Genesis 6 talks of a procreation between mortal women and men who were high and the high men are a topic of debate.Were they angels who rebelled in heaven or some call then nobles ,from the generations of Seth the high of the world.If we remember Cain’s line was cursed of coarse so the wealthy of the world were of the Sethian line.Or some have said the men of high were sons of Lamech but this makes no sense because Lamech was not worthy of the expression benei Elohim (sons of God),Lamech is as far as we know a descendant of Cain/Kayin.
We are for now going to deal with the original text because precise meaning of words is critical.
| וַֽיְהִי֙ כִּֽי־הֵחֵ֣ל הָֽאָדָ֔ם לָרֹ֖ב עַל־פְּנֵ֣י הָֽאֲדָמָ֑ה וּבָנ֖וֹת יֻלְּד֥וּ לָהֶֽם: Gen 6:1 א |
| בוַיִּרְא֤וּ בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם כִּ֥י טֹבֹ֖ת הֵ֑נָּה וַיִּקְח֤וּ לָהֶם֙ נָשִׁ֔ים מִכֹּ֖ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר בָּחָֽרוּ: Gen 6:2 ב |
| גוַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהֹוָ֗ה לֹֽא־יָד֨וֹן רוּחִ֤י בָֽאָדָם֙ לְעֹלָ֔ם בְּשַׁגָּ֖ם ה֣וּא בָשָׂ֑ר וְהָי֣וּ יָמָ֔יו מֵאָ֥ה וְעֶשְׂרִ֖ים שָׁנָֽה: Gen 6:3 ג |
| דהַנְּפִלִ֞ים הָי֣וּ בָאָ֘רֶץ֘ בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵם֒ וְגַ֣ם אַֽחֲרֵי־כֵ֗ן אֲשֶׁ֨ר יָבֹ֜אוּ בְּנֵ֤י הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ אֶל־בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם וְיָֽלְד֖וּ לָהֶ֑ם הֵ֧מָּה הַגִּבֹּרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר מֵֽעוֹלָ֖ם אַנְשֵׁ֥י הַשֵּֽׁם Gen 6:4 ד starting above R-L |
My vote on the identity of the benei Elohim בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ being angelic beings behaving badly or maybe even already fully in rebellion against God for a couple reasons.
1.The text states Gen 6:2 “The sons of God saw the daughters of humankind and that they were good(that is to see sexually) and took for themselves wives from all to which they chose”
First the use of the phrase “daughters of mankind or humankind” ,well then if the benei Elohim were high men of nobility and wealth and not angelic creatures than they would also be of mankind ,so then why make an issue out of the fact that they chose wives of humankind if they are humankind,albeit high bread aristocracy and nobles but human none the less.The language sons of God Vs daughter of mankind implies a difference don’t you think!There is other language in Biblical era Hebrew to express nobility and social prominence than calling them “sons of God”.For instance the word Sar which is Hebrew for ruler/Prince ,it’s where the name Sarah comes from meaning Princess and the name Israel comes from ( yi- sar-el) hence Yisrael meaning “ruled over God) because Jacob fought an angel and won.Then why not then say “The Sar’s of humankind saw that the peasant women were good to look at and slept with all they chose” instead of using benei Elohim meaning sons of God.Can we toss out the theory that the “benei Elohim” were human nobles or rulers?I think yes.
