This site’s aim, we’ve said, is partly to learn what we can from the Bible’s chewier
parts… So can we back off from the weird stuff in Genesis 6?
`The sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose… The Nephilim [giants, `Anakim`, Numbers 13:33] were on the earth in those days – and also afterwards… They were the heroes of old, men of renown.` Whatever is all that about? Because somehow this was the vital final straw that caused God’s judgment in the flood (v3)…
Well, for what it’s worth, it seems to me… God doesn’t tell us much about angels (eg how many species there may be). But `sons of God` elsewhere in the old testament means supernatural beings. So from what it actually says… it does sound like things got so depraved that we have humans having sex with supernatural beings, demons; and so Satan was seeking to render unclean the whole human race into which, God had promised, the Saviour would be born. (There are other theories where the `sons of God` are human, but it seems to me none of them explain why the offspring became the giant `heroes of old` (v4), nor why it was so very serious.) Angels eat in Genesis 19, so sex can’t be ruled out; and the Greeks, Irish and Japanese weren’t the only races to claim that their kings or heroes were descended literally from `the gods`. Maybe?
For what it’s worth, this was the view of Josephus, 1 Enoch, and early church fathers like Justin Martyr and Tertullian. But what about v4, saying this recurred `afterwards`? Who knows. Did Satan, knowing the land God had promised Israel, garrison it by producing these demonic mutants again? Is that how it came to be inhabited by giants (Numbers 13:32-33), Nephilim, Anakim (also known as Rephaim, Deuteronomy 2:11, a word which, weirdly, can also mean `dead people`, eg Isaiah 14:9)? The best known of these is Goliath, and there’s something odd about that whole story – he’s three metres tall and that doesn’t happen; and 1 Chronicles 20 puts quite an emphasis on how God’s little people were used to remove the other `descendants of the Rephaim`. All a bit — mind-stretching…
And so what? Well, maybe just an important reminder that `There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy`, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet tells Horatio. (Very healthy in any culture that thinks modern science has got 98% of the truth, and forgets that 25th century science, if we’re still around, will probably be as different from ours as ours is from 17th century science.) In the west, Satan’s strategy is to foster a mental grid that trains us to disregard the supernatural, and lots of us fall for it. But the supernatural universe is a lot bigger, more significant, more important, than we think, and spiritual issues may be far more basic to history than we realise. And Hallelujah – our Almighty Saviour is in full control of it all!
And as for the rest here – maybe maybe maybe. It’s `What Scripture Says, God Says`, not what I or we misunderstand it to say…..!
