Quotes from Brian Godawa

It was in Bashan that the first of the mighty warrior giants appeared. They became kings called the Rephaim and they spread out on the land to rule after the Watchers came down from heaven. These Rephaim had first ruled the cities then led their evil minions in the great Titanomachy." He took a deep breath. "They were hunted down and cast into Sheol by the archangels, where they remained to this day." Uriel nodded.

In light of this theological fear, some try to reinterpret this reference of gods or sons of God in Psalm 82 as a poetic expression of human judges or rulers on earth metaphorically taking the place of God, the ultimate judge, by determining justice in his likeness and image. But there are three big reasons why this cannot be so:

Tohu wabohu. Formless and void. The desert of Azazel was the haunt of jackals, the habitation of siyyim and iyyim demons, Lilith the night hag and her serpent Ningishzida. Here the night creatures howled, the centaurs dwelt, and the satyr goat demons danced upon the ruins of desolation. Chaos and disorder. But it was not night, it was day. The demons seemed held at bay, their whisperings carried only by the winds.

Prayers always took her mind off herself and her impossibilities and onto Elohim and His possibilities. She

Jesus bar Joseph stumbled on the rocky wasteland. His staff kept him shakily on his feet as he leaned on it for support. His hood barely shielded him from the scorching bright sun high above. The howling winds felt like waves of heat from a blacksmith's furnace. His sandaled feet pained at each step with sunburnt exposure. His lips were parched, cracked and bleeding.

Water. He craved water. He had a headache, a backache, his entire body ached. He had been fasting for over thirty days now, he couldn't remember exactly how many. He had lost track. Dizziness finally brought him to the ground, his knees stinging on the gravelly desert floor. "Had enough?" The whisper penetrated him with a sweet malice. He ingested dust from a gust of wind and coughed. It stuck in his dry throat and he suffered a coughing fit that made the burning even worse.

Mankind was supposed to multiply and fill the earth. But instead they had congregated in this city of Babylon to become one in evil. But the separation of languages would create a dispersion, a massive separation between peoples. It would divide them and spread them abroad over the face of the earth. Diversity would bring chaos and separation. But in a strange way, it would save the world from spiraling into a singularity of unstoppable evil.

Nachash," croaked Jesus. It was the name of that ancient tempter in the Garden, the first of many names through the ages; Accuser, Mastema, Sammael, Diablos, Helel ben Shachar, the Serpent. "I am going by Belial these days. It has a nice ring to it." Belial meant the personification of wickedness, treachery and rebellion.

Abram thought of a play on words. He said to Mikael, "It is no longer Babylon the great, the eternal city, but Babel, because there El Shaddai confused the language of all the earth. And from there El Shaddai dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

In the heavens above the waters, in the very divine council of Yahweh Elohim, the Bene ha Elohim, the Sons of God, had returned to surround his chariot again with glory and praise. The trisagion echoed forth, "Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh Elohim Almighty. Who was and is and is to come!" Their voices were like the sound of many waters. The Cherubim that upheld the throne chariot extended their many wings and Yahweh Elohim took his seat as the Ancient of Days.

The Watchers spread out over all the land, claiming their peoples and unveiling secrets to the sons of men — dark occult secrets that humanity should never have known. They taught mankind the ways of sorcery and alchemy, incantations and the cutting of magical roots, casting of spells and the arts of divination, necromancy, and astrology. Elohim fast became a distant memory for mankind as they worshipped and served the creation instead of the Creator.

A myth... is a metaphor for a mystery beyond human comprehension... A myth, in this way of thinking, is not an untruth but a way of reaching a profound truth.

the legend of Adapa. He called up that tale now to examine it in his mind. The story went that Adapa had been a sage of Eridu, city of the god Enki. He had been taken into heaven and offered the bread and water of immortality by Anu. But he turned them down because his patron deity, Enki, had advised him against it, claiming they were the bread and water of death. So Adapa missed out on the opportunity of immortality. He was clothed with new garments and returned to Eridu to die.

Text without context is pretext.

similarities between the stories: the names of Adapa and Adam, the loss of eternal life, the rejection of a command and the trickster temptation. Yet there were such significant differences: the Shinar pantheon versus the sole Yahweh Elohim; failure to eat rather than eating; no trees, no wife. It was almost as if the Adapa story was an inversion of the Garden of Eden, a replacement narrative intended to displace loyalty from the original story onto a new paradigm.

But Achish, Lord of Gath, had no intention of allowing such an Israelite celebration. He had no intention of submitting to the rules of war. He immediately turned to the commanders near him and barked, "Quickly, lead your forces and flee back to Gath before the Israelites can catch us!

Unconfessed or unatoned sin is the weapon that a spirit uses against its host and its enemies.

It fits together with the prophet Daniel. The breaking of evil by righteousness is Daniel's Messiah Prince ending sin through atonement and bringing in everlasting righteousness. The shaking of the heavens and earth is the establishment of a new covenant. 'My servant David' is a reference to Messiah, whose sign of power is resurrection after three days. He is the Lord of lords and the Prince of princes.

The sin of the men of Sodom was not that they were going after men, but that they were going after angels. They wanted to violate that heavenly earthly separation of flesh. They were seeking the same primeval sin of Genesis 6 that was partly responsible for bringing about the Flood.

This vision gave one new piece of information they had not heard before. Enoch had been told that there was a Chosen Seed to come from the line of Seth, through Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech, one who would bring an end to the reign of the gods and bring rest from the curse of the land. Everyone recognized the reference from their time with Adam and Havah. It was the seed of the Woman, Eve, at war with the seed of the Serpent, Nachash.

But this narrative of prophecy would eventually be subverted by the enemies of Elohim, who transformed it into an entire substitute system of astral worship where stars were considered as controlling powers over the lives of men. Though there was no actual power in the stars, it served the purpose of the gods to divert mankind's attention from the true God of history into a god of one's own utility.

The terminology used by Paul in the first passage contrasting the many gods and lords with the one God and Lord of Christianity reflects the client-patron relationship that ANE cultures shared. As K.L. Noll explains in his text on ancient Canaan and Israel, "Lord" was the proper designation for a patron in a patron-client relationship. There may have been many gods, but for ancient Israel, there was only one Lord, and that was Yahweh."[19]

Ittai remembered the words of Lahmi to him, An ancient prophecy of a messiah king born of the Seed of Eve and of Abraham will rise within Israel. He remembered that Goliath was going to call out their Champion and challenge him to a duel. No one could best Goliath. No one, except a messiah king, a gibborim savior. That would be miraculous.

the beauty of human sexuality by enhancing the draw of seduction through ornamentation and cosmetics. It was a particular talent of hers to twist a good thing into something bad. Women and men learned how to advertise more clearly the availability of their bodies for the fulfillment of illicit desires in violation of Elohim's bigoted exclusionary marriage covenant.