Scripture: Genesis
6:1-4
A somewhat mysterious and often disputed passage, this tiny
paragraph, wedged between Noah’s genealogy and the account of the Flood, has
two common interpretations.
In the first, “the sons of God” refer to the descendents of
Seth. These men of godly heritage then took wives from “the daughters of men,”
that is, from the descendents of Cain. The result, it seems, were children of
mixed spiritual heritage, at least some of whom became known as the
Nephilim.
The second interpretation takes a decidedly supernatural
bent. “The sons of God” can also refer to a supernatural race that we generally
term angels. If this is the case,
angels mated with human women, causing them to become pregnant with half-human, half-angel children.
Digging Deeper: Arguments can be made for both interpretations, and this passage is enough
ambiguous, the matter can never be definitively decided. Nonetheless, I see
several reasons to at least consider the second interpretation, as strange as
it seems. I have broken down these reasons into three general areas: Angelic
procreation, external evidence, and internal evidence.
Angelic Procreation
1. Spirit beings can
cause pregnancies. The primary argument against the angel theory is that
angels are spirit and therefore don’t procreate. But there is a big difference
between don’t/shouldn’t and can’t. Just because angels are immortal spirits and therefore don’t need
to procreate doesn’t mean they can’t
procreate. Let’s face it. God is spirit.
Yet He was able to impregnate a human woman, such that the Child would be fully
human and fully God. If this is true, can we completely eliminate the possibility that angels could do the
same?
2. The natural order can
be defied. Yes, God did not create angel to procreate. However, this again
doesn’t mean they can’t. Humans
weren’t created to have sexual intercourse with animals either. Yet humans can
do just that; otherwise God wouldn’t have issued commands concerning that very
thing (e.g. Leviticus 18:23). So if we can defy the natural order, how much
more a supernatural being?
3. The marriages are
one-directional. If both the sons of God and the daughters of men are
human, why don’t the marriages go both ways? Why don’t the sons of men also
take the daughters of God as wives? But if these are angels and women, then
this makes sense. Angels weren’t created to procreate. Humans were. So in order
for angels to procreate, it would make senses that they would need women to procreate.
External Evidence
1. The ancients believed
this term referred to angels. Just because a view is old doesn’t mean that
it is correct. However, there is also something to be said for the original
interpretation of a passage derived close to the event, especially when that view
is long-held. For alternative interpretations that don’t show up until
centuries or millennia afterward often seem to reflect less a search for truth
and more a refusal to believe the truth, hence creating the need for an
alternative interpretation. In this case, the view that “the sons of men” refer to something other than angels didn’t seem to occur
until at least the fourth century A.D.
Until that point, this phrase was commonly believed to refer to angels both by
Jews and Christians, as witnessed by the Apocrypha, Jewish historian Josephus,
and early Christian theologians Tertullian, Ambrose, and Clement of Alexandria.
(https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_724.cfm,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_God)
2. Mythology supports
this idea of intermixing the human and the supernatural. In many
mythologies from around the world, there are stories of powerful, supernatural
beings, usually called “gods,” impregnating a female human, which then results in a supernaturally gifted human: the Greek’s Hercules (along with dozens of
others), the Māori’s Māui, Cú Chulainn in Celtic lore, and the Pandara brothers
in Hindu traditions. Since these are myths, we cannot expect that they got the
facts 100% straight. But many myths came into existence due to a fact; that is,
there is a seed of truth underlying the myth. And when a particular motif is
found in the myths of multiple, unrelated cultures, the more likely the myth is
founded on a truth. Indeed, this is even one of the proofs cited for the
reality of Noah’s Flood—nearly every culture has a story about a catastrophic
flood. So if this consistency provides credence for Noah’s Flood, why wouldn’t
the same apply here?
3 .The Bible itself
defines “sons of God” as angels. This
is especially seen in Job (1:6, 2:1, and 38:7). Moreover, the book Job is believed
to occur about the same time as Abraham, only a short time after this passage.
So it would make sense the same phrase would refer to the same object.
Internal Evidence
1. The sons of God are
powerful. The phrase “took wives for themselves, whomever they chose” (v. 2, emphasis mine) implies an irresistible
force—the marriages were forced, and possibly polygamous. This idea of forced
marriages and polygamy doesn’t fit well with the ways of the godly (which is
what the sons of God are, if they refer to humans). Moreover, if the godly are
forcing these marriages, that implies they are more powerful than the ungodly.
This doesn’t fit with the historical balance of power between the godly and
ungodly; usually the ungodly dominates the godly because they are not
restricted in the ways the godly are. However, if the “sons of God” refer to
angles, this idea of irresistible force makes perfect sense as angels have
supernatural power.
2. God limits the
length of life. In verse 3, God declares that humans would have a shortened
lifespan. Why did He make this
declaration here? It could be due to
man’s evilness, but unlike in verse 5 where man’s wickedness is specifically
cited as the reason for the Flood, the context here is the intermarriage.
Moreover, God emphasizes that man is flesh,
an emphasis that would seem unnecessary if only humans were involved. On the
other hand, since angels are immortal, it would make sense their mixing with
humans would increase the life expectancy of humans. This increased length of
life would then logically prompt God’s declaration in verse 3.
3. Finally, the
Nephilim were mighty and of renown. If humans were merely marrying humans,
why would it create this superhero race? After all, both Cain and Seth
descended from Adam and Eve. Why would their descendents intermarrying create
the Nephilim? But the endowing of an angel’s supernatural ability on a human
would definitely create an abnormally powerful people.
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