Gen. 6 -- Angels mating with humans?

[devoted2christ]

In my studies, I ran across this passage:

Genesis 6:1-4
And it happened, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and when daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were good. And they took wives for themselves from all whom they chose. And Jehovah said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, in his erring; he is flesh. Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore to them, they were mighty men who existed of old, men of renown.

Being the curious student I am, I did a quick search from the hebrew of "Sons of God", ben elohim, against the rest of the Bible, and the only other time we see it occur is in Job:

Job 1:6
And a day came when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah. And Satan also came among them.

Job 2:1
And it happened that a day came when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah. And Satan also came among them to present himself before Jehovah.

Job 38:7
when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

It is pretty clear that the Job verses are saying that the sons of God, ben elohim, are angels. Seeing as that Job is written first, and during the same general era as Genesis, I thought it was safely assumed that the Genesis 6 passage was also talking about angels as well.

Naturally, this confuses me, so I have a few questions:

1. Did angels somehow mate with humans, to create the Nephilim mentioned later on? If so, aren't they androgynous?

2. Does sons of God mean something different, and if so, how do we know that? From what I've seen, humans were never called sons of God until Jesus came, and never in the same context as ben elohim.

3. Why is this story right before the story of Noah? Were the angels trying to introduce perfection into the human bloodline if #1 is true? Or were they responsible for the destruction of mankind (i.e. they were demons who corrupted mankind by mating with them)? If #2 is true, then why is that such a big deal to make God want to destroy the Earth?

I appreciate any responses. I'm just confused about this whole deal, and the rest of the Bible doesn't seem to mention it at all! Also, I'm kinda new here, so please let me know if this isn't the proper place to post this question! Thanks a bunch; I appreciate it!

[Act9_12Out]

Hi devoted,

Welcome to TWeb. Your question is quite interesting, and I think you've rightly recognized that the "sons of God" in Genesis 6 are indeed fallen angels. Job 1:6 and 2:1 are key to understanding this passage. Notice that satan is present with them. Some try to say that the "sons of God" in Genesis are the "Godly line of Seth," however, we have much NT material to support the view of fallen angels. To begin with, we must answer the question, "Why would angels come down and have sex with human women?" The second question to be answered is, "How did the fallen angels enable themselves to reproduce?" Well, I'll give it my best shot...

The reason the fallen angels came down to have sex with women was to attempt to contaminate the bloodline of Christ. Remember, a Savior was prophecied shortly after the fall (Gen 3:15) and satan was attempting to thwart God's plan of redemption. You rightly noted that this nephilim passage directy preceeds the flood. Here's an interesting passage to consider...


Genesis 6
6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
7 So the Lord said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
9 This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.
10 And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Notice, Noah was perfect in his generations. I believe that this implies that Noah's bloodline had not been contaminated by the fallen angels. Isn't it interesting that God gave Noah 120 years to build the ark, and not one person outside of his family assisted with building the ark? When God flooded the earth, He was attempting to rid the earth of the nephilim. However, they appear later. This explains why God was so violent towards other nations and sent the children of Israel into foreign lands to "utterly destroy" everyone.


1 Samuel 15
15:2 Thus says the Lord of hosts: 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt.
15:3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.' "

Notice, thet are to destroy even the "infant and nursing child" to attempt to rid the earth of the nephilim blood. However, satan's plans are thwarted, and the Christ child is born as prophecied. So what became of these "angels who sinned" and attempted to contaminate the bloodline of Christ?


2 Peter 2
4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;

God has reserved these angels in "the lowest depths of hell" (Tartarus). After Christ's death, Christ "proclaimed" kerusso victory over these angels who tried to prevent Him from being born.


1 Peter 3
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,
19 by whom also He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,
20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

I believe these passages support the "why" and answer our first question. Now, "how" did the fallen angels accomplish this task?


