Loading...Here is the final bit on angels in the Jewish tradition, from chapter 2 of How Jesus Became God. Again, this is only in draft form, and it is nowhere near a complete treatment. There are entire books written on angels from a scholarly perspective – and a couple of very significant books on Christ as an angel or angel-like being. Here I have been able only to scratch the surface. But on the upside, if you scratch a surface well enough, it is possible to see what is underneath.
This discussion will be significant later in my book since I argue, as you may recall, that Jesus was thought sometimes to have become an angel when he was taken up into heaven.
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There are Jewish texts that not only speak of angels (or even God) as becoming human, but also of humans who become angels. Many people today have the view that when people die, they become angels (well, at least if they’ve been “good”). That is a very old belief indeed. In one of the great apocalypses that has come down to us from early Judaism, the book of 2 Baruch, we learn that righteous believers will be transformed “into the splendor of angels… for they will live in the heights of that world and they will be like the angels and be equal to the stars…. And the excellence of the righteous will then be greater than that of the angels” (2 Baruch 51.3-5). Here, then, those who are righteous become angels who are greater than other angels – greater even than the stars, who were believed by many ancient people to be fantastically great angels.
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“stars were considered superior angels.”
When Matthew described the star of Bethlehem stopping over a house, could he have in mind a shining angel floating above the house? I would imagine even ancient people would be perplexed by what is meant by a literal star stopping over a building?
Never thought of that! I suppose not, since the point is that the magi were astrologers who were following a real star. (well, that would have been hard to do, but that’s what the text seems to think….)
Thanks for bringing up this question (I remember asking this on one of the Christmas posts). I was also wondering about this because John of Patmos uses the star – angel connection a few times in Revelation (both Matt and Rev heavy on Jewish tradition). You make a great point re perplexed ancients, and eastern astrologers were also mystics along with being telescope geeks. Not to imply all aspects of the story are accurate, but I wonder if some aspects of the Aramaic oral traditions were misinterpreted by the gospel writers. I guess we’ll never know.
Yup, I don’t know in this specfific case!
I”ve been just recently writing a paper on Paul’s view on the resurrected body. I was drawing on Dale Martin’s thesis (in “The Corinthian Body”) that we should understand the “pneumatic body” as literally being constituted of the heavenly pneuma. Thus (1) if Jesus had a pneumatic/”astral” body, and (2) also angels (apart from stars and other people living an astral existence) were constituted of pneuma, I think that’s another good point for arguing that Jesus was an angel (apart from Gal 4:14 and the analysis of Phil 2:6-11). But I guess you’ve already noticed this interconnection. Also, 1 Cor 15:45 states that Jesus (“the last Adam”) became a “life-producing pneuma”. In the words of Troels Engberg-Pedersen (in “Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul:The Material Spirit”)
“[W]hat he meant that Christ became the kind of heavenly ‘stuff’ called pneuma that may eventually change the dead, earthly bodies (corpses) of human beings and turn them, too, into pneumatic, heavenly, eternally, living bodies.”
So if Jesus has this life/stuff-producing function after his resurrection I wonder if he couldn’t have had it also (as an angel) prior to it, which could account also for the world-creating christology in Col 1:16.
Nice observations. Sounds like an interesting paper.
This seems like a way of thinking about Jesus that is new to me, but then I’m still learning my
NT history!! Thank you Professor Ehrman for this forum and letting us in on your latest ideas.
Alongside “angel speculation” do you include “personified Wisdom” tradition as well? I mean, they are two different things, although they can be both found in NT (you already mentioned Wisdom in one of your previous posts). So maybe it’s impossible to find an *exact* matching with one or the other, but both may represent a sort of “common ground” for the development of the weird christian concept of a unique God but different persons.. Thank you.
Yup, I have a section on that as well (I thought I’d posted on it, but maybe not….)
My thoughts on Angels and other “impossible things”:
When I was teaching fifth grade, I had a student in my class who said that her son could see angels. This gift was especially intense when he was much younger than 10. Maybe so. I don’t know. His mom was very much into mystic practices and even did a simple native American circle ceremony in my class (as a living history lesson) of being one with nature.
I often meet people who tell me that their primary resistance to being religious is that they find it hard to believe in “fairy tales.” Looking at the Bible, and especially hearing some of the stories my wife tells me about what is said in her Bible class, I can understand the issue of believing in impossible things.
This whole issue of angels is, to me, an example of the fairy tale nature of the Bible. I am sure that such belief was wide spread in those times as was the belief in talking animals (snakes and donkeys), that illness is caused by sin or demons, giants walking the earth, 900 year old people, a 3 tiered universe with a heavenly canopy and an underworld beneath the earth, dead people coming back to life, and so much more.
