Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Dennis Says: Let's Put This Story to Rest Once and For All!





Let's Put This Story to Rest Once and For All!

The Planet Venus is the Light Bringer and the Story Behind the Fall of "Satan" in Isaiah 14

Dennis Diehl - EzineArticles Expert Author
If I ever heard an Old Testament story once, I have heard this one told ten thousand times. It comes from Isaiah 14.


12 "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!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;"

This story was THE proof that Satan used to be one of God's good guys and then all of a sudden, one day decided to be take over everything and knock God off His throne. Local boy goes bad I guess. Well Satan, which term is never mentioned here, former Light Bringer which is what Lucifer means, is now the Prince of Darkness and the rest is history.

What's really going on with this story. Did you know that you see this drama literally take place multiple mornings and evenings of the year. Did you know that even to this day, this Lucifer is mistaken for UFOs or landing lights! Jesus said he saw Satan fall as lightening from heaven as did millions then and billions today if you know where to look. It's a very old story based on a very real observation by humans who made up a story about what they did not understand at the time.

First of all, let's understand that Isaiah 14 is really not about a Satan the Devil as he has evolved into over the history of the Church. A scripture can never mean what it never meant, and this principle applies to Isaiah 14 for sure. In the original Hebrew text, the 14th chapter of Isaiah is not about a fallen angel, but about a fallen Babylonian king, who had persecuted the children of Israel. Later in the context we see he was a man, who died. Now we often hear that this was a "type" but that's slippery ground mostly. Metaphor maybe, but not a type, where we can change a man into a Lucifer and then Lucifer into Satan, never mentioned, and then the whole thing into how Satan came to be the God of this world so send in your tithes and be safe with us. "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." The name evokes the golden glitter of a proud king's dress and court (much as his personal splendor earned for King Louis XIV of France the appellation, "The Sun King").
{Craig Lyons-Bet Emet Ministries.} The King here was a man, plain and simple, and for his cocky attitude, he got to die like everyone else.


Lucifer means "Light Bringer" and is a term used by Roman astronomers to describe the planet Venus. Venus has always been the light bringer as it always precedes the early morning sun. It is very bright and very noticeable, such that it has been confused, as noted, for the landing lights of non-existent airplanes. It is bright, but not as bright as the sun of course. In mythology, humans noted this 'god" that preceeded the sun and seemed to be racing to the zenith, which in astrotheology is called the place of the "Most High" or plainly put for us today, NOON! Noon is God's throne in astrotheological terms. In Isaiah, this "Lightbringer" went before God, the Most High-The SUN. The highest point in the sky where the sun or anything that shines outside the planet can rise, from our perspective. When mythology and even the Bible speaks of God as "the most High", one can see the deeper meaning that hints at sun worship. The Bible promotes a similar yet different form of Sun/Son worship but that has been lost on most Christians today.

The planet Venus proved to be an enigma for mankind. It's job seemed to be to go before the morning sun and announce, if you would, it's coming forth. But then, bright as it was and still is, it falls from the sky and descends into the ground, or in mythology, seems to be thrown down. Strange! Not knowing that Venus was an inner planet and all inner planets that rotate with the earth around the sun can never pass over us, east to west as do the outer planets and stars, they had to explain it. Thus we have the the "fact" that this lightbringer, this Lucifer soon be called Satan, MUST have become discontend with just announcing the Sun God, so MUST have said in his heart, "I will become the MOST HIGH." Well that was it for him! The Most High, not willing to give up his throne to this usurper, simply threw him back down to the earth, or apparently so at least as we look on the horizon. After that rather unsuccessful endeavor the dethrone God Most High, we get stuck with him as Satan compliments of the Church, who embellished the story and ta ta!...The mess the world in is explained and it isn't the fault of mankind for the most part. Forever more, we can say, "Satan made me do it." You know, the bright and morning star that tried to become God but lost.

It was mostly the Catholic St. Jerome in the fourth century who mistranslated the Hebraic metaphor, "Day star, son of the Dawn," as "Lucifer," and over the centuries an evolution of ideas took place. Lucifer the morning star became a disobedient angel, cast out of heaven to rule eternally in hell mostly waiting for all Non-Catholics, but later all Non-Protestants too. Now the Church had it's Prince of the Power of the Air, the Prince of Darkness, the God of this world, The Roaring Lion, the Fallen Angel, the former Day star (because if you know where to look, Venus can even be seen in the daytime)...gone bad.

Interesting enough, even Jesus, well the Jesus of Revelation who bears no likeness to the Jesus of the Gospels, identifies himself as the morning star, a term used as a central theme in many Christian sermons. Jesus refers to himself as the morning star in Revelation 22:16: "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star."