Jude
6 And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;

Notice, these angels did not keep their proper domain, but left their own habitation oikoterion. This same "habitation" oikoterion is the same "habitation" we Christians desire to be clothed with after our physical death.


2 Corinthians 5
1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven,
3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.

The angels who did not keep their proper domain, and left their heavenly bodies oikoterion enabled themselves to have sexual intercourse with "the daughters of men" and produced the nephilim. We as Christians will put on our heavenly bodies oikoterion when we depart this earth and are resurrected. The angels put off what we will put on. I believe the above passages address the "how" and answer our second question.

God bless, --Jeremy Finkenbinder

[Bill the Cat]

Here's an interesting article on the subject

http://www.hope-of-israel.org/angelbf.htm

[Rubia Warren]

Wow, this thread is cool- I have never noticed this stuff before.

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Please allow me to add a[n orthodox] Jewish point-of-view. There is no tradition whatsoever in Judaism of angels mating en masse with human beings as per Jeremy's post; this is a particularly Christian take, not a Jewish one.

Elokim is used in Exodus 21:6, 22:8 and 22:28 in reference to human beings, i.e. judges. In each of these instances, we believe that the correct translation/understanding of the Hebrew elokim is "judges." In our traditions, Elokim is not so much a name of God as it is a title denoting His might and power. Thus, it is also used to denote mighty & powerful people, in these 3 cases, judges.

We understand the usage of bnei elokim in Genesis 6:1-4 as referring to the sons of mighty & powerful people, i.e. rulers, aristocrats, lords, etc., and understand the passage to mean that the sons of wealthy & powerful families were arrogantly & violently seizing women from the lower classes according to their whims & urges.

As far as


Noah was in his generations a man righteous and wholehearted; Noah walked with God

is concerned, there is a famous controversy among our Sages as to what "in his generations" means. Most of our Sages say that it means that Noah was righteous only in comparison to the debauched & wicked state of his fellows & that had he lived in a different era, he would not have stood out (The verse says that Noah walked with God; yet in Genesis 17:1, God tells Abram to walk before Him). Others of our Sages, however, claim that Noah would have stood out in any age.

In Job, we believe that the usage of bnei elokim refers to angels (who are also mighty & powerful beings, not the literal offspring of God).

In our beliefs, the precept to wipe out Amalek (Deuteronomy 25:17-19) has nothing to do with the Amalekites being the descendants of human-angel mongrels, etc. (See http://www.aish.com/purimthemes/purimthemesdefault/Remembering_Amalek.asp and http://www.aish.com/purimthemes/purimthemesdefault/Haman_Heir_to_Amalek.asp .)

Be well!

ssv :hi:

[Vocker]

"It is pretty clear that the Job verses are saying that the sons of God, ben elohim, are angels. Seeing as that Job is written first, and during the same general era as Genesis, I thought it was safely assumed that the Genesis 6 passage was also talking about angels as well."

The usage in Job does not necessarily determine the usage in Genesis. It could give an strong indication if we had many occurrences throughout scripture used the same way. But it's never completely definitive and that is not the case here anyway.

"Did angels somehow mate with humans, to create the Nephilim mentioned later on?"

Not possible. Angels are spirit beings, men are physical. Nephilim are just what the passage states they are, "They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

"Does sons of God mean something different, and if so, how do we know that?"

If I remember correctly, sons of God also referred to men in authority during the OT time period.

"Why is this story right before the story of Noah?"

Because it happened right before Noah? :teeth: It was in the beginning of man's fall into reprobation.

"this is a particularly Christian take, not a Jewish one."

And a rather poor one at that, IMHO.

"We understand the usage of bnei elokim in Genesis 6:1-4 as referring to the sons of mighty & powerful people, i.e. rulers, aristocrats, lords, etc."

That, to me, is the strongest interpretation. The other take I've read from respected Christian theologians is the sons of God refer to the descendants of Seth and the daughters of man refer to the descendants of Cain. Regardless, I've never read a respected theologian that would support such a thing as angel-human copulation.