I agree with those who have problems with the fairy tale view of scripture. I try to read it to discover universal truths (such as that “Love and compassion is good” shared by many religions) and to educate myself in the historical elements of these documents.
As far as Jesus being God is concerned, I view Jesus as a rough and tough human who was driven by a mission to free his people from the oppression of the Romans, who was a devout Jew, practicing and preaching love for God and neighbor. He was God just as any of us can be God-touched with such devotion.
The issue of angles, as you describe it, is well into the category of fairy tales, in my opinion. I do not denounce the super-natural since all thing could be possible, and angels may exist, but such are not the focus of my religious practice, and I think such distracts us from the need to be faithful to social justice, which I think is what Jesus was all about. For me, it is a matter of what I consider to be most important.
Our world is (and has been) seriously broken, and I hear Jesus saying to me, “Fix it.” That’s my mission to the best of my ability..
At the end of the day wouldn’t you agree that there still must be a distinction – of some kind or of some nature – between “God” and “the angels” ? Did Paul, et al, try to make that distinction and others – then and later – missed it, or did they not make that distinction at all, such that, for them, God and the angels really were “one” ? And, if the latter, was such a unity (if “unity” is the word) somehow explained by the same kind of logic as the hypostatic nature of the Trinity ?
Yes, God is definitely way above the angels for most Jews. But it still is a kind of continuum; and I think there are distinctions — they were not “one” with God the way Christ ended up being in Christian theology.
At an earlier post up above in this column, you note that: “..the magi were astrologers who were following a real star.” : The Magi have over the years been called astrologers, wise men, and even 3 Kings.
In your studies of the oldest and/or original document, can you ascertain what the original title was used?
It’s the word magi, etymologically related to “magician,” and usually understood to be astrologers.
While studying the ancient history of the Middle East, I sequentially studied the history of Persia. Their principle god was Ahura Mazda, and their priests were called Magi. Note: This came from historical sources, not studying religion. This is the same group Zoroaster belonged initially.
This begs the question: Why would priests from another religion come to worship Jesus at his birth? I have a theory, but do not want to belabor the point in a post about ‘Humans Who Become Angels’. Would you prefer an email? Thank you in advance, Frank
This format is fine for your theory; if it’s lengthy and complicated I may not be able to respond, but others might.
Ref our posts above on 17 18 and 19 April: Who ever wrote the story of the Magi visiting Jesus at his birth, knew who and what the Magi were and possibly knew the significance of them coming to worship. They were known historically at the time of his birth; one could even say they were in the neighborhood! Years later when an unknown author wrote the story, the Magi were still known, otherwise they would not have been mentioned, be it historical or a myth. So why the visit?…the visit of priests of a religion other than the Jews, Persians, worshiping Jesus? Well – historically, these Magi also had a Savior, and/or Judge,- known as the ‘Saosayant’, and they searched the stars for a sign of his return. Surely this was their mission – to worship the Christ him as *their* savior!
In chapter 2 of How Jesus Became God do you speak of Muhammad being visited by angels or God in the 7th century? You discuss old Jewish texts, but do you mention the Qur’an?
No, I’m afraid for the purposes of this book I deal only with the ancient materials, and the 7th century is well past my period….
Utterly fantastic. I’m amazed I haven’t heard this theory before. You seem to be concocting quite a pot of ingredients on how to make Jesus into God. From my count, you’ve got; Emperor worship, this angelic association, and the apocalyptic fever of the day. I have to think, though, that, on some level, the various Greek and other Middle Eastern deities involving gods made human or sons of gods, like Hercules, or gods who die and resurrect, to name the most commonly appealed to parallels, had to play at least some part in preparing the gentile minds for accepting and developing Christian thought. I understand you may want to downplay this aspect because it is often played up so much by the like of Richard Carrier, but I have to think it played SOME level of impact. Thoughts?
Yes, I definitely deal with this in the book! Carrier and co. get it all wrong in my view, but there’s no point throwing out the baby with the bathwater!
Ref our posts above on 17 18 and 19 April: Who ever wrote the story of the Magi visiting Jesus at his birth, knew who and what the Magi were and possibly knew the significance of them coming to worship. They were known historically at the time of his birth; one could even say they were in the neighborhood! Years later when an unknown author wrote the story, the Magi were still known, otherwise they would not have been mentioned, be it historical or a myth. So why the visit?…the visit of priests of a religion other than the Jews, Persians, worshiping Jesus? Well – historically, these Magi also had a Savior, and/or Judge,- known as the ‘Saosayant’, and they searched the stars for a sign of his return. Surely this was their mission – to worship the Christ him as *their* savior!
(2nd cy – 1st above under yours)