 |
| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Nephilim Repeat - like another try at input | Forum Quick Jump
|
| 
spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 11/30/2004 11:59 AM (GMT -6) |   | I know this may be silly and I will probably just get beat up, but I wanted to try my Nephilim theory here once more for input. While you may not agree with the assumption that angels/humans copulated and produced "hybrids" as the interpretation of Genesis 6:3, Dr. Boyd affirmed this in his book God at War, and it is an interpretation that predates "sons of god = Sethites." I would appreciate criticism based upon this assumption (which I know that some disagree with). Thank you to any who can help.
Reconsidering Genesis 6:3
Then the LORD said, "My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years."
Genesis 6:3 has been a difficult verse to understand, and scholars since the Septuagint have been presenting various interpretations. The problems revolve around two issues. Firstly, what is the nature of the problem between the Spirit and man? Secondly, what is the 120 years referring to? Does the 120 years refer to the time between God’s decree until the flood, or does it refer to the lifespan of man? I maintain that Genesis 6:3 presents both the problem and God’s solution.
This verse is sandwiched between two references to the Nephilim, suggesting the problem is somehow connected with the Nephilim as well as the endemic corruption of mankind. Considering the Nephilim, I am supporting a historical interpretation they are either the fallen angels themselves or “hybrid” beings, offspring that resulted from tangible sexual intercourse between fallen angels and women .
Genesis 6:1, 2 “When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose.”
While there are other interpretations, that this has to do with angels seems strongest in view of the context, the original Hebrew, ancient Jewish texts including Septuagint, and parallels in written records of myths of the major early civilizations. I am going farther maintaining that these Nephilim were not the root problem themselves but simply the manifestation of an even larger issue that God wished to address – man’s capacity for tangible physical interaction with the spiritual dimension. The ability for mankind to physically interact with the spiritual resulted only in increased wickedness. I believe that he temptation and fall in the garden began an apostasy that culminated in physical adultery with fallen angels and human women giving birth to corrupted hybrids. Ultimately, man’s capability for physical/spirit interaction was not used to seek God but led to every intent of the thoughts of man’s hearts being only evil continually, provoking God to make His decree.
Question:
If, as many scholars maintain, the Nephilim are linked with fallen angel/human hybrids, they are the objective proof of this physical interaction with the spiritual dimension. Why did these corrupted hybrids exist then and why don’t they exist now? What has changed? Many have answered the question of, “Why then and not now?” with the arrival of the flood. They simply say that the flood killed these beings and eliminated them from the earth. It doesn’t answer the question “Why not now?” but does provide a partial answer to, “What happened to them?” The main problem with this answer is that Scriptures explicitly state that these Nephilim offspring existed both pre-flood and post-flood. Gen 6:4 speaks about the pre-flood period “and also afterward.”
“The 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. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.”
The existence of post-flood Nephilim is also confirmed in Numbers 13:33 when speaking of the report of the 12 spies Moses sent into Canaan.
“And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim); and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them."
Because the Nephilim offspring reappeared after the flood, the capacity to create fallen angel/human hybrids must still have existed after the flood as well. Thus we are still left with, “Why then and not now?” I believe that the answer to this question is found in the decree from the second half of Genesis 6:3. I maintain that the scriptures indicate the ability for physical intercourse with fallen angels continued after the flood and then ceased. Why? The text states that God decided to limit the age of man with a radical shift from hundreds of years to a mere 120 . I propose that God had somehow linked the capacity to physically interact with the spiritual dimension to this lifespan, perhaps something genetic, and that it decayed when man’s lifespan fell below the 120 years. I further propose that this physical capacity, and the outworking of God’s decree limiting this capability, is fundamental to properly understand the dynamics of the interactions between God and man recorded within Genesis. We must understand that from the creation, and for a defined limited time, mankind could objectively and physically interact with both God and the broader spiritual dimension, including fallen angels. Then at a specific point in time, this capacity ended and mankind’s interaction with the spiritual dimension changed forever moving from interacting objectively with the physical body to non-physical sights and sounds and subjective internal spiritual interactions through dreams, visions, and impressions, etc.
In Genesis, we find that God physically walked and spoke with Adam and Eve in the garden. God gave them tangible promises heard by their physical ears and witnessed by each other. Cain objectively knew that Abel’s sacrifice had been accepted and his refused, and God physically spoke with Cain after he murdered his brother. Enoch really did walk with God. God tangibly spoke to Noah concerning the flood. Abraham spoke with and physically served a hot meal to God and angels, with Sarah witnessing their conversation with her physical ears from inside the tent. The men of Sodom wanted to physically rape the angels who later tangibly grabbed Lot by the arm to bring him to safety. Jacob physically wrestled with God while the actual hand of God touched and injured his hip. I believe that the promises given to the Patriarchs, “the fathers,” were tangible words heard and witnessed by men with their physical senses. The fathers of our faith were not superior mystics to those around them but objective witnesses who physically interacted with God Himself. The patriarch’s fight of faith wasn’t wondering whether their subjective spiritual perceptions were accurate but whether God’s objective word heard with their physical ears was really true and would be accomplished.
