The story found in the first few verses of Genesis 6, really the introduction to The Flood account, has been the subject of speculation, fantastically wild interpretation, and the bridge through which ancient, uninspired writings have walked their way into theology and doctrine within orthodox, evangelical churches. All the fuss about this story is mostly centered upon the identification of "sons of God." So come, take a dive with me into the heart of the story and we'll see what we can see.
Let's start with those 120 years. Some take this as a pronouncement of the maximum life expectancy for human beings. That fails immediately in the following narratives in the Bible which routinely report lifespans much longer than that. It also runs afoul of Psalm 90:10 which says that a human's lifespan is 70 years, 80 if by reason of strength. So 120 years is not the life expentancy of mankind.
The word translated "contend" or "strive" is most readily understood in terms of judging. So the most reasonable explanation, in my mind, is that God's prophetic pronouncement of judging humankind concerning sin would go on for 120 years before the literal outpouring of God's wrath began. No one knows exactly how long it took Noah to build the ark, but it doesn't seem a stretch to say he had 120 years in which to do so. Every time anyone saw it during that time it preached of coming doom.
Next, let us delve into why there is a story at all (including The Flood account of which this forms the introduction). Simply put, this is a story about the wrath of God and the judgment he sent upon man and beast throughout the world for a very specific reason. Understanding God's reason for unleashing his wrath leads, ultimately, to understanding the broader context of this story (reaching back to Genesis 4) and brings into clarity that strange detail that is the particular focus of this post.
To establish this premise (i.e., it's all about wrath and nothing but wrath) let me point out the glaring succession of statements in the text related to and about the wrath of God. With each statement through the account of the Nephilim and just beyond into the Flood Account, a growing clarity develops about the subject:
v. 6:3 God limits the days of striving in judgment (contention) with mankind; humans are but flesh (NIV says mortal, but mortality has nothing to do with the issue, the word used means meat, basically, and the reason to note that will become clear as we proceed)
v. 6:5 - Humankind (note: no other kind referenced) had become saturated in wickedness
v. 6:11 - The whole earth was corrupt (ruined) and filled with violence
v. 6:12 - All flesh had corrupted their way (and so were responsible for its ruination before God)
v. 6:13 - The end of all flesh was determined by God because through them the earth was filled with violence
The reason that God's wrath spilled out in the flood is clear enough--violence. What ticked God off to the point that he regretted creating life and moved him to destroy all the living was violence, pure and simple, and not just amongst humankind, but with the animals as well (v. 7). That reason had nothing to do with angels-- fallen, hybridized or otherwise. His wrath was directed toward all flesh that walked upon the ground save for that small sample that found grace, with Noah, in the eyes of the LORD.
The most critical issue, however, in understanding the role the Nephilim account plays within its greater context is, what, exactly, is meant by the phrase, “sons of God?” In the OT, this phrase occurs in our text, at Deuteronomy 32:8, a few times in Job (1:6; 2:1; 38:7), a few in Psalms (29:1; 82:6; 89:6), and in Daniel 3:25. Though, at first blush, the phrase may seem to refer to angels in these texts, we know that is not necessarily so because of the testimony of Jesus.
Speaking of Psalm 82:6, Jesus says that the “sons of God” are those humans (as context reveals) to whom the word came. So, people that God reveals things to are his sons. Furthermore, Exodus 4:23 and Hosea 11:1 have God referring to Israel as his son. Not the same exact phrase, but the usage is clear nonetheless—God refers to humans, as well as angels, as his sons.
In the NT, believers in God and those who are obedient to God are called "sons of God" too; note: Matthew 5:9; Luke 20:36; John 11:52; Romans 8:14; and Galatians 3:26. There are many instances in which the phrase, "children of God" is used as well. Clearly, human followers of God are sons of God. The most telling reference of all is found in Luke’s genealogy of Jesus, where, finishing a long line of citing whose son was whose son, the passage concludes with “Seth of Adam, Adam of God.”
The Lucan genealogy relates directly to that in Genesis 5, which is part of the greater context for the text we're examining in chapter 6. In reverse order from Luke, Moses starts with God's creative act of making humans in his image. Adam was created so and then Seth was from Adam. No mention of Cain, no mention of Abel is made. To understand the line of God's image (or as I contend, God's sons) the line of descent proceeds from Adam to Seth, and thereafter from Seth until the time of The Flood.
Therefore, the force of “sons of God” cannot be seen as referring solely to "spiritual beings" or "elohim." Those beings created by God who hear his word and do his bidding are sons of God whether they're flesh and bone or merely spiritual. Those beings that do not are sons of the Devil. This is true for spiritual beings, such as angels and demons, or flesh beings, such as humans. In the case at hand, it is clear, I think, the phrase refers to humans.
Getting a grasp on what angels actually are is essential to being able to make such an assertion, so let us look at a few of the biblical descriptions of angels to gain an understanding of what they are and what they are not:
- Hebrews 1:14 tells us angels are "ministering spirits" (pneumata)-- creatures of breath, spirit-beings rather than flesh, that do what God tells them to benefit those about to inherit salvation (Christians);
- Luke 24:39 tells us spirits have not flesh and bone, they’re not corporeal, even if they take the form of man;
- Luke 20:35-36 tells us the resurrected are equivalent to angels in that they do not die-- so angels do not die;
- Luke 20:35-36 also tells us the resurrected are equivalent to angels in that they neither marry nor are given in marriage-- so angels do not reproduce sexually.
