This handy step-by-step explanation will help you prepare your novel for self-publishing on Amazon Kindle. But fear not, a lot of it applies to other platforms as well. This will help you understand how ebook formatting works so you won’t be as likely to screw it up. 🙂
Full course on Self-Publishing (2.5 hours) Rent or Buy on Amazon Instant Video: Click Here
Full course on Self-Publishing (2.5 hours) download MP4 videos: Click Here
And I don’t mean metaphorically.
Okay, I know what you are thinking. “Godawa, you have gone too far. You are now officially a Nephilim Nut who has hallucinations of giants where there are none. There are no giants in the Gospels. And besides, Jesus was peaceful. He told his disciples to put away their swords. Heresy, I say! Burn!”
Well, fear not. Even though I have in fact discovered an historically documented giant over ten and a half feet tall in the approximate same time and location as Jesus (details to come in future posts of my novel Jesus Triumphant), I am not talking about the New Testament. I’m talking about the Old Testament. And that’s a different story—kind of, but not totally.
The Angel of Yahweh
A visible tangible Angel of the Lord, or more accurately, “Angel of Yahweh,” appears throughout the Old Testament in many times and places.
He met with Abraham several times (Genesis 16:7-11; 21:17; 22:1-9).
He met with Isaac (Genesis 26:1-5; 23-25).
He met with Jacob (Genesis 28:10-22).
He met with Moses (Exodus 3).
He met with Joshua (Joshua 5:13-15).
And many other prophets and people of God (1Kings 19:7; Zech 3:1).
So, who is he?
Some readers may assume “Angel of Yahweh” means an Angel from Yahweh. But it doesn’t usually. It often means “Angel, the being of Yahweh” or “Yahweh as an Angel” because it is used interchangeably with Yahweh himself (Gen 31:11-13; Exodus 3:2-6).
And actually, “Angel” means “messenger,” so, technically, the Angel of Yahweh is “Yahweh as messenger.”
The Angel of Yahweh is Yahweh
When God was explaining that he would lead Joshua in conquest of Canaan, here is what he said:
Exodus 23:20–21
“Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice…for my name is in him.”
In his new book, The Unseen Realm, scholar Michael Heiser explains that the ancient Jewish word for “The Name” of God, (ha-shem), was the equivalent of God’s own presence. The name carried the very essence of a being, much like Abraham meant “father of a multitude.” So when God says his name was “in an angel,” he was saying that that angel was his very presence.
Notice how in these passages, Yahweh and Angel of Yahweh are used interchangeably:
Leviticus 11:45
“For I am Yahweh who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”
Judges 2:1
Now the angel of Yahweh went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.”
There are a lot of other examples, but you get the point. The Angel of Yahweh is Yahweh’s presence amidst his people in the humanoid form of an angel.
Jesus is the Angel of Yahweh
There are plenty of theologically refined ways in which Jesus is implied as being Yahweh through the name of Yahweh being in him (John 17:6; 8:58) and the deity of the Son of Man (Dan 7:13; Matt 26:64), among others.
The most blatant example of Jesus being explicitly described as the Old Testament Angel of Yahweh is in the New Testament book of Jude.
Jude 5
Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.Exodus 32:34
“Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”Judges 2:1
Now the angel of Yahweh…said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.”
So, the Angel of Yahweh in the Old Testament is a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus as Yahweh. The texts in Exodus and Judges then show the equivalence of Jesus “saving his people out of Egypt” with the Angel of Yahweh going before Israel and bringing them up out of Egypt. But you might also notice that the Jude passage adds that Jesus “destroyed those who did not believe.” See? I didn’t make it up. Let’s take a closer look at these actions of destructive judgment taken by Jesus in the Old Testament. Continue reading
NEPHILIM IN the New Testament? Surely Brian Godawa has stretched his Chronicles of the Nephilim series at least one book too far!
But no! Brian joins us to discuss his latest novel, Jesus Triumphant: Chronicles of the Nephilim Book Eight, and makes the case that the giants who caused so much trouble throughout the history of Israel were still in the land for one last attempt at preventing the Messiah from completing his mission.
Please join Derek and Sharon Gilbert each Sunday for the Gilbert House Fellowship, our Bible study podcast. Log on to www.GilbertHouse.org for more details.
Check out the newest episode of Omega Frequency! Ep. 36 – “Jesus Triumphant with Brian Godawa”. On this episode author Brian Godawa returns to the Omega Frequency podcast! We discuss his new best selling novel Jesus Triumphant. We dig deep into the themes of spiritual warfare, demons, the Nephilim, and most importantly Yeshua’s victory over Satan! We also discuss some of the Hebraic history behind certain key events in Yeshua’s ministry, and why it’s important to understand the ancient Hebraic narrative when reading portions of the Bible. Finally, Brian shares his heart on why he created these novels and why it’s important to him to tell these stories through the eyes of authentically written characters.
Wow. Heart-gripping trailer. It looks like this may be a rare unique movie about Christian faith, but with a Hollywood team behind it, a good story, good writing (Brian Bird), and good actors.
I’m seeing a pre-screening of it this Thursday. Will let you know.
All 8 Chronicles of the Nephilim novels are in the Top 15 best sellers of the Amazon Religious Biblical Fiction category!
Find out why so many are finding these Biblical Fantasy novels to be so fascinating and entertaining. They are changing the landscape of Evangelical imagination and theology.
In my novels, Joshua Valiant and Caleb Vigilant, I write about a tribe called the Seirim people of Banias at Mount Hermon. They live in caves at the foot of the mountains and are led by satyrs, chimeric beings with the lower body of a goat and the upper body of a human. But this mythopoeic imagery is not a mere assimilation of ancient Greek myths about Pan, the satyr deity of nature and shepherding. The notion of satyrs or goat deities predates Greek myth and finds a place in Canaanite lore, and therefore, the Bible as well.
Take a look at these prophecies of Isaiah referencing the destruction of Babylon and Edom.
Isaiah 34:11–15 (The destruction of Edom)
11But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it… 13Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. 14And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat (seirim) shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place. 15There the owl nests and lays and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow; indeed, there the hawks are gathered, each one with her mate.Isaiah 13:21–22 (The destruction of Babylon)
21But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there wild goats (seirim) will dance. 22Hyenas will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged.
The passages above speak of God’s judgment upon the nations of Babylon and Edom (symbols of all that is against Israel and Yahweh). A cursory reading of the texts seem to indicate a common word picture of Yahweh destroying these nations so thoroughly that they end up a desert wasteland with wild animals and birds inhabiting them because the evil people will be no more.
Nothing about mythical monsters like satyrs there, right?
Wrong. Because the English translations of the Hebrew word seirim as “wild goats,” obscure the full ancient meaning. If we look closer into the original Hebrew, we find a more expanded mythopoeic reference to pagan deities.
In this video, I explain the advantages of adapting your screenplay to a self-published novel.
First off, do you want to let that great story you worked so hard on sit on the shelf, unproduced and no one will read it except a few development people? As a novel, thousands will finally read your story!
Full course on Self-Publishing (2.5 hours) Rent or Buy on Amazon Instant Video: Click Here
Full course on Self-Publishing (2.5 hours) download MP4 videos: Click Here
In my interview with Off the Grid, listen to the strange things in the Gospels that many Christians don’t even know about.
This isn’t Gnostic secret knowledge, it’s simply our own cultural ignorance of the ancient Near Eastern Biblical cultural background of some of the New Testament writings of the life of Jesus.
