In this study, we look at the Genesis 6 account of the "sons of God" marrying the "daughters of man". Who are these sons of God? Are they the fallen angels? Are the Nephilim the giant offspring of an angel and human sexual encounter?
Scriptures:
- Genesis 6: 1-8
- Luke 20:34-36
- Luke 1:34-35
- Job 1:6-7
- Job 38:4-7
- 2 Peter 2:4-5
- Jude 1:6-7
- Numbers 13:30-33
- Matthew 24:36-39
Sons of God and Daughters of Men
Genesis 6: 1-8
1When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2the sons of God [bene Elohim] saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend witha humans forever, for they are mortalb ; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
5The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
- Sons of God = Bene elohim = Sons of Elohim
- Sons of God married the daughters of man
- God decided to kill almost all humanity because of what happened
- It must have been something that hasn't been happening regularly since then
- And wasn’t happening before then
- It got punished immediately
Who Were the Sons of God?
- And what does it mean that they married (and went to) the daughters of man
Fallen Angels
- Satan and/or his fallen angels bred with human women and had offspring
- The giant Nephilim were their offspring
Angels/Demons Possessed Men
- Fallen angels and/or Satan possessed men and caused them to breed with women
- Then they could exist today
- Why do their offspring get a new term?
DNA Manipulation (or Non-Sexual)
- The fallen angels somehow created unnatural beings without having sex
Sethite View
- The sons of God were the godly line from Adam to Seth down to Noah
- the daughters of men were the rebellious descendants of Cain
- the Nephilim were fallen children who sought after false gods
Fallen Men
- Godly men (sons of God) took ungodly wives,
- their descendants (Nephilim) followed after the false gods
My View
Sons of God
- I believe the Fallen Angel view except I don’t view all “angelic beings” as “sons of God”.
- “messenger” angels are not sons of God.
- Sons of God is a title associated with a specific role.
- There were spirit beings who were sons of God and humans who were/are “sons of God”.
- The “sons of God” in the spirit realm are also called “elohim”.
- Some elohim fell, but not necessarily all of them.
- The Jews eventually took the place of the fallen sons of God when they became sons of God
- Christians eventually took the Jew’s place as sons of God
Nephilim
- The creation of the Nephilim could have been sexual
- but could have been some other means
Argument Against The Fallen Angels View
Angels Don’t Marry
Luke 20:34-36
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.
- Priests in the church don’t marry
- Jesus doesn’t say that they can’t; only that they don’t
Spirit Beings Can’t Make Babies
What about this one…
Luke 1:34-35
34“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
- The Holy Spirit had a human offspring
- He was fully man (and fully God)
- Son of Elohim vs Son of YHVH
Nephilim (Fallen Angel View)
- Nephilim were the offspring of the Sons of God and the daughters of humans
- Nephilim are the hybrid offspring of spirit beings and humans
- Nephilim is from the root naphal which means - to fall
- Other possible roots (e.g. Aramaic) mean giant
- Notice the “im” - not Nephilites
- This usually refers to a type of being, not just a race
- They were giants
- The bible has them up to 13 feet
- Extra biblical stories have them hundreds of feet tall
There are many cultures that have stories of angels/gods/heavenly beings coming down to earth and mating with women
- Titans (Greek)
- Sumer, Assyria, Egypt, Incas, Mayan, Gilgamesh, Persia, Greece, India, Bolivia, South Sea Islands, American Indians
- Some believed their leaders to be half God and half man
The Sons of God are in bondage, but not the Nephilim. The spirit half of the Nephilim became what we call demons.
Extra Biblical Sources
Josephus
Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote:
"For many angels of God coupled with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength; for the tradition is, that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants."
Book of Enoch / Jubilees
(Second Temple Judaism)
The ancient Jews held the opinion that the “sons of God” were angelic beings.
- Watchers (angels) had sex with women
- They made a pact on Mount Hermon
- God bound them and put them in bondage in Sheol/Hell
- First century Jews saw it as angels falling
- Jude 14–15 quotes from the book of Enoch (1:9)
Other Biblical References
Sons of God
Job 1:6-7
6One day the angels [ bene Elohim] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satanb also came with them. 7The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
- This is in Heaven
Job 38:4-7
4“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels [bene Elohim]shouted for joy?
Angels Punished
2 Peter 2:4-5
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell,[a] putting them in chains of darkness[b] to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
- We see angels that sinned in relation to the story of Noah
Jude 1:6-7
6And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. 7In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
- We see Angels sinning being linked to sexual morality
- Where are the angels/elohim that sinned?
- In hell/Sheol
- Perhaps the same thing was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah
Septuagint
Even the Jewish translators of the Septuagint, translated the Genesis 6 phrase as “angels of God,” revealing their belief that the sons of God are fallen angels.
Why Are Giants Around After the Flood?
If the offspring of the fallen angels were killed in the flood how were there still giants after the flood?
Numbers 13:30-33
30Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
31But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
- The Nephilim were in the promised land
Nephilim on the Ark
The wives of Noah’s sons had Nephilim DNA
- The wives of Noah’s sons could have been hybrids
A Second Infestation
- Different Sons of God could have fallen after the flood
The Last Days
Matthew 24:36-39
36“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
- The last days will be like the days of Noah
- Women will marry fallen angels/spirit beings
Conclusion
The Supernatural World View
We can view the bible as being a story of the fall of different groups of “sons of God”. There were human sons of God and sons of God in the spirit realm. The sons of God in the spirit realm were also referred to as elohim.
God created Adam as the first human son of God. Adam sinned when the serpent deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden, and therefore was cast out of the garden. Life for humans was then set in a new environment.
Next we see the “sons of God” coming and mating with human women causing God to destroy the earth with a flood. All humanity was destroyed except for Noah and his family.
God chose Abraham and eventually Israel, to be the new “sons of God”. We saw last week that the Jews repeatedly fell by turning to worship the gods of the other nations.
God then sent His one begotten “son of God” to take on the sin of all mankind and thus restore us to a Edenic state. We are now able to be the “sons of God” again.
Presenter: Michael Leadon
Summary:
- In Genesis, we saw the “sons of God” married the “daughters of man” and had children referred to as Nephilim or giants
- We saw various views of who these “sons of God” were and concluded that they were angels or beings from the spirit realm
- This was based on the text itself, New Testament references to this account, historical documents, other Jewish religious texts, and also the fact that this belief coincides with the beliefs of all of the other ancient cultures with whom the Jews were living at the time.
- It is clear that this would have been the understanding of the Jews of that period
- We saw that the Nephilim were half spirit beings and half humans and thought to be of supernatural size and referred to as giants
- The angels that sinned/fell are now held in bondage in Sheol/hell awaiting judgement
- These cannot be the demons of our time because they are still bound
- Many believe that the demons are the spirit half of the Nephilim when they die. The human half dies, but the spirit being half continues to exist on the earth as a demon
- We looked at views of why giants continued to exist after the flood.
- Some of the original Nephilim survived the flood
- Different angels “fell” after the flood
- the wives of Noah’s were of mixed genealogy
- Finally we looked at the prophecy of Jesus in Matthew 24 where he states that when He returns it will be like the days of Noah where people will be given and taken in marriage.
- One interpretation of this is that there will be another fall in the last days
References
Who Were the Nephilim?
The Nephilim and Rephaim
The Unseen Realm by Dr. Michael Heiser
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