A Bible Study by Jack Kelley
“When men began to increase on earth and daughters were born to them, the divine beings saw how beautiful the daughters of men were and they took wives from among those that pleased them. It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth – when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown.” (Genesis 6:2-4, from a Jewish translation of the Torah.)
Put their name in the title of a book and whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, chances are it’ll zoom to the top of the bestseller lists, especially if you hint at deviant sex, pyramids, UFOs and the end of the world. But who were the Nephilim really, and why is everyone so fascinated by them?
The first is that the phrase “sons of god” refers to royalty, explaining that kings were often considered god-like by their subjects. According to this view these kings went around their kingdoms scooping up all the beautiful girls and putting them into harems for their own personal pleasure. It offers no explanation for the offspring such behavior could have produced preferring instead to disconnect the birth of giants from the practice of collecting harems full of beautiful girls. A small minority of Jewish scholars held this view at one time but most rejected it, as the Jewish translation above demonstrates.
The second is that “sons of god” refers to the line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve who remained faithful to God, while “daughters of men” refers to female descendants of first son Cain, the rebellious line. This interpretation appeared about 400AD and was the first challenge to the “Angel” view that a majority of both Jews and Christians had held prior to that time. Some prominent scholars still teach this view.
There’s no clear consensus on why this view came to be, but the 5th century seems to be the agreed upon timing. Some say it’s because the Church was moving away from belief in the supernatural by 400 AD, while others say the worship of angels was actually becoming more popular by that time. Both viewpoints conclude that as a result, the “angel” view became an embarrassment in the Church, so an alternative interpretation was sought.
gracethrufaith.com
“When men began to increase on earth and daughters were born to them, the divine beings saw how beautiful the daughters of men were and they took wives from among those that pleased them. It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth – when the divine beings cohabited with the daughters of men, who bore them offspring. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown.” (Genesis 6:2-4, from a Jewish translation of the Torah.)
Put their name in the title of a book and whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, chances are it’ll zoom to the top of the bestseller lists, especially if you hint at deviant sex, pyramids, UFOs and the end of the world. But who were the Nephilim really, and why is everyone so fascinated by them?
In Those Days
The Hebrew word nephilim means fallen ones, sometimes translated giant because the Greek word for nephilim is gigantes. Who you think they were depends in large part on how you were taught to interpret Genesis 6:2-4 above. In Biblical circles, there are three schools of thought concerning this, but a little digging will soon have you convinced that some folks who don’t know any other passage in the Bible know this one. And if you throw in their interpretations you’ve soon got a whole bunch more. We’ll focus on the so-called Biblical ones.The first is that the phrase “sons of god” refers to royalty, explaining that kings were often considered god-like by their subjects. According to this view these kings went around their kingdoms scooping up all the beautiful girls and putting them into harems for their own personal pleasure. It offers no explanation for the offspring such behavior could have produced preferring instead to disconnect the birth of giants from the practice of collecting harems full of beautiful girls. A small minority of Jewish scholars held this view at one time but most rejected it, as the Jewish translation above demonstrates.
The second is that “sons of god” refers to the line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve who remained faithful to God, while “daughters of men” refers to female descendants of first son Cain, the rebellious line. This interpretation appeared about 400AD and was the first challenge to the “Angel” view that a majority of both Jews and Christians had held prior to that time. Some prominent scholars still teach this view.
There’s no clear consensus on why this view came to be, but the 5th century seems to be the agreed upon timing. Some say it’s because the Church was moving away from belief in the supernatural by 400 AD, while others say the worship of angels was actually becoming more popular by that time. Both viewpoints conclude that as a result, the “angel” view became an embarrassment in the Church, so an alternative interpretation was sought.
The Nephilim – Grace thru faith
"When men began to increase on earth and daughters were born to them, the divine beings saw how beautiful the daughters of men were and they took wives from among those that pleased them. It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth - when the divine beings cohabited with the...
gracethrufaith.com
