Are There "Female" Angels?

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PetoVeritas

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We know that angels, like God, have no true sex, being neither male or female. When the angels appeared before men they were always in male form and described as ‘he.’ My thoughts are: The names they gave, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel… are those their heavenly names or just a name for us to identify them by? If they are the angels heavenly names are all the names masculine as we understand them to be, or are some feminine? IF there are feminine names as we understand it, would it be reasonable to say that there are “female” angels?
Do you believe that the hierarchy of heavenly beings is completely “masculine” as is always thought? Especially, since God said in Genesis, “Let us make Him in our image” and created man, but formed woman from man?

How confused are you now? :hypno:
 
PetoVeritas said:
We know that angels, like God, have no true sex, being neither male or female. When the angels appeared before men they were always in male form and described as ‘he.’ My thoughts are: The names they gave, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel… are those their heavenly names or just a name for us to identify them by? If they are the angels heavenly names are all the names masculine as we understand them to be, or are some feminine? IF there are feminine names as we understand it, would it be reasonable to say that there are “female” angels?
Do you believe that the hierarchy of heavenly beings is completely “masculine” as is always thought? Especially, since God said in Genesis, “Let us make Him in our image” and created man, but formed woman from man?

How confused are you now? :hypno:
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Angles are neither male or female.
 
Yeah, they aren’t male or female. Human perception can make you believe one way or the other, but Angels aren’t human, so they have no sex.
 
PetoVeritas said:
We know that angels, like God, have no true sex, being neither male or female.
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allischalmers:
Angles[sic] are neither male or female.
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Thank you.

Randy, acute angles?? LOL! Too clever. 😉
 
True enough angles are neither male or female. But, in older times, I believe that children were taught that their gaurdian angle was of their opposite sex. Hence a boy would have a female gaurdian angle, a girl would have a male. This was supposed to keep the child from doing those things that would be embarrasing such as masturbation, etc.

I for one, saw my angel and he appeared as a man. But, there are also pictures of female angels. So, I think they appear as we are comfortable. :angel1:

I am editing this reply because I realized after reading it, what it sounded like - so an explanation. My angel appeard during an extremely emotional time when I could not console myself and there was no hope of another human being close by. 😊
 
“For us men and for our salvation, He came down from Heaven and became man” Does that mean only men are saved? Of course not! I miss the days when the word “man” or “men” was used to describe an unknown or mixed genders in a sentence. When did we get so paranoid that we now use “he or she” instead of “he”? I have been around in this life for more than half a century, so my views are old fashioned. Angels are referred to with male names because the Bible was written in times in which men were given the “lead” so to speak. There is no special reason why they are presented as male, it is just the custom. In Heaven they are neither male nor female, according to Jesus. Jesus came down to earth as a man–does that mean God doesn’t like women? It’s a shame that the gender wars cause speculations about the trivial instead of the important. I speak of the general, not to the person who started this thread.

And, by the way, I am a woman. 😃
 
I think angels themselves probably embody some of the archetypal qualities that make up the masculine and the feminine aspects of nature: protectiveness on the one hand, nurturing on the other. In the cases where an angel has appeared to someone, it seems they take on a gender that fits their mission: St. Catherine Laboure’s angel used to appear to her as a young boy about age seven. St. John Bosco’s manifested as a big, grey dog. I’ve had some experiences with my own guardian angel, and he’s appeared to me under various forms over the years. When I was seven or eight and suffering from a nasty, stubborn sinus infection, a female angel in a blue gown appeared to me in a dream one night and gave me a hug… after that, I started taking a turn for the better. Then when I was about twenty and recovering from a bad case of the flu, the angel came to me again, as a blond young man in his twenties, wearing a long black leather jacket and a dark red silk shirt. Something about my angel suggests he leans more toward the masculine: maybe because I’m a tough case to work with and I need tough love most of the time.
 
I always kind of thought that because people in the ancient days would respond to men as authoritative rather than a female that the angels were always presented as “male”. I probably should go edit that first thread to indicate that this was supposed to be more of a philosophical discussion than anything (which is why I posted it there first [yet without that indication so I understand why it was moved]) d’oh!

I was just curious as to what people’s thoughts were on it rather than truly trying to get an answer to that question since, of course they really have no gender anyway.

Sheila0405, I agree with you. Everything has to be so non-descript these days. There was a performance at a family members church that I went to and the voice of God that was performed was the voice of a woman’s. I was not well with that. I believe that God encompasses the total spectrum of a human being both male, female, and beyond what we can imagine and that God is neither. Yet, I still didn’t like that God was portrayed by a woman. Just my opinion.
 
