angels, deciding what shape to take when interacting with The Humans: wellâŚ.eye contact is important to humans, right? they find it reassuring when they can see the eyes of the person theyâre talking to. so if we have LOTS of eyes, in very visible places, thatâll be even MORE reassuring
canât stop thinking how much sense it would make if every design choice angels made was just a misguided attempt to Relate To The Humans. imagine how those conversations went
wings: âhumans donât like things they canât understand, so if weâre going to levitate we should have wings. in fact we should probably have lots of wings, since weâre so big and impressive. humans like wingsâ
loud, booming voices: âfuck off Azrael the humans needs to be able to hear us.â
glowing: âno no no, itâs about visibility, right? the main human sensory organ works by detecting light, so if we emit lightâŚâÂ
wheels: âwhy the hell are you shaped like that?â âpiss off, the humans are really proud of this inventionâ
multiple faces/eyes: âit makes me relatableâ âi swear to God it doesnâtââ âi need to see in every directionâ â Azrael you are a supernatural messenger of god you do not needââ âTHE HUMANS NEED TO KNOW IâM WATCHINGâ
multiple limbs: âhumans have lots of limbs! they like limbsâ âlook i let you keep the wings butââ âhow do you expect me to walk?â â70,000 feet is not a reasonable number of feet, Azrael!â âfuck off iâm ENORMOUSâÂ
general gross misapprehensions of biology: âholy shit are your wings made out of eyes?â âlook before you say anything iâm like 100% sure iâve seen animals who have both wings and eyes. and you can fit so many more in this way!â ââŚ.you godforsaken googly-eyed geniusâ
#and this is why angels got so boring in the new testament after the Updated Guidelines were rolled out. âFour limbs???? iâm only allowed a maximum of FOUR LIMBS????? this is BULLSHITâ
#alternatively all the reported sightings of creepy ass angels was literally just the SAME angel #just the same freak who kept changing its meatsuit for funsies before god caught on
ok i have REFINED my theory!
Old Testament Angels look like that because life in the ocean outnumbered life on land, so naturally when they visited earth they modeled their appearance on the most common lifeforms. Hench you get things like
radial symmetry (i.e. angels shaped like spheres) which is objectively cooler than bilateral symmetry (starfish understand this)
Very Numerous Limbs (2 is not the average number of arms in the ocean)
random glowing (bioluminescence)
just generally being objects of Absolute Terror to land dwellers
a thousand eyeballs being the Norm (have you seen scallops)
in the majority of inhabited Earth areas (i.e. anything deeper than the continental shelf) old school angels would actually pass as Normal And Relatably-Shaped Lifeforms
this checks out
I think you all need to know the actual reason that seraphim have six wingsâwith two they covered their faces and with two they covered their feet and with two they flewâbecause itâs awesome.
So, first thing, in most of the Hebrew Bible nobody can look directly at Godâs face and live. God is simply too amazing/great/alien. You see Godâs face, you die, not because God wants to kill you (God doesnât!) but just ⌠because itâs the inevitable result of contact with Godâs holiness. (This is responsible for such incidents as the time God mooned Moses. Moses wanted reassurance, and asked to see God. God said, âwell, you canât see my face, but how about this. You hide in that crevice in the rock over there, and Iâll cover you up so youâre safe, and then Iâll pass by, and when Iâm safely past you can look at my back, k?â And thatâs how it happened.)
Anyway, even angels canât bear to look at God, which is why the seraphim cover their faces in Godâs presence. All the weird stuff you all have just been attributing to angels? Can be applied to God with at least as much plausibility.
And then we come to the seraphim covering their feet. Or, perhaps I should say âfeet.â Because the Hebrew language, like many languages, has some euphemisms for genitalia. One of them is to call them âfeetâ or âhands.â This is how, for example, Ruth gets Boaz to marry her. She goes in and lays down at his âfeet.â Wink wink, nudge nudge.
So when Isaiah tells us the seraphim are flying around covering their âfeetâ with a pair of wings, what theyâre actually doing is this:



















