Fallen Angels

Lucifer, Fallen Angel, Satan.

These three names are used interchangeably in society, and the common belief is that Lucifer was an angel that fell and became Satan and waged war on God.

There is no scriptural basis for this what so ever, the fall of Lucifer does not mention hell or that he was an angel, the passage where this belief comes from (Isaiah 12:14) when looked at the hebrew views on this passage, it was about a Babylonian king who fell from his throne when he was persecuting Israelites. Another theory is that it is a prophecy of Christ, which given that it is from the book of the prophet Isaiah, is highly probable, as Isaiah is one of the Major Prophets, he predicted the coming of Christ and how Christ would come. This passage is thought to be about the coming of the Lord as Lucifer means Morning star, and a name for Christ is the Morning star and he did come down from Heaven.

So it is quite possible that the more commonly accepted interpretation of this passage maybe the complete opposite from the original meaning, however we are likely never to find out what this passage is meaning as with many of the imagery and symbolism in the bible it has varying interpretations and all we can do is our best to understand and interpret them by using a variety of passages to build up a more developed base to begin from.

This of course then has an impact on our understanding of demons.

There is actually no scriptural evidence to suggest that fallen angels became demons.

However there is some tenuous links towards the Nephilim becoming demons, as we discussed a couple of days ago, Nephilim, possibly were a hybrid of angels and humans, if that is so, then when they were destroyed in the flood, already being spiritual beings their death would have been different to the death of humans.

All though the flood wiped out all the Nephilim, it would seem that the some of the angels once again were tempted by human women, so the Nephilim returned, but God had promised never to flood the earth again, he may have then sent his chosen people to destroy the Nephilim without revealing this plan to us as another name of Nephilim was Apkallu which we are told after the flood where in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod. Goliath, the giant that David fought came from Gath, Goliath wasn’t just a called a giant because he was a bit taller than usual, he stood at 9 feet 9 inches tall so it is possible he was a decendant of the Nephilim. Another lesser known Giant would be Og the King of Bashan, Og is thought to have been one of the last of the Rephaim, Og was killed in battle by Moses and his army, this also supports the theory that God destroyed the Nephilim the second time by sending his chosen people into battle with them.

It is noteworthy that the region north of the river Jabbok, or Bashan, “the land of Rephaim”, contains hundreds of megalithic stone tombs (called dolmen) dating from the 5th to 3rd millennia BC. In 1918, Gustav Dalman discovered in the neighborhood of Amman Jordan (Amman is built on the ancient city of Rabbah of Ammon) a noteworthy dolmen which matched the approximate dimensions of Og’s bed as described in the Bible. Such ancient rock burials are seldom seen west of the Jordan river, and the only other concentration of these megaliths are to be found in the hills of Judah in the vicinity of Hebron, where the giant sons of Anak were said to have lived (Numbers 13:33).

One tribe of Nephilim were called Rephaim, there is a valley of Rephaim which connects to the valley of Hinnon which is where the name Gehenna originates from (Gehenna meaning Hades/hell)

Also 1 Enoch refers to the Nephilim as ‘Fatherless spirits’ a phrase also used in the Dead sea scrolls to refer to demons. So it is possible that the demons that are spoke of our the souls of the Nephilim, as they would be half spiritual and half earthly and so the tethers to each domain wouldn’t be as strong, meaning that when they died they would most likely enter a state similar to purgatory.

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