angels in love w/ humans

agapedragon said:

Oh, my main point: What is wrong with an angel and a human being falling in love and getting married?

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There is nothing wrong with it, but it cannot happen. Christ himself says that the angels are not given or received in marriage, in the way people are. And that when we are in eternity we will be like the angels. Sacrificial love yes, marriage no.

As for pagan gods, their derivation is primarily shamanistic, rather than needing any kind of angelic input.

I think if you think doing something to be condemned to eternity in the burning lake of fire is romantic, you need a readjustment in your thoughts.

First, we don't know that fallen angels mated with humans. That very likely isn't possible, since we are told that we will be like angels when we are in heaven, neither giving or being given in marriage. It's possible, likely even that sex per se will be a thing of the past.

And of course we have the thing that a fallen angel would need to be genetically identical to a human in order to mate and produce offspring. Seems unlikely at best. Angels and humans appear in the bible to be two different creations.

And if they are two different creations, then offspring are impossible, unless an angel could create life. However we are specifically told that all that was created was through Christ, there are not multiple creations.

So we see a reference in the Bible that we don't exactly understand, and people have taken it over the years and fleshed it out with stories and myths.

Instead of angels and men mating, it appears much more likely that some men were simply very large. And the people who survived the flood were the people in the ark. And we still see some instances of quite large people after the flood.

As for finding an angel sexually attractive, have you ever noticed that usually the first words out of an angels mouth is don't be afraid? Not exactly what would be expected if people simple saw some physically attractive person.

As for the KJV and dragons and unicorns. Dragon doesn't mean the mythical flying fire breathing creature and unicorn doesn't mean the mythical horse with one horn. The translators didn't know all the Hebrew names for animals and what they meant.

Dragon basically meant a large snake in the KJV. If you follow the modern translations you see some instances where the particular word translated dragon is now in some places jackal or wild dogs. Those have to do with textual and linguistic studies.

The unicorn is an interesting one. The KJV translators had the single horned rhinocerous, called the unicorn, in view as seen from their inclusion of a footnote indicating such. It goes back to they did not specifically know the animal referenced. The Septuagint used the term which mean in Greek the single horn, monokeros. Jerome in the Vulgate translated some occurances unicorn and some rhinocerous and so it went. The KJV translators uniformly used unicorn. Studies later found the Hebrew word probably means an extinct species of oxen. Which if you follow the biblical text fits very well. Some have postulated that the single horn in Greek is actually correct and has to do with the large horn that artists drew as one that seemed to sit more on the top of the head than is common in modern cattle.

That fits the text quite well. For instance we see a case in Deuteronomy where the Hebrew text speaks of the horns of the "unicorn". The KJV translators pluralized unicorn so it was proper English though it did not then accurately reflect the Hebrew text.

It should be realized when reading the KJV that while the English of the translators was exceptional their understanding of Hebrew and Greek was not. We still today do not know for certain the exact thing every single noun is referencing, but we know much more than the KJV translators. Do not jump to conclusions when you see such a case that the Bible is teaching about a mythical creature or such. Realize that the honest thing is such cases is often just we don't really know.

Marv

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Simonline said:

Au contrare! There is everything wrong with it and it can (and did) happen, which is why YHWH wiped everyone but Noah and his family from off the face of the Earth.

It isn't true that we will ever be 'in Eternity'. Eternity is the state in which YHWH exists as One Existing without Time, a state in which we, as temporal creatures, are incapable of existing, since we must always exist within Time (and Space). YHWH is Eternal, we are everlasting.

Neither is it true that humans are not married in the age to come (Matt.22:23-33). We will be corporately married to YHWH Himself rather than individually married to each other (this is why all true marriages are only 'until death do us part') which is why the believers are corporately referred to as 'the wife of YHWH' in the Old Testament and 'the bride of Christ in the New'. All individual marriages between a single biological man and a single biological woman are a type/cameo/representation of the 'master marriage' betwwen YHWH and the Community of Faith (a profoundly unique spiritual relationship that exists between YHWH as the Creator and the Community of Faith as His creatures, made in His Likeness (this is why YHWH loathes divorce and why it is not an option for true believers). When, in the age to come, the 'master marriage' between YHWH and the Community of Faith is finally revealed in all its splendour and glory, then all the types/cameos/representations of that 'master marriage' will be obsolete.

