Angelic life and Greek myth

I just came across one little connection between the Greek gods and goddesses and angels as they are described in Scripture. The gods and goddesses were known to walk among humans and it was generally said that one may be engaging one of the gods without realizing it. Of course there is the similar statement in the Bible: Heb 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

The connection between real angels and the description of the Olympian gods and goddesses I think is like the connection between real life Russian aristocracy in the 1800s and the characters depicted in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

That's pretty darn close, but we wouldn't think that Anna Karenina actually existed as a real human being. The description of her life and times is real though. It matches the reality.

Take that analogy to the Olympian gods and goddesses, or Greek mythology in general. Or maybe just limit yourself to the Homeric epics to keep it clean and contained. They weren't (aren't) real angels, but the depiction could very well be very darn close.

Seers and poets in higher states could have seen such angelic life and depicted it in various ways over time.

I think, also, that in what they depicted they conflated vague collective memories of Biblical revelation and combined, for instance, some of God (the Trinity) with the creation (angelic life), in various ways. Making Zeus, for instance, have some characteristics of God. But also maybe that could be seen this way too: the angelic world may very well be a hierarchy and perhaps Zeus would just be an angel of a higher order, responsible for more of this natural world, maybe the solar system itself, so he comes across as being all powerful, but compared to God he is part of the creation.

And of course there is impiety involved, to be sure, in many ways in this depiction of angelic life. Falsity too.

But overall it can be seen in this way.

Another connection: glorified bodies. Jesus says we will be like the angels. Not angels, but like the angels. This may refer to our glorified bodies? In some way? I know the context was marriage no longer being needed, but it seems a more general statement as well. So we can see what glorified bodies may be like in Greek myth.

Another connection: these Olympian gods and goddesses and lesser divinities were influences on human beings. All kinds of influences. And the early church saw angels in the same way. Messengers of God who also delivered influence. With their connection with God they couldn't not be influential.

But we're not supposed to worship angels, the Bible is clear, and pagans worship angels in various ways, most often fallen angels. (And we might be influenced by fallen angels without realizing it, without discernment. Having the Holy Spirit and knowing the Bible would protect us from this.)

So remember, I am not saying the Olympian gods were real angels, I am saying they are descriptions of angels in the same way Anna Karenina is a description of a 19th century aristocratic Russian woman.

To the Puritanboard, once again...

Yes, Puritanboard, I know you are confused to no end by this doctrine of republication of the Covenant of Works on Sinai. Slow down, realize first that what you are getting wrong is making false teachers *smile.* Yes, you are not currently able to see the spiritual battlefield because you can't see how false teachers (those who would put forth salvation by works) are talking about the Covenant of Works.

To make it short (because you get confused too easily otherwise): There are three unique players in God's plan of redemption: 1. pre-fall Adam; 2. national Israel; 3. Jesus Christ Himself.

What does this mean for republication? Focus your attention on number 2, national Israel. NOT individual Israelites, but NATIONAL Israel. National Israel is a unique player in God's plan of redemption because national Israel is a type of the coming Messiah. Not only that, national Israel plays a role in the arrival of the Messiah, a bloodline role, an historical cradle role, *the very history of national Israel is the SUBSTANCE of the word of God.*

Now, with that in mind, when the Covenant of Works was republished on Sinai, in obviously elaborated form, it was so that the Second Adam - Jesus Christ - would be born under the law (made known to everybody) which he would fulfill thereby fulfilling what the first Adam - Adam in the Garden - failed to fulfill.

You see, it is a Covenant of Works for Jesus, and in that it is the Covenant of Grace for us. That is to say for individual fallen man (including individual fallen Israelites.

NATIONAL Israel, on the other hand, had a different relationship to Sinai (again, NOT individual fallen Israelites but national Israel as a unique entity). That unique relationship was ultimately fulfilled, or made meaningful in the birth of the Messiah. Prior to that their VERY history was the substance of God's revelation, which included showing all of fallen humanity that you can't save yourselves by your works.

OK, I've already confused you with too many words.

You are very obnoxious, Puritanboard, in your lecturing on a subject you don't have understanding of. You clerics and other kinds of leaders of Christians need to know when to be silent and to learn from those who have actual understanding of biblical doctrine. You don't have it. Try some silence for awhile.

Just found this old book

It says our conversation is in heaven, and there is a saviour there who will change our body like unto his glorious body. And it says how he will do this: according to the working whereby he is even able to subdue all things unto himself.

This is a mysterious book...

(What I was trying to get across and maybe didn't is the Bible can become too familiar and it's great message and deep mystery can become mundane, yet if we see it as like no other book, in Gothic font for instance, with archaic spelling that we have to slow down and actually work over to get the meaning of each word and phrase and sentence, then it changes the experience. In a real way as well, not just some facile or surface-deep or cheaply novel way.)