The Stuff You Didn't Know You Didn't Know Part 4
Sea Serpents and the Exodus
Summary:
Recap
Elohim are a class of supernatural non-physical beings including Yahweh and other powerful supernatural rulers He created.
Key elohim make up the divine council. Members of that council seem to be called Watchers.
Below them are angels (sons of God), cherubim (guardians), and seraphim (burning ones).
The Wrong Side of Heaven
In Gen 6, members of the divine council intermarried with human women, creating the Nephilim (giant demigods).
The fallen divine council members appear to be held in a supernatural prison called Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4, Jude 6).
Demons are the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim from Genesis 6.
Nachash is the Hebrew word for the serpent from Genesis 3. You will not find anywhere in the OT that says the serpent in the Garden was the devil or possessed by the devil. This was a special kind of supernatural creature.
The satan is a title for the prosecuting attorney in the courtroom of heaven.
Devil doesn’t show up in the Tanakh (OT) as a reference to an archenemy.
In the NT, diabolos, translated “devil,” is used 35 times, and it basically just means the enemy, the antagonist of the story.
Lucifer is the Latin word for the planet Venus. It’s a title that means light-bringer. It is not a proper name.
Yahweh 10, Gods of Egypt 0
The gods of Egypt were real. Some were fallen members of the divine council. Some were likely spirits of the dead Nephilim or perhaps even Nephilim themselves. That’s why the plagues were such harsh judgment. God wasn’t punishing innocent people. He was attacking corrupt demigods and the people who worshipped them. The plagues were an attack on the gods in general, not individual sting operations.
Nile Nessie
Psalm 74:12-17 pictures the crossing of the Red Sea as Yahweh’s fight with a massive sea serpent, playing off similar ancient mythologies from the cultures around Israel.
Next Week:
0n 10/30, we’re going to have an open forum discussion time for questions related to Exodus, so if anything has piqued your interest that you want to go into more detail on, let me know before then so we can go over it.
Recommended Resources:
The Bible Project’s “Spiritual Beings” series
Michael Heiser’s Unseen Realm, Angels, and Demons. These 3 books are available in print, digital, and audio formats. Logos Bible Software also just released video summaries of all 3 books, each about an hour long, on YouTube. If this is all new to you, I recommend starting with The Bible Project’s 7 videos, then watching the videos on Logos’ YT channel. Start with Unseen Realm, then Angels, then Demons. If you’re still interested, go ahead and grab the full book versions.
Michael Heiser’s “Where Do Demons Come From?” on Logos.com.
Brian Godawa has a fun Biblical fiction novel series called Chronicles of the Nephilim that presents familiar Old Testament Bible stories within this ancient supernatural world mindset. They’re very easy reads and will get you thinking of the Bible like you never have before.
Brian Godawa’s Leviathan and Behemoth: Giant Chaos Monsters in the Bible