Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Do Jews believe in angels?
Although certain ancient groups of Jews appear to have believed in the existence of supernatural evil, in particular fallen angels (as in the Dead Sea scrolls), the "yetzer hara" in non-apocryphal sources is presented as a personification of evil distinct from the supernatural Devil of traditional Christianity and Islam. This tendency to demythologize Satan is found in the Babylonian Talmud and other rabbinical works, e.g.: "Resh Laqish said: Satan, the evil inclination, and the Angel of Death are all one." Notably, however, this and other passages of the Talmud do not deny the external existence of Satan, but create a synthesis between external and internal forces of evil. Similar tendencies can also be found in some Enlightenment Christian writers, such as in the religious writings of Isaac Newton.
Hundreds of years before the time of Jesus, Jewish prophets promised that a messiah would come. Judaism claims that Jesus did not fulfill these prophecies. Other skeptics usually claim that the prophecies are either vague or unfulfilled, or that the Old Testament writings influenced the composition of New Testament narratives. Christian apologists claim that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies, which they argue are nearly impossible to fulfill by chance. Many Christians anticipate the Second Coming of Jesus, when he will fulfill the rest of Messianic prophecy, such as the Last Judgment, the general resurrection, establishment of the Kingdom of God, and the Messianic Age (see the article on Preterism for contrasting Christian views).
Abraham Geiger, the founder of Reform Judaism, remarked the following concerning the claim that Jews believed Ezra to be the son of God: “According to the assertion of Muhammad the Jews held Ezra to be the Son of God. This is certainly a mere misunderstanding which arose from the great esteem in which Ezra was undoubtedly held. This esteem is expressed in the following passage ‘Ezra would have been worthy to have made known the law if Moses had not come before him.’ Truly Muhammad sought to cast suspicion on the Jews’ faith in the unity of God, and thought he had here found a good opportunity of so doing.”
Both Christianity and Judaism believe in some form of judgment. Most Christians (the exception is Full Preterism) believe in the future Second Coming of Jesus, which includes the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment. Those who have accepted Jesus as their personal saviour will be saved and live in God's presence in the Kingdom of Heaven, those who have not accepted Jesus as their saviour, will be cast into the Lake of Fire (eternal torment, finite torment, or simply annihilated), see for example The Sheep and the Goats.
The Birds' Head Haggadah (c. 1300) is the oldest surviving illuminated Ashkenazi Passover Haggadah. The manuscript, produced in the Upper Rhine region of Southern Germany in the early 14th century, contains the full Hebrew text of the Haggadah, a ritual text recounting the story of Passover – the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt – which is recited by participants at a Passover Seder. The text is executed in block calligraphy and accompanied by colorful illustrations of Jews performing the Seder practices and reenacting Jewish historical events. The Birds' Head Haggadah is so called because all Jewish men, women, and children depicted in the manuscript have human bodies with the faces and beaks of birds. Non-Jewish and non-human faces (such as those of angels, the sun, and the moon) are blank or blurred. Numerous theories have been advanced to explain the unusual iconography, usually tied to Jewish aniconism. The Haggadah is in the possession of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where it is on permanent exhibition.
In 2008, Al Mohler declined to sign An Evangelical Manifesto, publishing a lengthy explanation for his decision. Mohler is an evangelical and an exclusivist, which means that he believes Jesus is the only way through which an individual can attain salvation or have a relationship with God the Father. As a Calvinist, Mohler believes that human salvation is a free gift from God which cannot be earned by human action or will and is only given to the elect. He has publicly advanced this position with respect to Judaism, Islam, and Catholicism. He recently stated that "any belief system, any world view, whether it's Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of Satanic power." He believes Muslims are motivated by demonic power and in the months after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mohler characterized Islamic views of Jesus as false and destructive:
In the 20th century, scholars became more likely to see early Christian faith and practice as evolving out of the religious beliefs and practices of Second Temple Judaism and Hellenic pagans, rather than standing out in sharp contrast to them. Modern historians have come to accept Jesus' Jewish identity and that of the apostolic church (referred to as Jewish Christianity). The relationship of Paul of Tarsus and Judaism is still disputed. The anti-Jewish Jesus of the gospels is now recognized as a later interpretation, perhaps Marcionite, as are the universalist themes in Acts and Luke. H. G. Wells, in his Outline of History, depicted Jesus as a man and Christianity as a religion of no divine distinction. Scholars such as Walter Bauer and Bart Ehrman have emphasized the diversity of early Christianity, with Proto-orthodox Christianity being one thread, against the traditional account of catholic unanimity.The historical and contextual time of the early church.
