Angelic Beings in the Hebrew Bible (Part 1)

My intended dissertation topic at this time is a study of the development of Israelite/Jewish angelology in the biblical and early post-biblical (Second Temple) periods.  Specifically, I am interested in 1) the ancient Near Eastern roots of Israelite angelology as reflected in the Hebrew Bible, 2) the developments and changes which occur in the exilic and post-exilic periods, particularly the evidence for the “supression” of belief in angels in the Priestly and Wisdom traditions (see Alexander Rofe, The Belief in Angels in the Bible and in Early Israel [Jerusalem: Makor, 1979] [in Hebrew]), 3) the re-emergence of angelology in proto-apocalyptic literature (e.g., Zechariah 1-8), and 4) the revival of earlier mythology in apocalyptic literature, especially as it relates to the tradition of the fallen angels (cf. Gen 6:1-4; 1 Enoch 6-11).

As a part of my research on this topic, I am attempting to catalogue every appearance of angelic beings in the Hebrew Bible (I also plan to conduct a similar catalogue for the LXX, the New Testament, and ideally the Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha eventually as well, although that may prove too extensive).   What I am doing is categorizing the references to angelic beings according to their functions (messenger, protector, destroyer, etc.) in order to see how the functions of angelic beings develop over time.

In this first chart (below), I have listed all of the references to divine מלאכים in the Hebrew Bible (assuming that I haven’t overlooked any).  Some instances are questionable, and I have indicated them as such.  The list below is restricted only to those beings which are explicitly identified with a form of the word מלאך.  For other terms, such as בני אלהים, קודשים, etc., additional charts will be forthcoming.

The first column notes the biblical reference, the second the function(s) of the angels, the third a brief description of the actions of the angels, and the final column contains any notes or significant details.  I would welcome any corrections or suggestions regarding my study thus far.

