Gavin McDowell, “received his doctorate in ‘Languages, History, and Literature of the Ancient World from the Beginning until Late Antiquity,” wrote an article for the Alternate Ending site (“Discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time” titled Sects, Lies, and Videotape: The Prophecy (1995-2005) with The Prophecy referring to a movie trilogy.
He notes, “In my controversial overview of the controversial film Dogma, reader imaginaryGHOST commented, ‘Lol imagine thinking there’s a right or wrong way to represent sky magic fantasy bull[****].”
Focusing on that for a sec, note that it’s a mere (and childish) asserted positive affirmation since it claims that God is, “fantasy” stuff. It also merely implies that there’s something wrong with thinking that but fails to mention the most important part: how and why is that wrong on the commentator’s worldview?
In any case, McDowell refers to, “sky magic fantasy bull[****], even when it’s avowedly fictional” and, “There are abstract religious teachings about angels (the subject of [the movie] Dogma as well as today’s topic, The Prophecy), but why should the cinema care about getting any of this right? Movie makers do not care, nor should they. I suppose there is no one reason why movies exist, but most would rank ‘entertainment’ much higher than ‘theological precision.’”
Now, “nor should they” is an asserted universal imperative especially when the answer to, “why should the cinema care about getting any of this right?” can be because they are premising their scripts upon reality. Why didn’t they just invent a wholly fictional theology instead? Thus, this is a case of purposeful corruption: to whatever ends.
My many movie review books aren’t about the acting, cinematography, setting, etc. but about the messages conveyed to us by script writers, directors, producers, et al. When, for examples, we have Stephen Spielberg says of his movie Disclosure Day as, “the position of the church” and that it is an, “ontological shock” and “social dislocation” that may, “mess up a lot of people,” and reportedly, “Christians and people of faith second-guessing their own religion.”
If you want to understand how movies aren’t just movie: just listen to the people making them.
Spam break: to date, my movie (show) review books are:
Transhuman Hollywood: From Normative Fiction to Predictive Programming
The Necronomiconjob, Liber III: Alchemical Hollywood
A Worldview Review of the Alien and Predator Mythos Franchises
A Worldview Review of Stephen King’s “It”: The Mystical, Mysterious, and Metaphysical in the Novel, Miniseries, and Movies
Hollywood Aliens and UFOs, 1st Showing: The Days the Earth Stood Still
Hollywood Aliens and UFOs, 2nd Showing: The Spice of Alien Life(Force)
Hollywood Aliens and UFOs, 3rd Showing: Close Encounters of the 666th Kind
Hollywood Aliens and UFOs, 4th Showing: Ancient Alien Gods
Hollywood Aliens and UFOs, 5th Showing: Star Leaf Contact
Hollywood Aliens and UFOs: 6th Showing Amorphous Menaces
Gavin McDowell notes, “The basic premise of The Prophecy is that the angel Gabriel has initiated a second War in Heaven because he is repulsed by God’s love for humanity over the angels” and that Gabriel, “is a villain in Constantine (2005) and Legion (2010).”
He provided this still of, “The archangel Gabriel as depicted in a motion picture”: one main issue with which is that Angels don’t have wings.
He notes, “‘angel’ designates a function, not a class of being. The Cherubim and Seraphim—who never seem to leave their heavenly station—are not ‘angels’ in this sense. The Hebrew word malakh מלאך, like its Greek equivalent angelos αγγελος, simply means ‘messenger.’ Both words are used interchangeably for human and divine messengers. To confuse matters more, the beings are simply called ‘men’ in the more famous appearances. The ‘angel’ that wrestles with Jacob? A man. The ‘angels’ who appear to Abraham? Also men…The strangest thing about angels in the Bible might be their anonymity. Most of the time, it is the ‘Angel of the Lord’” or, I suppose, regular Angels.
“Angel” actually designates a function and also a class of being when the context calls for it. Thus, humans can be messangers but there’s a specific category of being who are titled that: are identified by their job title/function. And yes, they are called man/men likely since Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such isn’t their ontology—see my book What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.
It’s more of a case of that, “Cherubim and Seraphim…are not ‘angels’ in” any, “sense.” Angles, Cherubim and Seraphim are three different categories of being distinguished by 1) job title, 2) job function, and 3) morphology.
His point about, “anonymity” is that upon which he follows with, “As Ryan Reynolds [well, his character] sagely observed to one of his dates/victims in The Voices, only three angels are ever named in the Bible: Michael, Gabriel, and the big D. Or maybe the big S?” referring to Michael, Garbiel, and Satan/Devil—the character actually referred to Lucifer.
Well, that wasn’t sagely at all since biblically we know the proper names of three and maybe four angels namely:
1) Michael (Daniel 10:21, 12:1; Jude 9; Revelation 12:7-9).
2) Gabriel (Daniel 8:16, 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26-38).
3) One whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and Greek is Apollyon (Revelation 9:11)
4) The maybe is Wormwood as this assumes that since Revelation 1 states that “stars are the angels” within a certain symbolic context, then Revelation 8:10-11 seems to be identifying such a one in stating, “there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp. And the name of the star is called: Wormwood.”
