Month: April 2017

Herein we continue, from part 1, part 2, part 3, considering info on Angels in Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD). The fuller complete result consists of quotations of those sections within the text that refer to Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Devil, Satan, demons, serpent and dragon.

Herein we continue, from part 1, part 2, part 3, considering info on the Devil from Aurelius Ambrosius aka St. Ambrose bishop of Milan (340-397 AD). The fuller complete result consists of quotations of those sections within the text that refer to Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Devil, Satan, demons, serpent and dragon.

Rashi is an acronym for Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchaki or Rabbi Solomon son of Isaac aka Salomon Isaacides (1040-1105 AD):

That the sons of the nobles saw the daughters of man when they were beautifying themselves, and they took for themselves wives from whomever they chose.

The sons of the nobles: Heb. [font for “sons of Elohim”], the sons of the princes (Targumim) and the judges (Gen. Rabbah 26:5). Another explanation: [Hebrew font for “sons of Elohim”] are the princes who go as messengers of the Omnipresent. They too mingled with them (Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 22). Every [font for “Elohim”] in Scripture is an expression of authority, and the following proves it (Exod. 4:16):“And you shall be to him as a lord ([font for “Elohim”])” ; (ibid. 7:1):“See, I have made you a lord ([font for “Elohim”]).”

As opposed to the much, much earlier commentators, by Rashi’s day the non-Angel view of the Genesis 6 affair was all the rage.

Non-Angel meaning the Sethite view or other views such as Rashi’s nobles view.

The princes view is generically cited as Targumim thus, various Targums (in Hebrew masculine plural is denoted by ending a word with “im”). These are Aramaic paraphrases of the Bible often containing much Rabbinic folklore which date from a couple of centuries before Jesus to the 600s AD.

The judges view is cited to the Midrash Genesis Rabbah which is a homiletic commentary dating to circa 450 AD.

Rashi also writes:

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of the nobles would come to the daughters of man, and they would bear for them; they are the mighty men, who were of old, the men of renown.

The Nephilim: They were called [font for “nephilim”] because they fell ([font for “naphal”]) and caused the world to fall ([font for what looks to be a form of “naphal”]הִפִּילוּ) (Gen. Rabbah 26:7), and in the Hebrew language it means giants (Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, ch.22) and Targum Jonathan.

Well, Rashi had claimed that the text refers to “The sons of the nobles” for which he provides us the Hebrew but the Hebrew he provided reads “sons of Elohim” which Rashi interprets as nobles—apparently whilst ignoring that Job chaps 1 and 38 use this term of being who are clearly not nobles nor princes nor judges but are clearly Angels.
FYI: I did not reproduce the Hebrew because when copied and pasted into the Word program (wherein I do my writing) the order of the letters is reversed.

Rashi takes the common, yet not only, view that Nephilim has naphal as its root word and since naphal means to fall the Nephilim are said to be know as such because they fell (from heaven, into sin, caused the world to fall, etc.). Nephilim may come from the Aramaic root naphiyla which means giant and even when tracing it to naphal Rashi concludes that “it means giants”—whatever giant might mean.
FYI: Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer is another midrash dating to circa the 9th c. AD and Targum Jonathan (ben Uzziel) aka Pseudo-Jonathan dates to the 600s AD.

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Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

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Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

Social networks:
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Archive video site
Ken Ammi’s Product Reviews
My CafePress shop
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Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

As has been elucidated in various articles found with the Serpent Seed category: the Bible does speak the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Yet, it does not, in any way, relate seed of the serpent to Cain being the result of Eve having sex with Satan.

In fact, since the serpent seed of Satan theory is not biblical, promulgators, such as those listed below, have different ideas as to who the seedlines / bloodlines are.

…this tree that has the knowledge of good and evil must be an angel…
—Willie Martin

Herein I consider Willie Martin’s The Two Seedlines. In this segment I will focus on his specific views about the Jews and race in general within his serpent seedline of Satan theory and his Christian Identity which identifies him as an anti-Semitic racist.
All emphasis in the following quotations are in the original. You can find my articles on Martin here.

Within the text Willie Martin touches upon a topic about which many people are confused. The confusion seems to come about from relying on old paintings and new movies to tell us about Angles rather than the Bible.

For example, he notes “angels can have human bodies” which is a tricky statement. If Angels had human bodies then, by definition, they would be human (at least in a manner of speaking). Biblically, Angels look like human males which thus, they do not “have human bodies” but human male bodies and Angel bodies look the same.
No, they do not have wings (nor halos). They seem to inhabit that which we may best think of as unfallen glorified bodies. Think of them as inhabiting bodies that are as was Jesus’ after the resurrection: He was physical so that He could eat, be touched, etc. and yet, He could walk through a closed door, etc.