Thus we are only like the angels in that we no longer marry each other, not that we no longer marry at all.

Whilst many gods are of Shamanistic origin, it isn't true that all gods are of Shamanistic origin. Some of them are actually ligitimate (PS.82:6; Rom.13:1-7).

The non-theological (non-religious) definition of a god is 'one having authority and/or power over another' and the degree to which the one has the authority and/or power over another is the degree to which the one is 'god' over the other. Obviously, only YHWH, as Absolute Reality, is God in the Absolute sense (which is why He is distinguished by the use of a capital 'G'), but anyone (or anything) can be a god over another.

In this sense, all the elohim are gods over humans (irrespective of whether they are righteous or unrighteous) and many of them have, for aeons, deceived humans into worshipping them.

Simonline.

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If your definition of 'god' denotes anyone with power, then you are speaking a different language from mine, and effective communication is unlikely.

I take Christ's description of angels, and of eternity, for that matter, as rather more authoritative than any of the nonsense you state above, so forgive me if I don't bother to refute it, as he has already done so perfectly adequately.

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Catherineanne said:

There is nothing wrong with it, but it cannot happen. Christ himself says that the angels are not given or received in marriage, in the way people are. And that when we are in eternity we will be like the angels.<snip>

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Here's the passage I believe you're referring to:

Matthew in 22:23-33 (ESV) said:

The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, "Teacher, Moses said, 'If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.' Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.

But Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? He is not God of the dead, but of the living."

And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

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To me, this is a amazing passage of scripture because of the rhetorical swordplay between Jesus and the priests. Beneath the obvious conflict between Jesus and the Sadducees concerning the resurrection, there is an undercurrent of further controversy inferred by the Sadducees concerning which books ought to be considered scripture by Jews.

The Sadducees believed the books to be considered scripture by Jews should only be the five books of Moses. So while controverting with Jesus over the resurrection from the dead, they also implied a second layer of controversy with Christ over books which were in circulation among the Jews of that day which were preposterous to the Sadducees; to do this, in this passage they obliquely ridicule a passage from the Book of Tobit, which was in wide circulation in the Hebrew language in the land in those days, alluding the following passage:

Tobit in 3:7-9 (RSV) said:

On the same day, at Ecbatana in Media, it also happened that Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was reproached by her father's maids, because she had been given to seven husbands, and the evil demon Asmodeus had slain each of them before he had been with her as his wife. So the maids said to her, "Do you not know that you strangle your husbands? You already have had seven and have had no benefit from any of them. Why do you beat us? If they are dead, go with them! May we never see a son or daughter of yours!"

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Rather than being diverted from the subject at hand, the Lord adroitly puts the Sadducees in their place on the question of the resurrection with a quote from the Torah, from the passage with Moses and the burning bush. In addition the position of the Sudducees regarding the rest of the scriptures is also responded to by Christ in a similarly subtle fashion, affirming the value of the other scriptures. In it Jesus appeals to another book which would not have been accepted by the Sadducees either; Jesus alludes to the Book of Enoch and boldly introduces yet a third controversial point, that concerning angels, a subject upon which Enoch writes at great length, the belief in which the Sadducees were also in denial.

Enoch in 15:3-7 (Schodde) said:

Why have ye left the high, holy, and everlasting heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men, and taken wives unto yourselves, and acted like the children of earth, and begotten giants as sons? While ye were spiritual, holy, having eternal life, ye defiled yourselves with women, and with the blood of flesh have begotten children, and have lusted after the blood of men, and have produced flesh and blood as they produce who die and are destroyed. Therefore I have given them wives that they might impregnate them and children be born by them, as it is done on earth. Ye were formerly spiritual, living an eternal life without death to all the generations of the world. Therefore I have not made for you any wives, for spiritual beings have their home in heaven.

