Let's look at the Scripture passage in question, in context:
Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:1-5)Since the Bible indicates that angels are asexual beings, it makes sense that they could not be the "sons of God" who produced children with the "daughters of men." The best interpretation is that the "sons of God" were men who were descended from Seth, who followed the Lord for a time (in contrast to the line of Cain, which produced the "daughters of men"). However, right before the flood, even the "sons of God" took wives among the line of Cain, and, therefore, became corrupted themselves through their unbelieving wives. This is one of the reasons God determined to destroy the entire human race, except for the eight people who still followed the Lord (Noah and his extended family).
Genesis 6 also describes the Nephilim, who were the corrupt strongmen of their time, notorious for their violent exploits (Genesis 6:4). These men were probably also descendents of Cain, who were terrorizing the peoples and represented at least part of the group whose thoughts were "only evil continually." The Nephilim that were described after the flood were also evil strongmen, but not related to those pre-flood people, since they were all destroyed in the flood.
(For historical fiction that touches on this topic, see Chapter 1: Lion Cub of The Coming Wrath)
Discuss this post with us below, or here:
(extracted from Who Were the Nephilim and Sons of God?, by Rich Deem, GodAndScience.org)
Part 1
ReplyDeleteBoth sides of this debate over the nature of the nephilim have legitimate points. One side points to the well-established literary usage history, and straightforward text statements in Scripture regarding the B'nai Elohim, the other to the real, and equally legitimate, theological and logical problems that arise with the idea of angelic-human biological hybrids.
Not wanting to redefine terms that are clearly defined in ancient Hebrew literary context, I submit that the Sons of God are fallen angels. It is not necessary, however, under this view to conclude that the Nephilim are biologically demon/human hybrids, not when one examines the basic model in ancient history for how Satan controlled the politics and religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece, and the other pagan civilizations more distant.
Consider also that biblical historical narratives often use phenomenological language. Example: Joshua's long day is a historical account that describes what happened truly, from the point of view of the eyewitness--the sun stood still. It was never meant as a statement about orbital mechanics, as some tried to make it during the Galileo Controversy.
Likewise, the statement in Genesis 6--another historical narrative--can easily be using phenomenological language that describes what people perceived was happening socially at the time. The post-Flood Sumerians had a ritual practice known as "sacred marriage," where certain temple priestesses were considered to be the wives of the god of that temple. When these women had children (by temple patrons or male priests), the children were legally considered to have been born by the "wife" to the god (demonic angel) of that temple, and were raised in that temple environment. It is interesting that the certain gods of Sumer and Akkad were called the Igigi--the name literally means "the Watchers." Hebrew literature (Daniel and extrabiblical Hasmonean Era histories like Jubilees and the Enoch manuscripts) refer to a class of angels known as "watchers." Commentaries of the period even identify the class of fallen angel in Genesis 6 as "watchers." (Dead Sea Scrolls, Genesis Apocryphon, circa 200 BC)
The Nephilim were fully human, not always necessarily extra large (though some were--rituals likely involved hallucinogens, many of which are also mutagens--or else some may have just been naturally large), not biological hybrids, but they were "men of renown," mighty in conquest. Their false claim to rulership was that they were part god, or wholly gods.
to be continued...
Part 2
ReplyDelete(continued...)
The god-emperors of the ancient world were all variations on that theme. It was not necessary for Satan's angels to literally produce biologically hybrid offspring for him to establish a model for how they would rule through their human proxies, only that the world of that day believe that this is what they did.
Genesis 6 speaks phenomenologically and in historical truth--literally, but referencing a convention of the day in a world so wicked it was about to be destroyed. Angels did perverse things to create this illusion, and rightfully earned God's wrath, as it says in Jude and 2 Peter. The "sons of god" are who they are described to be in Job, and in ancient Hebrew literature; a class of created angelic beings, some of whom fell with Satan.
The Nephilim are fully human, thus not a violation of creation "after kinds" or non-human in a way that could legitimately produce the idea that "sub-humans" exist. (The great danger of a belief in literal biological hybrids.) Nor is this a violation of the idea that "the angels of heaven do not marry" because these were fallen beings doing something hideous to the institution of marriage by their participation in and distortion of that very institution.
This does not violate taking Genesis 6 literally, because we are not told in exactly what sense the giants were "sons," or that the mention of women bearing the "sons of god" sons was meant in the full biological sense, rather than simply according to the legal and religious conventions of that depraved time.
Genesis 6 could not be construed as considering such unions as legitimate "marriages" any more than today's Bible believing Christians could be construed as accepting homosexual marriages as valid, simply because, for ease of discussion, we use the term "same-sex marriage" phenomenologically to describe what is legally happening today in Massachusetts.
The "Sons of Seth--daughters of Cain" interpretation for the SoG/DoM was invented in the 5th century AD by churchmen who were trying to distance Christianity from Judaism, and from Jewish literary roots as much as it could. For over 1000 years before that time, a rich historical usage context for the term b'nai elohim uniformly saw the fallen angels as "in some sense the fathers of those whom the Grecians called giants." (William Whiston, commenting on his translation of Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews)
A good interpretation of a Biblical passage must not only obey the logical law of non-contradiction, it must also start from what terms would have meant historically in day they were actually first used. For this reason, I think the above approach solves the legitimate issues both camps have, and is a more historically contextualized, robust way to understand the Nephilim in Scripture and ancient history than either bio-hybrids or redefining the term "sons of god" to mean sons of Seth.
God bless you all.