Digest urth.v019.n026

Alex David Groce · 22 Oct 1998, 17:55 · from urth-v0020.mbox · original

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From: "Alex David Groce" <adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v019.n026
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 17:55:28
Message-ID: <urth-v0020-0098 at digest.urth.net>
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Michael Straight wrote:
> Is it only in Christian tradition that Daniel 10 is interpreted as
> evidence of supernatural battles between good angels and evil angels?
>
> Daniel has a vision of an angelic being who says to him:
>
> "Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart
> to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were
> heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of
> Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the
> chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of
> Persia" (Daniel 10:12-13, KJV).

	These are sometimes known as the "genius" of a particular people, are
they not?  It seems to me that Wolfe has commented on these, although I'll =
be
darned if I know where, and I may be confusing him with someone else (a lik=
ely
suspects would be Russell Kirk).  Anybody else recall this?

> Now that I think about it, there is another example.
>
> In Genesis 6:4 where it talks about "sons of God" bearing children with
> "daughters of men" there was, before the Christian era, a Jewish tradition
> that these "sons of God" were evil spirits and that it was by way of these
> evil spirits (rather than from some "original sin" of Adam, an idea that I
> don't think really took hold until St. Augustine) that evil entered the
> human race.   I'm afraid the only citation I have for this is a passing
> mention in an essay on the doctrine of original sin.

	Well, maybe fleshed out by St. Augustine--I think it's present in good
old St. Paul.  If the Epistle to the Romans (and Hebrews--though Paul may n=
ot
have been responsible for this one) doesn't contain something like the doct=
rine
of original sin ("Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over =
them
that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the
figure of him that was to come."--Romans 5:14, KJV) I'll eat my hat, and Ka=
rl
Barth has even less of a leg to stand on than I thought.
	As to these sons of God, Wolfe once suggested they were the
Neanderthals.  R. A. Lafferty is practically obsessed with them (and also s=
eems
to equate them with Neanderthals).  In general, those passages are some of =
the
weirdest and wooliest of the OT, and what's really going on here is anybody=
's
guess.

> In both these examples, of course, evil spirits are subordinate to God
> ("sons of God", fighting God's agents rather than God himself), so they do
> not appear to be instances of dualism in Jewish thought.

Well, the NT "dualism" is only real dualism interpreted one (I'd say the wr=
ong)
way.  The orthodox idea of Satan falls well short of full-fledged dualism (=
as
Sgt. Rock points out, he's a shadow), although he is used in a dualist sens=
e in
fiction all the time.  By everyone from great writers (Hawthorne to some
extent) to modern day horror hacks.


--=20
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." - John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)
Senior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)
'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President
608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce

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