Willie Martin quotes Fausset’s Bible Dictionary thusly:

When man fell by evil angels, with beautiful propriety it was ordered that other angels, holy and unfallen, should minister for God in His reparation of the evil caused to man by their fallen fellow spirits. They rescued at Jehovah’s command righteous Lot from doomed Sodom, Jacob from his murderous brother (Genesis 19; 32)…

He quotes this in order to conclude, as he puts it: that Satan “convinced 1/3 of Yahweh’s angels to join him in his rebellion. This rebellion is recorded in Revelation 12:7 9.”

He also notes, that “The concept of the Two Seedlines further predicates that when Satan fell, with the rest of his satanic beings, they left the dimension of spirit and entered the dimension of the physical, as men.”

As per above, there is no reason to think that it was “when Satan fell” that he and “the rest of his satanic beings “entered the dimension of the physical, as men.”

Now we are getting into a timeline issue as he is placing “when Satan fell” at the same time as “the rest of his satanic beings” and he places this timestamp as during the unbiblical gap theory which asserts an undetermined amount of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Into this fictional gap such theorists place that which they wish such as Satan’s fall, Angelic rebellion and war, pre-Adamic “races,” etc.

I will seek to iron out the timeline below. However, firstly note that for support of the claim that “angels can have human bodies” which they take on and are not natural to them he quotes the Testament of Reuben which is a portion of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, 2:18 19 which was written in 70-200 AD:

For this they (the women) allured the Watchers (fallen angels) who were before the flood; for as these continually behold them, they lusted after them, and they conceived the act in their mind; FOR THEY CHANGED THEMSELVES INTO THE SHAPE OF MEN, and appeared to them when they were (possibly not) with their husbands. And the women lusting in their minds after their forms, gave birth to giants, for the Watchers appeared to them as reaching even unto heaven.

This is why I referenced this text in Nephilim in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.

Willie Martin’s comment is:

With this exceptionally outstanding passage, we can more wholly comprehend what it means in Jude 6, the fallen “angels which kept not their first estate.” This passage also serves as a paradigm or model, after the fact, of what happened previously involving the satanic seduction of Eve in the garden of Eden.

Thus, he is employing this as an interpretive template. The problem is that he is claiming that Jude’s “kept not their first estate” refers to Angles taking on human bodies. Yet, the Angels’ first estate was heaven and it is that which they left. When Jesus is asked about marriage in the afterlife, He notes, “in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). Note that He did not say that Angels do not get married but that the loyal ones in heaven do not. Thus, the fallen Angles left heaven, came to Earth and married as per Genesis 6.

Lastly, as far as Willie Martin’s comments on Angle issues is that “knowing good and evil is the EARMARK of angels. Therefore, this tree that has the knowledge of good and evil must be an angel of some rank…the old serpent himself.” This is faulty on various levels such as that the Bible does not state that the tree knows good and evil any more than a cherry tree “knows” cherries. Also, if the tree is symbolic of Satan, which come serpent seedline of Satan theorists claim, it is still not an Angel as Satan is a Cherub.

Lastly, let us get back to the timeline issue which is a very confused one due in part to the lack of very specific statements on this matter.

As far as I can piece it together the basics, within this context in any case, are:

Genesis 3 specifies Satan’s fall: this is the first time of which we are aware that he commits a sinful rebellious action and is cursed.

Genesis 6 specifies the Angels’ fall: this is the first time of which we are aware that they commit a sinful rebellious action which as per Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2 results in them being cursed by being locked away in the bottomless pit Abyss-Tartarus.

Revelation 12 specifies Satan and the Angels—who were released from the bottomless pit in Revelation 9 (wherein they are described very symbolically) engage in a war against the Archangel Michael and loyal Angels at some time after Jesus ascension and which may yet be future. I cannot pinpoint when this is in part because, for example, one single verse in Revelation 12, namely verse 5, amounts to the passing of circa three decades: thus, what does this say about the timespans related to the other verses?

Thus, Willie Martin fell into various fallacies regarding Satan and Angels. Some are due to common knowledge misconceptions and some due to holding to the unbiblical gap theory.

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A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.

Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page. You can also use the “Share / Save” button below this post.

Social networks:
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Archive video site
Ken Ammi’s Product Reviews
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Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

Social networks:
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Archive video site
Ken Ammi’s Product Reviews
My CafePress shop
Google +

Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.