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Genesis 6

C-FarC-Far
edited November 2006 in Coptic Orthodox Church
I'm curious of everyone's views on it ;D

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 [a] man forever, for he is mortal [b] ; 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.

I know that our Church believes that the "Sons of God" in Genesis 6 is being referred to the lines of Seth, and the "daughters of men" are from Cains side, but it leaves a few questions unanswered such as...

-What are Nephilim (giants)?
-How were the giants able to return after the world flood?
-It says that the Nephilim came from Seths' sons mating with the daughters of Cain, so how could Nephilim possibly return after the flood when they all perished from the flood? So it seems like the Nephilim are coming from a source other than Seth's sons.
-The sons of Cain didn't find the daughters of Seth beautiful?
-Why couldn't it just say the sons of Seth found the daughters of Cain beautiful?

Interesting articles
http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/110/
http://www.mt.net/~watcher/enoch5.html

Comments

  • Unknown

    I know that our Church believes that the "Sons of God" in Genesis 6 is being referred to the lines of Seth, and the "daughters of men" are from Cains side, but it leaves a few questions unanswered such as...

    Says who? That is merely an interpretation.
  • C-FarC-Far
    Says who? That is merely an interpretation.

    But I've read something from the Pope that talks about how he rejects the theory that angels are the sons of God in Genesis 6 and that the sons of God are really the lines of Seth
  • Unknown

    But I've read something from the Pope that talks about how he rejects the theory that angels are the sons of God in Genesis 6 and that the sons of God are really the lines of Seth

    Well we are not Roman Catholics, and His Holiness's opinion is certainly not ultimate authority. Many previous Coptic Orthodox Popes before him advocated the angel's interpretation. In the end, this is not a dogmatic issue since neither interpretation has significant doctrinal implications, so you should be able to decide for yourself in consideration of all relevant authorities which interpretation you feel most appropriate. This is not an appeal to some Protestant form of "private interpretation"; it is an appeal to conscientious discernment of the various existing opinions promoted by legitimate authorities.
  • C-FarC-Far
    sounds good, thank you. Guess I assumed it was the Church view since our Pope believes that view.
  • Unknown
    The Coptic Orthodox Church has had 117 Popes to date. His Holiness Pope Shenouda III is no more or less enlightened or authoritative (doctrinally speaking) than any of his 116 predecessors, yet amongst them, including figures like St. Clement of Alexandria, many advocated an angel's interpretation. In fact the Angel's interpretation represented the majority consensus opinion during the Apostolic era (i.e. the first few centuries).

    We assign issues such as this i.e. issues of which an absolute position has not been revealed to the mind of the Church, and of which the implications do no damage to any of the Church's dogmas, to the realm of theologoumenon. In contrast to a dogma or doctrine, a theologoumenon is a legitimate theological opinion of which nothing absolute can be said.
  • Unknown
    The Ethiopian Orthodox Church includes the Book of Enoch in its Old Testament canon, which talks in detail about Angels marrying women and whatnot.

    So, although I don't believe that Church holds the book to be true in its entirety, I would guess the Ethiopian interpretation is that they're Angels.
  • Unknown
    by mere curiousity:

    how can celestial angels (are angels male or female - maybe both) marry humans (here also were they men or women wih clay/flesh body)? is it a marriage of spirits or a marriage of bodies? etc

    Plus, do angels still marry people?? I do not believe in this thing.
    It is like old legends..
  • looppoollooppool

    Plus, do angels still marry people?? I do not believe in this thing

    it doesn't make sense to me either!!!
    angels are here to glorify god, worship him, praise him, serve him... plus we have our guardian angel who helps us pray and saves us from dangers, not to marry us and make babies...

    7`alas... with this interpretation, someone might come up and say, "I'm a son of Gabriel", or other might say, I'm the son of such and such angel. what will you say to them????
  • Unknown
    God The Father adopts "Whoever does God's will (Mark 3:35)" and they are thus called the sons of God. I think that in the Old Testament it meant the good and the believers, as opposed to the wicked and the non believers.

    No air-breathing flesh survived the flood except Noah, his family and the living creatures safely sheltered inside the arch.

    The Nephilim were "giants" or large and high-statured imposing warrior men (heroes of old) to the extent that others thought they "seem as locusts" in their eyes when they would be near them. This has obviously some exageration, it reminds me of the picture of an ordinary person standing between a giant wrestling champion and an athlete having big worked out musculature. It denotes men with similar types of bodies.

