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I was just wondering how many people in the guild have looked into the study of angels or are interested in learning about them...

I have a decent collection of books and studies, and I think that getting into the mythos of angels and demons might make a decent start as to getting down to the nitty-gritty of what may and may not be misconceptions about our evil adversaries...

That is absolutely correct... That is why we would delve into extra Biblical sources such as Judaism, and non-canononical books. The other branches of Abramic faiths actually have a bit more to say on the subject, and pre-Abramic sources might give us a bit of insight as to how some ideas came to be.

The Book of Enoch sparked my own interest in the topic a long time ago, and it has allot to say about something Genesis 6 hints at, and there are other sources that get into explanations of chain of command and the different ranks and duties to which each group is assigned... It is a very interesting subject.

Ever since I was younger, I was interested in the mythology. For years I was trying to find out more on the personalities of the angels. Namely, Micheal, and Gabriel. And even more so with the demons.

Well...

I am kinda thinking about starting in a sort of chronological sort of order according to what type of angels appeared where... or what angel (by type or name) was said to be a part of what...

Then having people see what they can learn and sharing input and questions... Sort of an actual group study...

A Cherub guards Eden. So that is when they first show up...? I guess if the Serpent is counted as the Devil, he could be the first (Fallen) Angelic being though.

Seraphim: The word sarap/seraphim appears three times in the Torah (Numbers 21:6-8, Deuteronomy 8:15) and four times in the Book of Isaiah (6:2-6, 14:29, 30:6). Woot Wikipedia.

Well, I have allot of my old study material out...

I forgot I had so much... between notebooks and Word docs. I am not sure where to begin.

I will probably start an info dump thread, and list certain general explanations, such as ranks, and archetypes, and links to reference texts when I can find them online...

...And it has been awhile since I have really done any studies on angels, so I am a little rusty... I always recommend doing your own follow-up no matter who you get your info from, and I am no exception... I do make mistakes, and sometimes I generalize without making it clear that I am doing so...

So, anyway... If you have any questions you want to look into, just ask...

I was kinda thinking about taking things in a chronological order, between the different sources that we have.. Such as ...

Pre-Creation theories of Angels...
Angels During Eden..
Post- Eden/ Pre-Deluvian
Post-Deluvian
End-Times

That way we might see how the differences religious theories line up, and how they are different... Plus we may develop an overall insight by seeing a chronology that isn't usually considered by most Christians...

I am going to try and get all of my source material in order on the info thread, by tomorrow evening, Then I will see about getting a good starting point for our discussion... for anyone who is interested ...

There is allot to go over, but I want to have a good reference for us to start with, so people can do their own verifications, and find leads to their own information to bring to discussion.

Edit: As of right now, I will be trying to keep information with in the bounds of non-pagan sources for the sake of acceptability... There is more cohesion between the Abramic ( and pre-Abramic) religions than there is between Abramic and Pagan religions in the minds of most Christians. When we delve into the realms of the Pagan pantheon, people who are not very familiar with the myths tend to get confused between certain concepts that would take us completely off topic...

Yes, this is a good source of Christian tradition about angels, but we tend to think of every spirit as either 'angel' or 'demon' which IS something that we will be differentiating on when we get into things... Actually, I was planning on challenging people to look beyond the 'Angel/Demon' pre-conceptions when we start to actually get into real discussions... There are so many more roles to be had within the Heavenly hierarchy.

An angel is a 'messenger'... Yet there are also watchers, guardians, ministers, and more... and in understanding this, it might become more clear as to how some other belief systems might not really be so far from Christianity... and maybe even help some people redefine what we consider spiritual trials and weaknesses of the flesh...and possibly challenge our notions of right and wrong...

Yet, we also have to wonder why it was deemed unnecessary to leave such information from the Bible... You do need to remember that the Bible was compiled by men, and many passages dealing with Spiritual entities other than God were left out intentionally by those men... Mostly because there was no common agreement between them...

Yet, we have to at least consider the Bible is the Inspired Word of God, and as such, we should ask ourselves why God did not see fit to inspire those men to add such information to what would eventually become our foundational document ninja ...

I think Thomas Aquinas has a good theory in answer to this last observation... dramallama