The Sons Of God And The Daughters Of Men - from MDD

[_sock puppet]

What does the prophet do?

Travel. Groundbreaking ceremonies.

Couldn't they have a figurehead do that? so that the prophet could be talking to elohim and jehovah?

[_maklelan]

What does the prophet do?

Nothing really. He just travels around to groundbreaking ceremonies.

[_Milesius]

The sons of God are the son of El. El, the pagan father god of Canaan and later Israel, had 70 sons, all minor gods, each with the task of ruling over a nation on the earth. These gods had sex with mortal women and created the giants - that's what the Bible's saying, not the fluff that's in the manual. It'd be nice if the church hired academics to write their manuals instead of amateur theologians. They wouldn't be filled with these kinds of errors.

Sorry, hayseed, but sons of God in Genesis 6 most likely refers to angels.

[_harmony]

Someone posted the explanation from the manual:

I believe the church institute manual says that the 'sons of God' were those who were children of the birthrite-kind of 'born in the covenant'-and that the 'daughters of men' were women from families who were a different religion-pagans.

Basically, members marrying non-members, so to speak.

Of course this could never be the 'daughters of God' and the "sons of men".

Bleah.

[_Spurven Ten Sing]

There is no reason why LDS theology cannot embrace the dwellers of Jotunheim. We are a prophetic and synergistic people.

Except we hate Gudbranddalingers.

[_maklelan]

Sorry, hayseed, but sons of God in Genesis 6 most likely refers to angels.

That tradition does not start until after the translation of the Septuagint. Later Septuagint manuscripts show a shift in translation from "sons of God" to "angels of God," and all subsequent Second Temple references to the pericope mention angels instead of "sons of God." The identification of angels and the sons of God, however, does not appear anywhere prior to the Septuagint, and the two classes of being are quite clearly distinguished throughout the Hebrew Bible.

[_Milesius]

Sorry, hayseed, but sons of God in Genesis 6 most likely refers to angels.

That tradition does not start until after the translation of the Septuagint. Later Septuagint manuscripts show a shift in translation from "sons of God" to "angels of God," and all subsequent Second Temple references to the pericope mention angels instead of "sons of God." The identification of angels and the sons of God, however, does not appear anywhere prior to the Septuagint, and the two classes of being are quite clearly distinguished throughout the Hebrew Bible.

That is false.

"In Israel's early traditions, God was perceived as administering the cosmos with a retinue of divine assistants. The members of this divine council were identified generally as "*sons of God" and "morning stars" (Job 1.6; 38.7), "gods" (Ps. 82) or the host of heaven" (Neh. 9.6; cf. Rev 1.20), and they functioned as God's vicegerents and administrators in a hierarchical bureaucracy over the world (Deut. 32.8 [LXX]; cf. 4.19; 29.26). Where Israel's polytheistic neighbors perceived these beings as simply a part of the pantheon, the Bible depicts them as subordinate and in no way comparable to the God of Israel..." (Samuel A. Meier. "Angels." Oxford Companion to the Bible.)

I know you would like to use the Hebrew Scriptures to try to prop up your manifestly fraudulent religion but it just ain't happenin'. You'll only be able to impress rubes like Buffalo.

[_maklelan]

That is false.

No it's not.

"In Israel's early traditions, God was perceived as administering the cosmos with a retinue of divine assistants. The members of this divine council were identified generally as "*sons of God" and "morning stars" (Job 1.6; 38.7), "gods" (Ps. 82) or the host of heaven" (Neh. 9.6; cf. Rev 1.20), and they functioned as God's vicegerents and administrators in a hierarchical bureaucracy over the world (Deut. 32.8 [LXX]; cf. 4.19; 29.26). Where Israel's polytheistic neighbors perceived these beings as simply a part of the pantheon, the Bible depicts them as subordinate and in no way comparable to the God of Israel..." (Samuel A. Meier. "Angels." Oxford Companion to the Bible.)

I know you would like to use the Hebrew Scriptures to try to prop up your manifestly fraudulent religion but it just ain't happenin'. You'll only be able to impress rubes like Buffalo.

