The Theocast site (“exists to provide gospel-centered encouragement and practical theology for weary Christians — not another self-help program dressed in religious language”) posted an article titled Who Are the Sons of God in Genesis 6?
It’s noted that, “This article is a summary of the following episode: Giants from Angels? Genesis 6 Explained” which begs the questions what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s your usage? Do those two usages agree?
And those questions pertain to the summary since it’s noted:
Genesis 6 tells us that the sons of God saw the daughters of man, that they took wives for themselves, and that the Nephilim were on the earth in those days. Most of us learned to read past it quickly. The passage feels like mythology dropped into the middle of Scripture, and we are not sure what to do with giants.
We’re then told whatever this means and to whatever it refers, “Yet two apostles thought this story was worth telling to suffering Christians.”
It’s oddly noted, “For the first four centuries, the angelic view was not merely common. It was the settled assumption of the writers we still read.” So was it not common or was it settled and whom do we still read and when did they write?
The original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christian 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.
Indeed, “The Sethite view, which treats the sons of God as the godly line of Seth, became the majority position later, largely through Augustine” so it’s a late-comber—and based on myth and prejudice.
We’re told, “Nothing in Genesis 4 through 7 introduces the line of Seth as a category called the sons of God.” Sethite view adherents typically turn a general statement into a specific one: when they read Gen 4, “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” they take the general phrase, “people began to call upon the name of the Lord” and paraphrase it as that specifically (and exclusively?) Sethites began to call upon the name of the Lord.
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.
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.
It’s then asked, “Do Angels Have Bodies?” due to the, “objection…that angels are spirits and cannot act physically.”
We’re interestingly told, “Scripture is more physical about the spiritual realm than we tend to be” and I will add that such is because it’s essentially a misnomer to refer to a spiritual realm—especially since what most people really mean by that is spirit realm. Yet, spirit realm would be a misnomer itself since that refers to a whole realm of disembodied entities by definition if we’re dealing with spirits proper.
We’re told, “In Genesis 18, Abraham washes his visitors’ feet and feeds them. Their feet had gathered dust, and they ate what he prepared. In Genesis 19, the men of the city see them as men and demand that Lot hand them over. We are not told how any of this works. Scripture does not give us a mechanics of the unseen world.”
My standard rely to, “Do Angels Have Bodies?” is 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.
It’s then noted, “The second objection is that Jesus settled the question when he said that in the resurrection people neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven” which is the correct way of putting it and which is unlike objectors put it.
It’s elucidated, “And notice what he says. Angels in heaven do not marry. That describes what they do in their proper place, where things are as they should be. It does not tell us what they are able to do. There is a difference between cannot and does not, and the whole objection rests on reading one as the other.”
Objectors will typically water that down to that Jesus said Angels don’t get married—don’t procreate, can’t procreate, don’t have a sex, don’t have sex etc. yet, as noted, His statement was very detailed, very nuanced, He employed qualifying terms so, not all Angels at all times in all places but the loyal ones, “of God” and, “in heaven” which is why those who did marry are considered sinners since they, “left their first estate,” as Jude put it, in order to do so.
Of Nephilim we’re told, “is simply the Hebrew word carried over into our translations; some render it giants” and that it’s a rendering rather than a translation it a very important qualifying term.
The summary has been coming along just fine and yet, only up to this point when we run into a lot of problems with statements I’ll quote at length:
If this passage were only about godly men marrying ungodly women, we would expect a troubled household and children who wander from the faith. We would not expect a category of being that terrifies an army. Believers marry unbelievers constantly, and no giants result.
Scripture keeps giving us more. In Numbers 13, the spies describe the sons of Anak who came from the Nephilim, and say they felt like grasshoppers. Deuteronomy links the Emim, the Anakim, and the Rephaim as peoples great and tall. Moses records that Og of Bashan had an iron bed nine cubits long, somewhere near thirteen or fourteen feet.
Then we meet Goliath. We usually remember his height and forget his equipment. His bronze coat weighs five thousand shekels, roughly a hundred and twenty-five pounds, and the shaft of his spear is compared to a weaver’s beam. Assemble the whole kit and you are carrying several hundred pounds onto a battlefield. Hand that load to the strongest man alive and he cannot lift his arms to fight. An army refuses to face him, and they are not being cowardly.
