October means Halloween is coming—you know, the very witching hour of night when churchyards yawn and graves give up their dead and so on. But if you're still picking out your costume—and you're looking for something a little scarier than Sexy Donald Trump—you might need a refresher course, because it's surprising how much we don't know about some of our most iconic monsters. Luckily, Jeopardy! monster Ken Jennings has unchained his debunking abilities and is ready with the spooky scoop.
The Debunker: Is the Devil Called "Lucifer" in the Bible?
When it comes to a real traditional monster for a trick-or-treating costume, it's hard to beat your classic devil: horns, pitchfork, red pancake makeup. I guess it's not the best choice for a Halloween party at a church or Catholic elementary school or weirdo Evangelical homeschooling collective, but hey, most organizations that would frown on a devil costume probably don't believe in Halloween parties anyway.
In many Christian traditions, Satan, the devil you know, is also called "Lucifer." Sometimes that's given as his angelic name, before he was cast out of heaven for rebellion against God. But the biblical justification for calling His Infernal Majesty "Lucifer" is incredibly thin. Here's the scoop: Lucifer isn't actually a proper name in the Bible. Angels get Hebrew names like "Michael" or "Raphael," but "Lucifer" only appears in one place, Isaiah 14:12, where it's just a Latin translation for "light bearer" or "morning star" (often meaning Venus). That's a good translation; the Hebrew is Helel ben Shahar, meaning "shining one" or "son of the morning."
But Isaiah 14:4 makes it clear that the figure being brought low is not any kind of angel but "the king of Babylon." The idea that this king's overthrow might be a metaphor for the fall of Satan seems to date back to Origen, a 3rd-century Christian theologian. He read Luke 10:18 (in which Jesus says He saw Satan fall "like lightning" from heaven) as an echo of the language in Isaiah 14, and decided that Isaiah's "Lucifer" must be a stand-in for Satan. But that's a supposition that’s impossible to demonstrate in the Bible. The tipping point for "Lucifer" actually came in 1667, when John Milton used that as the devil's name in Paradise Lost. Many Christians would probably be surprised to find that their "Lucifer" terminology owes more to a British epic poem than it does to the Book of Revelation. As they say, the devil's in the details.
Quick Quiz: The Latin word "Lucifer" corresponds to the Greek word that we use today for what chemical element?
Ken Jennings is the author of six books, most recently his Junior Genius Guides, Because I Said So!, and Maphead. He's also the proud owner of an underwhelming Bag o' Crap. Follow him at ken-jennings.com or on Twitter as @KenJennings.