So here we have it. Humans could never quite explain why this bright "star" we know as the planet Venus, preceeded the morning Sun as if to announce it's arrival, but then crashed back to earth. Very strange! Let's make up a story! This bright light, an Angel, the Lightbringer and minor deity compared to the SUN, really went bad and decided to knock the SUN GOD, and later the SON of GOD, off the throne, which is where the SUN rises to when it becomes the MOST HIGH at NOON. God, not putting up with that, simply threw Lucifer, now Satan or the Destroyer, back down to earth where he belongs and humans can get stuck with him until the SON of the SUN God comes back to destroy the works of the Light Bringer now gone dark. Great story! In Isaiah 14, this haughty king was acting just like that in thinking he could knock Israel out of the picture, he lost, was thrown down and died, just like that planet Venus every morning. So don't mess with God's chosen ones!19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.

In the real story of the real human king of Isaiah 14, we see he dies like all mortal men and is not well thought of for thinking he could challenge Israel. In verse 19 we read, "But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet. 20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned." Graves, carcasses, pits, burials and oblivion are all features of what happens to humans, not Angels or mini-gods.

It's interesting, Venus also rises evenings wonderfully bright after the sun sets, and then falls back to earth too. Perhaps Satan just coming out from the underworld of darkness for a peak and to let us know he still rules it before going back an hour or so later after "Sun Set" where even the Most High Sun goes every night, in Eqyptian history to challenge "SET" God of the Underworld. Makes you wonder about stories about Sons of the Sun preaching to spirits in "prison." But that's another story.


 

So when you see Venus early in the morning when you drive to work and think either a train if low enough or a plane looking for place to land is coming right at YOU, know that's only the Light Bringer, Lucifer, later your arch nemesis Satan, announcing "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall" Malachi 4:2. Notice it doesn't say "Son". Think of wings more like rays and you'll get the picture. That planet Vensus, so beautiful is explaining a phenomenon that we take for granted to human beings long ago who feared such things and simply had to come up with a theology to explain it. Now you can say you saw Satan fall as lightening from heaven too...how cool is that!

DenniscDiehl@aol.com   

16 comments:

  1. Dennis, you weren't there. It's time to stop kicking against the goats and accept the Truth.



    Paul Ray

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm sorry, of course you are right Paul. I don't know what I was thinking. I do look forward to the Mellinium when we can get this all straightened out... :)

    The Mellenial Age will bring us all into harmony I am sure. I do appreciate you picking up on the "you weren't there Superman" apologetic :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michael chides:

    "You don't really think that anyone here takes you seriously except for the two or three other Athiests that comment on your articles do you?

    I CERTAINLY don't and will not lend any credence to your perversions of the truth and do not expect it."

    I have no agenda or goals for anyone to take my perspectives seriously or not. But I do explain my perspectives which seems to be more than you do.

    So Michael, please write a rebuttal apologetic piece to the concept that some feel the origins of the story in Isaiah 14 is the observation that Venus, the bright and morning star and "Lucifer" or "Light Bringer" does what it does in the morning sky.

    Please explain why this cannot be the case.

    Also, please explain why Malachi says "The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings," and that not be a scripture that confirms sun worship and sun rays that heal.

    Also, please explain how I know I was not in the Garden of Eden and yet you were and know it's not mythology

    How is it we know Hercules and Diana were myths, Hansel and Grettle are fairytales, Osiris and Mithras are pagan Sun Gods for sure yet Jesus, who shares most of his life story in common with them is true.

    I make every effort not to mock or call anyone names. If I do or did, I would apologize as I tend to let the information presented speak for itself without a need for it to be understood or not. I also am not the one who runs the blog and others make the decisions about what gets printed and what does not

    I do have to say that "Pious confiction with marginal information" does annoy me because it is used so often to hurt others, guilt and shame them into doing and believing things that are not so and tends to enrich the one who seems so sincerly God's man of faith and power in this age.

    I've had to repent to someone of not doing my homework when younger and wishing to be in what I perceived to be a real ministry teaching real things. I make every effort to do my homework and realize that just reading the text does not count as doing one's homework.

    I have read your site and it sounds like every sermon I grew up with in the Presbyterian Church. Bible reading, skipping around through the pages of the Bible telling a story of Jesus. Millions do it. Don't take it personally if I notice you do. I don't see much input or comment on your own site to your presentations. I am not being critical, I am just noticing.

    I get a lot of personal email all very positive except for one I did receive and angry missive from the Messiah, about my perspectives. A funny one calling me "The High Priest of Marduk" and one not so funny telling me "Dennis, words can get you killed.

    I thanked the one for giving me a title since I have not had one in quite some time, and I told the others he was describing the history of those who opposed the goofiness of the historical Church at times.

    Anyway, I anxiously await your rebuttal to this article and also to the scriptures you asked me for showing where Paul and Matthew misquoted, misread, misreprented, misinterpreted and misunderstood the Old Testament.

    I did send them to you but have not heard from you about them in over a month.

    ReplyDelete
  5. oops..."Pious conviction with marginal information" , not "confiction."

    sorry...

    But hey, maybe con-fiction can be another way of explaining it? :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. The High Priest of Marmaduke?


    And since when did Dennis become an atheist?


