Can you explain Genesis 6:1-4? Who are "the sons of God "?
1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
BJ2007-09-06T03:07:41Z
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“Now it came about that when men started to grow in numbers on the surface of the ground and daughters were born to them, then the sons of the true God began to notice the daughters of men, that they were good-looking; and they went taking wives for themselves, namely, all whom they chose.” Who were those sons of the true God? Not mere humans. Men had for centuries been taking note of good-looking women and had been marrying them. These sons of God were angels who materialized.
The Christian disciple Jude wrote about them when he mentioned “the angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place.” (Jude 6) Why did they come to the earth? What wrong desire did Satan put in their heart to get them to leave the fine positions they had in heaven?
The Bible lets us know when it says: “The sons of the true God began to notice the daughters of men, that they were good-looking; and they went taking wives for themselves, namely, all whom they chose.” (Genesis 6:2) Yes, the angels put on fleshly bodies, and they came to earth to have sexual relations with beautiful women. But such love affairs were wrong for angels. This was an act of disobedience. The Bible indicates that what they did was just as wrong as the homosexual acts of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Jude 6, 7) What resulted?
Well, babies were born to these angels and their wives. But the babies were different. They kept growing bigger until they became giants, yes, wicked giants. The Bible calls them “mighty ones who were of old, the men of fame.” These giants tried to force everyone to be bad as they were. As a result, the Bible says that “the badness of man was abundant in the earth and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time.” (Genesis 6:4, 5) So Jehovah brought the Flood. The giants, or “Nephilim,” and all the wicked people were drowned.
The demons as such were not created by God. The first to make himself one was Satan the Devil, who became the ruler of other angelic sons of God who also made themselves demons. In Noah’s day disobedient angels materialized, married women, fathered a hybrid generation known as Nephilim, and then dematerialized when the Flood came.
The sons of God mentioned at Genesis 6:2, therefore, must have been angels, spirit “sons of God.” This expression is applied to angels at Job 1:6; 38:7. This view is supported by Peter, who speaks of “the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in Noah’s days.” (1Pe 3:19, 20) Angels had the power to materialize in human form, and some angels did so to bring messages from God. But heaven is the proper abode of spirit persons, and the angels there have positions of service under Jehovah. To leave this abode to dwell on earth and to forsake their assigned service to have fleshly relations would be rebellion against God’s laws, and perversion.
I love this piece of Genesis because it's so mysterious: "they were the heroes of old, men of renown". It's like saying "all the stories are true!"
Generally, commentators agree that "the sons of God" are some sort of angelic being - probably seraphim as they are known in cabbalistic myth. But others rather boringly dismiss them as simply the first tribes of humans, meeting one another and inter-marrying - possibly at the bottleneck from Africa into the Middle East.
If I'm completely honest, I tend to lump this passage in with the whole creation myth before it as exactly that: a piece of Hebrew myth that says more about WHO did all this (God) rather than HOW he did it.
But that doesn't stop me getting a little frisson of joy at the thought that these descendants of the sons of God - these demi-angels - might still be at large in the world: heroes of old and men (and presumably women) of renown. Whether the Nephilim are monsters (as depicted by Neil Gaiman et al in the Sandman graphic novels) or superheroes is up to you!
Not very likely, I'd be the first to admit, but still pretty cool, huh?
The 'sons of God' were angels. They mated with human women, thus producing the Nephelim. (see Greek mythology, the Olympian Gods, Hercules etc -- same time period about)
I think many Christians believe these were angels.
Rashi's (he was an important Jewish scholar) commentary says that they were either "sons of nobles" or "princes who go as messengers of the omnipresent."