Michael Snow (self-described as, “Farmer; B.S., University of S. Dak.; Marines; National Park Service; M.Div., Earlham; Farmer”) posted the article “Who Are the Nephilim?” Dr. Michael L. Brown on his Texts In Context site.
That which I term the Gen 6 affair is quoted thusly:
GENESIS, Chapter 6.– When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim* were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
A note notes, “*Possibly means ‘fallen ones’; traditionally, ‘giants’; Num. 13:31-33” well, by definition, “traditionally” can only mean when English existed and the word, “giants” was employed as a rendering. This begs the following key questions: what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s the, “traditionally” and/or Snow’s and/or Brown’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
Snow notes:
NOTE on the Text from NICOT Genesis: In v. 4 “children” [Not Nephilim] is taken to be the antecedent of “These mighty men…” [ Nephilim…in those days is simply a time marker; a parenthetical historical note.]…
Cf. “the sons of God.” NICOT: “…the text establishes no causal connection…the giants were present at the same time [emphasis mine] as the marriages between ‘the sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men’”…
“The reference to the presence of giants is, thus, no more than a designation of time. This is indicated by the word ‘then’ or ‘at that time.’”
Yet, that is not the case since the Gen 6 affair narrative’s contextual focus is the sons of God and daughters of men: their attraction, their marriage, their copulation, and their offspring. Thus, it would violate that narrative’s contextual focus to artificially insert a mere passing reference to some unrelated Nephilim guys who just happened to be around at the time, are mentioned for no apparent reason, and about whom nothing more is said in relation to the narrative’s contextual focus.
Snow’s references, “the far-fetched offspring of ‘fallen angels.’ Dr. Michael Brown is dealing with the nut-case fringe which speculates about aliens, space ships, and Nephilim today–this is the kind of stuff that sells books for a certain segment of evangelicals.”
Indeed, “the kind of stuff that sells books” which are un-biblical tall-tales, often neo-theo-sci-fi ones, sold to Christians—I’ve written whole books debunking them such as Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales and Nephilim and Giants as per Pop-Researchers: A Comprehensive Consideration of the claims of I.D.E. Thomas, Chuck Missler, Dante Fortson, Derek Gilbert, Brian Godawa, Patrick Heron, Thomas Horn, Ken Johnson, L.A. Marzulli, Josh Peck, CK Quarterman, Steve Quayle, Rob Skiba, Gary Wayne, Jim Wilhelmsen, et al.
Yet, what Snow has as, “far-fetched” was actually the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christian commentators, starting in BC days, 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.
Snow apparently appeals to a research study but doesn’t cite it when he wrote, “Most who listen to him on facebook will never open a Bible and read Genesis in context.”
Snow admits, “‘sons of God’ in the Bible. This exact phrase is found only three other times in Hebrew in Job, where it is a reference to angels.” He rightly notes, “We must ask, is it proper to apply the definition found in a later book of a different genre to this very first [and ONLY] reference in Genesis?]” and notes, “other places in the Old Testament where people are referred to as ‘sons of God.’”
Snow argues, “NOTE the flow (the context) of the text above. The FOCUS is on MAN–v. 1 ‘When Man’; v. 3 ‘Man’; v. 4 ‘men’–Which is why God pronounces his judgment on MAN immediately after ‘sons of God‘ in verse 3– Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years, And again in v. 7 ‘I will blot out man.’”
FYI: the Bible’s entire main focus is man since it’s more of an anthropological anthology than a theological one: it’s about our creation, fall, and redemption. Thus, no matter upon what subject it touches, the focus very quickly returns to us: how it affects humanity.
For some reason, Snow failed to note that humans, Angels, Nephilim, and God are all referred to as man/men.
He references, “Another (second) view, related to the flow of the text (chapters 4 and 5) given above, is that the ‘sons of God’ were the descendants of Seth, and the ‘daughters of men’ are the descendants of Cain. The sin is that of intermarriage between believer and unbeliever.” Yet, that that’s what it was is a mere assertion. That view, the Sethite view, is a late-comber based on myth and prejudice: such as that, “the descendants of Seth” were, “believer” and, “the descendants of Cain” were, “unbeliever.”
Yet, note that it actually has it that the believer Sethites weren’t really believers since they were actually such terrible sinners that their sin served as the premise for the flood: so, that’s rather odd.
Snow notes, “The TEXT of this Scripture gives us no grounds for equating the Nephilim with the offspring of fallen angels” but there are hints such as why it was only strictly males on one side of the equation and only strictly females on the other and why weren’t there any attractive female Sethies nor any attractive male Cainites.
The Angel view answers why there’s a gender binary and that is that 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).
Thus, it was only strictly male Angels and only strictly female humans.
Another relevant point is that Jude and 2 Peter 2 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 they’re not referring to the Gen 6 affair, we’ve no idea to what sin they’re referring.
Unfortunately, rather than elucidating relevant data all we got is an admission that sons of God can refer to Angels, and only appeals to modern authors with whom Snow agrees.
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