Angels
Angels are everywhere in today's society. They are depicted frequently in television shows, movies and books. They are pinned to our lapels and hang from our rear-view mirrors. They are traditionally viewed as "guardians" that protect our homes and children. But what is myth and what is reality? Where do angels come from?
An angel is generally a supernatural being found in various religions and mythologies. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial beings who act as intermediaries between God (Heaven) and humanity. Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings, and carrying out tasks on behalf of God.
Abrahamic religions often organize angels into hierarchies, although such rankings may vary between sects in each religion. Such angels may receive specific names (such as Gabriel or Michael) or titles (such as seraph or archangel). People have also extended the use of the term "angel" to various notions of spirits or figures found in other religious traditions. The theological study of angels is known as "angelology". Angels expelled from Heaven are referred to as fallen angels as distinct from the heavenly host.
Seven angels or archangels are given as related to the seven days of the week: Michael (Sunday), Gabriel (Monday), Raphael (Tuesday), Uriel (Wednesday), Selaphiel (Thursday), Raguel or Jegudiel (Friday), and Barachiel (Saturday).
A guardian angel is an angel that is assigned to protect and guide a particular person, group, kingdom, or country. Belief in guardian angels can be traced throughout all antiquity.
Angels are beings who have greater power and ability than humans. (2 Peter 2: 11) They exist in heaven, or the spirit realm, which is a level of existence higher than the physical universe. (1 Kings 8: 27; John 6: 38) Thus, they are also referred to as spirits. (1 Kings 22:21; Psalm 18:10).
In many passages from the Tanakh, angels are utilized as messengers; indeed, there is no specific Hebrew equivalent for the English word “angel”. Angels seem to have the appearance of ordinary humans; they are typically men and unlike seraphim, have no wings.
Jews believe in individual and collective participation in an eternal dialogue with God through tradition, rituals, prayers and ethical actions. Christianity generally believes in a Triune God, one person of whom became human. Judaism emphasizes the Oneness of God and rejects the Christian concept of God in human form.
Christians inherited Jewish understandings of angels, which in turn may have been partly inherited from the Egyptians. In the early stage, the Christian concept of an angel characterized the angel as a messenger of God. Later came identification of individual angelic messengers: Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel. Then, in the space of little more than two centuries (from the 3rd to the 5th) the image of angels took on definite characteristics both in theology and in art.
Belief in angels is fundamental to Islam. The Quranic word for angel is “malak” derived either from malaka, meaning "he controlled", due to their power to govern different affairs assigned to them of a "messenger", just like its counterparts in Hebrew (mal?ákh) and Greek (angelos). Unlike their Hebrew counterpart, the term is exclusively used for heavenly spirits of the divine world, but not for human messengers. The Quran refers to both angelic and human messengers as "rasul" instead.
In Islam, just like in Judaism and Christianity, angels are often represented in anthropomorphic forms combined with supernatural images, such as wings, being of great size or wearing heavenly articles. The Quran describes them as "messengers with wings, two, or three, or four (pairs): He (God) adds to creation as He pleases..." Common characteristics for angels are their missing needs for bodily desires, such as eating and drinking. Their lack of affinity to material desires is also expressed by their creation from light: Angels of mercy are created from nur (cold light) in opposition to the angels of punishment created from nar (hot light). Muslims do not generally share the perceptions of angelic pictorial depictions, such as those found in Western art.
Druze on the other hand believe that the universe is eternal and is no more than wombs giving birth and the earth swallowing the bodies of the deceased (i.e., a never-ending cycle of birth and death). They do not believe in the angels or the message of the Prophets, and they follow their philosophers. Nonetheless, one of the most important Druze gathering sites is the tomb of Nebi Shu’eib (Prophet Jethro) at the Horns of Hittin, overlooking Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee).
According to Druze tradition, Saladin had a dream on the eve of his battle against the Crusaders at this site, in which an angel promised him victory on condition that after the battle he gallop westward on his horse. Where the stallion would pull up, the angel promised, he would find the burial site of Nebi Sheuib. When the dream came true, the Druze built a tomb at the site, next to which is a rock bearing a footprint, believed to be that of Nebi Sheuib himself. On April 25 each year, the Druze gather at the site to discuss community affairs.
Actual accounts of angels have been witnessed and recorded by many people throughout the Bible. Beginning in (Genesis 16:7), again, in (Genesis 22:11), and (Revelation19:9) to name a few.
Buddhist devas (angels) differ from the western conception of gods and angels in several ways: Buddhist devas are not immortal. Buddhist devas do not create or shape the world. Buddhist devas are not incarnations of a few archetypal deities or manifestations of a god. Buddhist devas are not omniscient. A Diva is an ancient Buddhist demon, and the "female version" of the ancient "Thug" demon.
The first part of the apocryphal Book of Enoch expands and interprets (Genesis 6:1) that the "sons of God" were a group of 200 "angels" called "Watchers", who descended to Earth to breed with humans. Their offspring are the Nephilim, "giants" who "consumed all the acquisitions of men". When humans could no longer sustain the Nephilim, they turned against humanity.
The Watchers also instructed humans in metallurgy and metalworking, cosmetics, sorcery, astrology, astronomy, and meteorology. God then ordered the Watchers to be imprisoned in the ground, and created the Great Flood (or the numerous Deluge myths) to rid Earth of the Nephilim and of the humans given knowledge by the Watchers. To ensure humanity's survival, Noah is forewarned of the oncoming destruction. Because they disobeyed God, the book describes the Watchers as "fallen angels".
Some ancient astronaut proponents argue that this story is a historical account of extraterrestrials visiting Earth, called Watchers because their mission was to observe humanity. Some of the extraterrestrials disobeyed orders; they made contact with humans, cross-bred with human females, and shared knowledge with them. The Nephilim were thus half-human-half-extraterrestrial hybrids.
Chuck Missler, among the best-known Bible expositors, and Mark Eastman, an evolutionist, argue that modern unidentified flying objects carry the fallen angels, or offspring of fallen angels, and that "Noah's genealogy was not tarnished by the intrusion of fallen angels. It seems that this adulteration of the human gene pool was an innate problem on planet earth".
Erich Anton Paul von D?niken, a Swiss author, also suggests that the two angels who visited Lot in (Genesis 19) were ancient astronauts, who used atomic power to destroy the city of Sodom.
Thus, what if the analogy of winged angels effectively alluded to the 'wings' as a flying object rather than actual shoulder grown feathered wings?
Food for thought!