AtDTDA: 223: Under the protection of the T.W.I.T.

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

A little more etymological fun and games with Lew Basnight.
Lucifer, if you may recall, is the Light Bringer. 

        The word "Lucifer" in Isaiah 14:12 presents a 
        minor problem to mainstream Christianity. It 
        becomes a much larger problem to Bible 
        literalists, and becomes a huge obstacle for 
        the claims of Mormonism. John J. Robinson 
        in A Pilgrim's Path, pp. 47-48 explains:
        "Lucifer makes his appearance in the 
        fourteenth chapter of the Old Testament 
        book of Isaiah, at the twelfth verse, and 
        nowhere else: "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!"
        The first problem is that Lucifer is a Latin 
        name. So how did it find its way into a Hebrew 
        manuscript, written before there was a Roman 
        language? To find the answer, I consulted a 
        scholar at the library of the Hebrew Union 
        College in Cincinnati. What Hebrew name, I 
        asked, was Satan given in this chapter of 
        Isaiah, which describes the angel who fell to 
        become the ruler of hell?

        The answer was a surprise. In the original Hebrew 
        text, the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah is not about a 
        fallen angel, but about a fallen Babylonian king, 
        who during his lifetime had persecuted the children 
        of Israel. It contains no mention of Satan, either by 
        name or reference. The Hebrew scholar could only 
        speculate that some early Christian scribes, writing 
        in the Latin tongue used by the Church, had decided 
        for themselves that they wanted the story to be about 
        a fallen angel, a creature not even mentioned in the 
        original Hebrew text, and to whom they gave the 
        name "Lucifer."

        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 glitter of a proud king's dress and court 
        (much as his personal splendor earned for King 
        Louis XIV of France the appellation, "The Sun King").

        The scholars authorized by ... King James I to 
        translate the Bible into current English did not use 
        the original Hebrew texts, but used versions 
        translated ... largely by St. Jerome in the fourth 
        century. Jerome had mistranslated the Hebraic 
        metaphor, "Day star, son of the Dawn," as 
        "Lucifer," and over the centuries a metamorphosis 
        took place. Lucifer the morning star became a 
        disobedient angel, cast out of heaven to rule 
        eternally in hell. Theologians, writers, and poets 
        interwove the myth with the doctrine of the Fall, 
        and in Christian tradition Lucifer is now the same 
        as Satan, the Devil, and --- ironically --- the 
        Prince of Darkness.

        So "Lucifer" is nothing more than an ancient Latin 
        name for the morning star, the bringer of light. 
        That can be confusing for Christians who identify 
        Christ himself as the morning star, a term used 
        as a central theme in many Christian sermons. 
        Jesus refers to himself as the morning star in 
        Revelation 22:16: "I Jesus have sent mine 
        angel to testify unto you these things in the 
        churches. I am the root and the offspring of 
        David, and the bright and morning star."

        And so there are those who do not read beyond 
        the King James version of the Bible, who say 
        'Lucifer is Satan: so says the Word of God'...."

http://www.lds-mormon.com/lucifer.shtml

Back to our story, which is already in progress:

Our chiroscurio Private Eye is catching on that something's afoot, and 
that he just might have to get in on the action. Nookshaft illuminates us 
all with a criminal theory of history: 

        "Suppose there were no such thing, after all, as 
        Original Sin. Suppose the Serpent in the Garden 
        of Eden was never symbolic, but a real being in 
        a real history of intrusion from somewhere else. 
        Say from 'behind the sky'. Say we were perfect. 
        Say we were law-abiding and clean. Then one 
        day they arrived." 223. 13/16

This is so reminiscent of Jesus Arrabal in COL49:

        "You know what a miracle is. Not what Bakunin 
        said. But another world's intrusion into this one. 
        Most of the time we coexist peacefully, but 
        when we do touch, there's cataclysm. . . .
        COL49: 97. 17/19

Lew's eyes and ears, as always, pick up precisely that which is in the 
process of being hidden, like:

        Windowless carriages were arriving at Chunxton 
        Crescent in the middle of the night amid scientifically 
        muffled hoofbeats, impressively sealed documents 
        were shuffled aside whenever Lew approached the 
        Grand Cohen's desk, less than professionally 
        clandestine attempts were made to have a look in his 
        own field-books. . . .223. 29//33

Speaking of impressive seals, I showed "Thelma" the muted 
posthorn and she said "It's a Sigil":

http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefssigil.htm   

Meanwhile, Lew decides he can trust Yashmeen:

        The most trustworthy of the bunch, both 
        of them having been picked up, you 
        might say, in more or less helpless 
        condition, and brought here under the 
        protection of T.W.I.T. 223. 36/38