Mike Shreve used to teach Kundalini Yoga at four universities and ran a yoga ashram until, “encounter with God dramatically changed his heart, his worldview, and his direction in life…Jesus Christ into my heart and invited Him to be Lord of my life.”
He wrote an article titled, The mysterious “Nephilim” of Genesis 6 which he begins by quoting Gen 6:1-4 thusly:[1]
Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
There were giants 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.
Refreshingly, he notes, “The original Hebrew word translated ‘giants’ in verse 4 is nephil… ‘giants’ is actually a debated rendering of the word” and indeed, it is a rendering, not a translation. He adds that, “Strong’s Concordance offers that it means a feller (like someone who cuts down trees) and that it can mean ‘bullies’ or ‘tyrants’…Other theologians feel the word Nephilim means ‘fallen ones.’”
Yet, Shreve argues, “the ‘Nephilim’ were not actually the ‘fallen ones.’ If the ‘angel/women’ theory is correct, the Nephilim were rather the offspring of the ‘fallen ones.’ Of course, they could have inherited a ‘fallen’ state…” One issue is that when the word Nephilim is seen to derive from the root naphal it is not strictly fallen ones but to fall, to cause to faller, feller, etc. and so has been understood to refer to Nephilim due to what Shreve noted, due to that they were part of the mix that caused the Gen 6 affair’s styled second fall, they fell upon men as mighty men (mightier than the average), etc.
He adds, “Many interpreters of this passage (Jew and Christian) feel that the ‘sons of God’ were instead the offspring of Seth…they had ‘fallen’ from the standard of repentance and righteousness that was associated with that line—the family tradition of walking with God” and yet, that view is a late-comer based on myth and prejudice (see my book On the Genesis 6 Affair’s Sons of God: Angels or Not?: A Survey of Early Jewish and Christian Commentaries Including Notes on Giants and the Nephilim).
Mike Shreve also notes, “The extra-biblical books of Enoch and Jubilees are more blatant in promoting this point of view” which he points out, “for the sake of this study” since, “they cannot be trusted as reliable sources…they are not in the approved canon of Scripture.” Indeed, they are both folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah (see my books The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts and In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch).
Now, Shreve notes, “Both of these works describe the Nephilim as being evil giants” but earlier we saw that he discerned that giants is a translation and rendering—again, with it actually being a rendering and not a translation—so, we will have to see what he thinks it translates: in other words, we will have to seek to discern what is the usage is of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants in English Bibles? What is Mike Shreve’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
Due to that, “the Book of Jubilees (7:21–25) also states that ridding the earth of these Nephilim was one of God’s purposes for causing the flood in Noah’s time” that raises two questions which are elucidated thusly:
If destroying the Nephilim was one of the primary reasons God sent the flood, why are the Nephilim mentioned again later in the Bible. After spying out the Land of Canaan, ten of the twelve spies brought back an “evil report” (a report of unbelief) saying in Number 13:32-33:
“There we saw the giants [Hebrew nephil] (the descendants of Anak came from the giants [Hebrew nephil] ); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
The second question—How could that wicked seed line have survived when the Bible says that everyone except Noah’s family drowned? Remember God did tell that righteous patriarch, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” (Genesis 6:13) The last time I checked, the word “all” means all—and I don’t think God was using hyperbole.
I am eager to tackle those but will present Mike Sherve’s replies first. He notes, “it was not God who called the sons of Anak ‘Nephil’ (or the plural ‘Nephilim’); it was the ten spies—and they could have gotten it wrong—but what if they didn’t?”
Pause to noted that it is key to distinguish the 10 from the other 2 since that is one of the text’s main points and most pop-Nephilologists miss that so Sherve is quite on point.
He notes that, “Orthodox [Rabbinic] Judaism takes a stand against this view” while, ‘Other Jewish sources” accept it. The fact is that the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, was the Angel view as I proved in my aforementioned book On the Genesis 6 Affair’s Sons of God: Angels or Not?
I will succinctly note that he notes, “Some Christian theologians believe the fallen angels who begat the Nephilim were cast into a specific chamber of hell called Tartarus. They get that from 2 Peter 2:5-9 and Jude 1:5-7.”
Well, it is not a chamber of hell and not in Jude but yes, in to Tartarus (see my book What Does the Bible Say About Heaven and Hell?: A Styled Superumology and Infernology). He further notes, “The original Greek word translated ‘hell’ in many Bible versions is tartaroo (from the root word tartaros), thought to be a reference to the lowest abyss of hell” yet, it is the lowest place of the abyss in Greek mythology: to which we must turn since it seems that Peter was appealing to his Greek audience since in the Bible Tartarus is a hapax legomena.
