Nephilim: giants in the land
GEN 6:1-7
A literalistic viewpoint of the verses, short, to the point. a
good start for the discussion is at:
companion bible.
Includes the complete text.
(http://www.therain.org/appendixes/app25.html)
(off line, last checked 2/27/2006)
First. justification of spending any time with an obscure verse with
little apparent practical meaning.
The major discussion I have is concerning the young earth creationists
(YEC) and how they use/misuse Scripture in an overly literal way.
They attack positions to their left, those positions which do not
interpret GEN 1-2 as literally as do the YEC. Those attacks
center around issues that the YEC alone take scripture as God designed
it, literally, consistently, without fail. My contention is that the
church first interprets things literally, the reading that a naive
common sense man-in-the-street would do. The church later
revisits passages under pressure from the world, at this point a
revision in hermenutic takes place, the church kicks the verse's
reading upstairs to a different interpretive principle. It
de-literalises, it applies some type of more sophisticated reasoning to
the verse in order to harmonize it with the forces pushing for the
change. My contention is that this is a natural and rightful thing to
do; and in doing so the church creates historical theology, which is
the study of a changing human conception of an unchanging fixed canon
with no opportunity for continuing revelation. This completely defangs
and neutralizes the YEC argument of literalistic interpretations, for
it is not consistent with the history of the church NOT to try to
harmonize Scripture with both it's internal inconsistencies and with
forces from the outside.
Second. this verse is problematic from the man in the street literal
viewpoint from the very beginning of scriptural analysis.
It doesn't need any outside forces to require analysis. It's
inconsistency with pieces of Scripture are apparent in the literal
first reading.
Who are the sons of god? And who are the nephilim, the giants in the
land? Why are they mentioned both before and after the flood, without
being on the ark?
The most literal viewpoint is angels having sex with human women and
giving rise to a race of human-angel hybrid giants. This is the
intepretation
of the link first given. This viewpoint was discarded long ago, as
Calvin writes that it was the unification of the ungodly line of Cain
with the godly
line of Seth. This is my understanding of the verse.( I am aware
of the history of the verse only because of its usage in LDS theology,
however)
Calvin is quoted in: very
complete analysis although JDP technic
(http://www.logoschristian.org/ufosrevealed/a3gen.htm)
For another reasonable and short link that actually introduces several
different ideas see:
macarthur
the bible answer man.(http://www.biblebb.com/files/macqa/70-20-3.htm)
Finally to ldolphin (http://www.ldolphin.org/nephilim.html)
who in one place brings together several of the best writers on the
verses.
As an aside the ldophin.org site is certain worthy of a few hours of
browsing. he is a gifted, talented writer who shares his insights
freely
with us.
But for our purposes here, there is a second benefit of this link,
Henry Morris, the author of _the Genesis Flood_ is quoted in a
long passage which appears about 1/2 through the book selections
The point of it all is that the verse itself is problematic. As human
beings we struggle for consistency between the pieces of the things
we believe.
This verse has internal contradictions which drive people to strive for
an explanation which fits the passage into their interpretative
framework.
Angels having sex with women, the obvious literal interpretation
clashes from other clearer texts stating that angels are not given in
marriage nor
do they have sex. So from the beginning of the history of these verses
you find people struggling with what they mean. An additional problem
is the relationship of the book of Enoch to the Bible, Enoch is not
canonical, yet any discussion going back to Jude or Peter must go
through an
analysis with Enoch in mind. How do you do this?
Back to the real argument which is trying to show YECists that their
inflexible position on the literalness of GEN 1,2-5 is not traditional
or reflective of
how the church as operated in the past with difficult verses whose
interpretation was/is under attack from worldly forces or internally
inconsistent. Just a cursory reading of a few of the research links
below will show any reasonable person that this verse is at best
problematic, a literal interpretation is not the only option ie angels
having sex with human women and the offspring are hybrid giants. But it
is one that more than half of the websites i've read teach. I believe
they do this in order to stick to the most literal interpretation that
they can, without justification of it in wider terms, although a few of
the sites do justify their interpretation in terms that it is
supernaturalistic.
This short piece is intended to show that no one who desires to
hold to a consistent literal interpretation, can. For you can see
from the above analysis links where people struggle to put angels
into the text-sons of god, and see the gross internal contradictions.
How
'they kick it upstairs' varies. The point being that those who do so
are not compromisers, accommodationists, capitulationists to the
world. but rather are simply people struggling to come to consistent
positions on their reading of Scripture when they have a primary
commitment to the reliability of scripture, if not the stronger
inerrancy viewpoint at heart. So this ends up being a call for
tolerance within the Church for a varying hermeneutic that will both do
justice to the Scriptures as the very Word of God and faithfully
represent human thought struggling to think God's thoughts after Him.
----
Lastly for forces outside church and the internal responses of the
church we need to look at the history of the interpretation of this
verse in the context of cults.
both LDS and JW theology have a very specific and peculiar spin on
these verses.
from: http://www.nccg.org/NCMM/LDS2-6.html
This "spiritual
genetics" gives one the ability to become as God is. It denies the
fallen man as truly the sinners that we are, and turns the grace of
Christ into and opportunity of choice. It is the counterfeit theology
of the LDS Church as well as many other groups such as the "New Age"
movements that are now spreading over the earth.
