Theology's Take on the Nephilim

Theology's Take on the Nephilim

When men began to increase in number on Earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then God said, "My spirit will not contend with men forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
The Nephilim were on 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 heroes of old, men of reown.

Three possible explainations for this incident have been proposed:

Theory One

1. The "sons of God" are the sons of Seth.
2. The "daughters of men" are the descendants of Cain
3. The sin in view is the marrage of the Holy and the Unholy.
4. Evidence given to support this position are as follows: a.) the concept of a holy line seems to have been established with the distinction made between the genealogy of Seth and that of Cain; b.) the sin of marrage of the holy to the unholy becomes a common theme throughtout the Pentateuch.
5. But there are issues with this theory: a.) the term "sons of God" cannot be demonstrated to mean "the line of Seth", or a holy line of people, any place else in the Bible; b.) there is no evidence that the lines of Cain and Seth remained totally seperate to begin with. The theory also fails to mention the other children of Adam and Eve had besides Cain and Seth. c.) It cannot be demonstrated that God was working on only one line besides that of Adam and Eve.

Theory Two

1. The "sons of God" are dynastic rulers.
2. The "daughters of God" are commoners.
3. The sin in view is polygamy.
4. The evidence for this view is that magistrates or rulers are often referred to as gods or the offspring of gods in the Ancient Near East.
5. The problem with this is as such: a.) kingship has not been expressed in any way in this passage or in the preceding and b.) Scripture does not consider kings to be the actual sons of a deity, nor does Scripture accept such designations as legitimate.

Theory Three

1. The "sons of God" are fallen angels.
2. The "daughters of men" are mortal women.
3. The sin in this view is the marrage between supernatural and natural.
4. Evidence in view- a.) "sons of God" in all the Old Testament passages mean "angels"; b.) Jude 6-7, 1 Peter 3:19-20, and 2 Peter 2:4-6 seem to refer to the incident as an interaction between fallen angels and people. Notice that Jude 7 reports "in a simular way" to what happened before the flood, the people of Sodom perverted themselves (they also desired sex with angels; Genesis 19:5) and finally, c.) Jesus in Matthew 22:30 says that angels do not marry; he does not ay however whether or not they are capable of sex.
5. The problems with this third theory are: one, that it gives a somewhat mythical tone to the story, and two, there had not been a previous mention of angels in the narrative.

*My thoughts on the Three Theories*

The third theory seems to be a more probable situation when looking into the aspects of the Bible. Though it does hold a sense of supernatural theme, it holds more evidence of "angels". We see these celestrial beings as perfection itself. The Righteous Ones watching over humanity. They hold a sense of goodness and purity that is not so available to us as humans when we are, in fact, so flawed in our creation. What we forget about angels, is that they too are just as flawed, and their imperfections are their downfall when they decide to play on them. Take for example Lucifer.
In Hebrew, the name means "morning star". When we think of this certain angel, we almost always forget that he began as a "son of God". He acted on his vanity and his hatred for human kind, which led to a war in the heavens. As a punishment, his brother Michael kicked him out of heaven with a fiery sword. When Lucifer landed, he was encased in ice (or so it was in The Divine Comedy) forever to rule the domain we call Hell.

*Author's Note

Now I understand that my views will differ from certain people, and I'm certainly not discrediting any information I found. If anyone does have a problem with this, feel free to speak to me about it. I'd really love to see your view on this, and maybe in the future I will add more to this. Thank you to anyone that actually read this. I thought it was interesting and wanted to share it with you.

Evermore,
~ VioletGaze AKA Jessica R.