מלאך

Reference      Function                    Description              Notes

Gen 16:7ff	Messenger	Angel of YHWH speaks to Hagar.	In v. 13 the angel is simply called YHWH
Gen 19:1ff	Messengers, Protectors, Destroyers	2 angels visit Sodom, warn Lot of coming judgment, save Lot’s family, destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.	Angels identified as men (vv. 4–5); Action of destroying also attributed to YHWH in vv. 14, 24
Gen 21:17–18	Messenger, Protector	Angel of God saves Hagar and Ishmael, prophesies	Angel calls to Hagar from heaven; she does not see him
Gen 22:11ff	Messenger, Protector?	Angel of YHWH stops Abraham from killing Isaac, delivers message from YHWH	Angel calls from heaven; Abraham does not see angel
Gen 24:7, 40	Servant, Messenger?	Angel of Yahweh goes before Abraham’s servant to find a wife for Isaac
Gen 28:12	Not clear	Jacob sees angels going up and down ladder at Bethel	YHWH stands beside Jacob and speaks to him (in dream)
Gen 31:11–13	Messenger	Angel of God delivers message to Jacob (in dream)	Angel speaks in first person as “the God of Bethel”
Gen 32:2	Not clear (protectors?)	Angels of God meet Jacob on way to meet Esau	Jacob names the place Mahanaim and says “This is God’s camp!”
Gen 48:16	Protector	Joseph says angel has protected him.	Joseph parallels the angel with the God of his fathers.
Exod 3:2	Messenger	Angel of YHWH appears to Moses in burning bush.	Speaker is identified as YHWH in following verses
Exod 14:19–20	Protector	Angel of God leads people and separates (as pillar of cloud) them from Egyptian army	In Exod 13:21 it is YHWH himself who goes before Israel in pillar of cloud and fire
Exod 23:20ff	Protector, Destroyer?	Angel of YHWH (“my angel”) goes before Israel to protect them	People told to obey angel because YHWH’s name is in him; ; “My terror” goes before them to drive out Canaanites; also called “hornet” (צרעה, NRSV “pestilence”) in v. 28
Exod 32:34	Protector	Angel of YHWH will go before people
Exod 33:2	Destroyer?	Angel of YHWH sent before people (to drive out Canaanites?)	YHWH will drive out Canaanites (by his angel?)
Num 20:16?	Servant?	Yahweh sent a messenger (Moses? Angel?) to free people from Egypt	NRSV translates as “angel”
Num 22:22ff	Warrior/Destroyer (threatened)	Angel of YHWH stands before Balaam with sword	Angel of YHWH acts as “adversary” (שטן)
Judg 2:1, 4	Messenger	Angel of YHWH speaks to the Israelites in judgment	Angel speaks in first person concerning bringing people out of Egypt, making covenant, etc.
Judg 5:23	Messenger	Angel of YHWH speaks a curse against Meroz
Judg 6:11–22	Messenger	Angel of YHWH appears and sits under oak tree at Ophrah, speaks with Gideon	Speaker alternates between angel and YHWH; called angel of God in v. 20
Judg 13:3ff	Messenger	Angel of YHWH appears and speaks with Samson’s parents	Manoah’s wife describes angel as “man of God” with appearance “like an angel of God”; mentions that angel did not give his name; called angel of God in v. 9; Manoah offers him food, but he refuses, recommends offering to YHWH instead; when asked for his name, he says “it is wonderful”; angel ascends in flames upon altar; Manoah and wife fall on faces and Manoah declares that they have seen God and will die
1 Sam 29:9?	Protector?	David compared to an angel of God by Achish
2 Sam 14:17, 20?	Protector?	David compared to an angel of God by a woman	Woman attributes David’s angelic likeness to his ability to discern good and evil
2 Sam 19:28?	Protector?	David compared to an angel of God by Mephiboshet
2 Sam 24:16ff	Destroyer	Angel of YHWH kills 70,000 Israelites as punishment for census	Yahweh sends “pestilence” (דֶבֶר) on Israel, to be identified with angel/deity (Deber) as destroyer?  When David sees angel, he prays to YHWH
1 Kings 13:18	Messenger	A prophet from Bethel falsely claims that an angel spoke to him
1 Kings 19:5, 7	Messenger	Angel of YHWH awakens Elijah and instructs him to eat	Angel touches Elijah to wake him
2 Kings 1:15	Messenger	Angel of YHWH speaks to Elijah	Angel instructs Elijah to confront Ahaziah
