Most of us were handed two categories for the spiritual world: angels and demons. The Bible has considerably more than two. In Part 1 of a five-part series, we set the rules we'll use for the rest of it — then go to the text and see what's actually in the room.

KEY TOPICS:

- How the two-category picture came through translation, and what got compressed

- Four types of claims — textual, historical, experiential, physical — and why mixing them is where arguments go wrong

- The manuscript tradition is stable: what a textual variant is, and what it isn't

- Deuteronomy 32:8 and the divine council

- Elohim as a residence term rather than a rank

- Ha-satan: a job description before it's ever a name

- Who isn't in the room — the biblical text has no category for the human dead wandering houses

- What  ...