[devoted2christ]

Alright, based on the scripture references, I now have a much greater understanding of this. Especially considering this was soon following the prophecy of the Messiah, I can easily understand why the fallen angels would want to contaminate the human bloodline. Especially considering this adequately explains the reason Jesus descended, I would be inclined to agree with Jeremy's post and Bill's article (wow, that is an interesting read). It's still a little tough to stomach the idea of angels mating with humans, but then I remember that angels can take on the likeness of humans, so why not the functionality? They are not restricted to anything in the physical world, since the heavenly realm tends to supercede our laws.

I also think that if these "sons of God" had been men, they would have been called "sons of men", as they are throughout the Old Testament. To add to this, I feel that there would have been no reason for these Nephilim/Giants to appear if it were merely humans mating. I mean, copulate a hundred times and you'll never get a giant based on pure statistics. And if it were coincidence, there would have been no reason to mention it in that context. Humans mating with humans should always produce humans. However, assuming these sons of God were indeed fallen angels, it's quite easy to see how that translates into a new species of creature, not liken to humans.

And it was also interesting to note the "oikoterion", considering that is indeed the word for our "glorified body" we will receive at the judgement/resurrection. At any rate, I feel quite enlightened about this now, and it tends to explain a lot about why Noah's events took place, and why God was so adament about killing off neighboring lands. If the Nephilim had their way, they would be mating with God's people eventually, in whatever way they could, and the bloodline would be contaminated. It's also interesting to note that God said He would never destroy the Earth again. It seemed from that point on, He found other ways to protect His people from the fallen angels. We see a change at that moment, that God switches to defensive plays instead of offensive, basically.

And stillsmallvoice, that was also very interesting. I can easily see how that would almost have to be the Jewish perspective, since you don't believe Jesus was the Messiah, and I see how that issue would affect this story easily. And thanks for correcting my poor englishization (yes, I make up words at will) of the Hebrew I read in the passages...

Appreciate the reponses, all is becoming clear... :D

[NSMinistries]

We have no proff that fallen angels had a physical body. That being said is it possible that these fallen angels had the knowlege to effect the physical world to produce off spring. If they did or do why do we not see evidence of this in later points of Biblical history or in our world today.

[GrayPilgrim]

This question has been debated since before the time of Christ. I have taken most every position on this at some time or another, because the material is less than clear. [Remember that the doctrine of perspicuity only point to the fact that the Bible is perspicacious regarding the teaching of salvation.]

The major views are:

The sons of Seth are the sons of God and the sons of Cain are the sons of men.
The angelic view, generally develops out of 1 Enoch and other psuedepigraphical writings written during the intertestamental period.
The sons of God are kings and the sons of men are commoners.

None of these views is inherently more spiritual. All of them have problems. Wayne Grudem in his commentary on 1 Peter (see Jaltus’ commentary list) has an excellent treatment of this issue. Back in January/February I was teaching an adult Sunday school on Genesis and an evening Bible study on 1 & 2 Peter, which along with Jude are the NT books which pick up on this issue, an in all three books I proposed a variation on a different issue, because honestly, I don’t know each view has good argumentation. Waltke in his commentary on Genesis combines some of these and proposes yet further views.

One problem with this passage is based on where you find a break in the text. Actually the problem in Genesis is where the chapter division is placed. As it now stands this is the reason for the flood. However, if you follow the תולדות divisions, then it becomes the conlcusion to the genealogy and instead and then verse 9 begins the flood narrative, which is generally the way I take it as it fits the flow better, and the violence which God ascribes as the problem is allowed to be the problem of the flood instead.

[Socrates]

AiG gives all three views without taking sides, and shows that they have nothing to do with aliens -- Were the ‘sons of God’ and/or nephilim extraterrestrials? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/answersbook/nephilim9.asp).

India's website has the pros and cons of the three main views Who are the sons of God and the Nephilim? (http://www.rationalchristianity.net/nephilim.html).

