Magdlyn

I agree, Stephen. It is a snippet of an ancient legend. The compilers of the Tanakh just kept it in, without explanation.

Of course, ever since, people have tried to expand on it. You have Enoch. You have orthodox Jews today claiming an "oral torah" which was "given to Moses at Sinai" along with the one Moses would write down.



Sons of "god" is actually, sons of El. I am surprised no one here mentioned myths of the region contemporary to this one. El was a great god who had many sons. His sons were also gods.

Calling them "angels" is incorrect and naive. Angel is an English word deriving from the Greek, used to translate the Hebrew word for messenger found in Tanakh. Calling the sons of El, "divine beings" as differentiated from "gods" is also disingenuous. This verse is just one more indication of polytheism in the Tanakh.

Speculating on how later cultures, even later "Jewish" ones, Greek ones, Christian ones, etc, even including modern xians here, interpret this verse, is valueless.

Look at it thru the perspective of its own time and reap the reward. Please start with an understanding of who the god El was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_%28god%29

...

Including Yahweh.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Stephen T.

Here is the New International Translation Version translation:


1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with [a] man forever, for he is mortal [b] ; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

The key word is "Nephilim". We find it again in Numbers 13:

26 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan."
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Here the Nephilim are associated with the descendants of "Anak". We read more about them in Deutoronomy 1:28, 2:10, 2:21, 9:2

1:28 Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, 'The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.'

2:10 (The Emites used to live there—a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites.

2:20 (That too was considered a land of the Rephaites, who used to live there; but the Ammonites called them Zamzummites. 21 They were a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. The LORD destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place

9:1 Hear, O Israel. You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky. 2 The people are strong and tall—Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: "Who can stand up against the Anakites?" 3 But be assured today that the LORD your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the LORD has promised you.

In the book of Joshua, we learn of the destruction of that Anakites:

11:21 At that time Joshua went and destroyed the Anakites from the hill country: from Hebron, Debir and Anab, from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua totally destroyed them and their towns. 22 No Anakites were left in Israelite territory; only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod did any survive.

14:11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. 12 Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said." 13 Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance.
14 So Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite ever since, because he followed the LORD, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly. 15 (Hebron used to be called Kiriath Arba after Arba, who was the greatest man among the Anakites.)

15:13 In accordance with the LORD's command to him, Joshua gave to Caleb son of Jephunneh a portion in Judah—Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.) 14 From Hebron Caleb drove out the three Anakites—Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai—descendants of Anak.

21:10 (these towns were assigned to the descendants of Aaron who were from the Kohathite clans of the Levites, because the first lot fell to them):
11 They gave them Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), with its surrounding pastureland, in the hill country of Judah. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.) 12 But the fields and villages around the city they had given to Caleb son of Jephunneh as his possession.

It seems that we are dealing with some kind of myth about the people of Hebron. Apparently they were taller than the people people in the surrounding area, so the myth was told that their ancestors were the sons of a god who mated with human women.

Finally, we have this note in Judges:

19 The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots. 20 As Moses had promised, Hebron was given to Caleb, who drove from it the three sons of Anak. 21 The Benjamites, however, failed to dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.

From Judges, we also learn this about the three sons of Anak: Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai

1.8 The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem also and took it. They put the city to the sword and set it on fire. 9 After that, the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites living in the hill country, the Negev and the western foothills. 10 They advanced against the Canaanites living in Hebron (formerly called Kiriath Arba) and defeated Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai.


So, it appears that we are getting some information about tall people who lived in the city of Hebron. We may assume that tall for that age would be about 5'7", whereas the average population was about 5'. Apparently to explain their tallness, they were associated with Sons of a God who married human women.

Perhaps more interesting is that Hebron is referred to as Kiriath Arba (city of arba). We are told in Geneis 23:2 that Sarah, Abraham's wife died in Kiriath Arba. Arba and Abram are probably close enough that we may suspect that they are the same thing here. So perhaps Kiriath Arba is a corruption of Kiriath Abram (City of Abram/Abraham). This suggests that the sons of a God might have been Abraham and his followers. Perhaps we have a case of Caleb conquering the descendents of Abraham, although they are called by a different name.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Amedeo

What do I make of this? First of all, there is a WRONG translation into English. The Biblical texts use the word ELOHIM, which means GODS. The translation is intententionally made that way so that the Elohim of Genesis-1 will not appear for what they are, namely the supreme gods of Canaan. Falsifiers of the text refuse to admit that -- as the text shows -- the Elohim created Man in THEIR own image: one male and one female. These Canaanite Gods had children. In one non-Bliblical account [See Ugarit and Ebla tablets], Yahweh was one of the sons of the Elohim. But this is another story.

