Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Reads See This

Satan Is Not Destined To Rule In Hell

Call him the Prince of Hell or the Prince of Darkness, and the job is clear. When it comes to the place where Satan’s going to spend eternity, it’s clearly Hell . . . right? According to Paul in Hebrews 2:14, Christ will “destroy” Satan. That doesn’t mean killing him though—the word used is “katargeo,” which means defeating or putting someone away. Hell isn’t the domain of Satan. It’s his prison, where the Bible says he’ll be tortured just like all the others who have turned away from God. Revelation 20:10 also supports this interpretation. According to this verse, Satan’s destiny has already been decided, and it’s being cast into Hell’s lake of fire. This blurs into another misconception about Satan’s role in Hell; according to popular belief, it’s Satan that barters for souls and banishes them to Hell for eternal punishment. In this same part of Revelation (and in Matthew 25:46), it’s also said that because of the bestowing of free will on mankind, it’s not Satan that’s stealing souls and turning them evil; evil is a choice made by each person. It’s also said that God will punish all those who turn to evil in the same way—including Satan himself.

Lucifer Isn’t Another Name For Satan

The only occurrence of the name Lucifer in the Bible is in Isaiah 14:12, in this verse: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” Seems pretty straightforward, but it turns out that it’s another case of misinterpretation and mistranslation. If you go back to the original Hebrew text, you find a story not about a fallen angel, but about a Babylonian king who figuratively fell from his throne when he began persecuting the Israelites. By the time the book was translated by Christian writers, the king became an angel. The name Lucifer comes in when the king’s name, Helal, gets translated. Helal means “day star” or “son of the dawn.” The Romans found a word close in meaning. Lucifer is the Roman name for the planet we call Venus, which is often the first visible celestial body to appear near dawn. The name didn’t have anything to do with the appearance of a Satan-like figure until much later, when its imagery was cemented with a fourth-century translation of the text by Jerome.

Satan Doesn’t Live In Hell . . . He Lives In Turkey

The Book of Revelation goes a step farther and names the ancient Turkish city of Pergamum as the “Throne of Satan.” Specifically, it’s thought that it was a literal throne, with the temple once known as the Great Altar of Zeus repurposed as the Devil’s throne. The prophet John says: “To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. And you hold fast to my name, and did not deny my faith even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.” In the context of the time, a throne is much more than just a chair—it’s a home.

The Number Of The Beast Isn’t 666

ccording to Oxford’s Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, deciphering the number of the beast all comes down to numerology. In the time this parchment was made, writing could be a dangerous act, especially for those who expressed their opposition to the controlling power by drawing comparisons to the Devil. For this reason, numerology was used to give people the option to assign numbers and leave out names. In order to decode the numbers, we need to know a little about both the writing system and how people thought. The number of the beast is derived from the name of the person who, at the time, was thought to be the earthly incarnation of the Devil, Nero. The number itself depends entirely on the translation of the name. When the name is translated from its Greek form—Nero Kesar— to its vowelless Hebrew form—NRWN QSR—the numerical value is 666. One theory states that the earlier text has a Latin base. This makes the numerical value 616 when translated back into Hebrew again.