A 1993 article by Samuel Meier hardly supports your assertion. First, the very next sentence in that text, which you omit, states that the early Israelites would have felt uncomfortable calling the sons of God "angels." Meiers is correct that the identification of the sons of God and the angels was not original to the Israelite tradition, although he erroneously places the conflation prior to the Hellenistic period, retrojecting it into texts where there is simply no evidence for it. The identification begins with the translation of the Septuagint. There is simply no evidence whatsoever for the conflation of the two categories prior to that, and we know the identification is secondary because the angels and the sons of God inhabit distinct tiers in the Syro-Palestinian pantheon in extra-biblical literary motifs directly parallel to those in which the two groups appear in the Hebrew Bible.

Next, if all you can do is appeal to an authority, I would appeal to the following more recent publications that flatly contradict Meiers' statement:

Lowell K. Handy, Among the Host of Heaven (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 166:

The later belief that the heavenly realm was made up solely of Yahweh and numerous "angels" at his beck and call was projected backward, supporting the assertion that the divine realm always has been made up only of Yahweh and his messengers. This view was the one that became dominant in the Jewish tradition, as well as in Christianity and Islam. As a result, passages in the Bible originally referring to gods of the higher levels of the pantheon had to be interpreted as narratives about messengers. This was the only possible way to read such texts as Gen 6:1–4 without having to acknowledge the existence of gods other than Yahweh.

John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 232:

Even amongst monotheistic Jews, though no longer worshipped, the Canaanite deities sometimes left a kind of "afterglow." This is perhaps most marked in the world of apocalyptic [Hellenistic era literature]. For example, the seventy sons of God, originally denoting the gods of the pantheon under El, with whom Yahweh became identified, now became demoted to the status of angels, the seventy guardian angels of the nations attested in I Enoch.

Annette Henrietta Margaretha Evans, "The Development of Jewish Ideas of Angels: Egyptian and Hellenistic Connections," (PhD Dissertation, University of Stellenbosch, 2007), 20:

The earliest attestation of בני האלהים as being interpreted as "angels," appears to be I Enoch 6–11 (late 3rd century BCE).

Simon B. Parker, "Sons of God," Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 798:

By the last centuries BCE the dominant view of divine beings among Jews was that they were angels, a lesser order of heavenly beings at the one God's beck and call. It was no longer necessary to assert God's superiority over them or difference from them, for they no longer partook of divinity. When Jews of this period read the passages commented on above they now understood them to refer, not to divine beings, but to angels. Thus beside the more literal huioi theou "sons of God" the LXX uses the word angeloi "angels".

Ronald S. Hendel, "Israelite Religion," in Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition (MacMillan, 2005), 4742:

These lesser deities attend Yahweh in heaven, as in the prophet Micaiah’s vision: “I saw Yahweh
seated on his throne with all the Host of Heaven standing beside him, to his right and left” (1 Kgs. 22:19). At times they are also equated with the gods of other nations: “He established the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the Sons of God” (Dt. 32:8 with Qumran and the Septuagint; similarly, Dt. 4:19). A third category of divine beings (after Yahweh and the Sons of God) consisted of messenger gods, called angels. The angels carry Yahweh’s messages to earth, as illustrated by Jacob’s dream vision of the angels ascending and descending the celestial staircase that links heaven and earth (Gn. 28:12). In late biblical books, the Sons of God and the angels merge into a single category and proliferate: In Daniel’s vision of the heavenly court, “thousands upon thousands serve him” (Dn. 7:10) [Daniel was written in the second century BCE].

The first chapter of Sang Youl Cho, Lesser Deities in the Ugaritic Texts and the Hebrew Bible: A Comparative Study of Their Nature and Roles (Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2007) also makes their distinction explicit.

I'm not here to try to prop up any religion, I'm here to make it clear what the Bible does and does not show.

[_Milesius]

That is false.

No it's not.

Yes, it is.

"In Israel's early traditions, God was perceived as administering the cosmos with a retinue of divine assistants. The members of this divine council were identified generally as "*sons of God" and "morning stars" (Job 1.6; 38.7), "gods" (Ps. 82) or the host of heaven" (Neh. 9.6; cf. Rev 1.20), and they functioned as God's vicegerents and administrators in a hierarchical bureaucracy over the world (Deut. 32.8 [LXX]; cf. 4.19; 29.26). Where Israel's polytheistic neighbors perceived these beings as simply a part of the pantheon, the Bible depicts them as subordinate and in no way comparable to the God of Israel..." (Samuel A. Meier. "Angels." Oxford Companion to the Bible.)