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So, the quote from Jesus you believe invalidates the message of the Book of Enoch, is rather a direct allusion by Jesus to the Book you believe it invalidates. Jesus did not invalidate the claims of Enoch, but rather used the book as a teaching source for the Sadducees. The Sadducees knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God and were wrong about the resurrection, the scriptures in general and the Book of Enoch in particular.

SummaScriptura said:

So, the quote from Jesus you believe invalidates the message of the Book of Enoch, is rather a direct allusion by Jesus to the Book you believe it invalidates. Jesus did not invalidate the claims of Enoch, but rather used the book as a teaching source for the Sadducees. The Sadducees knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God and were wrong about the resurrection, the scriptures in general and the Book of Enoch in particular.

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You are welcome to believe what you believe, but I believe that the angels are neither given nor received in marriage, as Christ says.

Enoch is not proof, to me, that angels interbred with humans at any time, because, according to Christ himself, it is impossible. That which is spiritual cannot marry, let alone breed, with that which is temporal.

I don't know how many Christians share your views, but I do not know any.

The Sadducees denied an afterlife, and their trick question to Christ was based on this, not on any genuine interest in the answer to their question.

Catherineanne said:

<snip>That which is spiritual cannot marry, let alone breed, with that which is temporal.<snip>

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I think you're stumbling over popular ideas about what a spirit is like. Our ideas about angels come to us more from Christian religious tradition in the West rather than the Jewish tradition that informed the writers of the Bible.

When the folks who wrote the older testament scriptures, the Jews, were the only interpreters of those scriptures the explanation of Genesis 6:1-4 was as follows, the heavenly sons of God, the Watchers (a class of angels) lusted after the daughters of mankind and conspired to break God's law, leave their assigned abode in heaven, take human wives, defile themselves by sexual relations with women and to beget children who turned out to be gigantic. That was the unified Semitic view from the period of 2nd-Temple Judaism.

This can be confirmed by anyone by picking up a copy of "The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition", by Florentino Garcia Martinez, Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, and Florentino Garcia Martinez. This is THE MOST exhaustive collection of the non-Hebrew-Bible Dead Sea Scrolls that is available.

If one begins at the beginning of those volumes and proceeds to read through these fragments from hundreds of Jewish religious documents from about the time of Christ, one will get a profound sense that the preoccupation with the Watcher/Giant saga among Jewish writers during and before the time of Christ, borders on obsession. In addition to all of the books of the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls include many story fragments from the lives of Lamech, Noah, Enoch, Methuselah and the rest as well as numerous accounts of the history of the Nephilim, the gigantic offspring of the Watchers.

One is stricken with the sheer lack of controversy among these writers on this point. To date, I have yet to find even one example from the period of 2nd-Temple Judaism wherein some rabbi or religious writer has a controversy with the Watcher/Nephilim thesis, though controversy abounds on other subjects.

There is evidence that this view prevailed among New Testament writers in the New Testament books as well, but that is perhaps better addressed in another post or thread.

Certainly the idea that angels could even interbreed with human women seems repugnant to our modern sensibilities and apparently it was also for the leaders of the Church from the fourth century forward. I would like to propose however, this offense to our sensibilities has more to do with Greek assumptions about the nature of angels than it does with any scriptural basis.

I have detected several areas in which the Church's ideas concerning angels are at major variance with the dominant view during the time of Christ; here are a few:

1. Angelic substantiality
Per the prevailing ideas about angels among Christians of all stripes, angels are viewed as spirits, without materiality. Western ideas about the essential differences between human carnality and angelic spirituality make the idea of angelic/human copulation seem impossible. In the Semitic writings from 2nd-Temple Judaism no such problem can be detected. There is a consensus among Semitic writers from the period that angelic spirituality as well as angelic carnality were both simultaneously real, and not mutually exclusive. The writer of the Book of Jubilees even speaks of angels having been created in a circumcised state from the beginning.