[Robyn Banks]

devoted2christ:
I have a few questions:

1. Did angels somehow mate with humans, to create the Nephilim mentioned later on? If so, aren't they androgynous?

2. Does sons of God mean something different, and if so, how do we know that? From what I've seen, humans were never called sons of God until Jesus came, and never in the same context as ben elohim.
The identification of the “sons of God” and the “Nephilim” is debatable. The interpretative options for “sons of God” are usually considered to be either
(1) nonhuman, divine beings , or
(2) kings/rulers , or
(3) Sethites
- with the first option being the interpretation most favoured.

That the sons of God are divine beings is supported by the later interpretation of 1 Enoch 6:22ff, and Jub 5:1, as well as the other OT usage which you picked up on (eg Ps 29:1, Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7). Also strongly supporting the 'sons of God' as divine beings is the obscurity of using the phrases “sons of God” and “daughters of man” if only to describe humankind, and the broad reference of “adam” and “daughters of adam” in 6:1, 4. In addition, there are some Ugaritic uses of the term to refer to members of the divine pantheon. Furthermore, the special qualities of their offspring the Nephili provides even further support fot the superhuman nature of the "sons of God".

The text indicates that the Nephilim are the product of sexual encounters with the “daughters of men”. The Nephalim are probably giants, with reference to Num 13. In Num 13:32-33 some of the original inhabitants of Canaan (“Nephilim”) are huge people, making the Israelites seem like grasshoppers in comparison. Even the Land bears huge clusters of grapes, which two people are required to carry, cf Deut 2:10-11, 20-21; 3:11; Josh 12:4; 17:5. It is also useful to compare Gen 6 to comparable myths of Greek, Egyptian, Ugaritic, Hurrian and Mesopotamian origin which relate marriages of humans and gods resulting in the birth of heroic or super-human mortals .




devoted2christ:
3. Why is this story right before the story of Noah? Were the angels trying to introduce perfection into the human bloodline if #1 is true? Or were they responsible for the destruction of mankind (i.e. they were demons who corrupted mankind by mating with them)? If #2 is true, then why is that such a big deal to make God want to destroy the Earth?
In Genesis 1 God separates earth, waters, animals & man to their natural realms, which is undone in Genesis 6.1-4 in the mixing of the divine beings with the “daughters of man”. Genesis 6.5ff represents a further preversion of humanity and the earth on which humanity has dominion over.

Hope that helps.

Robyn Banks

[Dee Dee Warren]

Beloved -

A problem with the "angel" view is that Genesis 6 mentions that these "giants" existed after the flood. If the flood was to wipe out mankind to stop this genetic corruption, at least if that was part of the purpose, it did not work, because there were still giants. So did angels continue to mate with humans? The text never says that. Are they continuing to mate with humans today? Are persons born with "angelic" heritage elligible for salvation since salvation through Christ depends upon being a son of Adam, and human? What is the status of these half-breeds?

The simpler answer is the one proposed by many here that the "sons of God" who were supposed to be in relationship with God who fell from that relationship into marrying nongodly women.

There are other places that "sons of God" is used of non-angels. I do not have the book right here, but Archer's Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties lists them.

[Robyn Banks]

Dee Dee Warren:
A problem with the "angel" view is that Genesis 6 mentions that these "giants" existed after the flood.
This is no "problem" with the interpretation of the "sons of God" as divine figures - which for the reasons I have provided is the correct view. That the Nephilim exist even after the flood is a problem whatever their nature in Genesis 6.

Furthermore, there are other lineages before the flood which don't make a lot of sense if the flood wiped out all other humans as the text says. Another example is that the line of Cain is described as giving rise to the ancestors of "those who live in tents and have livestock", "those who play the lyre and pipe" and the maker of "all kinds of bronze and iron tools". However, because the flood story has been inserted in the Primeval History (Genesis 1 - 12), this origins story doesn't make much sense anymore. Cain's line would have died out in the flood!

