As a result, they are also inferior to humans in the Jewish tradition. Humans, by following the Torah, in prayer, by resisting evil instincts ( yetzer hara) and by teshuva, are preferred to the flawless angels. The angels as heavenly beings, strictly following the laws of God, become jealous of God's affection for man. Thus, they occasionally appear in Midrashim as competition with humans. The Babylonian Talmud reads as "The Torah was not given to ministering angels." (לא נתנה תורה למלאכי השרת) usually understood as a concession to human's imperfection, in contrast to the angels. Ĭoogan explains the development of this concept of angels: "In the postexilic period, with the development of explicit monotheism, these divine beings-the 'sons of God' who were members of the Divine Council-were in effect demoted to what are now known as 'angels', understood as beings created by God, but immortal and thus superior to humans." This conception of angels is best understood in contrast to demons and is often thought to be "influenced by the ancient Persian religious tradition of Zoroastrianism, which viewed the world as a battleground between forces of good and forces of evil, between light and darkness." One of these is hāššāṭān, a figure depicted in (among other places) the Book of Job.Īccording to Rabbinic Judaism, the angels have no bodies, but are eternally living creatures created out of fire. As Daniel watches, the Ancient of Days takes his seat on the throne of heaven and sits in judgement in the midst of the heavenly court an like a son of man approaches the Ancient One in the clouds of heaven and is given everlasting kingship. In Daniel 7, Daniel receives a dream-vision from God. These angels are part of Daniel's apocalyptic visions and are an important part of apocalyptic literature. Coogan notes that it is only in the late books that the terms "come to mean the benevolent semi-divine beings familiar from later mythology and art." Daniel is the biblical book to refer to individual angels by name, mentioning Gabriel in Daniel 9:21 and Michael in Daniel 10:13. Examples of a supernatural messenger are the " Malak YHWH," who is either a messenger from God, an aspect of God (such as the logos), or God himself as the messenger (the " theophanic angel.") A human messenger might be a prophet or priest, such as Malachi, "my messenger" the Greek superscription in the Septuagint translation states the Book of Malachi was written "by the hand of his messenger" ἀγγέλου ( angélu). Depending on the context, the Hebrew word may refer to a human messenger or to a supernatural messenger. The term 'מלאך' ( 'mal'āk̠') is also used in other books of the Hebrew Bible. Later texts use other terms, such as העליונים ( hā'elyônîm "the upper ones"). The Torah uses the Hebrew terms מלאך אלהים ( mal'āk̠ 'ĕlōhîm "messenger of God"), מלאך יהוה ( mal'āk̠ Yahweh "messenger of the Lord"), בני אלהים ( bənē 'ĕlōhîm " sons of God") and הקודשים ( haqqôd̠əšîm "the holy ones") to refer to beings traditionally interpreted as angels. Tobias and the Angel by Filippino Lippi, created between c. Such differentiation has been taken over by later vernacular translations of the Bible, early Christian and Jewish exegetes and eventually modern scholars.
If the word refers to some supernatural being, the word angelus appears.
In the Latin Vulgate, this meaning becomes bifurcated: when malʼākh or ángelos is supposed to denote a human messenger, words like nuntius or legatus are applied. The rendering of " ángelos" is the Septuagint's default translation of the Biblical Hebrew term malʼākh, denoting simply "messenger" without connoting its nature.
Beekes, ángelos itself may be "an Oriental loan, like ἄγγαρος ( ángaros, 'Persian mounted courier')."
Τhe word's earliest form is Mycenaean a-ke-ro, attested in Linear B syllabic script. Both of these derive from Late Latin angelus, which in turn was borrowed from Late Greek ἄγγελος angelos (literally "messenger"). The word angel arrives in modern English from Old English engel (with a hard g) and the Old French angele.
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