2. Angelic peccability
Per the prevailing ideas of Christians there seems to be somewhat a consensus that somewhere in very ancient times there occurred a rebellion among the members of the heavenly angelic hosts. Whatever the reasons for this rebellion, the result was certain angels aligned themselves with Lucifer, rebelled against God and thus sinning, fell. A seemingly assumed corollary to this view is the idea commonly held among Christians that those angels who did not fall, stood the test and are thenceforth immune to further testing, temptation and the possibility of sinning. No such assumptions can be detected amongst Jewish writers from the period of 2nd-Temple Judaism. Not only did angels fall during the time of Jared the father of Enoch, but previous fallings had occurred and future fallings are predicted.

For me, what Jewish writers from the time of Christ believed about this point holds more persuasive weight than when it was controverted by Christendom centuries later. To the Jews were given the lively oracles of God. The oracles were in a language whose meanings would have been more immediate to them than to us. The Jews lived closer to the times of the actual composition of those writings and thus were more likely to be the inheritors of original traditions related to their exposition, interpretation and understanding.

Catherineanne said:

That which is spiritual cannot marry, let alone breed, with that which is temporal.

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I think you're stumbling over popular ideas about what a spirit is like. Our ideas about angels come to us more from Christian religious tradition in the West rather than the Jewish tradition that informed the writers of the Bible.

When the folks who wrote the older testament scriptures, the Jews, were the only interpreters of those scriptures the explanation of Genesis 6:1-4 was as follows, the heavenly sons of God, the Watchers (a class of angels) lusted after the daughters of mankind and conspired to break God's law, leave their assigned abode in heaven, take human wives, defile themselves by sexual relations with women and to beget children who turned out to be gigantic. That was the unified Semitic view from the period of 2nd-Temple Judaism.

This can be confirmed by anyone by picking up a copy of "The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition", by Florentino Garcia Martinez, Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, and Florentino Garcia Martinez. This is THE MOST exhaustive collection of the non-Hebrew-Bible Dead Sea Scrolls that is available.

If one begins at the beginning of those volumes and proceeds to read through these fragments from hundreds of Jewish religious documents from about the time of Christ, one will get a profound sense that the preoccupation with the Watcher/Giant saga among Jewish writers during and before the time of Christ, borders on obsession. In addition to all of the books of the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls include many story fragments from the lives of Lamech, Noah, Enoch, Methuselah and the rest as well as numerous accounts of the history of the Nephilim, the gigantic offspring of the Watchers.

One is stricken with the sheer lack of controversy among these writers on this point. To date, I have yet to find even one example from the period of 2nd-Temple Judaism wherein some rabbi or religious writer has a controversy with the Watcher/Nephilim thesis, though controversy abounds on other subjects.

There is evidence that this view prevailed among New Testament writers in the New Testament books as well, but that is perhaps better addressed in another post or thread.

Certainly the idea that angels could even interbreed with human women seems repugnant to our modern sensibilities and apparently it was also for the leaders of the Church from the fourth century forward. I would like to propose however, this offense to our sensibilities has more to do with Greek assumptions about the nature of angels than it does with any scriptural basis.

I have detected several areas in which the Church's ideas concerning angels are at major variance with the dominant view during the time of Christ; here are a few:

1. Angelic substantiality
Per the prevailing ideas about angels among Christians of all stripes, angels are viewed as spirits, without materiality. Western ideas about the essential differences between human carnality and angelic spirituality make the idea of angelic/human copulation seem impossible. In the Semitic writings from 2nd-Temple Judaism no such problem can be detected. There is a consensus among Semitic writers from the period that angelic spirituality as well as angelic carnality were both simultaneously real, and not mutually exclusive. The writer of the Book of Jubilees even speaks of angels having been created in a circumcised state from the beginning.

2. Angelic peccability
Per the prevailing ideas of Christians there seems to be somewhat a consensus that somewhere in very ancient times there occurred a rebellion among the members of the heavenly angelic hosts. Whatever the reasons for this rebellion, the result was certain angels aligned themselves with Lucifer, rebelled against God and thus sinning, fell. A seemingly assumed corollary to this view is the idea commonly held among Christians that those angels who did not fall, stood the test and are thenceforth immune to further testing, temptation and the possibility of sinning. No such assumptions can be detected amongst Jewish writers from the period of 2nd-Temple Judaism. Not only did angels fall during the time of Jared the father of Enoch, but previous fallings had occurred and future fallings are predicted.