Hope that helps.

Robyn Banks

[Socrates]

Today @ 08:59 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=277140#post277140)
Dee Dee Warren:

A problem with the ‘angel’ view is that Genesis 6 mentions that these ‘giants’ existed after the flood.

I can't see that. It just says ‘afterwards’, and there was 120 years between Gen. 6 and the Flood. In any case, this would be a problem for all views. E.g. there are no longer any Cainites since only a remnant from the Sethites survived the Flood.

If you're thinking of Numbers 13:33, which also has the word nephilim, these ones were probably unrelated to the nephilim in Gen. 6:4. It seems like the name of the antediluvians was sometimes applied to any giants. We might call very large people ‘titanic’ although we aren't saying that they are the Titans of Greek mythology. The Numbers Nephilim certainly could not have been angels or UFOs, because they were wiped out by Moses and Joshua.


If the flood was to wipe out mankind to stop this genetic corruption, at least if that was part of the purpose, it did not work, because there were still giants.

This presupposes that nephilim should be translated ‘giants’. This is a carryover from the Septuagint via the Vulgate.


There are other places that ‘sons of God’ is used of non-angels. I do not have the book right here, but Archer's Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties lists them.

The children of Israel are called ‘the sons of the living God’ in Hosea 1:10 (see also Psalm 73:15; 80:17). All the same, bene Elohim usually means angels in the OT. ‘Sons of God’ is clearly used of angels in Job 38:7. The Septuagint here translates ‘sons of God’ as ‘angels of God’.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Socrates, in Intro to Theology, you are not allowed to rebut other posters. We are only allowed to interact with the original question. This is not a debate area.

[Xmansmommy]

Please read the forum rules and refrain from responding to other posters in the thread. If devoted2christ requests, the thread can be moved to another forum for open discussion. Thanks for your cooperation.

[Socrates]

:blush: Sorry about that. I responded to a post without realizing what area I was in -- there have been quite a number of threads on Gen. 6 on TWeb. :metro:

[David O]

This subject makes the reference to women's heads being covered in prayer "for the sake of the angels," seem more significant. I'm not sure about the angels who took human wives being necessarily fallen ones. They may have chosen to fall that way. The Nephilim were in the world after the flood, so the falling of those angels would seem to have had to have occurred after the flood, too. "Kept not their first estate" would have applied to the first fall with Lucifer, so it seems probable to me that these were unfallen angels who took human wives. Paul warns about angels of God bearing bad doctrine- so I believe it to be possible for angels to still fall.

[EdJones]

Posted by Act9_12Out on 11-06-2003 12:52 PM: Welcome to TWeb. Your question is quite interesting, and I think you've rightly recognized that the "sons of God" in Genesis 6 are indeed fallen angels. Job 1:6 and 2:1 are key to understanding this passage. Notice that satan is present with them. Some try to say that the "sons of God" in Genesis are the "Godly line of Seth," however, we have much NT material to support the view of fallen angels. To begin with, we must answer the question, "Why would angels come down and have sex with human women?" The second question to be answered is, "How did the fallen angels enable themselves to reproduce?" Well, I'll give it my best shot...

The reason the fallen angels came down to have sex with women was to attempt to contaminate the bloodline of Christ. Remember, a Savior was prophecied shortly after the fall (Gen 3:15) and satan was attempting to thwart God's plan of redemption. You rightly noted that this nephilim passage directy preceeds the flood. Here's an interesting passage to consider...



That pretty much is "IT".

[David O]

I think highly of Mr Acts 9 out, but I don't think you can assume the angels who left their first estate's intentions so easily. the Bible doesn't give that as their intentions. It says that they saw that they were fair. They married them because they were good-looking.