I know you would like to use the Hebrew Scriptures to try to prop up your manifestly fraudulent religion but it just ain't happenin'. You'll only be able to impress rubes like Buffalo.

A 1993 article by Samuel Meier hardly supports your assertion. First, the very next sentence in that text, which you omit, states that the early Israelites would have felt uncomfortable calling the sons of God "angels." Meiers is correct that the identification of the sons of God and the angels was not original to the Israelite tradition, although he erroneously places the conflation prior to the Hellenistic period, retrojecting it into texts where there is simply no evidence for it. The identification begins with the translation of the Septuagint. There is simply no evidence whatsoever for the conflation of the two categories prior to that, and we know the identification is secondary because the angels and the sons of God inhabit distinct tiers in the Syro-Palestinian pantheon in extra-biblical literary motifs directly parallel to those in which the two groups appear in the Hebrew Bible.

Actually, what he wrote following that was "The most ancient Israelites would probably have felt uncomfortable in describing all these beings as 'angels,'...God's divine assistants were often more than mere messengers. *Cherubim and *seraphim, for example, never function as God's messengers, for their bizarre appearance would unnecessarily frighten humans..."

Apart from cherubim and seraphim, he does not identify the beings which "[t]he most ancient Israelites would probably have felt uncomfortable in describing" as angels. Moreover, there is certainly a gap between the "[t]he most ancient Israelites" and the Septuagint and I believe many scholars place locate Job in that gap.

Next, if all you can do is appeal to an authority, I would appeal to the following more recent publications that flatly contradict Meiers' statement:

As I already pointed out to you, in Biblical scholarship newer is not the same as better. We are not talking about physics here.

I'm not here to try to prop up any religion, I'm here to make it clear what the Bible does and does not show.

Uh-huh.

[_maklelan]

Actually, what he wrote following that was "The most ancient Israelites would probably have felt uncomfortable in describing all these beings as 'angels,'...God's divine assistants were often more than mere messengers. *Cherubim and *seraphim, for example, never function as God's messengers, for their bizarre appearance would unnecessarily frighten humans..."

Apart from cherubim and seraphim, he does not identify the beings which "[t]he most ancient Israelites would probably have felt uncomfortable in describing" as angels.

He's just giving an example there. The beings that earliest Israelites would not have identified as messengers are the ""*sons of God" and "morning stars" (Job 1.6; 38.7), "gods" (Ps. 82) or the host of heaven" (Neh. 9.6; cf. Rev 1.20), and they functioned as God's vicegerents and administrators in a hierarchical bureaucracy over the world (Deut. 32.8 [LXX]; cf. 4.19; 29.26)." The reason Meier gives for not identifying them as such is because they are viceregents and administrators, and not messengers. He understands "angel" as a functional designation (He wrote a book entitled The Messenger in the Ancient Semitic World that spent a great deal of time trying to describe the divine messenger that way), which it certainly was in the earliest Israelite literature, but there definitely seems to be a taxonomy developing around the notion by the time of the exile. Meier doesn't address this, but rather conflates the sons of God and the others on the grounds that they began to serve in functions that parallel those of the messenger. However, he can't provide any examples that actually show this in the Hebrew Bible. He depends on traditional associations from later.

Moreover, there is certainly a gap between the "[t]he most ancient Israelites" and the Septuagint

Which is why I stated that he places the conflation much too early.

and I believe many scholars place locate Job in that gap.

So? Job distinguishes quite clearly between the sons of God and the angels.

As I already pointed out to you, in Biblical scholarship newer is not the same as better. We are not talking about physics here.

I used the newer publications just to provide scholarship that cannot have been responded to by Meier. I can actually produce many more quotes that support my position from before Meier's publication (Pfeiffer, Tsevat, Gordon, Richardson, Smith, Cooke, Eissfeldt, Miller, Craigie, and so on). Irrespective, pointing out that newer does not mean better addresses neither the scholarship to which I pointed nor the argument which I provided.

Uh-huh.

If this is honestly all you can do to respond to my points then you've quite decisively lost this debate.