And so it was that when men began to multiply on the face of the land that daughters were born to them, 2and the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.
3Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not contend with man forever, because he also is flesh; 3nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
The question I am most frequently asked about Noah’s flood comes from the paragraph that, in our English Bibles, ushers us into the narrative: Gen 6:1-4. Here we are introduced to the “sons of God,” the “daughters of men,” and their nephilim offspring. And ever since the Intertestamental book of 1 Enoch declared these “sons of God” to be fallen angels … well, this passage has gotten a lot of press! Those fascinated by spiritual warfare and hierarchies in the heavenlies cannot seem to leave it alone.[2] Let’s take a look.
The mystery of this paragraph emerges from its antiquity and is largely due to a lack of clarity and consensus regarding the identity of the principal players. Who are the “sons of God” (bĕnê hāʾĕlōhîm בְנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים), the “daughters of men” (bĕnôt hāʾādām בֱנוֹת הָאָדָם ), and the Nephilim (nĕpilîm הַנְפִלִים)? There are an array of theories, all taken up in detail in the 2nd edition of The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (pre-order now!), but in this post we are only going to deal with the most sensational. The theory that the “sons of God” are fallen angels who married human women (“the daughters of men”) and thereby produced the Nephilim—semi-divine, superhuman warriors and/or giants similar to Hercules and Achilles in Greek mythology.
I anticipate that for most of you this reading of Gen 6:1-4 has you thinking, “Oh my goodness, this sounds more like Percy Jackson than it does like the Bible!” And you would be right. Although there are indeed occurrences in the Bible where “sons of God” means “angels” (see Ps 29:1; 82:6; 89:6; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7), there are also occurrences where “son(s) of God” means human beings (e.g. Lk 3:38; Exod 4:22; 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7, 12, Gal 3:26; 1 John 3:1-2).[3] More important, this idea that angels can or do copulate with humans cannot be found anywhere in the ְbiblical witness. In fact, Jesus specifically states that angels do not “take in marriage” as do the “sons of god” in Gen 6:2 (cf. Lk 20:35-36). Rather, as Meredith Kline says, if this angel-human-coupling is the correct reading of Gen 6:1-4, this is nothing less than “a piece of raw mythology” imported into the Bible out of the Mesopotamian world, or as Robert Alter states, a representation “of Greek myth”[4]—the same Greek myth that produced Hercules and Achilles (and Percy Jackson)![5]
As for the “raw mythology,” there are a number of instances in Mesopotamian myth and legend in which heroes are understood to be semi-divine—not the offspring of angels, but the offspring of gods.[6] Gilgamesh is an important example. He is described as two-thirds god and one-third human, as he was the son of a deified Sumerian king and the goddess Ninsun.[7] But as the God of Israel expressly does not reproduce, this sort of association is highly problematic. As Yehezkel Kaufmann argued decades ago in his groundbreaking work, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, one of the great differences between monotheism and polytheism is that whereas the deities of the pagan world are regularly described in sexual terms, Yahweh is never described in a reproductive or sexual fashion. The gods of the nations do reproduce (regularly), with each other and with human beings; Yahweh does not.
What about the gods of Greece? As in Mesopotamia, the Greek pantheon has hundreds of divine beings, infamous for their sexual exploits and scores of demigod descendants (a.k.a. Percy Jackson). But Genesis 6:1-4 found its way into the Bible centuries before the Hellenistic (i.e. “Greek”) era, which began in Israel in 332 BCE with Alexander’s conquests. So how could a Greek religious worldview find its way into the book of Genesis? Well, maybe this is not an issue of Hellenism influencing Genesis, but of Hellenism influencing the interpretation of Genesis.
As J. Daryl Charles tells us, with the Hellenistic era, Jewish interpreters became fascinated with angels. And one of the products of Intertestamental Jewish interpretation, was a number of outlandish and highly speculative descriptions of heaven’s supposed multi-tiered hierarchy and the involvement of angels in an array of human activities.[8] One of the resulting Intertestamental books was 1 Enoch.
You may have never heard of I Enoch, but like all pseudepigraphical books, Enoch is falsely attributed to a well-known biblical character (from the Greek pseudo ”false” and epigraphein ”to inscribe”). In this case, the highly esteemed character is Noah’s great-grandfather Enoch, who famously “walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” (Gen 5:24 NIV). Most important to us is that 1 Enoch is an apocryphal book—meaning that the authenticity and teachings of the book were such that it was refused canonical status. If you check it out on Google, you’ll find that the contents of I Enoch are quite bizarre, offering a detailed report of the descent of two hundred angels (named “Watchers”) who were assigned to teach humanity the arts of civilization, but abandoned their appointed task because they were lured away by the beauty of human women.
2And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’ 3And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: ‘I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.’ 4And they all answered him and said: ‘Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.’ 5Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. 6And they were in all two hundred; who descended ⌈in the days⌉ of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. (1 Enoch 6:2-6)
According to 1 Enoch, the result of these marriages were the nephilim.
2… great giants, whose height was three thousand ells [cubits]:
3Who consumed all the acquisitions of men.
And when men could no longer sustain them,
4the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. 5And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another’s flesh, and drink the blood. 6Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones. (1 Enoch 7:1-5).
As you can see, although 1 Enoch would make a great movie (it actually has already made a not-so-great movie), there are many points of departure from the biblical witness. So how did this apocryphal book, rejected by the Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant canons, and its interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4, find its way into Christian interpretation? Good question.
The answer is that in Jude’s (very) brief epistle—written to a community of Jewish and Gentile Christians immersed in the Intertestamental Jewish literature of their day—the biblical author makes an allusion to 1 Enoch: “And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6).
