Throughout our generations there were people who thought of themselves as more knowledgeable than our great Rabbis of the past because of the science current to their times and therefore discredited our Rabbis sources of knowledge as divine. What happened then is Chazal’s halacha became something which they chose not to practice either. For if one believes that Chazal’s or any of our great sages sources are not divine, whatever they held were merely whatever was then the accepted truth, then why follow their halacha c”v?
Whoever believes only the written Torah is divine could end up c”v like the Karaite sect who did not believe that the oral Torah was written with divine inspiration.
Chazal were maybe not malochim in a literal sense, however they were definitely on a higher spiritual level than we can comprehend.
Wolf, you wrote” I suppose this is a seperate discussion of whether or not everything Chazal said is from a divine source or if they were effected by their contemporary culture or science.” With all due respect, you are not the one to determine IF something that Chazal said was from a divine source or effected by their contemporary culture.
We cannot dispute Chazal, only those great Rabbis that are on their level could. What we can do is try to clarify their positions, which I feel I have done in my previous post.
Wolf, you asked me for sources and as I have explained in my previous post, as a woman I would not know where to find sources to support my opinion. If I would see all the passages from Chazal regarding this issue I feel I could base my opinion on their wording alone.