What the Hell is an Angel?

Send us Fan Mail What exactly is an angel? Today, we tend to think of angels as a distinct class of spiritual beings, complete with wings, names, ranks, and an elaborate heavenly hierarchy. Yet the Hebrew word mal'akh and the Greek angelos originally mean something much simpler: messenger. A human being could be a mal'akh just as readily as a heavenly being could. In this episode of Southern Demonology, JJ traces how that job description gradually became an ontological category. We begin with the divine council, the sons of God, the heavenly host, and the mysterious angel of the Lord before turning to cherubim, seraphim, and Ezekiel's extraordinary throne vision. From there, we enter the Second Temple period, where the heavenly world becomes increasingly populated by named and specialized figures such as Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, alongside national princes, Watchers, heavenly priests, and cosmic warriors. Finally, we follow these traditions into early Christianity and the medieval world, where Pseudo-Dionysius organizes the inhabitants of heaven into the famous nine celestial orders and Thomas Aquinas asks what kind of creature an angel actually is. The result is a history in which the familiar angel emerges gradually from a much older and considerably stranger heavenly world. #SouthernDemonology #Angelology #Angels #BiblicalAngels #SecondTempleJudaism #SecondTemplePeriod #HebrewBible #OldTestament #NewTestament #BibleScholarship #AncientJudaism #EarlyChristianity #DivineCouncil #HeavenlyHost #Malakh #Cherubim #Seraphim #Ophanim #Michael #Gabriel #Raphael #Uriel #Watchers #1Enoch #BookOfEnoch #DeadSeaScrolls #Qumran #PseudoDionysius #ThomasAquinas #ReligiousHistory Support the show