vid

I wonder about beings translated as "angels" in story of Lot (Sodom 'n Gomorrah), especially with regard to fact that citizens wanted to rape them.

What is the meaning of word originally used in hebrew text - how well does it correspond to our idea of angel? Is meaning of the hebrew word close enough to NT greek angels? Is it possible those angels were females?

Thanks in advance.

Toto

Angels are messengers of God. IIRC they are always male in Biblical times (as the fathers of the Nepahlim.) The modern idea of a female angel with glorious wings wearing a diaphenous nightgown is relatively modern.

I only know what I know about this from an art exibit "The Invisible Made Visible: Angels from The Vatican" that was launched by the Vatican apparently to capitalize on the popularity of the TV program "Touched by an Angel."

It was clear in this exhibit that angels were modeled on the most desireable humans of the era - buff young men through most of the Renaissance, only later turning into females with wings (probably borrowed from pagan gods or goddesses or the earlier cherubim.

But there is this: sex of angels in Jewish tradition

And note that in Italian culture talking about the 'sex of angels' is roughly equivalent to our mocking of the medieval scholastics who debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Jeffrey Gibson

Is that what the citizens of Sodom wanted to do?

The word used in the Hebrew text of Gen. 19:1 for, notably, the ones referred to as “men” in 18.2, 16, 22 is the masculine noun מלאך In the LXX of Gen 19:1 it is the masculine plural noun ἄγγελοι. Both mean "messenger"

What exactly is "our" idea of angels?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Generally they are regarded as asexual. Cf 2 Enoch 1:5 [A].Matt. 22:30 par. See too the ABD entry "Angels (New Testament)" by Duane F. Watson and the entry "Angels" in The Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk), C.A. Evans, ed..

And FWIW, the term used of those who father the Nephalim is not mal˒āk but bĕnê hā ˒ĕlōhı̂m.

Jeffrey

Yellum Notnef

There's really such a thing as "The Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus"?

I've been around here long enough to know you could fit all the so called "facts" about the historical Jesus on a pamphlet.

An encyclopedia? Really?

Toto

It's actually an encyclopedia of the search for the historical Jesus.

review

Yellum Notnef

I see. Thanks Toto.

Analyst

List Price: $195.00
Your Price: $159.47

Yow!!!

Toto

It's a reference work designed for libraries. But should you choose to click on that link and buy the book for your own collection, FRDB will benefit

David Henson

The Hebrew word mal·’akh′ and the Greek ag′ge·los both mean messenger. In the Bible these words are mentioned 400 times. They are either translated as messenger or angel depending upon the context of whether or not they are applied to men (messenger) or to spirit creatures (angel). [b]Genesis 16:7 / 32:3 / James 2:25 / Revelation 22:8)

There is often some confusion when angels take on physical form and become men. Sometimes they will be referred to as men and/or angels, and since they are messengers of Jehovah God they are sometimes called Jehovah. Consider the oft asked question who has seen God and what does it mean to see God 'face to face.?'

Did Abraham? Genesis 18:1-3 Note that Jehovah god is mistaken for one of the three men. Was God a man or an angel in the form of a man who represented God?

Did Moses? Numbers 12:8 - Note that it is an apperance of God that represents God to Moses.

Did Jacob? Genesis 32:30 - Note Hosea 12:2-4 points out that it was an angel who represented God that grappled with Jacob.

Did Manoah and his wife? Judges 13:2-22 - Note that the angel of Jehovah God is called Jehovah God.

Did Gideon? Judges 6:11-23 - Later Jehovah's angel came and sat under the big tree that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while Gideon his son was beating out wheat in the winepress so as to get it quickly out of the sight of Midian. Then Jehovah's angel appeared to him and said to him: "Jehovah is with you, you valiant, mighty one." At this Gideon said to him: "Excuse me, my lord, but if Jehovah is with us, then why has all this come upon us, and where are all his wonderful acts that our fathers related to us, saying, 'Was it not out of Egypt that Jehovah brought us up?' And now Jehovah has deserted us, and he gives us into the palm of Midian." Upon that Jehovah faced him and said: "Go in this power of yours, and you will certainly save Israel out of Midian's palm. Do I not send you?" In turn he said to him: "Excuse me, Jehovah. With what shall I save Israel? Look! My thousand is the least in Manasseh, and I am the smallest in my father’s house." But Jehovah said to him: "Because I shall prove to be with you, and you will certainly strike down Midian as if one man."

At this he said to him: "If, now, I have found favor in your eyes, you must also perform a sign for me that you are the one speaking with me. Do not, please, move away from here until I come to you and I have brought out my gift and set it before you." Accordingly he said: "I, for my part, shall keep sitting here until you return." And Gideon went in and proceeded to make ready a kid of the goats and an ephah of flour as unfermented cakes. The meat he put in the basket, and the broth he put in the cooking pot, after which he brought it out to him under the big tree and served it.

The angel of the [true] God now said to him: "Take the meat and the unfermented cakes and set them on the big rock there, and pour out the broth." At that he did so. Then Jehovah's angel thrust out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unfermented cakes, and fire began to ascend out of the rock and to consume the meat and the unfermented cakes. As for Jehovah's angel, he vanished from his sight. Consequently Gideon realized that it was Jehovah’s angel.

At once Gideon said: "Alas, Sovereign Lord Jehovah, for the reason that I have seen Jehovah's angel face to face!" But Jehovah said to him: "Peace be yours. Do not fear. You will not die." So Gideon built an altar there to Jehovah, and it continues to be called Jehovah-shalom down to this day. It is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

No man has seen God but a few have seen representations of him. The angels are, in a sense, at least to the people they deal with, the same as God.