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Aswad -> RE: For those of a christian bent.... (6/6/2007 8:42:43 AM)
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ORIGINAL: darkinshadows
But neither was Peter.
My mistake, then.
It's been a while, so I should probably brush up on it.
I do seem to distinctly recall that there's some statement somewhere to the effect that Jesus is called the morning star, but without remembering where, I can't back that up, or be certain about it. And it does seem likely that it was something someone else said about Jesus, rather than something he said about himself; however, just because I do not hold Paul in the highest regard, I do not necessarily discount the possibility that others may have been inspired to the point of "vertical transmission" (i.e. getting the message from "above"), though I'm not asserting that they were.
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As for Rev, again that all points to the whole 'seedline' thing again, rather than Jesus and Lucifer being the same. There is lots in Rev about morning star, but not to the extent that Jesus is named as it - but lots about the linage and the mention of the morning star being present, which of course is pretty obvious seeing as Satans gonna be there.
The Apocalypse of John is rather an odd book, yes.
As to whether Satan will be present at the apocalypse, that remains to be seen; I don't have a problem with the idea of an angel that has aligned himself in opposition to G*d as such, or even as an enemy of humanity, but I'm reluctant to ascribe such qualities in the presence of alternate explanations that seem viable. One assumes an archangel is going to want to be in attendance, though.
As for the possibility that Jesus is an incarnation of Satan, that's just a wild guess.
If I was going to sacrifice someone for the good of humanity, as well as sending him to them to teach them a better way, I would pick someone who had "sinned" as they, one who had something to atone for, yet is up to the job. Satan fits the bill, being both the one that appears to have been foremost of the archangels, and getting "credited" with a lot of stuff that I would certainly want to atone for, had I been in his proverbial shoes.
If one goes by the common notion that, at least for a time, Satan was the origin of just about everything "bad" that isn't being otherwise ascribed to Azazyel (presuming they aren't the same; such names are frequently appellations more than identities), and that he turned around, it'd be pretty epic, and he'd definitely have many regrets to atone for.
In short, in that case, he'd be perfect to show humanity the meaning of contrition, and the hope of salvation.
Not saying it's the case, just that it would make some sense, especially with regard to this:
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And the tribes of Israel is a pretty valid thought too... if that was the case alot of what was said by Jesus would make alot more sense.
Now, that's an interesting tie-in, and it wold make a lot more sense.
I'll indulge in a text-only webcomic as a somewhat humorous alternate mythology...
If we assume for a second that G*d set up the whole shebang some X billion years ago, with a bright idea (if you'll pardon the understatement of describing the Big Bang as "bright"), and that he went basically with the approach Einstein advocated: letting the universe take its course, observing but not interacting.
Then we add the idea that Satan, at one point, got the "brilliant" (pun) idea of making this little toy project as a personal playpen inside the greater work of creation, which we'll call the Garden of Eden, for now. So, he thinks "Hmm, that's not half bad for a few days of work, but there's something missing..." Hence we get Adam and Lilith.
The latter gets pissed at the former, saying "I'm an original creation, in our creator's image, just like you, so no way am I getting down on all fours" or whatever. So she leaves in a huff, then encounters this startlingly handsome fellow on whose corporeal shape (perhaps taken to match the intelligent species of the planet) her form is vaguely based upon. The next few stripes in this "mental comic" are cut by concerned parents, and we move on, with a short text card saying "at some point during these blank strips, Adam gets his pacifier, Eve, and stops whining so there can be more blank strips".
Now, later, turning his attention back to his creation, he notices that something is amiss: Adam and Eve aren't there, or so it seems. With a bit of searching, they are quickly uncovered, but it seems as though they've been disobedient already. This then pisses him off to no end, plus there's that concern that they might eat the rest of the tree, and the immortality one as well, and thereby come darned close to being angels in their own right. So he calls down fiery judgment upon them. (We'll hold the snake to be a metaphor for temptation, or invent some fancy mythology for it, all according to tastes.)
Either way, time goes on, and Satan keeps half an eye on his progeny. A while down the line, however, he sees something needs to be done, so he picks a magician by the name of Moses as a promising candidate to fix things. Insert Exodus and so forth.
After this part in the story, however, we draw a blank until we get to the time of Jesus.
At that point, we'll assume that Satan somehow got the idea that he was messing things up, is seriously sorry about it, and G*d is ready to forgive him. Some of how this came about may well have been in the story of Job. We may entertain the notion that Satan had become rather disillusioned at that point, and was willing to give up, and that Job convinced him otherwise, or whatever other notion we might like, but it's clear that Job is a rather distinct book in some ways, and if ascribed to a godhead, the actions therein appear exceedingly cruel.