[rmwilliamsjr]

essay is on my blog at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/rmwilliamsjr/62754.html

nephilim, there were giants in the land
reworked the short essay at:
http://www.dakotacom.net/~rmwillia/nephilim.html
posting for comments and help with references

-------------------------------


Nephilim: giants in the land

GEN 6:1-7

A literalistic viewpoint of the verses, short, to the point. a good start for the discussion is at:
companion bible. Includes the complete text.
(http://www.therain.org/appendixes/app25.html)

First. justification of spending any time with an obscure verse with little apparent practical meaning.

The major discussion I have is concerning the young earth creationists (YEC) and how they use/misuse Scripture in an overly literal way. They attack positions to their left, those positions which do not interpret GEN 1-2 as literally as do the YEC. Those attacks center around issues that the YEC alone take scripture as God designed it, literally, consistently, without fail. My contention is that the church first interprets things literally, the reading that a naive common sense man-in-the-street would do. The church later revisits passages under pressure from the world, at this point a revision in hermenutic takes place, the church kicks the verse's reading upstairs to a different interpretive principle. It de-literalises, it applies some type of more sophisticated reasoning to the verse in order to harmonize it with the forces pushing for the change. My contention is that this is a natural and rightful thing to do; and in doing so the church creates historical theology, which is the study of a changing human conception of an unchanging fixed canon with no opportunity for continuing revelation. This completely defangs and neutralizes the YEC argument of literalistic interpretations, for it is not consistent with the history of the church NOT to try to harmonize Scripture with both it's internal inconsistencies and with forces from the outside.

Second. this verse is problematic from the man in the street literal viewpoint from the very beginning of scriptural analysis.

It doesn't need any outside forces to require analysis. It's inconsistency with pieces of scripture are apparent in the literal first reading.
Who are the sons of god? And who are the nephilim, the giants in the land?
The most literal viewpoint is angels having sex with human women and giving rise to a race of human-angel hybrid giants. This is the intepretation
of the link first given. This viewpoint was discarded long ago as Calvin writes that it was the unification of the ungodly line of Cain with the godly
line of Seth. This is my understanding of the verse.( I am aware of the history of the verse only because of its usage in LDS theology, however)
Calvin is quoted in: very complete analysis although JDP technic
(http://www.logoschristian.org/ufosrevealed/a3gen.htm)

For another reasonable and short link that actually introduces several different ideas see:
macarthur the bible answer man.(http://www.biblebb.com/files/macqa/70-20-3.htm)
Finally to ldolphin (http://www.ldolphin.org/nephilim.html) who in one place brings together several of the best writers on the verses.
As an aside the ldophin.org site is certain worthy of a few hours of browsing. he is a gifted, talented writer who shares his insights freely with us.
But for our purposes here, there is a second benefit of this link, Henry Morris, the author of _the Genesis Flood_ is quoted in a long passage which appears about 1/2 through the book selections

The point of it all is that the verse itself in problematic. As human beings we struggle for consistency between the pieces of the things we believe.
This verse has internal contradictions which drive people to strive for an explanation which fits the passage into their interpretative framework.
Angels having sex with women, the obvious literal interpretation clashes from other clearly texts stating that angels are not given in marriage nor
do they have sex. So from the beginning of the history of these verses you find people struggling with what they mean. An additional problem is the relationship of the book of Enoch to the Bible, Enoch is not canonical, yet an discussion back to Jude or Peter must go through an analysis with Enoch in mind. How do you do this?

Back to the real argument which is trying to show YEC that their inflexible position on the literalness of GEN 1,2 is not traditional or reflective of
how the church as operated in the past with difficult verses whose interpretation was/is under attack from worldly forces or internally inconsistent. Just a cursory reading of a few of the research links below will show an reasonable person that this verse is at best problematic, a literal interpretation is not the only option ie angels having sex with human women and the offspring are hybrid giants. But it is one that more than half of the websites i've read teach. I believe they do this in order to stick to the most literal interpretation that they can, without justification of it in wider terms, although a few of the sites do justify their interpretation in terms that it is supernaturalistic.

