tan from heaven before the beginning of time, but more apparent that both describe the defeat of Satan achieved by the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.
There are references to fallen angels in Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4, but no indication is given that Satan was associated with them or that he fell at the same time. Both these passages are more probably referring to the rather mysterious account of the time when the sons of God lusted after the daughters of men (Gen 6:1-4). Both Peter and Jude use this event as a warning about false teachers. There are no other passages in the Bible which give a clear and unambiguous teaching about the origin of Satan, or of a fall of Satan from a place of glory.
Is Lucifer a name for Satan?
The name “Lucifer” only appears in Isaiah 14:12. The Hebrew word is “helel”, meaning “the shining one”. In the Septuagint (LXX), the translation of the O.T. into Greek, it was translated “heosphoros”, meaning the “light-bearer”. The first time it was translated as “Lucifer” was in the Latin Vulgate Bible (AD 382-404), “Quomodo cecidisti de caelo lucifer, qui mane oriebaris?”. In Latin, “Lucifer” was the name of the planet Venus, the morning star, from a word meaning “bright light” or “light-bearer”. Venus is the brightest planet in the sky (brighter than any of the stars), and is still known as the morning star.
In English translations, Wyclif was the first to translate Isaiah 14:12 as “Lucifer”, presumably because he translated from the Latin Vulgate, “A! Lucifer, that risidist eerli, hou feldist thou doun fro heuene;”. (In more modern English, it would read as follows: Ah! Lucifer, that rises early, how you have fallen down from heaven). This translation was followed by the KJV, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!”, and more recently by the NKJV, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!”
Other translations translate it as “day star”, or “bright morning star”. The RV: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of the morning!”, the RSV: "How you are fallen from heaven O Day Star, son of Dawn!”, the NEB: “How you have fallen from heaven, bright morning star”, the NRSV: "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!”, the NIV: "How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn!”, and the GNB: "King of Babylonia, bright morning star, you have fallen from heaven”. Luther translated it into German, “du schöner Morgenstern”, meaning, “you beautiful morning star”.
Isaiah uses it as a name for the king of Babylon who had set himself among the gods. Babylonian worship was strongly based on astrology. Both the Babylonians and the Assyrians personified the morning star (Venus) as Ishtar. The message of Isaiah is that none of the Babylonian gods are able to save the king, as all gods are powerless before the One True God. In the Ancient Near East it was common practice for kings to believe they were incarnations of gods. So, when a king was defeated in battle and his city was captured, it was a sign that their god had also been defeated by the more powerful god of the victorious enemy. The enemy would normally tear down images of the god, and take them captive, placing them in the temple of their own god to demonstrate its superior power. This would explain why the Philistines placed the captured ark of the covenant in the temple of their god Dagon (1 Sam 5:1-2). Jesus calls himself “the bright morning star” in Rev 22:16, and is referred to as “the morning star” in 2 Peter 1:19.
Tertullian (160 - 220) was the first of the church fathers who taught that Satan was a fallen angel, by quoting Ezekiel 28 (Against Marcion 2:10). Origen (c.185 - c.254) also quoted Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 and Luke 10:18 to teach that Satan, or Lucifer, had fallen from glory in heaven (De Principis 1:5:5, Against Celsus 6:44). Although rejected by the Reformers, this teaching was popularised through Milton's vivid description of Satan’s rebellion and fall in Book I of “Paradise Lost”, and now, at least on a popular level in the church, seems to be a