    Paul Ray

    ReplyDelete
  7. "I don't see much input or comment on your own site to your presentations. I am not being critical, I am just noticing."

    Commenting on sites obviously hung up on the old mindset is an exercise in futility and would only constitute arguing for arguments sake. People who can't shake the old mindset are usually still good people, and if the old BS makes them happy, they are welcome to their little dream world.

    I don't even spend time on those sites. As with you, Dennis, nothing personal intended.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dennis, the problem is...if you are wrong, we'll be able to tell you so in the future, and you will have to apologize to everyone, but if you are right, hell, none of us will even know the difference as we lay there in the dust for eternity.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Steve, I PROMISE, if I am wrong on anything, which of course is not much of a stretch, I will apologize and teach the truth of the matter.

    But then I will ask to please at least have visiting rights to see my friends in hell. The thought of having to spend eternity with certain persons or types of persons god haunted and soaked in literalism is more than I can bare. That would be...well...hell to me!

    Geronimo's captor and the military man who jailed him in Florida asked Geronimo if as a Christian (they converted him) he was looking forward to heaven. Gernonimo is reputed to have asked.."Will you be there too?" "Yes" came the response. "NO" responded Geronimo

    DEN

    ReplyDelete
  10. I have concluded I am , at least, a mythicist.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKW9sbJ3v2w&feature=player_embedded

    ReplyDelete
  11. Interesting invented mythology, apparently based on analogy. I dunno... having come from a technological environment where things HAVE to work after you plug them in, abstract discussions which have unprovable premises which have no affect seem less than useful.

    Now, Dennis, I'm not saying you're wrong. It's sort of like String Theory: In other disciplines of quantum physics there are experiments and observations which extend and verify those very disciplines. String theory is found at the end of a line of reasoning that began with quantum mechanics, developed into quantum field theory, and flowered in the successes of gauge field theories, before coming to the intricate mathematical marriage of gravity and quantum mechanics. The lack of any observable demonstrable evidence of String theory rather diminishes the work. Supersymmetry is all well and good, but nobody has seen any particles, despite decades of searches at particle accelerator experiments. Theorists typically shrug and suggest that if the accelerator were made just a wee bit more powerful, we would finally see it. Unfortunately, the arguments, along with the math, are so convoluted and esoteric that the "man in the street" is inclined to believe that the assumptions of the String Theorists are true and leave the Physicists arguing amongst each other.

    It's like all of those false prophecies based on British Israelism. They should happen, but haven't and the prognostications have fallen into a quantum singularity.

    Claiming Venus is the basis of Isaiah 14 is rather suspect at best, and like proving that there is actually Dark Matter in the Universe, it is rather problematic, since we haven't directly observed it, nor can we devise an experiment to verify it.

    Again, I'm not saying that you are necessarily wrong, but your proof seems pretty thin to me. It approximates the kind of reasoning that Herbert Armstrong used and we all have to consider that you are both in error.

    Particularly in light of Ezekiel 28.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I can see why a god who was gettin' in a jealous mood and wanting to be Top Dog would want to put down his rivals.
    Or, maybe, it was the Top Dogs of an emerging religion that scripted it that way.

    Both the Sumerian goddess Inanna and the Babylonian goddess Ishtar are associated with the planet Venus.
    Inanna was was killed and hung from a stake, but after "three days and three nights" was resurrected.

    Early in the Bible stories, all other gods get vanquished by jealous YHVH, and the Bible's religion becomes male-centric.
    It's like YHVH got divorced. No more sex for YHVH and his superpowered 'nads.
    Maybe the story can be explained thusly:
    "A god gets divorced, and deals with his horniness-energy by becoming a control-freak, expressing lots of anger, and smiting millions of people. That god then has a son (not by having sex), and that son is much nicer and much more forgiving (thus redeeming both his father and the mess his father made)."

    Anyhoo...

    Dennis wrote, "...Satan came to be the God of this world so send in your tithes and be safe with us."

    "Daystar" (another Biblical name for Lucifer) is the name of the most popular Christian TV broadcast network in my area.
    Many of their shows are comprised of hucksters scaring people, and telling them they need to be safe from Satan by being "obedient to God by sending us money"

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sorry, Dennis, some people just can't bear to see their pet theories and bogus scriptural interpretations demolished. Don't let it discourage you. Keep this stuff coming.









    sorry, Dennis

    ReplyDelete
  14. Seems a typo gets through no matter how hard you try. Usually, when one is in a hurry.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Great article Dennis! You can now add one more to the list of "two or three other Athiests that comment on your articles"

    Keep up the great work, Dennis!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Sun and Son in Hebrew are completely different words. I am a bit weary about the word play on Sun and Son in this article because I remember reading that in Hebrew Son and Sun are completely different words.

    I read that from Bible.ca which mentioned that fact while discussing the Book of Mormon. The author was demonstrating why it was not true (of course it's not). Many issues were raised, and at one point it is noted that the Book of Mormon made a pun on Sun and Son but the two words are completely different in Hebrew. That is how I know this.

    ReplyDelete