Once one recognizes that Christianity has historically engendered antisemitism, then this so-called tradition appears as dangerous Christian dogma (at least from a Jewish perspective). For Christians, the concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition comfortably suggests that Judaism progresses into Christianity—that Judaism is somehow completed in Christianity. The concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition flows from the Christian theology of supersession, whereby the Christian covenant (or Testament) with God supersedes the Jewish one. Christianity, according to this belief, reforms and replaces Judaism. The belief therefore implies, first, that Judaism needs reformation and replacement, and second, that modern Judaism remains merely as a "relic". Most importantly the belief of the Judeo-Christian tradition insidiously obscures the real and significant differences between Judaism and Christianity.
Jehovah's Witnesses teach that the present world order, which they perceive as being under the control of Satan, will be ended by a direct intervention of Jehovah (God), who will use Jesus Christ to fully establish his heavenly government over earth, destroying existing human governments and non-Witnesses, and creating a cleansed society of true worshippers who can live forever. They see their mission as primarily evangelical (disseminating "good news"), to warn as many people as possible in the remaining time before Armageddon. All members of the denomination are expected to take an active part in preaching. Witnesses refer to all their beliefs collectively as "the Truth".
The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) published on 2015 the "ADL Global 100", an international survey conducted in 2013-2014 to measure antisemitic opinions in 100 countries around the world. The survey revealed that 28% of the adult population in Austria harbor antisemitic opinions, as reflected through the DATA: More than 50% of the population expressed agreement with the phrase "Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust", and more than 40% of the population agreed with "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country" and "Jews have too much power in international financial markets".
The number of Jews living in Denmark today is approximately 1900, according to Finn Schwarz, president of Mosaisk Troessamfund. Comparing to 1997, this number indicates a significant decrease in the Jewish population of Denmark, which the Jewish community has explained by the increasing of antisemitic incidents. However, research from Danish professor Peter Nannestad has shown that antisemitism in Denmark is confined to other minority groups and not an issue in Danish society at large. Rather, the fact that Denmark has become increasingly secular in recent years might be a better explanation for why Jews and other groups with a strong religious heritage face difficulties in adapting to life in Denmark. Indeed, it has been suggested that non-orthodox Jews have little or no problems feeling at home in Denmark. Another sensitive topic for Jews in Denmark is the relatively strong support of Palestine in the country, which can create some tension if Danish Jews are vocal in their support of Israel during military actions in Gaza. The estimated number of people who consider themselves to be Jewish may be around 7,000 to 9,000 out of a total population of 5.5 million. Almost all Jews are very integrated into mainstream Danish society.
In the first few centuries CE, there were many sects of Judaism (such as Pharisees, Essenes, and Sadducees) each claiming to be the correct faith. Some scholars treat Christianity, during that era, referred to as Early Christianity, as simply one of many sects of Judaism. Some sects wrote polemics advocating their position, and occasionally disparaging rival sects. Some scholars view the depictions of Jesus in the Talmud as a manifestation of those inter-sect rivalries – thus the depictions can be read as polemics by the rabbinic authors of the Talmud which indirectly criticized the rival sect (Christianity), which was growing and becoming more dominant.
At the end of the third season of "Buffy", the 242-year-old, re-ensouled vampire Angel left Sunnydale to give teenage Slayer Buffy Summers the chance to live a normal life. Angel is now living in the big city of Los Angeles. With Buffy gone Angel is now completely cut off from society, every day getting closer and closer to giving in to his vampiric hunger. It's not until he befriends the half demon and fellow Irishman Doyle, who is sent visions of people in trouble by The Powers That Be, and fellow Sunnydale resident Cordelia Chase, who grounds Angel's life in the humanity around him, that he truly begins to take charge of his life and seek atonement for his past sins. He sets up his own detective agency, Angel Investigations and begins to "help the helpless".
Some Jewish leaders have called Jewish intermarriage a "Silent Holocaust," particularly in 20th-21st century America where as many as 47% of American Jews have intermarried with non-Jews in past two decades. Such cultural and religious assimilation is said to represent a slow destruction of the Jewish people. Others have expressed a different view, accepting or tolerating such marriages, instead focusing their attention towards the concept that the children of a Jewish parent be raised Jewish, with some sense of their identity rooted in Judaism and in Jewish culture. However, some children of a Jewish parent were raised in the non-Jewish parent's religion while maintaining a sense of Jewish ethnicity and identity.