In the Bible, neither the Elohim nor Yahweh had children, nor did they create angels (or Gabrie'El, Satana'El, Micha'El or other ministers of El, the male god), the nephilim, or talking serpents. All the Biblical references to gods (other than the ones in Genesis1-2), the sons of gods, the angels or archangels, the nephilism (giants), the evils spirits, the desease causing spirits, etc., come from pre-Biblical sources. Indeed, all such stories and Genesis-2 come from the Caucasian/Indo-European background of the Hebrews, whereas Genesis-1 and other occasional tales come from the Arab [Semitic] background of the Hebrews. [In other posts I explained the etymologies of the two Biblical deities and of the two ethnicities which merged so as to constitute the Hebrew people, which eventually became Abraham's Israel, headed by El, and then the Moses-reformed Israel, headed by Yahweh, and the eventual split between Judaea (after Moses) and "Israel" [Galilee] (after Abraham). Jesus was a Galilean and his God was El, and, in the words of some of our contemporaries, an anti-Semite!

The finally redacted or Hebrew Bible was written down mainly from the standpoint of the Judaeans. (It does not include any of the Galilean/Essene scriptures in the last couple of centuries B.C.... as the Bible was safeguarded in Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem (Judaea). Notice the canonical blank between the 3rd century B.C. and 70 A.D. or thereafter..... Yah stopped communicating with the Judaeans -- for those who believe that the Bible is the word of God or Theos (a convenient English or Greek word which obliterates the distinction between El and Yah). The temple of Galilee was destroyed much earlier than the one in Judea.

(I have already had violent reactions -- not refutations -- of the thesis about the two ethnicities of the Hebrews. At any rate, should you feel like reacting violently, too, just remember that, even according to the Bible, the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews appear on the historical scene as the sons of Shem. Noah's first son was the founder of the Ionian [Greek] nations. The Hamites are actually different breeds of nations, and so on and so forth. All the stories, including the Flood, before the founding of nations, pertain to the "history" of mankind, not of the Hebrews. However, they are highly selected, in view of the history of the Shemites. So, for example, the first chapters of the Book of Genesis do not include the best Greek account of the Genesis of the world, or the real history of mankind prior to agriculture. So, the Adam family starts out with people expert in shepherding and agriculture. (It's the story of the Tower of Babel, that gives a hint of that fact, that at a point of history there was a "confusion" or commingling of languages, which, I would say, where proto-Greek and proto-Arabic, one result being the Hebrew language.)

The hypothesis of the two-ethnicities of the Hebrews has been laid out. Look for evidence in the gods (etymology and their Modus Operandi), the common language, and the diverse racial physiognomies of one people. They are not the proto-humans, and the so-called Semitic language is not the one that God and Adam used to converse... in case anyone should seriously believe that the Bible is the real history of the world.

Apsu

Those posts were great to read Magdlyn and Amedeo.

The part of this that really stood out to me was what I quoted above. Doesn't this say that god abandoned mankind, that he didn't think that we're good enough for him. It seems to me that this is the answer christians should be giving to atheists when asked why we never get proof of the existence of god, and also shows that there is no point in worshipping god—he doesn't want to bother with us anymore right?

Stephen T-B

Astonishing stuff - thank you very much.

I've read that "angels" were an invention of the prophet Zarathushtra, so I take it that the later Biblical references to "angels" are by writers who had heard of the Zarathushtran angels - such as the writers of the Greek Old Testament?

Jayco

The story I've always been fond of telling is that all the terrible things that God did in the Old Testament he lated felt real bad for it and sacrificed His only son because of His mistakes.

By the way, thank you for your posts, Amedeo, Jay, and Magdlyn -- very insightful.

John Kesler

I agree that the fragment contained in Genesis 6:1-4 is out of place and results in some incongruities. In its current location, it serves as another justification for sending the Great Flood--the boundary between the heavenly ("sons of God") and the earthly (daughters of men/humanity) had been breached.

I am quite familiar with all of what you say, and I have discussed El and his sons in previous posts such as this one. Brendan Byrne, writing for The Anchor Bible Dictionary, volume 6, page 156, provides a nice summary of the evolution of the term "sons of God":


From Ronald S. Hendel, in The Oxford Companion To The Bible, page 713:
So yes, Ugaritic literature provided the paradigm for the understanding that Yahweh, too, had "sons," but eventually, these "sons" were understood to be angels, and this is the perspective reflected in Enoch, Jubilees, the LXX, 2 Peter, and Jude.

Clouseau

Neither book states that angels raped women.

Toto

Be careful about Amadeo's strange and unsupported linguistic theories.

John Kesler

I never used the word "raped," but you are mistaken if you think that Jude and 2 Peter aren't talking about angels breeding with mortal women. Below is Jude 6-7 from the NRSV:


Notice that the text says that the angels in question "indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust" "in the same manner" as had the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. Where did Jude get this idea, as well as the conception that heaven is an angel's "proper dwelling" (v:6)? Let's look at 1 Enoch:

To suggest that these points of contact between Jude and 1 Enoch are a coincidence, especially when Jude 14 explicitly quotes 1 Enoch 1:9, is not credible. 2 Peter's reference isn't as long as Jude's, but there can be no mistaking the identification of the sinful angels:

Both Jude and 2 Peter refer to the angels being chained in darkness as they await judgement. Is this idea found in Enoch, too? Yes it is:

I think that it should be obvious what Jude and 2 Peter are referring to, and if you or anyone else disagrees, please exegete these passages to show otherwise.