BEECHER, THOMAS KINNICUTT: Congregationalist, sixth son of Lyman Beecher; b. at Litchfield, Conn., Feb. 10, 1824; d. at Elmira, N. Y., Mar. 14, 1900. He was graduated at Illinois College, Jacksonville, Ill., 1843; became school principal at Philadelphia, 1846, at Hartford, Conn., 1848; pastor at Williamsburg (Brooklyn), L. I., 1852, of the Independent Church (afterward called the Park Church), Elmira, 1854, where he served a long pastorate and became widely known for his eccentricities, but still more esteemed for his charities and respected for the practical good sense of many of his plans and ideas. He developed one of the first "institutional" churches, and his Sunday-school was a model one. His chief publication was Our Seven Churches (New York, 1870), a volume of discourses upon the different denominations in Elmira. In Time with the Stars, a book of children's stories, appeared posthumously (1902).
BEECHER, WILLIS JUDSON: Presbyterian; b. at Hampden, O., Apr. 29, 1838. He studied at Hamilton College (B.A., 1858) and Auburn Theological Seminary (1864), and was ordained to the ministry in 1864. After a pastorate at Ovid, N. Y., 1864-65, he was appointed professor of moral science and belles-lettres in Knox College, Galesburg, Ill. In 1869 he became pastor of the First Church of Christ in the same city. Two years later he was appointed professor of the Hebrew language and literature in Auburn Theological Seminary. In 1902 he delivered the Stone Lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was a member of the Assembly's Committee on the Revision of the Confession of Faith (1890-92), and in theology is a progressive conservative. Besides preparing the Old Testament Sunday-school lessons for the Sunday School Times since 1893, he has written Farmer Tompkins and his Bibles (Philadelphia, 1874); General Catalogue of Auburn Theological Seminary (Auburn, 1883); Drill Lessons in Hebrew (1883); Index of Presbyterian Ministers, 1706-1881 (Philadelphia, 1883; in collaboration with his sister Mary A. Beecher); The Prophets and the Promise (New York, 1905); and The Teaching of Jesus concerning the Future Life (1906).
BEELZEBUB, be-el'ze-bub (properly, in all the New Testament passages--Matt. x, 25; xii, 24,
27; Mark iii, 22; Luke xi, 15, 18, 19--Beelzeboul );
The name of the prince of the demons; i.e., of Satan. The reading
Beelzeboul has also this in its favor that the Greek
oikodespotës, "master of the
Baal-zebub was honored in Ekron, where he had a temple and an oracle, which was consulted by Ahaziah, king of Israel (II Kings i, 2, 3, 16). The name as it stands means "lord of flies"; the Septuagint calls the god directly "fly "; so also Josephus (Ant., IX, ii, 1). In classical mythology, there was a god who protected from flies. It is related that Hercules banished the flies from Olympia by erecting a shrine to Zeus Apomuios ("averter of flies"); and the Romans called Hercules Apomuios. A similar deity is mentioned as acting and honored in different places, the excuse for such worship being the plague which flies cause in those warm countries. Both the sending of flies and the driving them away were referred to the same divinity. As may be inferred from the name Baal, the Baalzebub of the Philistines was essentially identical with the principal god or gods of the Phenicians. He may have been lord of flies as sun-god, because flies are most numerous in midsummer, when the sun is hottest. And that he had an oracle is to be explained by a substitution of effect for cause. Flies come obedient to certain atmospheric conditions; hence the god was considered to have caused these conditions, and so at length his control was extended to other events, and accordingly he was consulted (see BAAL).
Beelzebul was early identified with Baal-zebub, and, as was so often the case, was turned into a bad demon, in accordance with later Jewish ideas. Since Lightfoot (Horœ Heb., s.v.), it has been common to say that the name of the demon Beelzebul was purposely made out of Beel-zebub, in order to express contempt and horror; i.e., "lord of dung," instead of "lord of flies." But, inasmuch as such a name for Satan does not occur outside of the New Testament, it is better to seek its derivation in the old Ekronic worship, which might, in New Testament times, have still existed. Beelzebul may therefore be looked upon as the same name as Beel-zebub, and therefore as having the same meaning.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. C. A. Riehm, Handwörterbuch des biblischen Alterthums, s.v., Bielefeld, 1893-94 (revives the theory that the Syriac form may have meant simply "an enemy," cf. KAT, p. 461); J. Selden, De die Syris, London, 1617; J. Lightfoot, Horœ hebraicœ on Matt. xii, 24, and Luke xi, 15, ib. 1675; F. C. Movers, Die Phönizier i, 260-261, Bonn, 1841; idem, in JA, 1878, pp. 220-225; P. Scholz, Götzendienst und Zauberwesen bei den alten Hebräern, pp. 170-173, Regensburg, 1877; Nowack, Archäologie, ii, 304-305; EB, i, 514-515; JE, ii, 629-630.