Black Judaism is the collective term used to describe sects of Judaism predominantly practiced by the members of the African communities, both within the African Continent and outside Africa (such as North America). It is theologically characterized by the selective acceptance of the Judaic faith (in some cases such selective acceptance has historical circumstances), and that the belief system of Black Judaism is significantly different from the mainstream sects of Judaism. In addition, although Black Judaic communities adopt Judaic practices such as Jewish holidays and Jewish prayers, they are generally not recognized by the mainstream Jewish societies as legitimately Jewish.
Around the 1st century CE, there were several small Jewish sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, and Christians. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, these sects vanished. Christianity survived, but by breaking with Judaism and becoming a separate religion; the Pharisees survived but in the form of Rabbinic Judaism (today, known simply as "Judaism"). The Sadducees rejected the divine inspiration of the Prophets and the Writings, relying only on the Torah as divinely inspired. Consequently, a number of other core tenets of the Pharisees' belief system (which became the basis for modern Judaism), were also dismissed by the Sadducees. (The Samaritans practiced a similar religion, which is traditionally considered separate from Judaism.)
Watch Tower Society publications teach that Jesus Christ began to rule in heaven invisibly as king in October 1914. They assert that the Greek word "parousia" (translated in most English Bible translations as "coming" when referring to Christ) is more accurately rendered "presence", perceived only by a composite "sign". As such, the Second Coming is considered an invisible presence, lasting for an extended period of time, and ending with Jesus' "coming" to separate the Sheep and the Goats. They believe that when Jesus became king, Satan was ousted from heaven to the earth, bringing a period of "woe" to mankind.
During Buffy's 17th birthday, Drusilla and Spike resurrect a powerful demon called "The Judge" (Brian Thompson) who can burn the humanity out of people and who claims to be invincible. After Buffy and Angel escape from his attack, the two finally consummate their relationship which brings Angel "a moment of perfect happiness" and ends up costing him his soul. Buffy wakes up in Angel's bed the following morning alone and frets about his disappearance. Later she returns to his apartment where he torments her about giving up her virginity to him. Buffy is left emotionally devastated and suffers further betrayal after she learns that Jenny Calendar is of gypsy origin and was sent to Sunnydale in order to prevent Angel from losing his soul, a mission in which she failed. Angel, now Angelus, joins forces with Spike and Drusilla as they intend to use the judge to wipe humanity off the Earth. The Scooby Gang show up to stop them and Buffy uses a rocket launcher to kill the judge and halt the vampire's plan. She then fights one on one with Angel for the first time but cannot kill him. Instead she forcibly kicks him in the testicles and leaves. Meanwhile, Willow finds out about Xander and Cordelia's relationship and falls out with Xander as a result, while Giles' relationship with Jenny is shattered due to her betrayal.
The first Jewish communities of significant size came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. After the conquest of England, William instituted a feudal system in the country, whereby all estates formally belonged to the Crown; the king then appointed lords over these vast estates, but they were subject to duties and obligations (financial and military) to the king. Under the lords were other subjects such as serfs, who were bound and obliged to their lords, and to their lords' obligations. Merchants had a special status in the system, as did Jews. Jews were declared to be direct subjects of the king, unlike the rest of the population. This was an ambivalent legal position for the Jewish population, in that they were not tied to any particular lord but were subject to the whims of the king, it could be either advantageous or disadvantageous. Every successive king formally reviewed a royal charter, granting Jews the right to remain in England. Jews did not enjoy any of the guarantees of the Magna Carta of 1215.
The Second Coming of Christ holds a central place in Christian mythology. The Second Coming is the return of Christ to earth during the period of transformation preceding the end of this world and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. According to Matthew's gospel, when Jesus is on trial before the Roman and Jewish authorities, he claims, "In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
The legend of the "Wandering Jew" concerns a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion and was then cursed to walk the earth until the Second Coming.
