Who were the "Men of Old/Renown?"

[juantoo3]

We must shake off the church image of angels being some winged creature, mindless. Term was "Messenger".
Jesus was the foremost messenger of God.

Jehovah speaks of making man "in His own image", so I suspect that Those in heaven bear the shape of us-even tho spiritual.
Why else were the angels attracted to women?

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

The actual quote is "in Our image." YHVH is plural during the Creation.

While I can agree there is a great deal of symbolism throughout the Bible, I also think it is somewhat arrogant to presume we know what something looks like that is invisible to the human eye - unless and until that entity reveals itself.

Ezekiel 1:
5 Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.

6 And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.

7 And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.

8 And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.

9 Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.

10 As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.

The passage continues.

My point being that presuming "wings" *always* means swiftness or speed is every bit as presumptuous as thinking all angels always have wings. There are elements and aspects of spiritual bodies that are foreign to our understanding.

 

[Ahanu]

Hello! The men of renown to me were epic "demi-god" heroes like Gilgamesh, in the fashion of Hercules, Orion, etc.

Agreed. The DSS preserves the Book of Giants, which depicts Gilgamesh as a giant. The "Nephilim" concept seems to be the ancient Jewish response to the world around them. The god-king of a city embodied the god of the city.

I find there was a kind of mixture of ideas existing throughout the Ancient Mediterranean world where the Greeks and Mesopotamians and Egyptians all had some mutual influence and participation and widely accepted the general myths and stories of old as things people would frequently hear and imagine, and in their imaginations and depictions, the semi-divine heroes were these gigantic men who were sometimes mixed with attributes of beasts as well and were basically like super heroes with super strength (might) and dazzling power (glory) which made them truly outstanding in every way.

The "gods" or "angels" which mixed with humans and parented them may have had special domains or abilities, like a special water power so then their kid would be a super hero somehow associated with some water connection etc.

The god-king/angel slept with a temple prostitute to ensure good crops and productive herds with his divine fertile energy.

Often these stories emerging had reasons, and many times they also found themselves among the stars, which likewise was considered the place from which the descent from heaven occurred.

Indeed.

So I think to the minds of most people in the context of the time periods where when hearing "men of renown" they would think of the super heroes of their time, the epic kings and heroes, for the Greeks they had their characters from their epics, Mesopotamians had theres, everyone basically had these semi divine heroic figures in the olden days who were imagined as big and strong and able to wrestle with great beasts and all that, supermen.

While in increasing conflict with and due to fears of assimilation and feelings of alienation and attitudes of separation and policies of segregation, these figures became increasingly demonized by certain populations, so that the Titans and Epic Heroes and lesser Gods mostly became villains, save a few very popular terms which became angels or especially able to be preserved even though there may have been some efforts to expel them as well by fundamentalist extremists. One such figure is Mikal to Michael.

The Hellenistic Jewish people who widely spoke Aramaic had a huge amount of stories which they generally seemed to accept in some way as being some sort of truth, and so Titans under the Earth or Mesopotamian teacher visitors from the Gods being punished smoothly seemed to reference angels held deep under the Earth as punishment and so on.

You did a great job making this topic understandable.