Joshua tells us these peoples were violent, and the record of the conquest treats certain clans as something to be removed rather than merely defeated. The text is describing strength that is not ordinary human strength.
A Corrupted Earth and an Uncorrupted Line
Genesis 6 then tells us the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and that all flesh had corrupted its way. Human sin is certainly part of that. The text says all flesh, and by this point in the narrative more than humanity is in view.
Just before the flood account, Moses calls Noah a righteous man, blameless in his generations, and then gives us his family line. Noah is not righteous because of his performance. Scripture is consistent that righteousness comes by faith. But that second word is doing particular work.
Blameless translates a Hebrew word that Leviticus uses for a sacrificial animal without blemish. Set beside a genealogy, the phrase speaks of a line that remained uncorrupted. That is why the genealogy sits where it does.
The answer to the summary’s author’s usage of giants is something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average (and yes, that is how useless the common parlance usage of that modern English word is).
That’s due to the reference to, “and no giants result…they felt like grasshoppers…tall…near thirteen or fourteen feet,” etc. This means that the usage doesn’t match the English Bibles’ usage since therein it merely renders (doesn’t even translate) Nephilim in 2 verses or Repha/im in 98% of all others and so never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.
I can only imagine that the reference to, “terrifies an army” refers to Num 13. Yet, that was misrepresented in various ways from generalizing it to being myopic.
It wasn’t generically, “the spies” since there were 12 but those who, “describe” were the 10 unreliable ones who made up a fantasy tall-tale and were rebuked by God since Nephilim didn’t make it past the flood since God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
That they described, “the sons of Anak who came from the Nephilim” is only in non-LXX versions.
Num 13 records a report that’s accepted as is but causes concern and then records an, “evil report” which is the 10 taking their disloyal unfaithfulness up a notch (or 100).
Thus, that, “Deuteronomy links the Emim, the Anakim, and the Rephaim as peoples great and tall. Moses records that Og of Bashan had an iron bed nine cubits long, somewhere near thirteen or fourteen feet” has nothing to do with Nephilim since Emim and Anakim were Rephaim, by any other name, Og was a Repha, the dirty little secret is that since we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim then their height is a non-issue and that alone debunks 99% of un-biblical Nephilology—the modern branch of which is just un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales, and indications are that the, “bed” was a ritual object, not something upon which Og slept—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them.
Anyone appealing to Num 13:33 needs to mention that they’re relying on:
1. One single unreliable sentence
2. From strictly non-LXX versions (since that version’s version of that verse doesn’t even mention Anakim)
3. Of an unreliable “evil report”
4. By 10 unreliable guys
5. Whom God rebuked—to death
6. Who made five mere assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the whole Bible
7. Who contradicted Moses, Cable, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible
8. Then post-flood Nephilologists have to invent un-biblical fantasy tall-tales about how Nephilim got past the flood, past God.
I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal—which I’m currently updating.
As for, “Goliath…his height and forget his equipment” he too was a Repha and the Masoretic text has Goliath at just shy of 10 ft. Yet, the earlier LXX and the earlier Dead Sea Scrolls and the earlier Flavius Josephus all have him at just shy of 7 ft. (compared to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days) so that’s the preponderance of the earliest data (the Greek LXX Codex Venetus actually has 5 cubits and a span).
He had a guy assisting with the equipment. Regular guy Benaiah took a spear like a weaver’s beam, just like Goliath’s, from a 7.5 ft. Egyptian and successfully wielded it against him in hand-to-hand combat (2 Sam 23). Also, you can search for strongman or weightlifting competition vids and see guys who are around 6 ft. lifting 1,000 lbs.
Thus, the “these peoples were violent” referred to Rephaim but not Nephilim.
Think about this as well, “A Corrupted Earth and an Uncorrupted Line” but post-flood Nephilim imply that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
We’re then told about how, “The seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head” as per Gen 3, “Read Genesis 6 against that promise and the strategy comes into view. Corrupt the human line, and the promised seed cannot arrive. Judgment can be postponed forever. It failed. God cleansed the earth, preserved one uncorrupted family, and the promise held” but post-flood Nephilology has it that the problem didn’t end where God really did end it, with the flood, but that it carried on until centuries later.
And that ends the main points of interest to me which are Nephilology.
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