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Watcher (angel)
Watcher is a type of biblical angel. The word occurs in both plural and singular forms in the Book of Daniel (4th–2nd century BC), where reference is made to the holiness of the beings. The apocryphal Books of Enoch (2nd–1st centuries BC) refer to both good and bad Watchers, with a primary focus on the rebellious ones.Barker, Margaret. (2005) 987 "Chapter 1: The Book of Enoch", in ''The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity''. London: SPCK; Sheffield Phoenix Press. Barker, Margaret (2005) 998 ''The Lost Prophet: The Book of Enoch and Its Influence on Christianity''. London: SPCK; Sheffield Phoenix Press. . Good watchers in Daniel In the Book of Daniel 4:13, 17, 23 ( ESV) there are three references to the class of "watcher, holy one" (watcher, Aramaic '; holy one, Aramaic ). The term is introduced by Nebuchadnezzar who says he saw "a watcher, a holy one come down (singular verb) from heaven." He d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angel On The Spire Of St Michael's Church, Clifton Hampden - Geograph
In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include protectors and guides for humans, and servants of God. Abrahamic religions describe angelic hierarchies, which vary by religion and sect. Some angels have specific names (such as Gabriel or Michael) or titles (such as seraph or archangel). Those expelled from Heaven are called fallen angels, distinct from the heavenly host. Angels in art are usually shaped like humans of extraordinary beauty. They are often identified in Christian artwork with bird wings, halos, and divine light. Etymology The word ''angel'' arrives in modern English from Old English ''engel'' (with a hard ''g'') and the Old French ''angele''. Both of these derive from Late Latin ''angelus'', which in turn was borrowed from Late Greek ''angelos'' (literally "mess ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protestant Reformer
Protestant Reformers were those theologians whose careers, works and actions brought about the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. In the context of the Reformation, Martin Luther was the first reformer (sharing his views publicly in 1517), followed by people like Andreas Karlstadt and Philip Melanchthon at Wittenberg, who promptly joined the new movement. In 1519, Huldrych Zwingli became the first reformer to express a form of the Reformed tradition. Listed are the most influential reformers only. They are listed by movement, although some reformers (e.g. Martin Bucer) influenced multiple movements. Notable precursors According to Edmund Hamer Broadbent, throughout the Middle Ages, there were a number of Christian movements that sought a return to what they perceived as the purity of the Apostolic church and whose teachings foreshadowed Protestant ideas. * Claudius of Turin * Gottschalk of Orbais * Berengar of Tours * Peter Waldo * Lorenzo Valla * Wessel Gansfort ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samyaza
Samyaza ( he, שמחזי; arc, שמיחזה; el, Σεμιαζά; ar, ساميارس, '), also Shemhazai, Azza, Uzza, or Ouza, is a fallen angel of apocryphal Abrahamic traditions and Manichaeism who ranked in the heavenly hierarchy as the leader of the Watchers. Etymology The name "Shemyaza(z)" means "the (or my) name has seen," "he sees the name," or "I have seen." It is also spelled "Samyaza", "Shemhazai", "Samiaza(z)", "Semiaza", "Shamazya", "Shemyazaz", "Shemihazah", "Shemyaza", "Sêmîazâz", "Semjâzâ", "Samjâzâ", and "Semyaza". The scholars lean towards the Semitic etymology of this appellation which contains the letters ''shin'' (ש) and ''mem'' (מ), thus suggesting the derivation from either “name” (Heb. שם, ''shem'') or “heavens” (Heb. שמים, ''shamaym''). Moshe Idel proposed that Samyaza is the one who “gazes at heavens” or “gazes from heavens”. This interpretation goes well with the motif of the heavenly Watchers, i.e., the angels supervis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nephilim
The Nephilim (; ''Nəfīlīm'') are mysterious beings or people in the Hebrew Bible who are large and strong. The word ''Nephilim'' is loosely translated as ''giants'' in some translations of the Hebrew Bible, but left untranslated in others. Jewish explanations interpret them as hybrid sons of fallen angels. The main reference to them is in Genesis 6:1–4, but the passage is ambiguous and the identity of the Nephilim is disputed. According to the Book of Numbers 13:33, they later inhabited Canaan at the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan. A similar or identical biblical Hebrew term, read as "Nephilim" by some scholars, or as the word "fallen" by others, appears in the Book of Ezekiel 32:27 and is also mentioned in the deuterocanonicals Judith 16:6, Sirach 16:7, Baruch 3:26–28, and Wisdom 14:6. Etymology The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon (1908) gives the meaning of nephilim as "giants", and holds that proposed etymologies of the word are "all very precarious."B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sons Of God
Sons of God ( he, בְנֵי־הָאֱלֹהִים, Bənē hāʾĔlōhīm, literally: "sons of the Elohim") is a phrase used in the Tanakh or Old Testament and in Christian Apocrypha. The phrase is also used in Kabbalah where ''bene elohim'' are part of different Jewish angelic hierarchies. Hebrew Bible Genesis 6 The first mention of "sons of God" in the Hebrew Bible occurs at Genesis 6:1–4. In terms of literary-historical origin, this phrase is typically associated with the Jahwist tradition. That the "sons of God" were separate enough from the "daughters of men" that they warranted such a distinction, has spawned millennia's worth of debate regarding the meaning of the term. Historically, in Jewish thought, this passage has had many interpretations. Here are three: # Offspring of Seth: The first references to the offspring of Seth rebelling from God and mingling with the daughters of Cain are found in Christian and rabbinic literature from the second century CE o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3 Enoch
