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Hello George Bernard Shaw made the observation that in heaven an angel is nobody in particular

Unquote, but there's nothing commonplace about this description of angels from the book of Ezekiel

Quote they had the likeness of a man and everyone had four faces and everyone had four wings and their feet was straight

Feet and the soul of their feet was like the soul of a calf's foot

And they sparkled like the color of burnished brass as for the likeness of their faces

They had four the face of a man and the face of a lion on the right side and they four had the face of an ox on the left side

They four also had the face of an eagle with angels like that is easy to see why they've caused so much controversy over the centuries

What part of angels played in Western religion and in Western thought?

How did they get their hellos and their wings and how did the medieval philosophers use them to explain the world?

With me to discuss angels his value Reese Renaissance scholar from the School of Economic Science

Martin Palmer theologian and director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture and John Hall

Downing Professor of Philosophy. I'd sent Andrew University

Martin Palmer can we start with the etymology of the word and tell us where it came from?

Well, it's the Greek word

Anglos which means messenger and it's the translation of the Hebrew term meaning precisely that the messenger of God and in fact

often in the in the Torah in the Hebrew Bible what we call the Old Testament

The angels are described as the angel of the Lord in the same way that you might say the word of the Lord or the message of the Lord

It's giving a sort of pedigree to what they're saying and saying listen to this. It's worthwhile. It's trustable

What's their role in books like Ezekiel and Isaiah and in earlier books in the Bible?

Well, it changes actually. It's quite interesting the earliest accounts of of angels if you take them from judges for instance or some of the earliest

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