2 Kings 19:35	Destroyer, Protector	Angel of YHWH kills 185,000 Assyrian soldiers	Parallel to 2 Chron 32:21
1 Chron 21:12, 15, 18ff	Destroyer, Messenger	Angel of YHWH kills 70,000 Israelites as punishment for census; tells prophet Gad to have David erect altar (2 Sam 24 lacks this)	Parallel to 2 Sam 24:16ff; Yahweh sends “pestilence” (דֶבֶר) on Israel, to be identified with angel/deity (Deber) as destroyer?  When David sees angel, he and elders pray to God
2 Chron 32:21	Destroyer	Angel destroys Assyrian armies	Parallel to (but less detailed than) 2 Kings 19:35
Job 4:18	Servants	Angels paralleled with servants of God	According to Eliphaz, God puts no trust in his servants and changes his angels with error
Job 33:23–26	Messenger/Protector (Intercessor); LXX – Destroyer	Angel intercedes on behalf of human threatened with death; LXX – angel is bearer of death
Ps 34:8 [7]	Protector	Angel of YHWH guards and saves those who fear YHWH
Ps 35:5–6	Destroyer	Angel of YHWH drives away and pursues the psalmist’s enemies	Enemies likened to chaff blown by wind
Ps 78:49	Destroyer	Band of destroying angels unleash God’s judgment	God sends a band of destroying angels against the Egyptians as part of the exodus event
Ps 91:11	Protector	Angels guard the righteous	YHWH orders angels to guard the righteous
Ps 103:20–21	Worshippers, Servants	Angels called on to bless YHWH; angels to YHWH’s bidding	Angels (מלאכיו) paralleled with “mighty warriors” (גברי כח), “hosts” (צבאיו), and “ministers” (משרתיו)
Ps 104:4?	Servants	Wind compared to YHWH’s angels	Angels (מלאכיו) paralleled with “ministers” (משרתיו)
Ps 148:2	Worshippers	Angels called on to praise YHWH	Angels (מלאכיו) paralleled with “host” (צבאו); possibly also paralleled with sun, moon, stars (v. 3)
Eccl 5:5 [6]	Destroyer (Threatened), Messenger (Intercessor)?	Possible angelic threat of destruction; possible angelic mediation between God and human	Advice not to tell angel/messenger that broken vow was made in error, lest God destroy work of one’s hands
Isa 14:32?	Patrons?	Mention of the angels/messengers of nations	Unclear whether human messengers or national gods/angels
Isa 37:36	Destroyer	Angel of YHWH kills 185,000 Assyrian soldiers	Parallel to 2 Kings 19:35; 2 Chron 32:21
Isa 63:9	Protector?	Angel does not save Israel [NRSV; LXX]; Angel of YHWH’s presence saves Israel	Unclear how to translate; NRSV follows LXX in having YHWH’s presence, rather than an angel, save Israel (this seems the most likely reading); but could also be translated “angel of his presence.”
Ezek 30:9?	Destroyer?	YHWH will send angels/messengers to terrorize Egypt	Unclear whether angels or human messengers; they ride in boats, which would seem to suggest humans
Hos 12:5 [4]	Not clear	Jacob wrestled with angel	Recounts Jacob’s wrestling with a “man”, here understood as an angel
Zech 1:9	Interpreter	Angel interprets vision for prophet	Angel interprets Zechariah’s vision of horses and man among myrtles
Zech 1:11ff	Interpreter/Intercessor	Angel in vision interprets visions, intercedes for Judah and Jerusalem	Angel of YHWH here identified with the man among the myrtles
Zech 2:2–9 [1:19–2:5]	Interpreter	Angels interpret visions for prophet, another (in vision) speaks to the first angel
Zech 3:1ff	Messenger/Protector (Intercessor), Servants	Angel of YHWH intercedes for high priest, instructs him	Angel of YHWH intercedes for high priest against Accuser (השטן), orders other angels to clothe him in priestly garments, instructs high priest
Zech 4:1ff	Interpreter	Angel interprets vision for prophet	Very similar to visions/interpretations in Amos, Jeremiah, etc., except angel speaks with prophet instead of YHWH
Zech 5:5, 10	Interpreter	Angel interprets vision for prophet	Very similar to visions/interpretations in Amos, Jeremiah, etc., except angel speaks with prophet instead of YHWH
Zech 6:4ff	Interpreter	Angel interprets vision for prophet	Prophet asks angel what the things he sees are/mean
Zech 12:8	Protector?  Patron?	House of David will be like an angel of YHWH	Paralleled with God (אלהים)