The Third Book of Enoch ( he, ספר חנוך לר׳ ישמעאל כ׳׳ג , abbreviated as 3 Enoch) is a Biblical apocryphal book in Hebrew. 3 Enoch purports to have been written in the 2nd century, but its origins can only be traced to the 5th century. Other names for 3 Enoch include The Book of the Palaces, The Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest and The Revelation of Metatron. Most commonly, the Book of Enoch refers to 1 Enoch, which survived completely only in Ge'ez. There is also a Second Book of Enoch, which has survived only in Old Slavonic, although Coptic fragments were also identified in 2009. None of the three books are considered canonical scripture by the majority of Jewish or Christian bodies. Content Modern scholars describe this book as pseudepigraphal, as it says it is written by "Rabbi Ishmael" who became a "high priest" after visions of ascension to Heaven. This has been taken as referring to Rabbi Ishmael, a 3rd generation Tanna and a leading figure of M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Book Of Enoch
The Second Book of Enoch (abbreviated as 2 Enoch and also known as Slavonic Enoch, Slavic Enoch or Secrets of Enoch) is a pseudepigraphic text in the apocalyptic genre. It describes the ascent of the patriarch Enoch, ancestor of Noah, through ten heavens of an Earth-centered cosmos. The Slavonic edition and translation of 2 Enoch is of Christian origin in the 8th century but is based on an earlier work. 2 Enoch is distinct from the Book of Enoch, known as 1 Enoch, and there is also an unrelated 3 Enoch, although none of the three books are considered canonical scripture by the majority of Jewish or Christian bodies. The numbering of these texts has been applied by scholars to distinguish each from the others. The cosmology of 2 Enoch corresponds closely with beliefs of the Early Middle Ages about the metaphysical structure of the universe. It may have been influential in shaping them. The text was lost for several centuries, then recovered and published at the end of the ninetee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fallen Angel
In the Abrahamic religions, fallen angels are angels who were expelled from heaven. The literal term "fallen angel" never appears in any Abrahamic religious texts, but is used to describe angels cast out of heaven"Mehdi Azaiez, Gabriel Said Reynolds, Tommaso Tesei, Hamza M. Zafer ''The Qur'an Seminar Commentary / Le Qur'an Seminar: A Collaborative Study of 50 Qur'anic Passages / Commentaire collaboratif de 50 passages coraniques'' Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG Q 72 or angels who sinned. Such angels often tempt humans to sin. The idea of fallen angels derived from the Book of Enoch, a Jewish Pseudepigrapha#Classical and biblical studies, pseudepigraph, or the assumption that the "sons of God" () mentioned in Genesis 6:1–4 are angels. In the period immediately preceding the composition of the New Testament, some sects of Judaism, as well as many Christian Church Fathers, identified these same "sons of God" as fallen angels. During the late Second Temple period the Nephilim, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the ''mas'sora''. Referring to the Masoretic Text, ''mesorah'' specifically means the diacritic markings of the text of the Hebrew scriptures and the concise marginal notes in manuscripts (and later printings) of the Tanakh which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. It was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era (CE). The oldest known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex, dates from the early 11th century CE. The differences attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that multiple versions of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond those contained in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible as canonically used in the tradition of mainstream Rabbinical Judaism. The additional books were composed in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic, but in most cases, only the Greek version has survived to the present. It is the oldest and most important complete translation of the Hebrew Bible made by the Jews. Some targums translating or paraphrasing the Bible into Aramaic were also made around the same time. The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, were translated in the mid-3rd century BCE. The remaining translations are presumably from the 2nd century BCE. The full title ( grc , Ἡ μετάφρασις τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα, , The Translat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babylonian Religion
Babylonian religion is the religious practice of Babylonia. Babylonian mythology was greatly influenced by their Sumerian counterparts and was written on clay tablets inscribed with the cuneiform script derived from Sumerian cuneiform. The myths were usually either written in Sumerian or Akkadian. Some Babylonian texts were translations into Akkadian from the Sumerian language of earlier texts, although the names of some deities were changed. Mythology and cosmology Babylonian myths were greatly influenced by the Sumerian religion, and were written on clay tablets inscribed with the cuneiform script derived from Sumerian cuneiform. The myths were usually either written in Sumerian or Akkadian. Some Babylonian texts were even translations into Akkadian from the Sumerian language of earlier texts, although the names of some deities were changed in Babylonian texts. Many Babylonian deities, myths, and religious writings are singular to that culture; for example, the unique ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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