“Lucifer” is not an angel nor a fallen angel, he is a Cherub (as per Ezekiel 28:14).
And the character said that an Angel named “Raphael” is mentioned: that’s from apocrypha/deuteron canon, from Book of Tobit.
Gavin McDowell notes, “Satan…is not a name but a title…‘Satan’ שטן being a Hebrew word for ‘adversary’ and ‘devil’ διαβολος coming from the Greek word for ‘accuser’…both are also used for humans”: see my book What Does the Bible Say About the Devil Satan? A Styled Satanology.
Furthermore:
Speculation about angels eventually turned to one of the essential questions humans ask about any living creature: Can we [copulate with] them? For a long time, that answer was yes. As discussed earlier, there was a longstanding myth that evil entered the world after a group of angels, who initially came to teach primitive humans the basics of culture and civilization, instead took their women and begot a race of monstrous, man-eating giants—the Nephilim. The giants wipe each other out, and God sends the Flood to purify the earth. The malign presence of the Nephilim remains in the form of evil spirits, the ghosts of the giants. This is the version of the story in Jubilees. It is surprisingly relevant for The Prophecy.
This story of the origin of evil was eventually replaced by Adam and Eve, after a slight adjustment: identifying the serpent with Satan, now in a more evil, non-compliant form…how we got from here to there…I attribute it to the book of Revelation (SINGULAR)…where a multi-headed dragon menaces a heavenly, heavily pregnant woman, and Michael defeats him. This scenario was later retrojected onto the beginning of time and became the basis for the tradition of a “War in Heaven,” the devil’s design to dethrone the Deity, driving the despot’s demotion to a demon of damnation.
As for whether we can copulate with them, the original, traditional, and majority view of that which I term the Gen 6 affair among the earliest Jewish and Christian commentators, starting in BC days, was the Angel view as I proved in my book On the Genesis 6 Affair’s Sons of God: Angels or Not?: A Survey of Early Jewish and Christian Commentaries Including Notes on Giants and the Nephilim.
The rest of his statements about what the Angels did is 99% form 1 Enoch which is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.
Thus, that evil spirits, the ghosts are the spirits of dead Nephilim is just folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, for a biblical view, please see my article Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons? It’s from 1 Enoch and Jubilees so you can also see my book The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts.
Incidentally, he notes, “Near the beginning of The Prophecy…a seminarian turned cop, informs us via voiceover that in his seminary days he was most impressed by Paul’s reference to ‘angels carrying savage weapons’…this phrase is absolutely not from the Apostle Paul…It is a paraphrase of the second ‘Slavonic’ book of Enoch” such is why I titled my book with, “Book(s).”
A linguistics note is that biblically contextually, “the Nephilim. The giants” would mean, “the Nephilim. the Nephilim”: unsure why he language jumped.
We wouldn’t have the problem of having to specify, “the book of Revelation (SINGULAR)” if everyone just went back to calling it The Apocalypse ;o)
Note that he has the, “multi-headed dragon” who, “menaces a heavenly, heavily pregnant woman, and Michael defeats him” so that this is the, “War in Heaven.” That, “evil entered the world after a group of angels” as the, “story of the origin of evil was eventually replaced by Adam and Eve” is an anachronistic false dichotomy.
Technically, biblical timeline is:
The Cherub (Satan/Devil/serpent/dragon, etc.) conceived of a sinful plan (the five “I will”: Ezek 28) and seduced Eve.
Adam sinned.
The, “great red dragon…His tail swept down a third of the stars [contextually Angels] of heaven and cast them to the earth.”
Those Angels perpetrated the Gen 6 affair.
Thus, those are all instances of sin coming to Earth.
He notes, “Rabbinic Judaism doesn’t have any stated belief in a ‘War in Heaven’” and I appreciate the qualifying term “Rabbinic Judaism” since that began a few centuries BC so is not the Torah religion.
Moreover, “Within fifty verses of the Quran, you will encounter the first of its seven renditions of the devil’s fall from grace, none of which feature a war:…your Lord…taught Adam all the names [of the animals.” This contradicts the Bible which notes, “out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field” (Gen 2).
He also quoted the Quran to the affect of that, “your Lord said to the angels…‘Bow down to Adam,’ and they prostrated, except Iblis [i.e., the devil]. He refused and was arrogant, and he became one of the unbelievers.”
This commits the category error of having a non-Angel Cherub categorized as an Angel and also shows that the Quran is just a mishmash of apocrypha, Rabbinic tradition, etc. since that’s from a text titled The Life of Adam and Eve (likely from between 100 BC-1st century AD).
Continuing:
In early Christianity, an alternative theory developed where Satan rebelled not from simple hubris but because he was jealous of the glory bestowed on humanity as the image of God. This version of events gave way to the War in Heaven—typically understood as taking place before the creation of Adam.
One thing is, “In early Christianity” and another is what the Bible states. I will focus on the, “Satan rebelled…gave way to the War in Heaven—typically understood as taking place before the creation of Adam” yes, that timeline is typically assumed but that’s not biblical. In Rev 12, the only place the war in mentioned, it’s a post-Jesus ascension event: perhaps it already happened or has not, but it certainly didn’t take place before the creation of Adam.
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