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry

A friend of mine posted this on his blog recently, and it is simply too much to resist posting it here as well.  After spending all day yesterday at home, watching CNN and the mass hysteria over Obama’s proposed health reform with a sick child, coming across this last night was quite entertaining.

In this video, some would-be biblical scholar/end-times prophet (who remains anonymous) claims to have uncovered a mysterious clue to the identity of the Antichrist (of course, Barack Obama) in Luke 10:18 (Jesus’ statement that he watched “Satan fall like lightning from heaven”).  The video claims that in the Aramaic original which Jesus would have spoken, “lightning from heaven” would have been pronounced as בָרָק וֹבָמָה (“Baraq O-bamah”).

Now, anyone with an ounce of sense, whether they know Hebrew/Aramaic or not, would immediately recognize this as complete non-sense and go find something better to do.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of people without an ounce of sense, and I suspect that they are many of the same people who are storming the gates of town hall meetings and threatening their congressmen with divine judgment right now (I wouldn’t be surprised to see a link to this video on Sarah Palin’s website).   For this crowd, garbage like this only adds pious fuel to the fires of insanity, and since many if not most evangelical Christians fall into the strongly conservative, anti-Obama camp, it is all the more believable because it tells them exactly what they want to hear.

For those of us who do know Hebrew/Aramaic, it is both hilariously amusing and at the same time terribly frustrating.  Personally, I find the hijacking of real, legitimate study of the Bible in the original languages for things like this (and the Bible Code, etc.) to be insulting to those of us who have dedicated our lives to studying the Bible and who have spent 8-12 years in higher education learning how to do things that this moron pretends to be able to do.   I suppose it would be less irritating if I didn’t think that a sizeable chunk of my family and friends, if I showed them this video and made no comment, would believe it.

At any rate, there are so many errors in the thing that it is tough to know where to begin.  There is a whole methodological issue here which just needs to be rejected from the start: were all of the linguistic claims that this guy makes correct (almost none of them are), his claim would still be bogus simply based on the fact that he is trying to wring futurist apocalyptic/eschatological significance of the “Left Behind” variety out of a text which has absolutely nothing to do with such things as an antichrist.   This is exactly the same thing that people try to do with Nostradomus in order to claim that he predicted the rise and fall of Hitler, etc.

That glaring problem aside, here are several other factual/logical errors in this guy’s claims.  These are not all of them, but simply the most glaring and laughable.

Error #1: Aramaic is not “the most ancient form of Hebrew.” Aramaic is not a form of Hebrew. They are two different (but related) languages. So if Jesus were speaking Aramaic, why do a Hebrew word study?

Error #2: Vav (or, if you prefer, “waw”) as a conjunction is NEVER transliterated or pronounced as “O.”  In this case, it would be pronounced “U” and the ב would be soft (without the dagesh), so it would not even be pronounced “u-bamah” but rather “u-vamah.”

Error #3: Luke 10:18 does not say “height” or “heights of heaven.” It says “heaven”, Gk. ουρανος, which does NOT mean “height,” but “heaven, sky, atmostphere, etc.” The two concepts are not identical, and the appeal to Isa 14 does not justify substituting “height” for “heaven” in Luke 10:18.  As Bob Caldwell (on whose blog I first saw this) points out, “In the other 105 uses of BMH in the OT, it never refers to heaven. In Isa 14:14, BMH does not mean heaven either; rather, Satan declares he will ascend above the BMH of the clouds to get to heaven (Shamayim).”  Thus, it is very unlikely here that ουρανος translates במה rather than שמים.

Error #4: The conjuction vav/waw does NOT mean “from.” “From” in Hebrew is מִן “min” or מֵ־ “me-.”  Moreover, “from”/”min” is NOT a conjunction at all. It is a preposition. I knew the difference between a conjunction and a preposition when I was in grade school!  So, even if ουρανος here translated במה, the resulting phrase would not be “baraq u/o-bamah” but rather “baraq min-bamah” or “baraq me-bamah.”  But of course, since ουρανος does not stand for במה but rather שמים (or actually, שמין  if Jesus were speaking Aramaic), and probably would have been definite (cf. Gen 1:1) rather than indefinite, the phrase would have been something like “baraq me/min-ha-shamayim” (Hebrew) or “baraq me/min-shamaya’” (Aramaic).

I especially get a kick out of how this guy used Strong’s.  Word to the wise: don’t try to reconstruct an original Hebrew rendering of something from the GREEK New Testament by turning to Strong’s!!!  Better yet, don’t try to reconstruct the original Hebrew of a Greek rendering if you DON’T KNOW HEBREW!!!  But hey, I’m just a Hebrew scholar…what do I know, right?