    It may be seen more in some generations and can definitely be more obviously present as an inheritable trait in certain families or tribes (the opposite extreme: dwarfs and pygmys).
    read about short people in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambuti

    If Nephilim were not of mankind, or if they would be really people too big, no natural marriage could occur except with too big people like them.

    Later in time, Nephilim would describe similarly looking kind of people (who look more or less like giants described above) - besides, the NG photographers would have found and shot some of them.

    Could it be people bearing an outstanding hereditary trait of growth hormone excess, a type of pituitary gland disfunction with symptoms called gigantism, without otherwise bad symptoms?
  • Unknown
    More points I thought of:

    did Enoch write his book before God took him away? Enoch lived on earth only 365 years (compared to others)

    was this book mentioned in Genesis (written later by Moses)?

    did the saint eternal angels of light who constantly obey and glorify the Lord find themselves brides and spouses among the cursed fallen humans, even if angels are seen sometimes in the Bible as young men?

    the word angels: did it mean messengers, men sent by God carrying His message to others? I haven't read the book of Enoch.

    I wonder
  • Unknown
    John,

    I'm afraid that I find not one of your points compelling; they are mere conjectures. The Apostolic Tradition has spoken on this matter, both through the testimony of the Apostles (see the Book of Jude Chapter 6), and the unanimous testimony of the Apostolic Fathers (as I discussed above). Maybe in the absence of such Apostolic witness we can attempt to propose speculations to explain what is meant by Genesis 6, but when we have the Apostolic witness we have no basis to since we receive the elucidation of the author of the Scriptures Himself.
  • Unknown
    Dear Iqbal,

    Thank you for replying and for waking me up! My flight of ideas are speculations and most probably wrong, but I used to think that Jude 1:6 meant satan and his followers, ie talking about the fall of the archangel from glorious light to darkness with "his" angels... not meaning angels being the sons of God?

    God created Adam in His likeness that is why Adam and his sons too may be considered as sons of God (the more righteous ones that is)... please correct me.

    In fact, I would like to read on this subject further if you would kindly help direct me to any book online. Thank you.
  • Unknown
    Dear John,

    St. Jude explicitly likens the fallen angels mentioned in verse 6 to those of Sodom and Gommorah on account of their sexual perversion in verse 7. This seems to be quite a clear allusion to Genesis 6, particularly in light of the book of Enoch.

    I understand very well that the term "sons of God" need not necessarily refer to angels, but then again you need to deal with the fact that it certainly can and in fact does refer to Angels on many occasions. In the end, I have not just arbitrarily opted for the Angel's connotation of the term "sons of God", but have deduced it by virtue of my consideration of other relevant factors (i.e. Jude 1, The Book of Enoch, and the extra-biblical Apostolic Tradition) which narrow down the particular intent of its usage in Genesis 6 specifically.

    I am not aware of any online article discussing this issue; my arguments are the product of my own research. If you have the Nicene Post-Nicene Fathers series on CD you can easily do an eclectronic search and record the witness of the Fathers on the matter according to time and region as I did. The book of Enoch is, I believe, available online on a particular Ethiopian Orthodox website, so you can consider that as well.
  • Unknown
    Dear Iqbal,

    Thank you for sharing some of the results of your researches with me. I prayed the Lord to strengthen my weak faith and for a better understanding.

    I do not have the precious CDs but found a treasure CD by Fr Tadros YM full of explanations (mainly in arabic) for many Old Testament Books - did not have time to read all the contents yet. I am also about to find and read a good version of the book of Enoch.

    I have sinned indeed in my doubts and hasty decision, Lord forgive me. My mind was confined in the heavenly saint angels, blinded, ignoring the fact of how malicious are satan and its demons.

    So, on second thought, I decided it is acceptable and that both interpretations can be fine. I remembered the word "shetani" repeatedly used to describe some of these exquisite african ebenos wood carvings (art works by south eastern african tribes, like the Makondes) showing "demons" attacking or raping villagers in the forest. Now, this is not even the slightest connection with our subject, but it helped me to agree that it is indeed very plausible: reminded me that some kinds of fallen angels could take a human shape, or that humans become possessed by devils, their body being under the devil's control.

    God preserve us all. Hope I explain my train of thoughts clearly but will not pursue further because some details can become potent mind poison to me and to others.

    I also said: God created Adam in His likeness.. I wanted rather to say God created Adam in His Image

    Dear AnbaBola,
    Please do not take all my thoughts for granted.

    Pray for me.
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