Origins of the Kingdom of God?
The people of the time of Enoch and Noah around 3000 BC living in what is now Iraq and Iran had the word Anunnaki which combined Anunna meaning sons of God with KI meaning domain or city. Ki on the end of a word is likely to be a diminutive signifying that the word might be a city or province or domain. So the word shows an awareness of there being of domain of the sons of God. There was a tradition at the time that the first angelic sons of God existijg long ago before the start of the human race were rejected by God after falling into sin and that God created humans with the purpose of eventually replacing these sons of God. In the meantime God had designated seven more sons of God to be closest to Him in their service. The Book of Enoch names these and some of the names are familiar such as Michael and Gabriel. The Epic of Gilgamesh written in the later years of Noah’s life tells how it was Noah who provided Sumerians with much of their teaching about the sons of God. Both Noah and Enoch his great grandfather are given in the Book of Enoch as its main authors who were made privy to knowledge of these angelic ministers over this earth. Yet nowhere in the writings in this book or other Sumerian writings does it indicate that angels are the ultimate focus of God’s longterm purposes except that they will be judged if they depart from His decrees and plans as a group of them did before Enoch’s time. The focus seems to coincide with that tradition that ultimately it is humans whose purpose is to be the stock from which God will select elect righteous sons to be with Him forever and He with them along with His righteous anointed Son, the perfect human.
