Text: What did Lehi “read?” The most obvious reference to a fallen angel comes from Luke, where Jesus states: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Nevertheless, the antecedents of Jesus’s statement in Luke tell us of the heavenly history with which Lehi was familiar. As discussed in the 1 Nephi, Part 1: Context, Chapter 1, “The Historical Setting of 1 Nephi,” Lehi left Jerusalem at a time when there was a conflict between the Deuteronomic reform and aspects of Israelite religion that are now known to have parallels in Canaanite religion. Those parallels not only help us understand many of the references in the Bible, but they are also important background for the Book of Mormon, since Lehi appears to highlight themes that are part of that literature. In the case of the fallen angel, Jesus’s statement in Luke reflects the same understanding of the heavenly world as Lehi portrays.
Ugarit was an ancient Canaanite city. A large number of tablets from this city/culture were discovered in 1929 that are important to the reconstruction of Semitic religion from 1350 to 1150 B.C. While they are not Israelite, they show a more complete picture of aspects of Semitic religion for which the Bible gives only glimpses. Those texts depict a heavenly council, which provides the backdrop for Lehi’s fallen angel.
In the Ugaritic, or Canaanite, texts, the deity Ba’l is a parallel to Yahweh in Israelite religion. The two share so much imagery that scholars assume that the extant stories of Ba’l may represent lost stories of Yahweh. Important to our understanding of Lehi’s theology is the cycle of stories about a heavenly council consisting of the “sons of god.” The particular story that is relevant to Lehi’s fallen angel is that of the conflict between Yahweh and an opposing “son of god” in that heavenly council. Frank Moore Cross, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages, emeritus, of Harvard University, summarizes the myth of contested leadership in the divine council. In the following passage he describes the war in that heavenly council. In Ugaritic mythology, deities are associated with natural elements. Yamm literally means “sea” and is sometimes represented by the sea, and sometimes personified, as in the following example:
This Canaanite ”pattern” can be described tersely as follows: Yamm, deified Sea, claimed kingship among the gods. The council of the gods assembled and, told of Yamm’s intentions to seize the kingship and take Ba’l captive, made no protest. They were cowed and despairing, sitting with heads bowed to their knees. Ba’l rises, rebukes the divine assembly, and goes forth to war. In the (cosmogonic) battle he is victorious, and he returns to take up kingship. Presumably he returned to the assembled gods and appeared in glory, and the divine assembly rejoiced.
Cross identifies this as the background to Psalm 24:7–10, given here in Cross’s translation:
Lift up, O Gates, your heads,
Lift yourselves up, ancient doors!
The king of glory shall enter.
Who is this king of Glory?
Yahweh mighty and valiant,
Yahweh the warrior.
Lift up, O Gates, your heads,
Lift yourselves up, ancient doors!
The king of glory shall enter.
Who is this king of glory?
Yahweh of the [Heavenly] hosts,
He is the king of Glory.
The result of this war in heaven is certainly the triumphant arrival of the king of glory, but there is also a consequence for Yahweh’s opponent in that battle. It is in the aftermath of the heavenly battle that we should read Isaiah 14:12–14:
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!
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:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Isaiah is describing the same event as Psalms, but from the perspective of the loser, not the victor. Lehi’s language comes either from a different and more complete account of the heavenly war on the brass plates, or from his cultural knowledge of the religious knowledge available to him, but obscured to us because of the Deuteronomic reform.
Translation: The term “devil” is technically anachronistic. Our English word “devil” derives from the Greek diabolos, “slanderer.” It is a translation of the Hebrew satan which is usually rendered as “adversary.” As an adversary, satan appears in biblical contexts where the modern idea of Lucifer, or “the” devil would not be appropriate. Hector Ignacio Avalos, a postdoctorate fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides relevant background:
Job 1–2, Zechariah 3, and 1 Chronicles 21:1 have been central in past efforts to chart an evolution of the concept of satan that culminates in a single archenemy of God. However, such evolutionary views have not gained general acceptance because satan in these passages does not necessarily refer to a single archenemy of God.… In Job 1–2, the satan seems to be a legitimate member of God’s council. In Zechariah 3:1–7 satan may refer to a member of God’s council who objected to the appointment of Joshua as chief priest. The mention of satan without the definite article in 1 Chronicles 21:1 has led some scholars to interpret it as a proper name, but one could also interpret it as “an adversary” or “an accuser” acting on God’s behalf.
While there is certainly an adversary to Yahweh in the council, and one against whom he did battle, the crystallization of the role of the accuser into a figure who is the heavenly opposite of Yahweh occurred around the third or second centuries before Christ. Whatever the term on the Book of Mormon plates, Joseph’s choice of “devil” was certainly influenced by his own theological understanding.