Christian’s are familiar with the Biblical text; man was created of dust yet our Bibles tell us little about the creation of Angels. According to a Fox News Report a Hebrew stone was found thirteen years ago near the Dead Sea; the writings were in ink, not carved like the others that were found. This is important as far as dating this relic. Quite a bit is unclear however, specialists who studied the writings on this three-foot artifact agreed, it was created sometime around the first century BC. The writings describe an apocalyptic vision in which God appears with angels to save Jerusalem. It is very clearly written on one area of the stone, “I am Gabriel” thus they named it the Gabriel Stone. Could an Angel have written this?
God creates in abundance; we see the intricacies of His vision whenever we take a walk in the woods, watch the birth of a baby or view a National Geographic wildlife special. Therefore I would allege God created an abundant amount of Angels. s thre
I chose the painting “An angel comforting Jesus, by Carl Heinrich Block, 1865-1890 because of the beauty it depicts and the message it portrays to us all. Angels who have appeared to man, according to Christian beliefs, appeared in forms relevant to their mission; in this painting the Angel is comforting Jesus in his time of need. Hebrews 13:2 was below this painting; “And remember always to welcome strangers, for by doing this, some people have entertained angels without knowing it.”. Although I was raised by skeptics, I have always believed this to be true. Angels were created for a purpose and one of those is to help us as God commands. It is no secret that we are tempted by Angels to prove our love for God, this dates back to the beginning of time.
I am sure some of you reading this have heard of the Neon Genesis Evangelion; a Japanese movie about the apocalyptic end of times. This story goes into great detail about the creation of Angels; I decided to investigate further. Something was “nudging” me to search and this led me to the Kabbalah; legend tells us this was God’s word or language (not in written form) brought down from Heaven and given to Adam after the fall. The Kabbalah itself is not a religious denomination; some believe it is based on the philosophical study of “being“. According to the Dead Sea Scrolls the Kabbalah was used to characterize the first document called “The Book of Creation“. Which brings us back to the “Book of Life“; I wrote about this in a previous blog. The Kabbalah has been used for centuries to teach us and guide us nonetheless we still have our free-will and continue to divide religion as though we were dividing various colors of paint to create the perfect portrait.
The following information regarding Angels is indeed interesting reading:
The Book Of The Secrets of Enoch (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)
“The lightening is brighter than the sun, softer than water, and firmer than rock. And from the rock I cut off a great fire, from which I created the orders of ten troops of incorporeal [nonmaterial beings] angels. Their weapons are fiery and their raiment [clothing] a burning flame. I commanded that each one stand in order.”
According to the Quran the first creation of angels were that of light.
The Book of Jubilees(Jewish Pseudepigrapha)
“On the first day he created the tall heavens and the earth and waters and all the spirits who served him: the angels of the presence, the angels of sanctification, the angels of the spirit of fire, the angels of the spirit of the winds, of the clouds, of darkness, of snow, hail, and hoarfrost [the appearance of frost], the angels of the voices of thunder and lightning, the angels of spirits of cold and heat, of winter, spring, autumn, and summer, and of all spirits of his creatures in Heaven and on the earth.”
The Gospel of Bartholomew(Christian Apocrypha) (Bartholomew is speaking to an Angel)
“Tell me all you have done and all you do.” Beliar answered and said: ‘If you wish to know my name, I was first called Satanael, which means ‘angel of God.’ But when I rejected the image of God, I was called Satan, which means ‘angel of Hell.’ And again Bartholomew asked him: ‘Reveal everything to me, and conceal nothing from me.’ And he replied: ‘I swear to you by the mighty glory of God that even if I wished, I can conceal nothing from you; for he who can convict me stands near me. For if I had the power, I would destroy you as I hurled one of you to destruction. I was the first angel to be created. For when God made the heavens, he took a handful of fire and formed me first, Michael second, the captain of the hosts above, Gabriel third, Uriel fourth, Raphael fifth, Nathanael sixth and six thousand other angels, whose names I cannot tell. There are rod-bearers, lictors [Angels who execute the orders of God toward those of whom he chooses] of God, and these scourge me seven times a day and seven times a night and never leave me alone and break in pieces all my power. These are the avenging angels, who stand by God’s throne. All these belong to the first-created angels.”.
What caused God to cast out Satan has been debated for centuries, by many scholars. There are writings where a group of Angels saw how beautiful earthly women were; without God’s permission, they came to earth and had relations with them which culminated in the birth of giants. The Angels also taught women and men many things that were not good. After time, there were so many giants, they began to overtake humanity and cause immense suffering to God’s people. This caused the great flood and some believe the fall of Satan. In another writing, the author purports that the souls of these giants wander the earth, tormenting us. The Angels who caused this are bound, suffering before the end of time and after however, their offspring will wander the earth and following the apocalypse be freed. If this is true, this portrays a humane God who is not punishing those who were born from evil desires, he is not “blaming” the offspring for the actions of their procreators.
. I am going to leave you with this thought: The first Christian Bible was completed before 100 AD with the addition of Revelations in 390 AD (purported to be written between 81-96 AD) although this is the last book in the Bible it was not the last book written. The first Biblical writings began with Moses in 1513 BC ending in 98 AD with the Apostle John. During this approximate 1600 year period, people from all walks of life were writers (e.g., prophets, kings, fishermen, a tax collector, physician, the married and unmarried, rich and poor). The King James version began in 1604 with the completion in 1611. There is a huge body of knowledge still kept by the original apostolic Church. This knowledge is called “tradition” (knowledge taught by Jesus). With this information and the first Dead Sea Scroll Biblical writings discovered in 1947; with the first determined to have been written about 540 BC…what is your conclusion?
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