Shreve asks, “‘Who were ‘the angels who sinned’?’ Peter never said they were the ‘sons of God’ mentioned in Genesis 6. He could have been referring to those angels who sinned in Satan’s rebellion in the very beginning.” Yet, Satan’s rebellion/sin/fall took place during the Gen 3 timeline but the Angels’ was during the Gen 6 timeline.
He also asks, “why are fallen angels (demons) still able to torment human beings on earth, if all of them that sinned in the beginning are bound in the Abyss?” Well, it is because the term, “fallen angels (demons)” is technically a category error since that refers to two technically different phenomena—see my article, Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?
He then notes, “Jude does not say that the angels were involved in ‘sexual’ sin like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Yet, overall: Peter and Jude, combined, refer to a sin of Angels, place that sin to pre-flood days and correlate it to sexual sin which occurred after the Angels, “left their first estate,” after which they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible so if the Gen 6 affair was not it then we do not know when it was.
He then noted that, “sons of God…ben Elohiym” (it is actually bene ha Elohim in the case of Gen 6) can refer to Angles or humans and Jesus—since in any language one term can refer to more than one thing and context always determines meaning such as in that Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that “sons of God” can refer to non-human beings (which the LXX has as Angeloi: plural of Angelos) since they, at the very least, witnessed the creation of the Earth.
Mike Shreve goes on to claim, “in Psalms 82:6-7, God rebukes the unjust judges of Israel with the following statement: ‘I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High [Hebrew ben Elyon]. But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.” I am unsure why God felt the need to tell humans that they will die like humans.
My readers know that I have reviews many Nephilology articles (and peer review papers and videos and books) and this one has been quite keen on picking up on some important details that many miss—even if with a few missteps along the way—so it is unfortunate that it ended up turning into an anti-Angel view argument since it then falls apart since, in part, the original, traditional, and majority view was the original, traditional, and majority view has been just that for a reason and that is because it is the strongest view that combines the most relevant data and opposing it is where Shreve goes wrong.
Yet, he uses the option that sons of God can refer to humans to go onto argue in favor of, “biological reason not to believe in angelic copulation with the ‘daughters of men.” He notes, “There is a barrier between earthly species set up by God in Genesis…‘after their kind’…There is a barrier between species…Nature itself works against the evolution of hybrid creatures…it seems preposterous to believe that this barrier did not and does not exist between angels and humans.”
Well, it turns out that what Shreve emotively subjectively considers to be preposterous is not a standard. Species is not biblical taxonomy, kinds are. We can grant that, “Nature itself works against the evolution of hybrid creatures” but this was not about nature—it was supernatural—and a barrier did exist but it was not biological, it was theological.
Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such isn’t their ontology. We were created “a little lower” (Psa 8:5) than them, and we can reproduce with them so, by definition, we’re of the same basic kind—see my book, What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.
Thereafter, he goes on to argue:
In Matthew 22:30, Jesus was instructing certain skeptical Sadducees about the afterlife and He said concerning those who inherit eternal life: For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. (See also Mark 12:25, Luke 20:35) Why would He say that?
Because two major parts of marriage are sexual union and reproduction. And evidently, angels do not have either capacity. Neither will we, in the glorified state that awaits us in the celestial world to come.
Note that his qualifying term is, “evidently” and he relies on that to merely assert, “angels do not have either capacity.”
Yet, note Jesus’ qualifying terms since He very specifically exclusively referred to 1) “angels of God” 2) “in heaven.” Thus, not all Angels in all places at all times but again, Angels are described as looking just like human, etc., and why would they only be missing the key features of the male anatomy and capability?
This is why those who did marry are considered sinners since they, “left their first estate,” as Jude put it, in order to do so.
Micke Shreve went on to argue:
Who Was God Upset with Anyway?
Read Genesis 6:3 carefully:
And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
Don’t you think if it were angels in this Genesis story causing such spiritual disruption, that God would have said:
“My Spirit shall not always strive with angels.”
Or if the women had been partly to blame by seductively attracting the angels, God would have said:
“My Spirit shall not always strive with women.”
If the corrupt and lustful angel/women connection is right—if that were the case, then instead, God might have said:
“I am going to bless you men, but I’m getting rid of the angels and starting a new line of women (volunteers anyone—I need some new ribs).”
