Why Bible Accurate Angels Are So Creepy

[Music] Angels. Even if you haven't touched the Bible, you probably have an idea of what they look like. They're those elegant, heavenly beings with long white robes, swan-like wings, and perhaps a halo on top for good measure.

We also know what angel babies, or cherubs, look like: those small, chubby, cute infants clasping a bow and arrow, the kind of thing you might see on a Valentine's Day card. Except, well, that's not what angels actually look like—not according to the Bible. These are biblically accurate angels.

These horrifying abominations are more suited to an H. P. Lovecraft novel, not really the Bible.

So what are these things? Why do they look this way, and how have we got angels so wrong? Okay, so angels come from the Old Testament—the first half of the Bible for Christians, or the whole Bible known as the Tanakh for Jews.

The Old Testament was written down in modern-day Israel and Palestine from about the 6th century BCE to the 3rd century BCE, although many scholars believe the biblical stories themselves are much older. We get the word "angel" from the Greek "angelos," originally from the Hebrew word "malach," which roughly translates to "messenger. " These messengers appear in the Old Testament a number of times; they carry God's messages from heaven to earth and sometimes act on His behalf.

For example, you might recognize the angel of death in the Passover story that slaughtered all the first sons of the Egyptians, or perhaps the angel that struck 70,000 Israelites to death, and the angel that single-handedly killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night. When they appear in the Bible, they are described as having wings. In fact, they look like any ordinary person.

In the later biblical texts, such as Daniel, some even get names: Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael. Okay, this all sounds familiar, but they're not quite the nightmare material freak abominations we saw before. The angels known as malach are not the only heavenly beings in the Bible; there's a hierarchy of them, and depending on who you ask, your classic humanoid angels are actually pretty far down the ladder.

In the Middle Ages, a Jewish scholar known as Maimonides drew up a hierarchy of angels, and if you look here, your classic humanoid angels, the malach, are pretty low down, but not quite as low as cherubim. Forget those chubby winged angels. According to the Bible, cherubim are animal-human hybrids.

The first time we see them is in the Book of Genesis, right after Adam and Eve have been kicked out of the garden. Their job is to guard the Garden of Eden from mankind. Our best description of cherubim comes from the Book of Ezekiel.

It opens with a prophet experiencing a profound vision. In his vision, Ezekiel describes them as living creatures, but they are later revealed in chapter 10 as cherubim. His account is as follows: "In the middle of it was something like four living creatures.

This was their appearance: they were of human form. Each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and their soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot, and they sparkled like burnished bronze.

Under their wings, on their four sides, they had human hands, and the four had their faces and their wings. Thus, their wings touched one another. Each of them moved straight ahead without turning as they moved.

As for the appearance of their faces, the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on their right side, the face of an ox on their left side, and the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above.

Each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. Each moved straight ahead wherever the spirit would go; they went without turning as they went. In the middle of the living creatures, there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches moving to and fro among the living creatures.

The fire was bright, and lightning issued from the fire. The living creatures darted to and fro like a flash of lightning. " The cherubim don't look like your average angel; instead, they look more like the mythical beasts in ancient Mesopotamia, especially the Babylonian imasu, which has the wings of an eagle, the body of a lion, and the head of a king.

These would act as guardians to sacred places, like temples or palace or city walls, and performed a similar role to the biblical cherubim. They look similar to their Egyptian cousin, the sphinx, or the Hittite griffin. Many believed that these biblical angels were descendants of these mythological creatures from Mesopotamia.

There would have been a lot of cultural exchange, and the same sorts of mythical creatures would crop up across these regions. Cherubim, in later Christianity, may have been imported from Greek and Roman myths, borrowing from the shapes of Cupid or Pluto. Moving up the list, we get these guys: seraphim.

They have six wings—two used for flying, one pair for covering the angel's face, and the third pair for covering the angel's feet. They're described in the Book of Isaiah as follows: "Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to the other and said, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.

'" In medieval Christian theology, seraphim are the highest choir of the angelic hierarchy; they are the caretakers of God's throne, continuously singing "holy, holy, holy" all day, every day. So, seraphim—their name comes from the word "seraph," meaning "to burn," so "seraphim" may mean something like "the burning ones. " Burning ones, okay?

Where do they come from? Going further into Seraphine's name reveals its origins. The Hebrew word for a venomous serpent of the desert is "saraf.

" In ancient Egypt, the cobra was often referred to as "the flaming one," an image of which, called "Urayus," was worn by the pharaoh. Thus, "saraf" may be the Hebrew term for "cobra," and perhaps that's where our seraphim get their winged appearance from. Now we're getting to the strangest beings in the Bible, the Ophanim, or simply known as the wheels.

They're a pair of interlocking gold wheels with eyes around the outside, and they hover and float in the sky. In the same vision as before, Ezekiel describes them alongside the Cherubim: "As I look to the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and the construction, their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl, and the four had the same form, their construction being something like a wheel within a wheel.

When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering. As they moved, their rims were tall and awesome, for the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them, and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose.

Wherever the spirit would go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. " The wheels are beings who are meant to carry God’s throne, making them some of the holiest, and certainly the strangest beings in the Bible. Where do these wheels come from?

Well, no one really knows. Some conspiracy theorists believe that Ezekiel is describing UFOs due to their strange shape and movement, or perhaps, seeing that this all takes place in a trippy vision, it could be the product of the prophet ingesting a psychedelic plant. More grounded scholars interpret the wheels metaphorically, as a stand-in for God’s unknowability, or some other often quite elaborate interpretation.

But ultimately, no one really knows much more about the wheels; they’re never mentioned anywhere else. There is some confusion about whether these eldritch abominations known as Cherubim, Seraphim, or Ophanim are really actually angels. Perhaps "heavenly being" is a better description of them.

Whatever it may be, the Bible’s view of heaven is not the exclusive domain of these beautiful winged humanoids. If heaven is, in fact, real, you'll likely be spending a literal eternity alongside these winged monstrosities instead. Hey, thanks!

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