Hence, to assume some purpose to that cruelty makes sense if we are to posit a god that espouses the virtue of compassion as a central tenet. One could, though, of course assume that the "adversary" in this case is Lilith, and that she either has a grudge against Job (maybe he looks a lot like Adam, I don't know; hell hath no fury, etc.), or that she's seen that he's about to give up on humans, and figures the most faithful among them would have been willing to sacrifice himself to avoid losing their godhead.
So, somewhere around year 0 CE, it is clear that humanity isn't "getting it" yet, even with the "man himself" (no actual gender implied) at the helm, and they're still going by the old ways that Satan taught them. Thus, G*d tells Satan that it's time to set things straight.
At this point, I should perhaps point out that I'm not saying the Jews worshipped "evil", or whatever, just that there may have been some confusion of identities throughout history, and that the figure of Satan in the Bible may not be who we tend to think s/he is.
So, come Yule night, Satan arrives in the form of a little child in Bethlehem, and G*d has some of his "errand boys" run and fix up some signs to attract a bit of attention, like three wise men and so forth. The kid is recognized, and grows up, experiencing the world from the perspective of the tribes he originated for the first time, and thus gaining the amalgam of insight required to act. We don't know what's up with Lilith at this time; she may be dead, or in heaven, or waiting on Earth for the kid to stop being unmentionable on CM so she can rejoin him as the Magdalene. ~g~
Satan then spends the next years, as Jesus, teaching the world about his own mistakes, about the things he has learned from being an angel and becoming a man, and about the ways of G*d himself. Trying to impart the values of compassion, independent thinking, integrity, and so forth, and attempting to banish hipocrisy, complacency and apathy.
At some point, he realizes he's done all that he can, and that there is only one thing that remains to be done: to take the "sins" of his creation unto himself (whether you take that as assuming responsibility, or as actually transferring culpability somehow), to show them that there is more to this world than they can know at this point, and to teach them to strive for it, that they may transcend at some point. Oh... yes... and, the small matter of the Crucifixion, of course. Iudas is the likely candidate; he gets it, he believes, and he's loyal. So he gets stuck with the task, and carries it out admirably. Nobody figures out the deception for the next 2000 years or so, and even then, nobody buys it.
So, in a great, symbolic act, Satan allows himself to be crucified, completing the act of contrition and atonement, while lending his teachings the immortality of his own martyrdom. The whole thing is epic, really, and there's probably more than a few tears going on "upstairs" as well; who says the unmoved mover must be unmovable, right?
Anyway, so he comes back a bit later to show people that what he taught was more than just a way of life, that there's more to the world than material things, and that the things he said about a "life thereafter" have some merit to them. And, let's not forget: hope. It's a valuable contribution.
Now, where things went wrong is for anyone to say. But Paul seems to be that time's counterpart to what one poster referred to as the "Christian right", what I call the Bible-thumpers. And he founded the major tradition.
Paradoxically enough, then, in trying to teach people to worship G*d, rather than himself, Satan made such a charismatic job of it, that some started worshipping his new form instead of the old one, thus rather messing things up, since they were "supposed" to worship G*d, who started the whole show, after all. What was perhaps "supposed" to be a nice way of wrapping up an experiment with two beings, as well as imparting some useful teachings, correcting the matter of worship, and atoning for past wrongs, ended up misfiring, and everything went to hell in a handbasket in short order.
At least the secular teachings remained, though.
And some sects retained a lot of the teachings for a very long time; the Cathars, for instance, weren't wiped out until the 12th century, as I recall. Even the Vatican has a few special orders who seem to have slightly esoteric focus; both the current Pope and John Paul II were members of the same order, for instance. In modern times, people are even starting to uncover a lot of interesting ideas, and playing with them, and will perhaps get around to reassembling the original message somehow. Either way, the experiment is done, and the "kids" are pretty much left to fend for themselves, save the occasional realignment of random chance where such would answer a prayer; it remains to be seen what we will make of ourselves.
That's just a speculative version of the story, though, of course. But if you consider the distance, in terms of time passed, to the original events, and so forth, it doesn't appear that the Bible excludes the possibility, and it would fit gnosticism into the picture, though the Gnostics would be gnashing their teeth about that version as much as the Christians in general would.
More interestingly, it's one of several versions that make more sense, on some levels, than the basic version.
I'm not positing that as truth, or even saying that it's what I believe (my beliefs will take a great deal of time to sort out in their entirety). Just trying to show just how differently one can interpret these things without actually straying that far from the original source of the information. And, of course, Lilith is just in the story for entertainment value and some "why not" (I don't see why she'd be cast out as a demon for not being submissive to Adam, basically).
Long story short, there's a lot of things about our faith that we, as Christians, must admit to having little or no knowledge of, unless we hear it from the relevant parties directly, which few like to claim these days.
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And yikes... Michaels an entirely different subject...[;)]
Yeah, kind of. Except he did end up getting Satan's position, in some versions of the mythology.
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