Angel's first appearance is in "Welcome to the Hellmouth", the first episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in 1997. In it, he meets the protagonist Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a young girl destined to fight evil in the small town of Sunnydale, California. For the first half of the season, Angel is an enigmatic love interest for Buffy, showing up only to offer her cryptic messages about upcoming threats. It isn't until the episode "Angel" that the character is revealed to be a benevolent vampire from Galway, Ireland, who immigrated to the United States to escape his past as the sadistic Angelus after his soul was restored by a vengeful gypsy clan. Although uneasy about trusting a vampire, Buffy and the Scooby Gang eventually come to view Angel as an ally. In the second season (1997–1998), Buffy and Angel's romantic relationship develops and the pair make love in the episode "Surprise". For experiencing a moment of pure happiness, however, the gypsy curse on Angel is revoked, unleashing his soulless alter-ego, who reunites with his old friends, vampires Spike (James Marsters) and Drusilla (Juliet Landau), and begins terrorizing Buffy and her friends. Upon discovering gypsy descendent Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte), who is working to translate the text of a spell to restore Angel's soul, Angelus murders her by breaking her neck, and places her body in the bed of her boyfriend, Giles (Anthony Head), for him to discover. Angelus then attempts to destroy the world by awakening the demon Acathla. In the season finale, neophyte witch Willow (Alyson Hannigan) manages to restore Angel's soul at the last moment, but Buffy is forced to kill him to save the world from Acathla, and Angel is sent to hell. In season three (1998–1999), episode three, "Faith, Hope & Trick", Angel is inexplicably returned from hell by an unknown party and is soon found by Buffy. The Scooby Gang are outraged when they discover that Buffy has been secretly caring for him since his resurrection, but grudgingly accept him after he saves Willow's life in episode seven, "Revelations". In the episode "Amends", the primordial First Evil attempts to manipulate Angel to murder Buffy, but Angel chooses suicide instead by waiting for the sun to rise on Christmas morning. California's heatwave is suddenly interrupted by a freak snowstorm hiding the sun, sparing Angel's life, which he takes as a sign from above that he was brought back for a reason. Buffy and Angel initially attempt to be friends but eventually resume their romance. However, Angel becomes more and more aware of their limitations as a couple and breaks up with her in the hopes that she will be happier without him, leaving Sunnydale altogether after attending Buffy's prom and helping her in the battle against Mayor Wilkins (Harry Groener).
The early Fathers of the Church, such as Justin Martyr, identify the angel of the Lord as the pre-incarnate Christ whose appearance, i.e. Christophany, is recorded in the Hebrew Bible. On the reason why some early Christians viewed Jesus as the angel of the Lord, Susan Garrett says:
[The logic behind the] reading of Jesus into accounts of the angel of the LORD went deeper. Many Jews before and during the time of Jesus were deeply interested in angels. Some understood the angel of the LORD as a being completely separate from God—a sort of angelic vizier or righthand angel, who served as head of the heavenly host and in other important capacities, including as a mediator between God and humans. Further, some Jews routinely appropriated language used in Scripture to describe the angel of the LORD and used it to characterize certain of God’s attributes, including God’s "word", "glory", "wisdom", "spirit", "power", and "name"—almost as if these aspects of the Deity were themselves independent angels. In other words, quite apart from Christianity there was talk among ancient Jews of God’s "word", God’s "glory", and so forth in terms highly reminiscent of the angel of the LORD. So, when early Christian authors like Justin Martyr connected Jesus with God’s word and that word, in turn, with the angel of the LORD, they were not inventing from scratch so much as adding a new layer to well-established ways of reading Scripture.
Although most Jews are pluralist or inclusivist some Jews believe that the God of Abraham is the one true God. The Jews believe the God of Abraham entered into a covenant with the ancient Israelites, marking them as his Chosen People, giving them a mission to spread the concept of monotheism. Jews do not consider their chosenness to be a mark of superiority to other nations, but a responsibility to be an example of behavior for other nations to emulate.
Latter Day Saints believe that angels either are the spirits of humans who are deceased or who have yet to be born, or are humans who have been resurrected or translated and have physical bodies of flesh and bones, and accordingly Joseph Smith taught that "there are no angels who minister to this earth but those that do belong or have belonged to it." As such, Latter Day Saints also believe that Adam, the first man, was and is now the archangel Michael, and that Gabriel lived on the earth as Noah. Likewise the Angel Moroni first lived in a pre-Columbian American civilization as the 5th-century prophet-warrior named Moroni.
American Jews are more likely to be atheist or agnostic than most Americans, especially so compared with Protestants or Catholics. A 2003 poll found that while 79% of Americans believe in God, only 48% of American Jews do, compared with 79% and 90% for Catholics and Protestants respectively. While 66% of Americans said they were "absolutely certain" of God's existence, 24% of American Jews said the same. And though 9% of Americans believe there is no God (8% Catholic and 4% Protestant), 19% of American Jews believe God does not exist.