Who is/are the godly equavalant(s) of Gabriel?

Regholdain · Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:23 pm

The Bible in its current form may have been put together in the 6th century (and I'm not sure how accurate that is, but I'm not going to check it out), but many books date much earlier. New Testament goes back to the first century AD and many Old Testament books are from 1000-800 BC.

Also, while I realize you weren't looking for a history lesson, historical context and culture are exceedingly important to really understand origins of gods, angels, and other similar concepts. This is why so many have referenced them. You cannot look at these things in a vacuum.

That said, I think others have answered this inquiry fairly well already.

Alys-RaccoonReadings · Tue Mar 26, 2019 6:13 pm

Reg is correct. And there's no answering the question of origins without referencing history.

What seems certain is that our awareness of Gabriel was not as late as the Vatican. Jewish scholars believe he is referenced in the eighth and ninth chapters of Daniel, which have a date during the 160s BCE. Much earlier than the sixth century CE.

There is no easy to find lore telling how the angels and archangels came into being. Best you can do is say that they are old. Based on the body of what Huffette has said throughout the forum, I would suggest older than our recorded awareness of them. It's very traditional and widespread in Christianity to say that they existed before our world was created.

Beyond that, you are unlikely to get very far without speaking to angels who are willing to talk about it. That's all we can give you: well-thought-out probabilities based on history, lore and UPG. All of them suggest that Gabriel has only ever been Gabriel, and that he has no corollaries that lend themselves to strong syncretist comparison.

Likes2Read · Tue Mar 26, 2019 7:11 pm

If syncretization HAS happened, it might be in the context that had non-Christians “hiding” their own revered beings in plain sight. If I understand right, Western African slaves brought by force to American shores gave Christian saints’ names to the lwa. It doesn’t mean that they’re the same entity, but that these people were trying to preserve their traditions without being punished. Folks here who have studied these traditions can explain it better than I can.

Cult · Wed Mar 27, 2019 10:06 am

Alys-RaccoonReadings wrote:The idea you are referencing here is specific to a particular line of thought on the Annunaki as aliens.

It appears to enjoy zero support in the community of scholarly historians.

This suggests that it is imposing a theory on historical data in order to make those things fit together, rather than showing any kind of link suggested by the data itself. There is no suggestion that the beings you are mentioning have any remote linear relationship. There's no ancestry there.

We have to remember that not every system has a direct corollary in another system. Further, even when there does seem to be some sort of ancestry as between, say, Astarte and Aphrodite, this does not make Them the same Person. It means our ideas about Them have grown out of and influenced each other, but They can still be fully distinct Persons.

Now. As for the idea that the Bible had to get the concept from somewhere...it's a fallacy, isn't it? Because if that *had* to be true, you would always be going back and back and back. Eventually a human religious concept would turn up that was original and where on earth would they have gotten it?

In this case, because you don't see angels in other Semitic and proto-Semitic religions, the ancient Hebrews likely did get it from somewhere, but it was NOT from the religions involving the Annunaki (these were among those related religions, and clearly there is no concept of angels in them.) They likely got it from the Zoroastrians during the Babylonian exile. Which is interesting because you do see the Annunaki pop up in *Babylonian polytheism* but Zoroastrianism isn't that. It stands independently of that polytheistic tradition. Rather than descending from the proto-Semetic tradition, Zoroastrianism descends from, likely, an Indo-Iranian tradition and has possible ties to Vedic religions.

There isn't just one smooth stream where you can follow the Original Religion down through many guises in history. What it is, instead, is that religion cropped up independently after people had spread out a bit. Say, a spring broke out in India, and another spring started burbling in Egypt. And those streams kept going and made their own rivers. The rivers continue to grow, and sometimes they touch, and people travel between them and maybe introduce fish or plants from one into another, but these rivers never did have the same source.

TLDR: Not everything has to point back to one single story, and very, very few people buy into this theory about the archangels. It is the fringe of the fringe.

I love you.

Fireshadow wrote:eh thanks guys, but I didn't really ask for a history lesson

You need one if you're going to work with spirits who have a history, or even if you only want to educate yourself about them.

Aprophis · Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:11 am

Cult wrote:
Fireshadow wrote:eh thanks guys, but I didn't really ask for a history lesson
You need one if you're going to work with spirits who have a history, or even if you only want to educate yourself about them.

And the truth is they did ask for one.
I mean all those historical religious connections between gods, that's a history lesson.

But if you don't want a history lesson what else do you want? Any arbitrary connection between Gabriel and anything?
I could offer a connection based on him having wings.
Ninurta, that guy has wings too, he does throw lightningbolts though.
Leigong has wings too.
Boreas and Eros sometimes had wings.

There's lots of arbitrary connections to be made, have fun with it.

darkwing dook · Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:39 am

Fireshadow wrote:
darkwing dook wrote:Why Enki = Lucifer and Enlil = Michael?
How about Marduk, Inanna, Abzu, Tiamat, Kingu, etc?
because of this forum? I only found a topic about Enki, where someone ( I'm not sure, but weren't you in that same topic?) got me a link to another website where they talked all about Enki = Lucifer. Not about Marduk, Inanna, Abzu, Tiamat, Kingu, etc....

Yes, but you need to know why the original proposers made the equivalency, how it works with both original myths, and why it matters for certain traditions. Knowing these three, you can find other equivalencies and evaluate how sound they, according to various traditions.

One example, this website:
http://enkispeaks.com/enki-adonai-mardu ... -yuga-age/
assumes Marduk as Satan. How does it translate to the original Mesopotamian myth? Enki is the father of Marduk, so Lucifer is the father of Satan? How does that translate to Christian myth, or to Satanism? Or is this a rewriting/rebooting of old myths to make new one? If so, what is the purpose, why must it be Enki = Lucifer and Marduk = Satan?

And it's not history, more like study of mythology for this case : )

Alys-RaccoonReadings · Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:53 pm

Cult wrote: I love you.

Consider it requited.

Noctua · Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:31 pm

Let me preface by saying I have nothing to add to the main subject matter because like always, something unexpected caught me.

Fireshadow wrote: If you go futher, and watch the Avengers

Just some advice to the general public - Please, no.
Entertainment value is one thing. But people need to definitely not watch the Avengers to source their ideas or theories about Thor and Loki or other gods, because it is based on Marvel comics and barely relevant to the mythology or historical context of who these deities are. The lines blur a lot with adaptations like this, but I can assure everyone it is purely entertainment.

People love to make connections of their favourite fictitious portrayals to the greater archetypes in existence (in this case deities), and I have nothing against anyone playing with that, but if we are being serious here put down the pop culture idols once in a while and read an anthropological text.

Alys-RaccoonReadings · Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:44 pm

Aurum · Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:26 pm

It seems to be the trend these days to consider these fictious portrayals of gods and other beings as real factual information about them. It's worrying and also annoying.

Who is/are the godly equavalant(s) of Gabriel?

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