I believe that understanding of physical God/man interactions in Genesis is consistent with a general capacity in humanity for physical sexual interaction with the spiritual dimension that created the pre/post-flood Nephilim. I maintain that this capacity for the people of Israel ended with Moses in fulfillment of Genesis 6:3. Moses is unique and special in Jewish/Christian history in that he received and wrote for the people the Law of God. He is also the last person of God’s chosen people (with an unbroken documented genealogy from father to son back to Adam) with each and every father living longer than 120 years.
Age Ref.
Adam 930 Gen 5
Seth 912 Gen 5
Enosh 905 Gen 5
Kenan 910 Gen 5
Mahalale 895 Gen 5
Jared 962 Gen 5
Enoch 365 Gen 5
Methuselah 969 Gen 5
Lamech 777 Gen 5
Noah 950 Gen 9, 11
Shem 600 Gen 11
Apachshad 438 Gen 11
Shelah 420 Gen 11
Age Ref.
Eber 464 Gen 11
Peleg 239 Gen 11
Rue 239 Gen 11
Serug 230 Gen 11
Nahor 148 Gen 11
Terah 205 Gen 11
Abraham 175 Gen 25:7
Isaac 180 Gen 35:28
Jacob 147 Gen 47:28
Levi 137 Ex 6
Kohath 133 Ex 6
Amram 137 Ex 6
Moses 120 Deut 34:7
We find that after Moses, God limited direct interaction with the spiritual dimension and that bodily contact never again happens to non-sleeping people. Coincidentally, at this same specific time we find God introducing laws in Deuteronomy 18:9 that strongly condemn mystical practices designed to facilitate interaction with the spiritual dimension. Instead, through Moses God gives the objective Torah as His word, the Urim and Thummim for guidance, and creates the office of “prophet” to be His indirect voice to men. God now declares that He interacts with His people through the Torah, priests, and prophets. These prophets and priests were subject to and judged by the objective message written by Moses; the last of the line to have the capability to physically and objectively communicate with God (based upon the 120 lifespan). Interestingly, after this time, the Nephilim and giants decline and disappear as Israel carries out God’s command to utterly destroy them . Thereafter, there is no record of additional Nephilim, mankind apparently losing the capacity to physically interact with the spiritual dimension to create these beings as they declined in lifespan. Genesis 15:16 appears to hint at this concept when God tells Abraham that his descendents will return to the land only after the fourth generation because “the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” Once this capacity to interact with the evil spiritual dimension was completed and fully over, it was Israel’s mandate to obliterate the memory of it from the land so the evil practices associated with it and the spiritism/mystical practices that evolved from it would never be recovered and perpetuated.
Returning to the first point of Genesis 6:3, I maintain that a literal reading of the Hebrew provides us with a clue that supports this paradigm. The Hebrew word éÈãåÉï translated “abide in” in the Revised Standard Version from the phrase “My spirit shall not abide in man for ever” is difficult, with scholars proposing various Hebrew roots to understand the meaning. This same word is said to come from a root meaning “to rule over.” Luther writes concerning this verse, “Sanctes quotes Rabbi David and derives the verb éÈãåÉï from ðÈãÈï ‘a sheath.’” Dr. Thomas F. McDaniel, Professor Emeritus of the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary proposes, “My spirit will not abide in men and women forever.” This Hebrew verb éÈãåÉï describes the activity of Spirit with man’s corporal flesh, which I maintain is somehow linked to whatever genetically occurred with man’s degraded lifespan. I propose that somehow God’s decree affected the capability of the spirit to ðÈãÈï and interact directly and tangibly with the physical body.
I am not a Hebrew scholar and am looking to the scholarly community with what I believe is a new solution to the problem of Genesis 6:3, “why then and not now?” If the passage is viewed from this paradigm, are there interpretations of the Hebrew that could be stronger or more clear than the traditional view that it referred to the flood? Specifically, could the verse be addressing something like a concept of “spirits will not always dominate, misleading man’s flesh, but their lifespan will be 120 years?
I maintain that scriptures tell us that “normal” was different for the men of this time, spirit was active in flesh and they lived for hundreds of years. Jacob alludes to this degradation of humanity in Genesis 47:8
“Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many years have you lived?” So Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.””
After Moses, we see God’s Spirit now begins resting on certain men or coming upon certain men at certain times, particularly the prophets.
Deuteronomy 34:9,10 And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; so the people of Israel obeyed him, and did as the LORD had commanded Moses. And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
Never again do we see this same kind of tangible physical capacity to touch and eat with spiritual beings that is recorded pre-Moses. Angels may appear in thoughts, sight, sounds, dreams, and while sleeping but objective physical contact ceased. The resurrected Jesus addresses this when He speaks to His disciples.
Luke 24:39 “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have." And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.”
