I think calling the traditional Christian interpretation a misunderstanding isn't particularly NPOV.
Also, the star which falls from the sky is also mentioned in Revelation (IIRC), although maybe not explicity called Lucifer.
It _is_ a historical misunderstanding, due to misunderstanding translations.
Something is translated correctly but narrowly - someone reads the narrow translation and misinterpret it when translating to another language. The same thing happen if you tell someone a story, and they tell it on. If I translate a text from norwegian into english, and then someone else translates it from english to, say, spanish .. then the spanish translation wouldn't reflect the norwegian text as good as the english one, as information WILL have been lost along the way.
Of course, you could always rewrite it into "Some people think that this is based on a Christian misunderstanding", however I don't think you'll find anyone presented with the facts arguing for the medieval view. :)
--arcade
I think you are ignoring a long tradition within Christianity of giving prophecies multiple interpretations. In particular, many prophecies dealing with no longer relevant events were later reinterpreted to have broader, more universal significance. Often current events and the end of the world were merged into one, making it very difficult to determine what is talking about today and what is talking about the end of the world (see, for example, the passage in Matthew concerning the fall of Jerusalem). Maybe this kind of expansion was illegitimate, maybe it was not, but it was not unknown in ancient Judaism or Christianity, nor medieveal or modern Christianity for that matter. (Witness the pesher method of interpretation used by Qumran, or typology). So just because the passage originally referred to the Babylonian King, doesn't mean that Christians like Jerome interpreted it as solely doing so -- they may well have interpreted it as also talking about a more cosmic event -- the fall of Satan from heaven.
And even if the original text is talking about the king of Babylon, it is quite possibly using Venus as an allegory for the king. In which case, the later interpretation of it is perfectly legitimate. Alternatively, if they intepreted it as reffering to the fall of Satan, the translation may have been influenced by an independent tradition that Satan was the morning star. And look at Revelation, where you will find several references to falling stars, one of which may be Satan (I am no expert at interpreting Revelations) -- which might indicate a prior existence of a tradition to the effect that Satan is the morning star fallen from the heavens.
Anyway, to summarise -- there are other possible explanations than it being an inaccurate translation. It might be a perfectly accurate translation, according to the religious presuppositions of the translators. -- SJK
- Also on the topic of translation and religious 'opinion'. Please don't think that the Latin translators of scripture were simple-minded or unconnected to a larger tradition. Jerome was not only working out of Greek and Hebrew scripture texts, but had access to contemporary (5th C. A.D.) Jews and their opinions. He read commentaries written by and for Rabbinic Jews on their own texts. That background may or may not (I have no immediate idea) have influenced this translation, but it must be taken into consideration; not do contemporary scholars think it's a mistranslation of the Hebrew, but what did 5th century Jews say the text meant. --MichaelTinkler
You both raise interesting points.
I'm not sure on how to formulate the article, I've done a bit searching, and found the following, quite interesting article on it:
http://www.lds-mormon.com/lucifer.shtml (which I based my entry quite a bit on)
http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/Writings/LuciferandSatan.html
http://web2.iadfw.net/~elo/news/venus.html
Any recomendations on how to type this out, to reflect it all from a NPOV ?
--arcade
- Well, you're going to have to start by explaining that the websites you're drawing on are extremely tricky. I don't know that any of the people on the first one address the issue that I raised, for instance. They're all talking about 'just translating the Hebrew', as though there wasn't any discussion about what the words signified as well as what they meant. The Web is not always the best place to find information about difficult topics. --MichaelTinkler
Uhm, no. The first one does, which I based my initial expanding of the Lucifer article on. The two last are explaning it quite a bit better. Still reading other pages, though.
Also, I expect that people that know more about it, sure will add to the article. :)
--arcade
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