The Bible doesn't give us all that much information about angels, not near as much as humans have an appetite for anyhow. Problems arise when we try to fill the knowledge gap by turning to uninspired works of the ancient past, even if those sources are presumably Jewish. Even if those sources are cited or alluded to in the inspired scriptures we do have. Even if those sources were found among copies of writings which are inspired. One who takes sola scriptura as the rule of faith and conduct doesn't give credence to myths and endless genealogies, which can only promote unhelpful speculations.
We are told in Job 1:6 and 2:1 that Satan reported to God amidst the angels presenting themselves to God. Satan is referred to under the term "also,” (Hebrew: gam), which, it seems to me, is meant to distinguish him in some way from all the sons of God. Even though he was the same type of being (a presumption in Job rather than being explicitly stated), his distinction from the sons of God is pointed out unmistakably. He's definitely not treated as the same, as if he's just another angel.
Which bring us to the lack of distinction in Genesis 6 that would be necessary if "sons of God" were fallen angels in that account. Presumably from Revelation 12, fallen angels, like Satan himself, fell in Genesis 3. Satan was cursed there, which is certainly not what happens to an unfallen angel. The curse kind of makes it impossible to not see Satan from that point on in a light that would preclude him from the company of the sons of God. It would make him an "other" from that point on.
To have disobedient angels mating with humans after Satan had been cursed would have required those fallen angels to be distinguished from sons of God in some way as well. Perhaps they would have been called "demons" or "unclean," or by some other distinction, but they definitely would not have been called "sons of God." If this circumstance is envisioned as the instance of their falling, that too is fraught with problems, because taking wives (plural) and having children doesn't happen in a moment. It takes time. At what point would it have been sinful, stopped by God and judged by imprisonment?
And yet, the only thing judged in Genesis 6 is flesh (human and animal) for violence by death.
In a nutshell, then, angels are incorporeal beings incapable of breeding among themselves, let alone humans. They do not die. Fallen angels are no longer called "sons of God" but evil or unclean spirits, demons, devils and Satan and his angels. The notion of them producing hybrid offspring which God had to judge by the flood is, well, ridiculous.
Since the Nephilim could not possibly be angel hybrids, we have to ask ourselves what is this story about. We know it's about God's wrath, but is there something in the broader context that explains God’s striving with mankind, the limiting of time for that to conclude, the declaration that man is flesh, and that this whole affair seems like it was touched off by a separation between the godly and the merely human being no longer maintained?
YES! resoundingly so, YES!
It does need to be pointed out at this juncture that it wasn’t the separation, itself, that was important in causing God's judgment. That the whole race of humankind was becoming violent as a result of it no longer being maintained is what mattered. The story, after all, is about violence, and specifically, about God's wrath in response to it. In that regard, the story doesn't really begin in Genesis 6, but back in Genesis 4 with the violent death Cain visited upon Abel.
Genesis 4:8-24 lays out God's reaction to Cain's crime: he and his family were driven from the presence of the Lord; Cain was marked in case someone stumbled into him and wanted to take vengeance; he was enjoined from farming and sentenced to be a restless wanderer (hunter/gatherer is the implication) instead. His wife went with him into exile and so a race of people followed, separated from the rest of mankind and alienated from their created purpose of tilling. The lineage derived was more tightly constrained genetically than the Sethites, which had many offspring of Adam and Eve with which to reproduce.
In chapter 5, the story of mankind is retold but without any reference to Cain and Abel (Cain’s line is treated separately in 4:17-24). Humankind without Cain is recast as God’s children, the creation of God through Adam and Seth as can be seen in the repetition of "likeness." Adam was made in the likeness of God, Seth in the likeness of Adam. With the appointment of Seth (which means put, set) to take the place of Abel, and Cain segregated, a human line of God's children was reestablished.
Many sons and daughters were born to Adam after Seth, but Seth was the named successor and so the head of the line that were sons to God (remember Luke 3). At that time, the Sethite, human, sons of God began to call on the name of the LORD. So the situation leading up to the Nephilim account was that, near the beginning of human history, God's judgment had separated the line of Cain from the rest of humanity because of violence. The line of Cain was human, certainly, but it was the line of Seth, though human as well, that carried the name of God, called on that name and had the distinction of being called "sons of God."
At some point in time, when Cain's line had multiplied sufficiently, the males of Seth's line began running into and noticing the daughters of Cain's line. They were beautiful. The Sethite sons of God took (in a replication of Eve’s sin in garden) as many as they wished as wives and cross-bred. Since the cross-breeding was only one way (Seth’s line took Cain’s women, but Cain's line did not take Seth’s women) the implication is that unequal strength was brought to bear, perhaps even... violence.
The interbreeding within Cain’s line up to the time of this cross-breeding produced a much more constrained gene pool in Cain's line as compared to Seth's. When the lines cross-bred, gigantism manifested, probably not dissimilarly to the production of ligers when lions breed with tigers. The giants thus produced were called “Nephilim.” These folks of great stature physically also gained stature socially, and I think the inference that they did so through violence is reasonable.
It seems that the gene signal for gigantism remained a recessive trait in some of those descended from cross-breeding but not expressing it. This may have been the case for Noah's daughters-in-law, or Noah's wife, or maybe even in Noah himself, maybe even some combination of all those possibilities. Whatever the source, in the post-diluvian Sethite race derived from Noah's sons and their wives, gigantism manifested itself again. When it did, it seems the same proclivity toward violence and notoriety was manifested in Nephilim whether prediluvian or post.
The problem that led to The Flood, with all it's death and destruction, was that the human, but godly line of Adam and Seth had become violent, like the human but ungodly line of Cain. In the mixture of those populations, violence filled the earth and giants roamed the land. God regretted having made any of them and so judgment came in a deluge. So there it is, simple and straightforward—no angels, no angelic hybrids—just human sinners doing as sinners do, all the time.
Thankfully, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and so can we.
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