Pentecostalism and Fundamentalism

I just finished reading George Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture.  Marsden understands fundamentalism as being 1) the synthesis of revivalist, evangelical Calvinism with dispensational premillennialism and Keswick-style holiness teachings, and 2) militancy in reaction to the perceived threat modernism posed to the dominance of 19th century revivalist evangelicalism in American culture.  Feeling that the unspoken “custodianship” of evangelicalism over American culture was rapidly diminishing and the culture becoming more and more secularized, militant conservative evangelicals first attempted to guide America back to its Christian heritage through the traditional denominations, which they also viewed as tainted by liberal theology.  Of course, the early fundamentalist movement(s) of the 1920’s ultimately failed to gain control of the mainline denominations, and after the mid-1920’s split into two groups: the more moderate fundamentalists dropped their militancy (but not their conservative theology) and chose to tolerate their moderate and liberal brethren in the mainline denominations.  The more militantly conservative fundamentalists chose separatism, broke away, and formed their own alternative denominations or became independent churches.

Throughout his study, Marsden frequently mentions the Holiness and Pentecostal traditions as “cousins” of the fundamentalists who, while agreeing with most if not all of the fundamentalists positions, never really became a part of the movement.  The primary distinctions between Holiness/Pentecostals and fundamentalists seem to have been  1) the obvious difference of the Pentecostal practice of the charismata (especially glossalalia), with which most fundamentalists were quite uncomfortable, and 2) the Methodist roots of the Holiness/Pentecostal tradition vs. the Calvinist heritage of fundamentalism.  Fundamentalism, while always including some representation from virtually all Protestant traditions, was essentially a Presbyterian and Baptist phenomenon in those early days.  Methodism, according to Marsden, lacked the emphasis on doctrine which characterized Calvinism and fueled the fundamentalists strong reaction against liberal theology, and therefore fundamentalism never really took off within Methodism, which was more concerned with ethics and experiential religion than with doctrinal formulations.  Presumably the same tendency would have distinguished Holiness/Pentecostalism from fundamentalism as well.

Given Marsden’s observation that early fundamentalism was essentially a Calvinism-based movement, I find it interesting how many similarities there were between early Holiness/Pentecostals and fundamentalists.  Both groups arose out of the revivalism of the second half of the 19th century, both were heavily influenced by such figures as D. L. Moody and R. A. Torrey, both were strongly premillennial and dispensational (Marsden makes a big deal out of premillennialism as one of the catalysts of fundamentalism, especially of the more militant/separatist variety), both were largely apolitical and anti-war in their infancy, both placed very heavy emphasis on missionary work and conversion, and both were heavily impacted by the Keswick movement in England.  Marsden (and others) seems to attribute a lot of the similarity to fundamentalist influence on Pentecostals (e.g., Pentecostals reading the Scofield Reference Bible), but I wonder if there might be more to it than that.

Theologically, fundamentalism was the merging of conservative Calvinism, Keswick style holiness teachings, revivalism, and dispensational premillennialism.  My understanding of Pentecostal origins (cf. Donald Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism) is that it was essentially the merging of Wesleyan/Methodist theology and dispensational premillennialism.  Especially among the two-stage/”finished-work” Pentecostals (e.g., Assemblies of God), Keswick teachings also seem to have been influential, and the revivalist roots of Pentecostalism seem obvious.  So could it be that Pentecostalism is, essentially, Methodist fundamentalism?  In other words, is Pentecostalism more or less the result of the introduction of the same factors (dispensationalism being the biggest), in the same cultural context (late 19th/early 20th century America), within conservative Methodistic evangelicalism, in reaction against the same liberalizing/secularlizing tendencies within American society?  Under the same influences, Calvinism reacted by resorting to an intellectual battle against liberalism.  Could it be that those from Wesleyan/Methodistic heritage, with its emphasis on personal piety and experience, reacted to these same influences by becoming more pietistic and charismatic?

I am not a Church historian, and I’m not even really a theologian (except in a broad sense), so my thoughts on this subject are, admittedly, not very refined.  But because of my Pentecostal background and my current Methodist affiliation, I find the subject interesting as a sort of “self-study.”  I’d welcome input from anyone with more (or less) knowledge than myself about such matters.

Genesis

I’m good at creating blogs…terrible at maintaining them.  We’ll see how this goes.