2.Gen 6:4 “And there were n’filim on the earth in those days and also afterwards”
The word n’filim is almost certain a plural of the Hebrew word “nafal” meaning fallen
| נָפַל verbקל | to fall, to stumble ; to drop, to decline ; to collapse, to be defeated, to surrender, to be conquered ; to be killed ; to fall by the wayside (a proposal, plan) ; (colloquial) to fall on (a day, date) ; to descend ; to be inferior to |
The use of n’filim implies fallen ones, like angelic creatures who fell spiritually either before or because they mated with human females.There are other Hebrew words for giant like anak or anakim(plural) or great men ,which brings us to the next part of Gen 6:4
“And the sons of God came to the daughters of humankind and they would bear for them men of courage and strength ,men of great reputation(renown)”
It uses the word “giburim” meaning courageous or strong men and does not use n’filim in that part of Gen 6:4.So there is a difference in nature between the “n’filim” and the “men of courage and great reputation” ,so the n’filim are not the mighty men of renown but more likely spawned the mighty men.I think the n’filim are the fallen sons of God(the benei Elohim)
This is also confirmed in the books of Enoch and Jubilees (which are technically only considered scripture in the Ethiopian Church but still interesting reading)
The sons of God are called “The Watchers” in Enoch and the watchers are mentioned in Daniel also but not in this context but a watcher is clearly a type of angel.
Lets agree what happened in Genesis/B’reishit 6 is that angels either fell from grace and mated with human women or they fell because they mated with human women.
Lets talk about who the mighty men of good reputation may have been.
הַגִּבֹּרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר מֵֽעוֹלָ֖ם אַנְשֵׁ֥י הַשֵּֽׁם:
This says literally and basically “men of courage(strength) who’s reputation on the earth was great” most translations say “mighty men of old ,men of renown”
But who were they??
A lot of people think they were real life people of great power and intelligence who were after their death in the flood became gods in pagan cultures like Achilles,Zeus,Odin,Thor,Osiris etc…… So the mythology of the great men who were part human and part angel there legend developed over time and became pagan gods centuries later.This is not unusual actually ,although Seth of the Bible was not of the n’filim but he was a respected person in ancient times because unlike Cain he was not cursed.Seth or in Hebrew Sheit and likely in Egyptian Set was a Egyptian god in early Egypt.Seth was popular in early Egypt and also too in the later era when Osiris was popular but in really early Egypt Seth was a god in Egypt.Also is interesting that the super human King of ancient Sumer, Gilgamesh is mentioned in the “book of the Giants” a Jewish text found in Qumran as part of the Dead Sea scrolls.
Set (/sɛt/; Egyptological: Sutekh – swtẖ ~ stẖ[a] or Greek: Seth /sɛθ/) is a god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners in ancient Egyptian religion.[5]: 269 In Ancient Greek, the god’s name is given as Sēth (Σήθ). Set had a positive role where he accompanies Ra on his barque to repel Apep, the serpent of Chaos.[5]: 269 Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant.[5]: 269 He was lord of the Red Land (desert), where he was the balance to Horus‘ role as lord of the Black Land (fertile land).[5]: 269
In the Osiris myth, the most important Egyptian myth, Set is portrayed as the usurper who murdered and mutilated his own brother, Osiris. Osiris’s sister-wife, Isis, reassembled his corpse and resurrected her dead brother-husband with the help of the goddess Nephthys. The resurrection lasted long enough to conceive his son and heir, Horus. Horus sought revenge upon Set and many of the ancient Egyptian myths describe their conflicts.(wikipedia)
It was not unusual for men of reputation to evolve into gods in later times so one of the mighty men of reputation could have been a Achilles or a Odin ,many Norse scholars believe Odin may have been a historic person before being mythologized.
Neandertal/Cro-Magnon theory?
This one has potential and I know Neandertal’s and Cro-Magnon’s are not known for being smart or tall they were very very strong,tough and in that sense mighty.They are known well by science for being human ancestors and they are known well by intelligent people.So they have the great reputation of those described in Gen 6:4 they are men of renown.I know they are looked down upon by modern humans but they were strong strong humanoid species and may have been quite large for there time when humans may have been smaller.I think it’s quite possible that ancient humanoid species of fossil record could very well have been some of those destroyed in the flood.And it’s also possible that the giants destroyed in the flood could been both the pagan gods of old and also humanoid species known by fossils ie .. Neandertals or Cro-Magnon,so it could be both.Who knows the gravity of what and who was destroyed in the Noachian flood.
