![]() So let’s first deal with the purposes for writing this other than responding to a friendly request: to pass on what I’ve learned, to get to the truth best as I can, to share that information, to educate others about ancient texts, and to build interest in ancient texts. Loosely quoting Anton Chekov, if you put a gun on the mantel and then don’t turn around and use the gun in relatively short order, you’ve wasted the time and attention of your audience. ![]() He constantly reminded me that “less is more” and that my fascination with unimportant details was not helpful to the reader. When I was struggling through my book, my writing coach urged me to make drastic cuts, and I did. How, then, shall we approach this? Frankly, I’ve written this little section when the post itself reached over 8,000 words and was still going, not having yet arrived that the most salacious of targets, the Nephilim. It will therefore be important to the approach to somehow limit the discussion without putting on blinders to the broader studies. ![]() The topics opened by these challenges are entire fields of study: Theology (the nature of God), Theodicy (evil present in a world created by a good and powerful God), Angelology (the study of Angels), Source and Text criticism, Text dating, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Hermeneutics, Mythology, and more. A human lifespan of 120 years seems pretty real in our world, but in the Biblical text it just isn’t, not until later in the text, after Genesis. Who are the Nephilim? Are they children of human women and Angels? If God is sorry that He made mankind are all of the statements about God knowing the future false? And that about the 120 year lifespan, I mean, if we limit the applicability of the statement to people born after the flood, Abraham makes 175 (Genesis 25:7) and Isaac makes 180 (Genesis 35:28). Who are these “Sons of God”? I’d always been told that throughout the Bible this was a phrase meaning Angels, but that’s not true. (Genesis 6:1-8 NRS) The Challenges and the approachĪ friend asked me to write on Genesis 6, a subject I’ve shied away from because I’m familiar with the challenges of the text and the wide swath of information those challenges open. (8) But Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD. (7) So the LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created– people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (6) And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (5) The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown. (4) The Nephilim were on the earth in those days– and also afterward– when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. (3) Then the LORD said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” (1) When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, (2) the sons of God saw that they were fair and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. That said, let’s try and have some thick skins and be cautious as we proceed. Like my studies, I had to know that this was so, and it was (I stood aside from the mat and touched the fridge). Even the friendly and desirable can cause shock the honor system stainless steel upright fridge on the island was stocked with soft drinks, but the wet footed visitor who failed to stand on the prescribed rubber mat got quite a shock (of electric current!). Any time we stray from the our most frequented paths, dangers await us, and we should be prepared so that we stay safe and unoffended. Dana gave us slide shows and lectures in the evening to prepare us for the next day, the glories and the dangers such as fire coral, black sea urchins, schools of barracuda, and of course the stray shark. I remember a vacation to Roatan before it was a modern resort, and a marine biologist who funded his work with some grass huts and hosting snorkelers and divers on this magnificent reef. This post will take a deep look, and you’re invited. Giants, lusty angels, half-human half-divine creatures, the flood, the limit of the soul’s mortal incarnation, all of that and more in one short chapter in Genesis, Chapter 6, verses 1-8.
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