How does a half demon half angel even work, as these are more of two political party (progod and antigod) than two diferent species and nephilin normally had a human half
How does a half demon half angel even work, as these are more of two political party (progod and antigod) than two diferent species and nephilin normally had a human half
Quite easily. In most religions that have demons and devils (most important being Christianity and Hebraism, as those are where nephilim come from), there is a clear and defined distinction between Demons and Devils. Neither Demons nor Angels for that matter are inherently aligned with either the Big Good nor Big Bad and can show up on either side. Devils are always aligned with the Big Bad while classically the advanced Angels (Archangels [lesser], Powers, Thrones, Glories, Archangels [major], and so on) were always aligned with the Big Good but since the popularity of the Luciferian Theory spread that's popularly no longer the case.
Most people, especially Japanese media, just get this important distinction wrong leading to the confusion. The simplest way to view it is Demon = Footsoldier (of either side) Devil = Evil Officer (and for bonus, Angel = Messenger/Courier, also of either side)
How does a half demon half angel even work, as these are more of two political party (progod and antigod) than two diferent species and nephilin normally had a human half
Diablo-verse Nephilim are half-angel and half-demon.
But then again, it's Diablo-verse. You've routinely ended literal gods just so they'll drop a Unique Circlet so you can finally complete that dream set for fighting the Uber versions of said literal gods.
Quite easily. In most religions that have demons and devils (most important being Christianity and Hebraism, as those are where nephilim come from), there is a clear and defined distinction between Demons and Devils.
...Not exactly. "Demon" comes from daemon/daimon meaning "spirit" or "lesser deity". Of course because it referred to "heathen" spirits and gods the word got demonized (heh) by Abrahamic religions.
"Devil" comes from "diabolus", AKA "The Devil". Or Satan. By association it is also used for "malignant possessing spirit" (because Satan likes possessing people in Bible translations), one of the "greater" pagan gods like Beelzebub, or any number of names or identities also identified with the Devil like Mephistopheles.
...And from there... well, demonology literature (effectively Bible "fanfiction") like Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and Ars Goetia and later fiction sources started using "demon" for lesser evil spirits and "devil" for the head honchos.
Meanwhile "nephilim" came from the Hebrew Bible and were elaborated further upon in the Book of Enoch. This was traditionally interpreted as "giants" (because they were described as being gigantic, and because the Greek translation called them "giants" and everyone just copied it), but later sources would later interpret this as "fallen angel" (because the word means "to have fallen" or "to cause to fall").
The terms Demon and Devil in Hebraism/Christianity are borrowed words from other languages, and are not employed by the same definition as the technical descriptions; much in the same way the word 'Hades' appears multiple times in the Christian New Testament but it's foolish to argue that the writers were just misunderstood Greek Pagans. Such have the terms come to mean other things than their original meanings in modern popular lexicon, which is why and how I used the terms as flippantly. The actual conceptual distinction between Christian/Hebrew versions of Devils/Demons has been traced at least as far back as the Sinai Engravings (actually in Negev, not Sinai) several thousand years ago under terms we can no longer read (insofar as pronunciation), so we don't have the original words. The early Christians, within 100 years of the death of Christ, were already using the terms Devil and Demon with this distinction in mind; since by that point even they didn't have the original words, just the meanings.
The terms Demon and Devil in Hebraism/Christianity are borrowed words from other languages, and are not employed by the same definition as the technical descriptions; much in the same way the word 'Hades' appears multiple times in the Christian New Testament but it's foolish to argue that the writers were just misunderstood Greek Pagans. Such have the terms come to mean other things than their original meanings in modern popular lexicon, which is why and how I used the terms as flippantly. The actual conceptual distinction between Christian/Hebrew versions of Devils/Demons has been traced at least as far back as the Sinai Engravings (actually in Negev, not Sinai) several thousand years ago under terms we can no longer read (insofar as pronunciation), so we don't have the original words. The early Christians, within 100 years of the death of Christ, were already using the terms Devil and Demon with this distinction in mind; since by that point even they didn't have the original words, just the meanings.
Well, there are a few words for "foreign" (i.e. not of God) spirits. Shedim and a few others. These usually get translated into daimon in Greek spoken by the early Christians, and then later into English demon. These are not necessarily (depicted/interpreted as) evil, but over time they got demonized more and more.
There is one word meaning adversary/accuser/slanderer, which can be used in the generic sense ("satan") for any adversary, or in the definite sense ("he-satan", The Satan) to refer to a heavenly prosecutor(s) and later malevolent/fallen angel(s). This gets translated into diabolos in Greek and later devil in English.
There are a bunch of words that can refer to specific fallen angels, foreign deities, fallen angels in the generic sense, or metaphorical references to foreign rulers (e.g. Lucifer) or fallen angels... all of which tend to get conflated with each other and the "Adversary" figure mentioned above and hence sometimes also get described as diabolos(diaboloi) and devil(s). These entities also often get relegated into the roles of leaders for other fallen angels and/or malevolent spirits in later texts.
Are these what you are referring to? The so-called "conceptual distinction" between "lesser malevolent spirits" and "leader entities"?
Are these what you are referring to? The so-called "conceptual distinction" between "lesser malevolent spirits" and "leader entities"?
Something like that, they had a lot of specific terms for various things that our versions have lumped together and a lot of nuance gets lost, leading to difficulties like this in pointing out specific variable meanings. For example, 'demon' (or, I should say, several of the word lineages that got grouped into 'demon' in translation) did not always refer to 'foreign' spirits. In fact, many named 'demons' were said to be 'of God' (or El Shaddai, as the case was), one easy example being the 'malevolent spirit' that harassed King Saul was said to be of God. This was one of these 'demons', but doesn't get translated that way into English most of the time because people assume Demon == Evil, and to be fair that is the way English has evolved. The various 'Demons' that got grouped under that term really only had one thing for certain in common, and that was they were 'malevolent spirits'.
Though once again, a point must be made on the term 'malevolent', as they didn't consider malevolence to be what we do today. Simply the knowing act of causing harm (or trying to) was enough to qualify as malevolence to the Hebrews, it did not implicate evil intent; this is also why you can find some old hebrew references to El Shaddai as malevolent, they weren't calling their God evil, they were calling him 'warlike'. Thus, in a sense, it may be better to say that 'demons' are 'aggressive' or 'warlike' spirits.
Furthering this point, in a much larger case, the term is used to refer to Samael; who is simultaneously an Arch-Demon (but never a Devil), an Arch-Angel (who even the Jewish communities considered to stand above Metatron before the 1300s), the Lord of the Fifth Heaven, the Keeper of the Throne of Glory, the God of Death (yes, capital G God), the Left Hand of God, and (to the Early-Christian Church) the Holy Spirit itself. To further confuse matters, he was also referred to as a he-satan in the book of Job (since saying his name was banned as he was a member of the Elohim), and he wasn't even remotely considered 'evil' by any sense until the Renaissance-era Gnostic Purges because he was a chief deity of the Gnostics.
How does a half demon half angel even work, as these are more of two political party (progod and antigod) than two diferent species and nephilin normally had a human half
I know. It all flies in the face of logic and all mythology. Let's start by the fact that Nephilim are simply half angel beings. The original were the offspring of angels and humans.