There is also the question of post flood giants as mentioned in the book of Numbers or was Goliath a hold over from pre flood times.Did semi-angelic/demonic-humanoid creatures survive the flood and live on in later Biblical times and even today.There was talk of anakim(giants) in the land of Canaan and other Bibilcal mentions.However I will not address that because the mentions are few and vague and we know giants existed post flood but it will never been known if they were related to the Genesis 6, sons of God and n’filim.
However the theory of the descendents of Seth marrying the daughters of Cain/Kayin’s offspring is still popular and many adhere to it.Was the issue that the line of Seth was not cursed as was the ancestors of Cain and God did not want their DNA mixed as not to taint the stock of Seth as was the stock of Cain afflicted with curses.If that was the case why not say that then! Why not say “The sons of Sheit saw the daughters of Kayin were good (for sexual and romantic love) and took as many wives as they chose” .Why not say that or like I said before use the words ” The Sars (nobles/rulers) of men saw the daughters of common men were attractive and married as many as they chose”.Why then explicitly say “benei Elohim(sons of God)” if they did not mean divine or angelic or demonic beings??
Also we know the offspring of Seth were wealthier and better off in general than the stock of Cain but the Sethite’s were still human beings and how could mortal human semen procreate giants and super men.However supernatural beings could be capable of making offspring of super men.Also if the DNA of the Sethite men could make giants then why not make giants with Sethite women and not defy God and get destroyed in the flood.Also if the men of Sethian stock can make giants by sleeping with women why didn’t they already make giants with the women they already slept with.Or if the formula for evil giants was in the ovaries of the women of Cain then why didn’t they already make giants with their men.
One last thing is that it says “The sons of God saw the daughters of mankind/humankind ,in the Hebrew “benot ha-Adam” meaning daughters of mankind or humankind.If the Seth/Cain theory were true wouldn’t it make more sense for it say “benot ha-Kayin” the daughters of Cain.
Were dinosaurs killed off in the Noachian flood??
Although the Torah itself or anywhere else in the Bible it is not that cited anamalistic sin or that animals behaved wickedly in pre flood times.
In an extra-Biblical Rabbinical text called the Zohar in parashat Noach 25:193 it says animals intermixed between species and all flesh became tainted.
Noach: Verse 193
תָּא חֲזֵי, אִינוּן חַיָּיבֵי עָלְמָא, גָּרְמוּ הָכֵי לְכָל בִּרְיָין, וּבָעוֹן לְאַכְּחָשָׁא עוֹבָדָא דִבְרֵאשִׁית, וְאִינוּן גָּרְמוֹ לְכָל בִּרְיָין, לְחַבְּלָא אוֹרְחַיְיהוּ, כְּמָה דְאִינוּן מְחַבְּלָן. אֲמַר קֻדְשָׁא בְּרִיךְ הוּא, אַתּוּן בְּעִיתוּ לְאַכְּחָשָׁא עוֹבָדֵי יְדַי אֲנָא אַשְׁלִים רְעוּתָא דִּלְכוֹן, וּמָחִיתִי אֶת כָּל הַיְקוּם אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי מֵעַל פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה. אַהֲדַר עָלְמָא לְמַיִין, כְּמָה דַּהֲוָה בְּקַדְמֵיתָא, מַיִין בְּמַיִין, וְהָא אִתְּמָר. מִכָּאן וּלְהָלְאָה, אַעֲבֵיד בִּרְיָין אָחֳרָנִין בְּעָלְמָא, כִּדְקָא יָאוֹת.
“Come and behold: The wicked of the world caused all the creatures TO MATE WITH SPECIES NOT THEIR OWN. They thereby sought to destroy the work of Creation BY MIXING AND ALTERING SPECIES. They caused all the creatures to pervert their ways on earth, as they themselves had done. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them, ‘As you seek to destroy My work of Creation, I shall fully grant your wish. “And every living substance that I have made, will I destroy from off the face of the earth” (Beresheet 7:4). I shall bring the world back to water, as in the beginning, cover it with water, and then make other creatures who are fit to exist in the world.’”
