This was the comment I posted when Michael S. Foster posted his paper The Significance of Genesis 6:1-8 in the Story of Scripture.
Most interesting exploration of a very succinct text.
It may be that, “The ‘angelic’ view, according to its proponents,” which are virtually all of the earliest Jewish and Christian commentators alike for centuries and thereafter (it is the original, traditional, and majority view), “is strengthen by the support it receives from the apocryphal Pseudepigrapha” but, “the germ of their argument is found” within Scripture: namely Job 38, etc. in the OT, and Jude, 2 Peter 2 in the NT.
“The Sethite view” (such as why only exclusively male Sethites and only exclusively female Cainite: thus, it wasn’t, “Sethite line is tempted by ungodly women” but exclusively male Sethites: apparently, female Sethies were not tempted by supposedly ungodly men [that view is also based on myth, prejudice]) and was given a popularity boost almost single-handedly via what appears to have been Augustine of Hippo’s desire to do away with all things Manichaen after his conversion away from it.
We’ve no indication of that, “religiously mixed marriages” were, “displeasing to God” at the timeframe of the Genesis 6 affair, nor that marriages between Sethites and Cainites would have been categorizable as “religiously…mixed.”
Initially, God, “doesn’t find Cain’s offering to be acceptable” yet, even after Cain murders Abel, God protects him, “the Lord said to him, ‘…If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.’ And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him” (Genesis 4:15).
The “two ‘seeds’ which progressively develops throughout the whole of Scripture” are those who are Godly vs. those who are not. That Seth’s line represents, “the godly line” particularly, as opposed to Cain’s representing a, “life apart from the purpose of God” seems to go well beyond anything that is biblically supportable. The generalization that, “The wicked character of Cain is only magnified in the lives of his descendants” seems a step too far particularly via one, clearly hyperbolic, example of, “the child-killer,” Lamech and the likewise hyperbolic reference to, “cities as monuments to themselves” as a reference to a dad naming a city after his son.
The claim that, “Cities come to figure prominently in the Bible as the expression of human wickedness” is generic, especially when juxtaposed as, “city-builders versus non-city builders” since there were plenty of Godly cities, including the cities of refuge, etc. There’s no indication that truly Godly people were expected to live in tent (or tent-cities).
Also, keep in mind that the supposedly, “godly line” who, “Seth stands in stark contrast to the murderous line of Cain” were actually not so Godly nor in such stark contrast to the “line” into which they intermarried—we’ve no indication that Cainites worshipped, “a foreign god.”
When personal pronouns are usage of Angles in anywhere in the whole Bible, they are referred to as man, men, he, him, his, etc. Thus, it’s not as simple as that, “The text makes it clear that man—not angels—were to blame.” As per Job 38:7, the term “sons of God” can refer to beings who are clearly not human since they witnessed the creation of the Earth.
Now, if, “God decided to cleanse the world and start over with a new Adam in Noah” only to have it all happen again—with the only difference being that, for some reason, God would no longer flood the Earth due to the ongoing continuation of mixed marriages.
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