Conclusion:
This approach to Genesis 6:3, as far as I am aware of, offers the only explanation that resolves the enigma of the Nephilim if one interprets them as being related to the fallen angels/human physical intercourse. Regarding “Why then?” I propose mankind had the capacity to commit real physical adultery with fallen angels. Regarding “Why not now?” I propose mankind lost this ability with the fulfillment of God’s decree to reduce their lifespan to 120 years. The Patriarchs from Adam through to Moses were truly unique. Mankind no longer has the capacity to emulate them or their experiences any more than we have the capability to live to their amazing lifespan.
Considerations:
I propose that it was to bridge the God-decreed gulf between spirit and flesh , created by the loss of the ability to interact bodily with the spiritual dimension, that God became flesh and dwelt among men. He objectively came in the flesh to deliver real words explaining the path of eternal life and the revealed promise of God - tangibly to men as a man. Jesus was born of a virgin proving that He was NOT the result of the tangible spirit/man intercourse described in Genesis 6. Jesus was wholly man and wholly God, not 50% man and 50% angel or the product of a synergistic genetic “union” with Mary. God actually became man and was born of a virgin. When we consider that Jesus IS the Word of God it is because He physically was a tangible objective message we could experience in this world in front of witnesses. Without the incarnation, the mystery of God (the gospel of eternal life) which He wished to reveal would have been subjective revelations. In Jesus, the tangible Word, mankind heard and saw the mystery revealed to flesh by flesh. It was a tangible Jesus that was resurrected to prove that the message He brought was the very words of God whom we could not see, touch or experience objectively without dying. He brought us the very words of the Father, who is unseen.
In Jesus, God became the great prophet that Moses predicted in Deuteronomy 18:15-19
"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren--him you shall heed-- just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.' And the LORD said to me, 'They have rightly said all that they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.”
God, who in the past spoke directly to the fathers and indirectly in the prophets, returns and speaks directly to us Himself again as a man speaking to mankind.
Hebrews 1:1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
Instead of angels or spiritual intermediaries, in Jesus God comes as the tangible one whom John spoke of; bridging the gulf and speaking the words of the Spirit directly in the flesh to the flesh.
1 John 1:1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life - and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.
Spen Lake
| | Back to Top | | |
 |
spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:29 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by the Wicker Man
I think gods ("sons of God") really did copulate with humans and produce the Anakim and Nephilim.
I think this has continued to this day, probably not to the extent as it did in those days.
There's enough legend, myths, anecdotal evidence of Succubi and Incubi to make me think this has persisted since.
Not that I'm going to use this speculation as the basis of a further case. Know what I mean?
Remember, David killed a Nephilim 1365 years after the promise to shorten lifespans, circa the flood. 
That negates your "somehow", imho.
But I'll quit beating this dead horse, OK? Please continue....
Thank you.
I have thought of this too. There were actually approx. 400 years between Moses' death and David becoming king. It is my understanding that these hybrids were not "sterile" but they could have sons themselves. There are geneologies given for ther sons of Anak. We find that Goliath had brothers. I take this to mean that the lineage of the hybrids that began earlier, when physical copulation was possible, continued until they were eliminated under David. Thus, according to my theory (if it is true), the fact that these beings existed 400 years past the time that I believe that it was possible to begin the lineage with angel/woman still seems plausible to me.
I have heard of others believing that these hybrids can still be created now. It seems to me, however, that the biblical record is extremely silent on this. They disappear in the Bible at the time of David and we never hear of them again. While it is not authoritative, we find a similar record in the mythical histories of various cultures around the world having a time of giants and then it stopping. Interesting, but it isn't proof.
Spen Lake
| | Back to Top | | |
|
spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:40 PM (GMT -6) | | John,
This concept of "after their kind" and the purity of the "seed" is a very serious issue in the OT. It seems to me that if this was happening, the breaking of such a serious command would be cause for God to wipe out the entire world. Whatever the sin was, it was serious and it seems that it involved this corrupting of the generations or "seed" of man. Noah was pure in his generations and this may be important. Mules are evidence that mixing between species is possible. Musles or any mixing of species (though possible) would be an abomination to the Jewish law, how much more so this type of hybrid.
Secondly, it seems at least ironic that the cultures that Israel was commanded to wipe out utterly and destroy them were tied to these beings. They did kill, under Moses, Og of Bashan who was nearly 13 feet tall and part of these beings. I find it "odd" that the men of Sodom sought sex with the angels. I understand that the evidence there is circumstantial, but it is at least ironic. It also seems odd that David, the type of Christ, opens his career in a fight against one of these beings and the last one recorded nearly kills him. The battle between these beings and God's seed of messiah was certainly present.
Spen Lake
| | Back to Top | | |
|
feelinahole
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 754
| Posted 12/4/2004 5:12 AM (GMT -6) | | | James Byron Huggins recently released an excellant novel "Nightbringer" which deals with this issue. Check it out. | | Back to Top | | |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 12:58 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|