A Question I Was Asked:

"Rev 22:16 states that Jesus Christ is the Morning Star. However, Isaiah 14:12 appears to me to describe Lucifer/Satan as"the shining star, son of the morning"Can you tell me why this is please?"

The answer is that Jesus alone holds this title! It is used - somewhat sarcastically - of an arrogant babylonian king in Isaiah 14:12 - not actually of Satan!

The main problem here is with that word, 'Lucifer' - this word and/or name only occurs in the KJV and Latin Vulgate Bibles. Lucifer is a Latin name. So (the question might be asked) how did it find its way into a Hebrew manuscript?

The truth might shock many believers: This "Lucifer" in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah is not really a description of a fallen angel at all (although thousands of Christians have thought differently), this is all about a fallen Babylonian king, who during his lifetime had persecuted the children of Israel. Why Lucifer? In Roman astronomy, Lucifer was the name given to the morning star (the star we now know by another Roman name, Venus). The morning star appears in the heavens just before dawn, heralding the rising sun. The name derives from the Latin term lucem ferre, bringer, or bearer, of light." In the Hebrew text the expression used to describe the Babylonian king before his death is Helal, son of Shahar, which can best be translated as "Day star, son of the Dawn." The name evokes the golden brightness and glitter of a proud king's dress and court.

The scholars authorized by King James I to translate the Bible into current English often did not use the original Hebrew texts, but were heavily influenced by Jerome's Latin Vulgate Bible of  the fourth century. Jerome had mistranslated the Hebraic metaphor, "Day star, son of the Dawn," as "Lucifer." Of course, later on the name 'Lucifer' really did become applied to Satan (before his fall) by most Christians and this is now the accepted approach but originally - in the Hebrew - this was the description of a proud and arrogant balylonian king. Many Bible commentators know this but they have tended to accept a dualism here between this king and Satan, since Satan is also arrogant and boastful. So was Isaiah thinking of the one who we know as Satan although he knew he was specifically writing about a vain king?. It is really very hard to say but we can see that this king showed many traits of the character of Satan himself.

So 'Morning Star' is not a true name of Satan and Isaiah did not originally write that this or, "the shining star, son of the morning"  is a name (or, former name) of Satan.

UK APOLOGETICS