Silouan Thompson, rector of Saint Olga Orthodox Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, posted Who are “Nephilim?” which is part of the website’s, “Infrequently-Asked Questions list.”
The full question was, “What are ‘Nephilim?’ What does it mean that they’re called ‘Sons of God?’”
Thompson quotes Gen 6:2–4 thusly:
The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose… 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. (Genesis 6:2-4)
Then, for some reason, he jumps to around 347-407 AD to quote John Chrysostom, Sermons 22-23 and wrote:
Here’s the gist of it: He says “sons of God” in Genesis 6 are descendants of the righteous Seth. The “daughters of men” are wicked descendants of the murderer Cain. So Chrysostom does not have to speculate about sexual activity by angels, who are bodiless and cannot marry or produce offspring. He understands the descendants of this union, the giants (Greek gigantes, Hebrew nephilim) to be violent, powerful, arrogant men, not hybrid half-angel beings. He interprets “giants” morally, speaking of tyrants, men of great wickedness, not biologically.
That view is a late-comer of a view based on myth and prejudice. And I’m very surprised that an Orthodox rector would myopically exclusively appeal to that since 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 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.
As for, “angels, who are bodiless and cannot marry or produce offspring” that’s merely a list of mere assertions. Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such isn’t their ontology—see my book What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.
And, there’s no indication that they, “cannot marry or produce offspring.”
The point of, “giants (Greek gigantes, Hebrew nephilim)” is just jumping (anachronistically) through three languages.
Note the oddity that Silouan Thompson started with, “descendants of the righteous Seth” so he was righteous but nothing is said about their status. But it was, “wicked descendants of the murderer Cain” to which was added, “intermarriage with the wicked”: well, I’m sure he had wicked descendants just as everyone has.
It’s further argued, “Why are Seth’s descendants called ‘Sons of God’? In Hebrew idiom, ‘son of’ is a description of a human person, identifying his likeness, agency, and relationship.” Yet, the logical conclusion of the Sethite view is that Sethites weren’t identifying his likeness, agency, and relationship since they were such terrible sinners that their sin served as the premise for the flood: so, that’s rather odd.
The, utterly shockingly, Silouan Thompson myopically merely asserted, “John the Baptist and Christ denied that the leaders of Judea were sons of Abraham, but rather sons of the devil. (Matthew 3:9; John 8:39-44).” That’s utterly astonishing because what was left out was that in a verse that was ignored, John 8:37 (just before his second citation) Jesus affirmed, “I know that you are offspring of Abraham.”
The point was that he was distinguishing between that they were biologically descended from Abraham but not spiritually.
Overall, I really hope that whoever asked the question got a second opinion since the reply not only ignores the original, traditional, and majority view but manipulated Jesus’ words.
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