This is a very simple issue that takes us in, at least, two directions:
1) Moreso than not, the Bible is a anthropological anthology since its main focus is humanity, in a manner of speaking, not matter to what it refers, it refers to it as per how it effects humanity, it is about our creation, fall, and redemption.
2) Humans, Nephilim, and Angels are all referred to as man/men so it is a non-issue.
Ergo, of course God emphases our corruption and culpability even in the midst of making it clear that it was a combo deal.
He then takes aim at the question:
Are the Giants (in verse 4) and the “Sons of God” (in verse 2) Unrelated?
Read Genesis 6:4 carefully again:
There were giants 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.
It did NOT say that “the giants” (the Nephilim) were the same as the “men or renown,” nor did it say that they resulted from a union between angels and women. Some translations (like the Complete Jewish Bible) say “ancient heroes” instead of “mighty men.” What? How could anything heroic and good result from satanic invasion of this earth through fallen angels copulating with corrupt women. That doesn’t make sense at all!
What does or does not make sense to Mike Shreve isn’t a standard, that is also subjective.
As for, “How could anything heroic and good result from satanic invasion” well, what, “doesn’t make sense at all!” is removing that from its context which is: consider the source. Who, pray tell, considered them, “heroic and good”? The text actually notes they were mighty and renown—it was a culture that was utterly corrupt—one culture’s good hero is another’s villain and visa versa.
He asks if the Gen 6 affair, “Could…Just Be About Polygamy?” and notes that, “the offspring of Seth were taught how to ‘call on the name of the Lord” and walk with God’ (Genesis 4:26)” which may have been the case yet, the text generically reads, “To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.”
Replying on what makes subjectively, “more sense” to him, Shreve thinks, “some of the offspring of Seth denied the godly heritage they were given and began intermarrying polygamously with the daughters of Cain—mixing the two lines?”
Note that he did not get around to telling us why Sethites marrying Cainites would be a case of denying a godly heritage—nor why there were no (or not enough) attractive female Sethites, nor attractive male Cainites. Why such a specific bifurcation of only exclusively males on one side of the equation and only exclusively females on the other? Well, the Angel view explains this since, again, Angels look like human males.
Also, he notes, “Many early church fathers and later leaders like Augustine and Calvin believed this. And I do too” but he had to traverse over three and a half centuries into AD days to appeal to Augustine and then over a millennia and a half for Calvin. He missed a few here and there—my book on this subject begins with a chart—but it shows how much of a late-comer of a view the Sethite view is (besides that it is based on myth and prejudice which only creates more problems than it solves so, more than zero).
For some reason, he offers, “A Final Thought About Incubus and Succubus. Apparently, demons can simulate copulation, not physically but spiritually—especially in dreams (or more correctly, horrible nightmares)…The evil spirit that impersonates a man simulating sexual union with a woman is called Incubus (pronounced in-kyuh-buhs). The evil spirit impersonating a female is called Succubus (pronounced suhk-yuh-bus).”
He notes that since, “the enemy can attempt to imitate this experience of sexual union (again, spiritually, not physically), demons do not have sperm cells or eggs and cannot sire children or be impregnated. To think so is utter absurdity.”
That which Shreve finds absurd is not a standard and this is another case of concluding that based on his very own self-styled faulty premise.
Indeed, “demons do not have sperm cells or eggs” but the Gen 6 affair was not about demons but about Angels.
It was also not a case of, “simulate…impersonates…imitate” since the text is very clear: it was about physical attraction, marriage, physical copulation, and resultant offspring.
He then notes, “If these strange unions were possible in ancient days producing giant tyrants, then it should astill [sic.] be possible now, and the human race would be plagued with weird, monstrous, hybrid, part angel/part human creatures.”
Setting aside the hyperbolic statements, “giant tyrants…weird, monstrous, hybrid…creatures”: this is another failure to accurately represent the relevant data since, “these strange unions” have not taken place since pre-flood days since, again, Jude and 2 Peter 2 combined tell us that those Angels were incarcerated, and there is only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible.
Since he committed so many missteps, he ends up stating, “Genesis 6:1-4 will probably remain a mystery until Jesus comes” and opts to end by sermonizinglly focusing on, “as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” about which I will say AMEN!!!—for what it is worth within its own context.
Endnote [1]: Mike Shreve, “The mysterious ‘Nephilim’ of Genesis 6,” The True Light website: undated article
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