Sounds like archonic propaganda to me. All my man did is teach mankind the arts of metallurgy, making of bracelets, the use of antimony, the use of eyeliner, the working of fancy stones, and coloring tinctures.

Also, fun fact: Azazel was also called the scapegoat in Leviticus IIRC. So of course it’s highly likely he was defamed and besmirched. It’s right there in the title he was given.

More of the same “knowledge is bad” narrative we find throughout the Pentateuch. Also, in the Book of Enoch, the “just and merciful” God has him bound and cast into darkness forever, even after he apologizes and begs for forgiveness! Sounds like harsh, cruel tyranny to me, not justice.

His big crime? Teaching people stuff.

Perhaps the snake in the garden of Eden was right, and Lucifer (the light-bringer) was the snake who was spilling the beans, and Christ Jesus is Lucifer, come incarnate on earth as a man to free us from this prison planet built by Yaldabaoth, the demiurge calling himself “God” (while demanding subservience, blood sacrifice, and keeping humanity small, fearful, and ignorant), and monitored by the jail-warden archons working to keep us all trapped in here. Which is an interpretation that makes sense if one discounts the Pauline writings and includes the Gnostic ones (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Judas, and so on).

Maybe the god of the Old Testament is a fascist fraud who rules by fear, cruelty, and human ignorance. No Tree of Knowledge for you! Destroy the Tower of Babel, lest “they become like us.” And maybe Jesus / Lucifer / Prometheus represents liberation and enlightenment. Neo, who knows the Truth and can have us unplugged from the Matrix, if we’re ready for it.

If one believes in any of this sort of thing beyond myth and metaphor, that is.