- Wikipedia: Lucifer, War in Heaven, Garden of Eden
- The Lucifer Question (h/t @Neocount)
Extra Credit: Reversi/Othello
If you’ve been following my Twitter feed, this topic is one that has been brewing in the back of my mind since Thursday morning, and haven’t had any real-world time to process the post. So my thoughts really sprang from the Ben and Locke(MiB/Smokie) conversation in LA X:
BEN: I seriously doubt that Jacob was ever confused.
LOCKE: I'm not talking about Jacob. I'm talking about John Locke. Do you wanna know what he was thinking while you, choked the life outta him Benjamin? What the last thought that ran through his head was? "I don't understand". Isn't that just the saddest thing you ever heard? But it's fitting in a way, because when John first came to the island, he was a very sad man. A victim, shouting at the world for being told what he couldn't do, even though they were right. He was weak, and pathetic, and irreparablybroken. But, despite all that, there was something admirable about him. He was the only one of them that didn't wanna leave. The only one, who realized how pitiful the life he'd left behind actually was.
BEN: What do you want?
LOCKE: Well that's the great irony here Ben because, I want the one thing that John Locke didn't. I want to go home.
The play in that scene of Locke (for lack of a better term, I’ll go with the familiar) moving from
stark light to dark shadow was interesting. The attire of Dark Locke with Ben compared to the 2004 still crippled Locke in white plaid, leads me to believe that were not done with the flipping between Dark and Light when it comes to the image of John Locke. But that “I want to go home!” line was so emphatic, we all are wondering what is home.From my lens, being a man of faith, I tend to fall back on religious texts, and I’m most familiar with the English Bible. But in my studies there are two notorious homes and people that have been cast away from home. Heaven with Lucifer being cast out (which it turns out is extra-biblical, and post-NT writings have woven then Lucifer and Satan becoming intertwined) in a war with God. The other being Adam (and Eve) getting removed from the Garden of Eden for eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Sidebar: Couple other outcasts: Cain left to walk the earth after his murder of Able. The Biblical Jacob fled from his father’s land after stealing his brother’s birthright.
Another good ancient name to toss out there is Prometheus a Titan in Greek mythology that angered Zeus by handing over fire to mortals, and was chained to a rock and had his liver was eaten by an eagle while constantly being regenerated. That was a twitter RT from Doc Jensen about a possible Richard connection. Linked so we can give Wikipedia it’s workout.
What is interesting in the Prometheus angle is the linkage to creation myths, which brings me back to the Garden of Eden, and Adam getting tossed out of it.
Did you noticed what the Temple wall in LA X protected? A garden, you know what was inside the ziggurat? A spring, with supposed healing powers. Now that I think about it, The Island is abounding in water, and where did Christian’s coffin wind up? Inside a cave, with Adam and Eve and a pool of water (pool of Bethesda?). But that’s a post for another day.
So okay, back to Lucifer. Us people of the west often have attributed the name Lucifer (which comes from the Hebrew Heylel meaning Shining One or Morning Star) with Satan. That is something that came out of post-biblical writings and theologians imagining the war in heaven where Satan is cast down (in John’s Apokalypis also known as the book of Revleation) with his armies of fallen angels. (Oh did you watch Bones last night? Oh look shiny things)Lucifer isn’t used in the NT, instead it is an old testament formulation in the book of Isaiah where it’s associated with the king of Babylon (that has a ziggurat, but I digress). Lucifer in extra-biblical references has come to be associated with a fallen angel that rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven. So is this MiB/Locke a shadow/shade/symbol of Lucifer?
Well then we get this, um, speculative piece trying to tie Lucifer to Adam. Their exegesis is, shall I say suspect, and on perhaps shaky theological grounds, but as a tie in between Lucifer to Adam getting tied in and getting cast out of the Garden of Eden/Heaven. I’m almost considering going all in. But we’ve got to tie some pieces together and let a few more episodes pass.
Also, along these lines and more inline with the Egyptian motif used in LOST, I’m tossing in this old blog post of mine about the Statue and the Egyptian gods, Taweret, Sobek and Apep. The stuff about Apep and Smokie already won me, uh something, with @Jate2bFateSee y’all back on Twitter, where you can tell me how messed up and wrong I am. Or comment below and check the twitter box, and lets throw down.
Namaste.
