Transition

Abstract

THIS ESSENTIALLY OUTLINES the binitarian ideas that developed in pre-Christian Judaism and can be viewed as the pool of ideas from which New Testament Christianity drew. Summarizing the range of the texts, it becomes apparent how many of them view the enigmatic godlike or semi-godlike figure alongside God to be an angel. This starts with the angel Michael in Daniel 7, the source of almost all further developments, and climaxes in the Qumran texts. This is hardly surprising, because the angels in Qumran are not by chance referred to as ...