John A. Broussard

The creation of the world and the creation of man and woman get a lot of attention in Genesis, but I can't seem to find any mention of when the angels were created, or why they were created. Does anyone know of references I may have missed? Or is there some extra-biblical source which deals with this matter? And what of the "choirs" of angels? Where did they come from?

andrewcriddle

The Book of Jubilees chapter II has angels created on the 1st day of the week of creation and this tends to be the early Christian tradition.

Later rabbinic tradition tends to put the creation of angels somewhat later during the creation week (either the 2nd day or the 5th day) to avoid having angels helping God in creation.

Andrew Criddle

Loomis

Check out Psalm 8:5. The traditional rendering is that the god Yahweh created the angels. I suspect that this verse was originally attributed to El, and that Yahwists turned it into a psalm about Yahweh.

Note that the word translated as “angel� is actually “elohim.� The fact is, this verse doesn’t say anything about angels at all! This agrees with the argument that the Psalms evolved out of earlier stories about El and his sons.

It looks to me like the concept of angels gets a big boost by monotheists who need to explain away the Bible’s references to El’s divine council. I think angels are a late development from the Greeks.

I think that in some stories Yahweh was portrayed as a messenger of El (as part of a move to assimilate Yahweh into El-worship), but that these stories got tweaked where the character originally named ‘Yahweh’ was turned into a generic nameless angel (messenger of the LORD), and the god named ‘El’ was renamed ‘Yahweh.’

Am I making any sense?

I am curious to know if anyone understands what I am typing about.

John A. Broussard

Thanks to andrewcriddle and loomis. I'm still curious about the "why?" It does seem as though the angels were some kind of minor gods at first. More info required.

MagiNoir

When my wife was born.
Just for me.

aChristian

The angels were created to be servant to serve those who would inherit salvation (Christians). Read Hebrews chapter 1, especially verse 14. They were never gods of any sort, just an awesome part of God's magnificent creation.

Toto

The word angel means messenger. Angels are just messengers of God. A God who sits up in a remote heaven needs some method of communicating with the world down below, and angels are the means. (Angels imply that God is not omnipresent.)

The theme of Hebrews 1 is "The Son is superior to the angels."

But this does not explain where angels came from.

I wouldn't read too much into that.

John A. Broussard

Got it. They were created chiefly to be messengers. It's a bit surprising that they aren't mentioned in the OT, but the point is well made in Hebrews. I had the feeling that the concept of angels was rooted much further in the past.

Thanks for the reference.

John A. Broussard

That fits in with my notion that all monotheistic religions need intermediaries between the main god and human beings.

With the disappearance of the Old Testament prophets, this gap was nicely filled by angels.

Now I wonder about the date of the earliest extant Hebrews manuscript. I'd be willing to bet it's not earlier than the 4th Century.

Toto

Angels are mentioned extensively in the Hebrew Scriptures. They are messengers and general agents, they participate in battles, slaughter people, etc. Nothing about serving Christians, unless Christians think that they are Gods.


Psalm 103:20
Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.