Could weird creatures have roamed the earth and that the destruction of certain perverse anaimal species was part of the purpose of the flood and this could be why Noah was given specific instructions on which animals would be saved on the ark.This could also expain the need for Kashrut or Kosher laws later in that some species may have carried a pre flood infection and were not fit to eat and fitness is what Kasheir or Kosher means.If only animals that didn’t inter mix species were saved in the ark then there would not have been enough animals so some unfit animals had to be saved but people should not eat them.And over sized lizards that eat mamals were irredeemable and the dinosaurs were destroyed.God only kept a bare minimum of unfit animals just to repopulate the earth.Yes I think the flood could have killed off some the giant lizards.
Was the Noachian flood world wide or local??Every culture seems to have a flood story from Gilgamesh in ancient Sumer to native Americans!
We also must remember that the local Vs worldwide notion is naive because in older times the continents were situated differently and water levels were different.If the world then were a mirror of a world today then that is one thing but the world thousands of years ago was not like today.I think it’s naive to think in terms of local Vs worldwide or global.
Here is an article in the Smithsonian magazine written by James Trefil saying that a one world language change happened after a large flood precisely what the Bible says.
“Unfortunately, the evidence for this diaspora is a good deal less solid than the evidence for the flood itself. Linguists have long known how to reconstruct ancient languages by looking at words that have survived in the descendants of those languages today. The date of an event like the split-up of the Indo-European languages can then be estimated by comparing those words with artifacts found in excavations — a language probably won’t have a word for “wheel,” for example, unless it actually uses wheeled vehicles. “It is unlikely that the Indo-European languages split up before 3500 B.C. (that is, 2,000 years after the Black Sea flood),” says University of Chicago linguist Bill Darden, basing his conclusion on this sort of argument. If he and his colleagues are right, then the diaspora part of the flood story will be just another beautiful theory shot down by ugly facts”
Here is the same article saying what is now the Black Sea was once a fresh water river delta.
“We know such things because sediments reveal history. Ryan and Pitman began taking cores of the present-day Black Sea. The cores seemed to be telling a strange story indeed, particularly in the northern areas. At the very bottom of the cores, dozens of feet below the present seafloor, they found layered mud typical of river deltas.
Carbon-dating of shells in this mud indicates that it was laid down between 18,000 and 8,600 years ago. This data showed that an area of the Black Sea about the size of Florida might have been much like the lower Mississippi Delta today — rich farmland with an abundant supply of fresh water.”
Here is this about the Black Sea again.
“The fact that Prof. W. Ryan and W. Pitman found in 1998 an old shoreline and fully preserved dunes at depth 155 meters indicated that there was a flood or floods. The fully preserved dunes were a proof that the flood must have happened fast.”
There is also the Pangea theory that all continents were fully connected and rest of the globe was water.In this case the notion that a flood started in the middle east and central Asia happened and once the flood water reached the closest ocen source the fresh water mixed with the salt water.Around the Black Sea was a large river with many many tributaries which created as the rain fell a giant fresh water lake and then became saliant once the ocean mixed in.That is why it’s naive to say was there was a localized or global flood but in reality a bit a both.It was a gigantic catastrophic of devastating effect ,that is for sure.It may not have as Gen-7 says covered the whole earth or every mountain ,I think what Gen 7 meant was it covered all relevant parts of the earth.What the writers meant was all of the world that they knew and probably a heck of a lot more.It was a devastating catastrophe to say the least and outside of Noah and family likely few survivors ,a mountain goat or two and a couple clans of super rustic mountain people not tainted by the n’filim.If the Bible accounted every minute detail it would be to long and to hard to understand.The Bible was written in simple language so everyone could understand it.
This will end part I of our flood blog and off to part II
Truth in Mikra 
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