All that will change with the Exile to Babylon.
(I’ll just take a break. I’ll post the sequel later)
About time I continue this.
There is a Jewish tradition that the names of the angels were brought back by the Jews from Babylon. Apparently the Exile had an effect on Jewish religious beliefs to an extent; many scholars think that the Jews could probably have learned a thing or two from Zoroastrianism, which they would have encountered in Babylon.
Zoroastrianism teaches the existence of a god whom they call
Ahura Mazda (aka Ohrmazd), who created the universe by means of six spirits, the
Amesha Spentas (‘holy immortals’), who are themselves emanations or attributes of Ahura Mazda. Zoroastrians ascribe worship to Ahura Mazda, but they also extend reverence to the Amesha Spentas, their assistants (the
hamkars) and other lesser
ahuras; that is why Ahura Mazda and all the good spirits under him are also collectively known as
yazata, ‘worthy of worship’.
Now the order of creation is continually threatened by a hostile entity named ‘The Lie’ or
Angra Mainyu (aka
Ahriman). Good spirits under Ahura Mazda (
ahura) and evil spirits under ‘The Lie’ (
daeva) are continually fighting with each other, with the earth as their battleground. Humans are caught in the middle of this cosmic struggle. Zoroastrians believe that Ahura Mazda will eventually win against ‘The Lie’ and its minions in the end of days, but it is also the responsibility of humans - who even then have the free will to choose whether they would ally themselves with Ahura Mazda or ‘The Lie’ - to support the good spirits in order to speed up this inevitable victory; humans can contribute to Ahura Mazda’s cause by avoiding evil and living good lives and performing religious observances.
(The thing about Zoroastrianism is that traditionally, the relationship between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu/Ahriman were understood more or less in dualistic terms: both Ahura Mazda and Ahriman were thought to be more-or-less two coeval entities, though Ahura Mazda is the more powerful of the two; Angra Mainyu can never foresee what Ahura Mazda invents, which is why he can never win. The question of their origin is not raised at all in the texts; it is inferred is that the divide between good and evil had existed since the beginning. The text themselves are unclear: in some verses, both principles are said to have created the world, but in others, Ahura Mazda is the sole creator while Ahriman is responsible for marring said world.
Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves in vision as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action. And between these two the wise ones chose aright, the foolish not so. (Yasna 30.3)
I will speak of the Spirits twain at the first beginning of the world, of whom the holier spoke thus to the enemy: “Neither thought, nor teachings, nor wills, nor beliefs, nor words, nor deeds, nor selfs, nor souls of us twain agree.” (Yasna 45.2)
This dualistic idea - as well as their perceived ‘polytheism’ due to their veneration of the yazatas - made Parsis, Zoroastrians who migrated to India, the target of condemnation by Christian missionaries. Then in 1862, a German scholar named Martin Haug proposed that Zoroastrians had actually corrupted Zoroaster’s original teachings; in his idea, Zoroaster originally preached a form of monotheism. Haug argued that Angra Mainyu was itself a mere product of Ahura Mazda, who alone is the supreme god. The ‘good’ twin of Angra Mainyu spoken of in the scriptures is not Ahura Mazda himself according to Haug, but another spirit of his, Spenta Mainyu - who represents Ahura Mazda’s ‘creative’ aspect just as Angra Mainyu represents the ‘destructive’ aspect. The Parsis liked Haug’s interpretation and took it up, and interestingly enough, it became the standard belief among modern-day Zoroastrians.)
It is thought that the Jewish concept of angels developed by being in contact with the Zoroastrian beliefs about the Amesha Spentas and the
yazatas, although unlike the Amesha Spentas - which stayed more or less as sometimes-personified abstract concepts such as
Vohu Manah “Good Mind” or
Ameretat “Immortality” - the Jewish angels, while at first, it seems that they were thought of as personified attributes of God as well, eventually developed concrete personalities.
It is the concept of Angra Mainyu/Ahriman, and the clear distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ that probably influenced the idea of an evil entity who is opposed to God. Obviously the Jews could not accept any idea of this evil power being coeval with the one God, so the logical inference is that it was subordinate and inferior to God while still being a powerful entity - hence, a sort of angel. This is where the concept of the
Chaoskampf, already known to the Jews (in the form of stories of Yhwh slaying primeval monsters), came into play. What if this evil entity was one that God struck down when He subdued chaos long ago, in the beginning of time? This is where the idea of fallen angels was revealed to the Jews.
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