For me, what Jewish writers from the time of Christ believed about this point holds more persuasive weight than when it was controverted by Christendom centuries later. To the Jews were given the lively oracles of God. The oracles were in a language whose meanings would have been more immediate to them than to us. The Jews lived closer to the times of the actual composition of those writings and thus were more likely to be the inheritors of original traditions related to their exposition, interpretation and understanding.

Jude in his epistle said:

And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

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I think the take-away here is the angels were not in love with humans at all, but rather were in lust with them.

SummaScriptura said:

I think you're stumbling over popular ideas about what a spirit is like.

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I am stumbling over many things, I am sure, but this is not one of them.

Forgive me if I prefer to base my faith on my own faith, rather than on Jewish thought, because I do not regard the past 2000 years as 'contraverted' Judaism, but as Christianity. Judaism is what it is, and I am not about to make disparaging comments about it. Christianity deserves the same respect from those of other faiths. It may not get it, of course, but that says more of the commentator than of my faith.

You may believe what you like, of what you like. I believe the words of Christ himself, over Enoch, over the DSS (which themselves do not predate Christ), and most especially over your opinion.

To a Christian, there is no such thing as angels marrying or breeding with humans. Such a concept is abhorrent, as being strictly contradictory to the words of Christ himself.

Shalom.

Catherineanne said:

I am stumbling over many things, I am sure, but this is not one of them.

Forgive me if I prefer to base my faith on my own faith, rather than on Jewish thought, because I do not regard the past 2000 years as 'contraverted' Judaism, but as Christianity. Judaism is what it is, and I am not about to make disparaging comments about it. Christianity deserves the same respect from those of other faiths. It may not get it, of course, but that says more of the commentator than of my faith.

You may believe what you like, of what you like. I believe the words of Christ himself, over Enoch, over the DSS (which themselves do not predate Christ), and most especially over your opinion.

To a Christian, there is no such thing as angels marrying or breeding with humans. Such a concept is abhorrent, as being strictly contradictory to the words of Christ himself.

Shalom.

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You're entitled to your opinion which I accept at face value.

For what its worth I agree with you about the gospels taking pre-eminence over the O.T., Enoch and the DSS.

I also agree with you that Christianity stands in its own right.

However, the early Church accepted The Book of Enoch, and only much later did it fall into disfavor, so the Church has had a mixed history regarding the book even to this day.

Additionally, to set the record straight, it is incorrect to state the DSS date to after the time of Christ. Their deposition was A.D., but the media of the scrolls have be validly dated to B.C., and in particular the media upon which The Book of Enoch was copied.

Catherineanne said:

To a Christian, there is no such thing as angels marrying or breeding with humans. Such a concept is abhorrent, as being strictly contradictory to the words of Christ himself.

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So those who disagree with you that this was what Christ taught are not Christians? Really?

First of all I believe that the bible is 100% true. If the bible said that the sons of god (fallen angels) had sex with human women then they did have sex with human women. The offspring between fallen angels and human women were known as the nephilim, the anakeim, the rephilim, the giants. Goliath was half human and half fallen angel. That is why he was so tall and powerful.

A lot of women in present time just like back then have been raped by demons.

agapedragon said:

<snip>So, the angels that intermarried with the 'daughters of men' were fallen angels, who gave in to sin and lust and became demons as fallen angels.<snip>

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I would like to clarify one point, neither the 66-book Bible of the Protestants nor the 73-book Bible of the Roman Catholics (plus additions to 2), nor the 76-book Bible of the Anglicans(plus additions to 2), nor the 79-book Bible of the Eastern Orthodox (plus additions to 3) ever state categorically what was the origin of demons. The origin of the demons is never explained in any of the Bibles of the stripes of Christianity mentioned above. The idea that demons are fallen angels is a gentile-Christian hypothesis, that's all. It is a hypothesis not found in your Bible.