I believe in angels, male or female, both or non of what we know as ‘gender’. However, looking further, is our soul male or female, both or non? And, as Mary is in heaven, is she still she? Or did she pass that gender confusion and just IS? And God called Christ His Son, so is He still a He, or did He pass that gender confusion and just IS?

Or is all this gender terminology for our benefit here on earth, and what we ‘envision’ them as based on certain qualities we ‘assign’ to that specific gender?

What will we be (or take with us) when we leave this planet? And after the New Heaven and the New earth are made, when we will again be embodied… will we then still just BE, or will gender come back in terms?

This is a very interesting thing to contemplate on.

( As a side note, I call my car a she… don’t know why.)
 
Angels can’t properly be called male or female because they are pure spirit. However, I think that it is possible to be either masculine and/or feminine either by design or as conditions allow. Afterall, if words can have a gender so can angels.
 
Michael_David said:
I believe in angels, male or female, both or non of what we know as ‘gender’. However, looking further, is our soul male or female, both or non? And, as Mary is in heaven, is she still she? Or did she pass that gender confusion and just IS? And God called Christ His Son, so is He still a He, or did He pass that gender confusion and just IS?

Or is all this gender terminology for our benefit here on earth, and what we ‘envision’ them as based on certain qualities we ‘assign’ to that specific gender?

What will we be (or take with us) when we leave this planet? And after the New Heaven and the New earth are made, when we will again be embodied… will we then still just BE, or will gender come back in terms?

This is a very interesting thing to contemplate on.

( As a side note, I call my car a she… don’t know why.)
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Good questions! I think it adds a lot to the dialogue I intended to create. Perhaps it’s the finite mind of ours that must assign a label to everything so that we can identify it.

(… and yes, I too have a gender for my car. I don’t know why either.)
 
Our Christian angelology begins with the Jewish beliefs but it was never a systematically organized system.

Here is some info I pulled from the Jewish Encyclopedia entry on
Angelology.

To answer your question:
Angels are spiritual and their materialized essence is fire. The angels appear at times standing; now in the shape of a man or of a woman, and now as wind or as fire (Ex. R. xxv., beginning)

The writer of the Book of Daniel was the first by whom angels were individualized and endowed with names and titles. Not long after that time Essenism came into existence. It possessed a highly developed Angelology; but knowledge of the system was confined to Essenes. The Sadducees, on the contrary, disputed the very existence of angels.

Here are a few quick highlights of angelic attributes:
  • Angels appear to man in the shape of human beings of extraordinary beauty, and are not at once recognized as angels (Gen. xviii. 2, xix. 5; Judges, vi. 17, xiii. 6; II Sam. xxix. 9); they fly through the air; they become invisible; sacrifices touched by them are consumed by fire; they disappear in sacrificial fire, like Elijah, who rode to heaven in a fiery chariot; and they appear in the flames of the thornbush (Gen. xvi. 13; Judges, vi. 21, 22; II Kings, ii. 11; Ex. iii. 2). They are pure and bright as heaven; consequently they are formed of fire and are encompassed by light (Job, xv. 15), as the Psalmist says (Ps. civ. 4, R. V.): “Who maketh winds his messengers; his ministers a flaming fire.” Although they have intercourse with the daughters of men (Gen. vi.), and eat heavenly bread (Ps. lxxviii. 25), they are immaterial, not being subject to the limitations of time and space.
  • Though superhuman, they assume human form. This is the earliest conception. Gradually, and especially in post-Biblical times, they come to be bodied forth in a form corresponding to the nature of the mission to be fulfilled—generally, however, the human form.
  • Angels are powerful and dreadful, endowed with wisdom and with knowledge of all earthly events, correct in their judgment, holy, but not infallible; for they strive with each other, and God has to make peace between them. When their duties are not punitive, angels are beneficent to man (Ps. ciii. 20, lxxviii. 25; II Sam. xiv. 17, 20, xix. 28; Zech. xiv. 5; Job, iv. 18, xxv. 2).
  • The essence of the angels is fire; they sustain themselves in fire; their fiery breath consumes men; and no man can endure the sound of their voices (Cant. R. v. 10; Pesiḳ. v. 57a; Ḥag. 14b, above; Shab. 88b, below; Tan., Yitro, xvi.). “The angel of the Lord” in Judges, ii. 1, was Phinehas, whose countenance, when the Holy Spirit rested upon it, glowed like a torch (Lev. R. i.,beginning)
  • The angels appear at times standing; now in the shape of a man or of a woman, and now as wind or as fire (Ex. R. xxv., beginning).
James
 
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