Keeping in mind Enoch’s non-canonical status, why would Jude be making use of the book? Also a great question. The answer is that New Testament authors often allude to apocryphal texts as a part of their rhetoric (e.g., Heb 1:3; 11:35, 37; Rev 8:2). In fact, in this same letter Jude refers to the “Assumption of Moses” (also not in your Bible). So clearly Jude understands that these fantastical Intertestamental writings are familiar to his audience and apparently he believes they will help him land his argument against the “ungodly people” (Greek asebeis) who have “secretly slipped in among [God’s people]” (Jude 4).[9] As Charles says, what we find here is a “strategic use of extra-biblical sources” as Jude “mounts a sharp polemic against his opponents who are distorting the faith.” But note as well that Jude does not endorse the book of Enoch as Scripture, and he doesn’t actually make any reference to Enoch’s view of fallen angels copulating with human women. (Any more than he endorses the authority of the “Assumption of Moses” or its bizarre storyline). In point of fact, Jude is likely using this book because it is one of the texts that the heretics were utilizing to mislead his people.
In sum, Enoch’s mythical interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4 emerged in the late 3rd/early 2nd century BCE (centuries after Genesis was written) in a book that was falsely authored and excluded from the canon. And although Enoch’s interpretation of Gen 6:1-4 remained very popular during the Intertestamental period (popping up among documents recovered with the Dead Sea Scrolls and in other Intertestamental literature such as the book of Jubilees and Ben Sirach), by the 2nd century CE the early church fathers were forcefully challenging the view. John Chrysostum and Augustine named the theory “absurd” and “blasphemous.” And with the Reformation, John Calvin states: “That ancient figment, concerning the intercourse of angels with women, is abundantly refuted by its own absurdity; and it is surprising that learned men should formerly have been fascinated by ravings so gross and prodigious.”[10]
But good hermeneutics are not nearly as engaging as lusty angels, giant “Watchers,” and secret keys into the spiritual realm. As a result, Enoch’s commentary on Genesis 6 continues to play the circuit. Want to know what I think is going on in Gen 6:1-4? Stay tuned for Part II: “So Who Were the Nephilim?”
[2] One of the most famous authors who championed this fantastical view was (much discredited) Hal Lindsey in his 1972 publication Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth. Jesse Penn-Lewis and Evan Roberts’ War on the Saints (1912) and Derek Prince were also well known for this position and its impact on “spiritual warfare.” In the current era, Michael Heiser is the most visible champion of these views in his The Unseen Realm in which he echoes many of Penn-Lewis, Lindsey and Prince’s original arguments.
[3] The exact phrase, “sons of (the) god,” appears several times in the Bible. Two are in Genesis 6; in Job 1:6; 2:1; and 38:7 these are clearly divine beings of some sort; in Psalm 29:1 the “sons of god” are commanded to exalt Yahweh; and in 89:6 it seems that the “sons of god” are other divine beings. In Daniel one “like a son of the gods” walks in the furnace, refering to either an angel or a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus (3:25). But note that Adam is also referred to as a “son” of God (Luke 3:38); Israel is repeatedly referred to as Yahweh’s “firstborn son” (e.g. Exod 4:22); David and his heirs are referred to as Yahweh’s “sons” (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7, 12); Jesus, of course, is “the son of God”; and Christians are spoken of as “sons” and “daughters” of God as well (Gal 3:26; 1 John 3:1-2; and Rom 8:14). These differences have somewhat to do with the flexible use of “son of” in Hebrew. The phrase can communicate an actual father/son relationship, broader kinship association (real or fictive), one’s vocation or guild (1 Kgs 20:35; 2 Kgs 2:3, 5, 7; Neh 3:8), someone’s age (“a son of twenty years”), or belonging to any recognized grouping.
[4] Meredith Kline was a reformed theologian who spent his career at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. His work in Kingdom Prologue, vols. 1-3 and By Oath Consigned shaped a generation of scholars and pastors (see M. Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 2:78 and Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary [W. W. Norton, 1996, 26n1; cf. E. A. Speiser, Genesis, 45-46).
[5] “Hellenism” refers to the historical spread and influence of ancient Greek culture, language, and thought following the conquests of Alexander the Great. Alexander arrived in the land of the Bible in 333 BCE and the entire fertile crescent was transformed by the influences of Greek thought and religion.
[6] There are literally thousands of divine beings known to the various Mesopotamian pantheons. Many of which were known to copulate with humans.
[7] Tablet 1, ii:1; tablet ix, ii:14-15. See Dalley, Myths of Mesopotamia, 41, 51, 52.
[8] J. Daryl Charles, “Jude’s Use of Pseudepigraphical Source-Material as Part of a Literary Strategy,” New Testament Studies 37 (1991): 134-35; cf. R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Clarendon, 1913); cf. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, First Book Of,” ABD 2:508-16; Ladd, “Pseudepigrapha,” ISBE 3:1040.
[9] Jude’s polemic is complex, and you’ll need to pick up a commentary to fully engage it. See Bauckham, Jude–2 Peter or Ruth Anne Reese, 2 Peter and Jude.
[10] For online access see https://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/genesis/6.htm.
This is helpful to know. I do not consider myself an expert on Heiser. I have read Heiser's work on Genesis 6 because it intersects mine. Not that he is considered an authority in the guild, but because his work finds its way into my classroom regularly. So I wanted to be clear on that portion of it, and that is where my familiarity comes from. I get it that you don't like the association with Hal Lindsey, but Hal Lindsey and Derek Prince were the two primary spokesmen for what Heiser teaches back in the days of the Jesus Movement when this particular brand of spiritual warfare became popular (e.g. not only the take on Genesis 6 but the "fall of Satan" in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are shared positions). I will add Prince to the footnote. I appreciate your interaction. Derek Prince still has a website if you want to compare and contrast.
Thanks for writing this!