Angel Christology

by POSTMAN 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Narkissos
    Narkissos

    Thank you moggy lover.

    I had misunderstood your first post as referring to a WT article.

    This one has a number of logical flaws -- in addition to ignoring the extra-canonical (at least from the perspective of the Protestant canon) evidence about Michael and the group of archangels (Tobit, 1 Enoch).

    For instance, the author mentions the fact that "the angel of the Lord" appears while Jesus is a human, so he is not always to be identified with Jesus/Michael. This begs for the question, whyshould he ever be identified to him then? -- which shatters all the foregoing argument.

    I also found amusing the example of "he has the voice of a Caruso" as an illustration of "the voice of an archangel" in 1 Thessalonians. "He has the voice of a Caruso" is actually what you can say (rightly or wrongly) of any singer except Caruso.

    Stepping back from the narrow conventional game of playing within the canon and ignoring the rest of ancient literature, it is obvious that there is such thing as an "angelic Christology" in early Christianity, which appears faintly in the NT (e.g. Luke-Acts) and more clearly in church Fathers like Justin. This can be traced back to Philo whose logos, firstborn etc. is also called "archangel" in a unique sense. But this has little to do with the apocalyptic literature to which Michael belongs. Michael is always one of a group (Daniel, 1 Enoch etc.); and Philo's only "archangel" is not Michael.

  • POSTMAN
    POSTMAN

    Thanks for the responce. I am trying to compile a bibliography on this particular issue. Want to see what I have collected so far?

  • needproof
    needproof

    Go on, hit us with it

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    There's also the early Jewish-Christian view that the virgin Mary was really the archangel Michael, mentioned for good measure.

  • POSTMAN
    POSTMAN

    I think the bibliography I intended to post ihere s more hastle than I anticipated, so if anyone wants a copy when I typed it up I will send them a word format copy. Let me know e-mails of this interested. I am [email protected]

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