This follows Genesis 6:1-5 and his short analysis of it.
from: http://members.tripod.com/~debbie_pittman/satan.html
Unbelievably, there is a Christian group that actually teaches Satan
is a good guy who was helping Jesus to test everyone. They further
hold that the lies Satan told told were actually truth and were thought
up by Jesus and his Father. Compare John 8:44. They live their lives
hoping to be gods and be able to be bigamists also, marrying people in
the lower 2 heavens and on earth as well and producing children with
them. (Mormons-LDS hold these doctrines and further teach the doctrine
of universal salvation claiming that God is going to make everyone
accept their religion eventually.)
With their doctrine of god and jesus as glorified men from the planet
Kolbol this verse naturally supports their view of godhood and sex with
your wives to populate new planets.
There is one reference below to JW's, that is worth the time to read.
----
I believe it is the connection to angels and particular the sexuality
of angels that makes these verses such a magnetic for off-beat, weird
and downright loathsome interpretations. People are eager to "have
their ears tickled", to think about tintilating subjects and since this
is from the Bible after all it seems harmless, maybe even good.
-=research links=-
(it is difficult to make these into live links and still be able to see
the website address, which gives me a lot of information.
cut and paste into your browser, sorry about the extra step but it is a
compromise)
i looked at several hundred google search hits and chose the ones i
found most interesting. (?-i see problems, !-good)
sons of god(bene elohim) were:
men
-----
http://www.scripturessay.com/q333a.html
http://biblicalstudies.qldwide.net.au/giants_and_the_bible.html
http://www.testimony-magazine.org/back/nov2002/edwards.pdf
(!!, this is
probably the best, most complete analysis i found online)
http://members.aol.com/twarren14/nephils.html
(!)
angels
--------
http://www.geocities.com/zaretan/neph.html
http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/nephilim.html
http://www.apostolic.net/biblicalstudies/genesis6.htm
http://www.mt.net/~watcher/enoch5.html
(?) but i found this essay via a
link from:
.......http://www.returnofthenephilim.com/ReturnOfTheNephilim.html
(??)
http://www.gospelassemblyfree.com/facts/sonsofgod.htm
http://antesdelfin.com/sonsofgod1.htm
http://www.acns.com/~mm9n/satan/29.htm
http://www.precepts.com/Articles/OurRed-CharacterGod.htm
...... (this is a sermon, but what makes it interesting is how easily
he
dismisses the problems)
doesn't decide
------------------
http://www.jesuscafe.org/resources/scripturesquad/archive_0026.html(!)
http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/nbi/723.html(!)
http://www.struggler.org/Giants.html
(!, more a word study, but
introduces texts that were new to me)
strange, cultish (all deserve several ? to start with *grin*)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.noveltynet.org/content/paranormal/www.brotherblue.org/libers/intro.htm
(reptilian rape)
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/vnn/showEssay.asp?essayID=1545
(antisemitic)
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:UeyCJv4KUwgJ:www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/_PDFArchives/apologetics/AP2W0302.pdf+that+the+sons+of+God+saw+that+the+daughters+of+men+were+beautiful%3B+and+they+took+wives+for+themselves,+whomever+they+chose&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet
...this reference is an analysis of the JW teachings, short, to the
point, interesting.
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:-etQgRbOJHUJ:www11.brinkster.com/code10v2/black/main/demons/demons.html+that+the+sons+of+God+saw+that+the+daughters+of+men+were+beautiful%3B+and+they+took+wives+for+themselves,+whomever+they+chose&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet
...had to use a cached copy, a rant more than a reasoned paper
http://grame4.50megs.com/ (when i see the word 'watchers' i start to
watchout)
http://www.piney.com/BabSonsOfGod.html (this is a longish study on
angels, lots of new material here)
http://www.alienresistance.org/sons_of_seth.htm (this is the place to
start if you want to see how elaborate the ideas can get)
http://www.theseventhtrumpet.com/twatt/twatt4.php (self described
gnostic, bene elohim are
aliens)http://members.tripod.com/~debbie_pittman/satan.html (space
invaders)
my search string at google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&as_qdr=all&q=sons+of+god+saw+daughters+of+men+genesis+angels&btnG=Google+Search
i'll be glad to add to this FAQ, email me at rwilliam2@yahoo.com with a
subject heading of nephilim FAQ email
from:
http://www.christianforums.com/t2669278-the-nephilim.html#post22284971
http://www.michaelsheiser.com/
http://www.stevequayle.com/
table of contents for a "on sale print book" entitled:
Genesis 6 GIANTS
The Master Builders of the Prehistoric
and Ancient Civilizations
By Steve Quayle™
only chapter one is available online here.
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/nephilim.html
short comparison of the 3 main interpretations, a few links at the end
another interesting essay:
http://www.jesuscafe.org/resources/scripturesquad/archive_0026.html
another thread at Tweb
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=61785
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim
http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/110/
http://www.psyche.com/psyche/links/nephilim.html
(!!! this is a major, however unsorted links list)
another thread at:
http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=27942660
yielded: http://www.godrules.net/library/clarke/clarkegen6.htm
details:
contact: rwilliam2@yahoo.com subject=nephilim FAQ
purpose:
to pull together online references on nephilim Gen 6:1-7 and relate to
YECist literal hermeneutic
last modified 2/27/2006