11
votes
Accepted
Is Satan a seraph or a cherub?
This answer will be based on the Catholic traditions in regards to Satan and the nine choirs of angels.
Although it is now generally accept that there are nine choirs of angel and each choir is of ...
- 2,853
11
votes
Accepted
What is the oldest known religious song/chant?
Religious song is likely as old as religion or song. The Standard of Ur dated to the 26th century BCE, shows someone playing a harp:
.
(Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain, my highlighting).
...
- 1,623
10
votes
What was Jesus's original name?
It depends on which language we're talking about. 1st-century A.D. Palestine was a multicultural, multilingual location (not much unlike the same region is at present day). The classic Biblical ...
- 9,855
10
votes
Accepted
Why is Lucifer three-faced?
Why is the Devil also known as Lucifer (and other names) three-faced?
To understand this symbolic meaning of Dante in his Canto XXXIV, we have to have a basic understanding of the beliefs of the ...
- 2,853
10
votes
If an angel can fall, can a demon rise?
If an angel can fall, can a demon rise?
According to most Christian teaching and traditions, the short answer is no.
Your question however does pose certain interesting perplexities to say the ...
- 2,853
10
votes
Accepted
Are the Nephilim the demi-gods of the bible?
It depends what you mean by "demi-god".
They are of somewhat divine origin, by most understandings of "sons of God" (ancient Hebrew sources identify them with angels of some description). They were ...
- 344
9
votes
Accepted
What are the punishments for the seven deadly sins?
Since Medieval times the following punishments have been assigned to the 7 deadly sins.
Pride - You will be broken on the wheel
Envy - Placed in freezing water
Gluttony - Force fed rats, toads and ...
- 595
9
votes
Accepted
Was the alleged Christian influence of Norse Mythology primarily due to Snorri Sturluson's writings?
Short answer: probably yes. He's our primary source for a lot of myths, which makes it hard to say our interpretations are accurate to what was believed a thousand plus years ago because we don't have ...
- 486
8
votes
Did Ragnarök influence the Apocalypse of John?
The Book of Revelations presents us with a linear cosmology, a straight road that inevitably leads to the Messianic Age. This pattern is shared by all Abrahamic tales of the end times.
Ragnarök, on ...
- 17.1k
8
votes
Why is Lucifer three-faced?
It's worth looking further down Canto XXXIV (I'm using a slightly different translation) to see just who is stuffed into Lucifer's mouths:
"That upper spirit,
Who hath worst punishment," so spake ...
- 7,115
8
votes
Accepted
Who/what is Lilith?
Lilith in Mesopotamia
First Lilith (Lilitu) is of Mesopotamian origin. She is a female "demon"/"succubus" (Consider I use here modern terms, Sumerian or Akkadian got no clue what those was). We find ...
- 3,512
8
votes
What is the connection between Asherah and the custom of Christmas Trees?
There is no historical connection.
The cultures that worshiped Asherah were mostly destroyed when the Babylonians invaded the kingdom of Judah and took a large portion of the populace as captives. ...
- 217
8
votes
Accepted
Why did Christians, who take a huge part of their Bible from Jews, not have to follow the same rules as Jews?
The relevance and applicability of the Mosaic Code to Christians, especially gentile Christians, is a vexed theological question that Paul addresses and tries to finesse in more than one of his ...
- 1,400
7
votes
How does the Christian Hell come to be called Hell? Is it related to the Norse Hel?
The word "hell" came into existence sometime before 900 AD/CE. It is from the "Middle [and] Old English hel(l); cognate with Old High German hell(i)a (German Hölle), Old Norse hel, [and] Gothic halja"....
6
votes
Accepted
Why are Dido and Cleopatra in the second circle of Hell?
Dante conceived of the architecture of Hell as an inverted church. The higher circles are lesser sins, and each descending circle represents what he saw as greater sins.
The sin of Lust was, to Dante,...
6
votes
Accepted
Who are the seven kings mentioned in the book of Revelation?
Here's a decent analysis of the passage.
It is these seven kings that we want to deal with in this paper. Basically, there are three different interpretations that could be considered about who these ...
6
votes
How does the Devil come to be horned?
I have a theory that could possibly explain this.
In Ezekiel 28:12-14, the king of Tyre (who is commonly believed to be Satan) is described as a cherub. In Ezekiel 1, the prophet Ezekiel saw 4 living ...
6
votes
When did the Cross of Saint Peter start being used as a Satanic symbol?
The earliest one I could find was Eugène Vintras(page only available in french) .
Vintras was a French Gnostic revivalist from the around the middle of the 19th century (1807–1875).
He preached the ...
- 4,067
6
votes
Is there a connection between Odin or Zeus and the Christian God?
It's interesting that the most common epithet of Zeus in Greek literature is not the form of the name beginning in "z", but the form equivalent to Dios. (This is the same word root for god in the ...
- 14.2k
6
votes
Are the Nephilim the demi-gods of the bible?
In accordance with both Jewish and Christian theology, there is only 1 God - Yahweh - who is the creator of everything: angels, people, animals, the universe, earth, etc. Worship of anything or anyone ...
6
votes
What do the four living creatures represent?
They represent the Tetramorph, the 4 classical elements in the West. More info:
A tetramorph is a symbolic arrangement of four differing elements, or the combination of four disparate elements in ...
- 61
6
votes
Accepted
What is the meaning of the inscriptions on Baphomet arms?
"Solve et coagula" is the principle underlying alchemy: dissolve materials to their constituents and re-assemble these into something else.
Fulcanelli writes of this quote:
If you know how to ...
- 5,378
5
votes
Is Satan a seraph or a cherub?
If we were to leave to expand or literature beyond Christianity for the sake of understanding angels we could look at the Qur 'an. Here we have beings called the Djinn, they were another cast of ...
- 51
5
votes
Who did Adam and Eve's son Cain marry?
This started out as a comment responding to other comments made on femtoRgon's Answer but then it got long (+ it's essentially an Answer too, so I figured I might as well add it as such).
The King ...
- 9,855
5
votes
Did Greeks and Romans allow for belief in only some of their gods?
Understanding the ancient world is quite a job, just remark that: Greeks and Romans are the easiest to understand when we start to watch the other civilizations (Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Persians) we ...
- 3,512
5
votes
Accepted
Who are the twenty four elders in Revelation?
Who are the twenty four elders in Revelation?
Traditionally they are the symbolic representation of 12 tribes of Israel and 12 Apostles representing the entire church from Adam to the end of the ...
- 2,853
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible