worse, Emergence Christians generally share a higher education level, and more of a willingness to embrace technology in the service. If you find that authors like Bell and Claiborne write down to the eighth grade level of reader, you’ll find the opposite is true of Tickle. Her writing is intelligent and informative, and she knows her stuff. I have not yet read Tickle’s The Great Emergence (2008), but I’m thinking now that I must.