This short piece is intended to show that no one who desires to hold to a consistent literal interpretation, can. For you can see from the above analysis links where people struggle to put angels into the text-sons of god, and see the internal contradiction. How 'they kick it upstairs' varies. The point being that those who do so are not compromisers, accommodationist, capitulationists to the world. but rather are simply people struggling to come to consistent positions on their reading of Scripture when they have a primary committment of reliability of scripture, if not the stronger inerrancy viewpoint at heart. So this ends up being a call for tolerance within the Church for a varying hermeneutic that will both do justice to the Scriptures as the very Word of God and faithfully represent human thought struggling to think God's thoughts after Him.


Lastly for forces outside church and the internal responses of the church we need to look at the history of the interpretation of this verse in the context of cults.

I believe it is the connection to angels and particular the sexuality of angels that makes these verses such a magnetic for off-beat, weird and downright loathsome interpretations. People are eager to "have their ears tickled", to think about tintilating subjects and since this is from the Bible after all it seems harmless, maybe even good.

-=research links=-
(it is difficult to make these into live links and still be able to see the website address, which gives me a lot of information.
cut and paste into your browser, sorry about the extra step but it is a compromise)

i looked at several hundred google search hits and chose the ones i found most interesting. (?-i see problems, !-good)
sons of god(bene elohim) were:
men
-----
http://www.scripturessay.com/q333a.html
http://biblicalstudies.qldwide.net.au/giants_and_the_bible.html
http://www.testimony-magazine.org/back/nov2002/edwards.pdf (!!, this is probably the best, most complete analysis i found online)
http://members.aol.com/twarren14/nephils.html (!)

angels
--------
http://www.geocities.com/zaretan/neph.html
http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/nephilim.html
http://www.apostolic.net/biblicalstudies/genesis6.htm
http://www.mt.net/~watcher/enoch5.html (?) but i found this essay via a link from: .......http://www.returnofthenephilim.com/ReturnOfTheNephilim.html (??)
http://www.gospelassemblyfree.com/facts/sonsofgod.htm
http://antesdelfin.com/sonsofgod1.htm
http://www.acns.com/~mm9n/satan/29.htm
http://www.precepts.com/Articles/OurRed-CharacterGod.htm
...... (this is a sermon, but what makes it interesting is how easily he dismisses the problems)



doesn't decide
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http://www.jesuscafe.org/resources/scripturesquad/archive_0026.html(!)
http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/nbi/723.html(!)
http://www.struggler.org/Giants.html (!, more a word study, but introduces texts that were new to me)


strange, cultish (all deserve several ? to start with *grin*)
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http://www.noveltynet.org/content/paranormal/www.brotherblue.org/libers/intro.htm (reptilian rape)
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/vnn/showEssay.asp?essayID=1545 (antisemitic)
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:UeyCJv4KUwgJ:www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/_PDFArchives/apologetics/AP2W0302.pdf+that+the+sons+of+God+saw+that+the+daughters+of+men+were+beautiful%3B+and+they+took+wives+for+themselves,+whomever+they+chose&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet
...this reference is an analysis of the JW teachings, short, to the point, interesting.
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:-etQgRbOJHUJ:www11.brinkster.com/code10v2/black/main/demons/demons.html+that+the+sons+of+God+saw+that+the+daughters+of+men+were+beautiful%3B+and+they+took+wives+for+themselves,+whomever+they+chose&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&client=googlet
...had to use a cached copy, a rant more than a reasoned paper
http://grame4.50megs.com/ (when i see the word 'watchers' i start to watchout)
http://www.piney.com/BabSonsOfGod.html (this is a longish study on angels, lots of new material here)
http://www.alienresistance.org/sons_of_seth.htm (this is the place to start if you want to see how elaborate the ideas can get)
http://www.theseventhtrumpet.com/twatt/twatt4.php (self described gnostic, bene elohim are aliens)

my search string at google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&as_qdr=all&q=sons+of+god+saw+daughters+of+men+genesis+angels&btnG=Google+Search