I will agree with you that the “sons of God” in Gen 6 likely are angelic beings lusting at women in order to corrupt the bloodline of A&E in a try to prevent their defeat by Christ. The book of Henoch was popular in the days of Jesus and several early church fathers believed it, Maybe even Paul was influenced else I can not explain his “because of the angels” in 1 Cor 11:10.
If that is the right interpretation it becomes clear why the Flood was an absolute necessity, destroy the serpent’s seed.
Yes, good thinking, do think also there is a slight distinction in Greek between “in the beginning” (= eternity beyond & logically prior to creation) vs. “from the beginning” (= after the previous epoch)
“In the beginning” includes Genesis 1:1-2 prior to any (revealed) creative acts of God’s Word
“From the beginning” commences at some time after that initial creative epoch
God Himself said all was “good” through the end of the 6th Divine Day (Gen 1:31), and no indication of anything amiss in the 7th (Gen 2:1-3) ?
Michael Heiser’s Stranger Things has an interesting insightful interpretation of the terms.
In my own terms, God had “quarantined” or “embargoed” or “reserved” our sector of space & particular planet for His purposes…but the fallen angels who “did not keep their proper [heavenly] station” (Jude 6) violated that “Prime Directive Safe Zone” established by God and “illegally” began to transmit influences into the “Safe Zone” onto earth, in violation of God’s “intergalactic resolutions” (so to speak)
Please consider the two creation accounts in parallel:
Gen 1:26-27 [P] = Gen 2:7-2:23 [J] = God creates man then woman
Gen 1:28-30 [P] = Gen 2:23-24 [J] = God blesses man & woman to be fruitful & multiply [P] through marriage of man cleaving to woman making one flesh [J]
Gen 1:31-2:3 [P] = Gen 2:25 [J] = God sees all is good & rests [P] and man & woman are not ashamed [J]
By this time, God has created all plants, and given all vegetation & trees “producing seed” to humans as good for food (Gen 1:29), but has simultaneously warned humans against the tree of knowledge of good & evil (Gen 2:8,15).
Ergo, the tree of knowledge of good & evil did not produce seed, or else it would have been good for food (Gen 1:29). The tree bearing fruit without seed (to regrow a next generation) comports with it causing death anyone consuming its fruit.
Now, the Serpent invades, and causes our Fall, immediately afterwards (Gen 3:1). Ergo, the onslaught of the Adversary begins at the end of the 7th Divine Day (Gen 2:3) even as Satan is unchained at the end of the 7th Biblical Day of the Christian Millennium (Rev 20:7), which echoes the original tragedy:
The fall of Satan, becoming the Adversary, and sowing wickedness throughout God’s creations (in heaven & on earth), ended God’s rest, as relations degenerated into a “cosmic civil war”. (The first “Monday work morning” as it were)
All of the above agrees with Ezekiel 28:13, “thou was in the Garden of Eden”. The Serpent was in Eden from the creation of man then woman on the 6th Divine Day all the way through the 7th Divine Day. Only then did the Adversary begin “recruiting allies” on earth (fallen Eve) and in the heavens (fallen angels).
1:31 - And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
Very good for the purpose it was created.
But what was the purpose?
I have read your posts 3 times by now and I have still no idea what you are trying to communicate. Allow me some questions:
Regarding the tree of knowledge of good & evil I am inclined to think it was just a normal tree as every other tree. It’s not the fruit that got them in trouble but their disobedience and desire to become like God, exactly as the serpent desired (Jes 14:12–18, Eze 28).
Well, the earliest Christians believed in Chiliasm, that God was recapitulating pre-fall creation Divine Days (Gen 1) in thousand-year-long Biblical Days (2 Pet 3), such that they expected the Christian Millennium (Rev 20) to coincide with the Biblical Sabbath of the Biblical 7th Day = 7th millennium from creation
Or, creation + (6001-7000) years
In the first century, all sources were agreed, that creation dated to around 5500 BC…such that the expected Biblical Sabbath Millennium would span approximately 500-1500 AD (cp. thousand-year-long Christian Byzantine empire)
Thanks for the translations from the Hebrew. But then, Yaweh is just God’s name in Hebrew? I guess that means we have no idea (how could we?) what name he uses in the language of heaven – if heaven even has a “native” language (seems an odd term to use but I don’t know what else to call it).
I guess then, that there’s also another difference here in that God has the name Yaweh in Hebrew but his Son is given a title in the OT (maybe because his name, Jesus, was announced by angels at his birth and legally given to him by his step-father, Joseph? Just guessing here.)
In Dutch, the other language I speak ok-ish, we can’t use YHWH since those letters have different pronunciations. It would sound a bit like “eye-va” if pronounced as written.
I remember NT Wright commenting once that the names Adam and Eve are also Hebrew, but the language was not developed until millenia after their deaths. We have no idea what their names really were in the language the two of them spoke with God in the garden, which could not have been Hebrew.
For now though, I’ll think I’ll stick to the normal English/Dutch versions of the names for father, God and Lord.
In Hebrew,
Given Jeremiah 23:27, “their fathers forgot my Name through Baal worship”, I would be reluctant to use the term “Lord”, but would rather suggest that you say “Sovereign God” for Adonai Elohim.
Should we change the hallelujah chorus to “king of Kings and Sovereign God of sovereign gods?” Apart from messing up the meter, it just wouldn’t have the same impact, I’m afraid.
I’ll stick to Lord but remember the details.
But im curious to know what you say in conversation with others or when singing or worship or reading scripture in a service. Do you always use your substitute phrase?
I don’t believe in a God who tortures anyone, nor do believe God sends anybody to hell. So while for you, going to hell may be about being tortured by God or about God doing something to people, that is simply not what I believe.
And I am not the one who thinks angels are people so that we should be concerned about the justice regarding what happens to them any more than we do with toasters. For me your logic is as incoherent as asking what a toaster did to deserve being melted down in a furnace.
Ah… that is why I didn’t respond before…
Both were literally created by fiat. As in the infinity of universes from sempiternity.
DNA
Bones
Fossils
Dump sites
Ruins
Etc.
I love it don’t you? Angels were created by fiat therefore humans were.
Sometimes it’s hard to see over our habitual categorical trenches. Encounters help.
(oooh! I hadn’t noticed the dates on the posts above. Somehow this thread has been resuscitated.)
Sempiternity was an interesting way to frame the answer.
Close minded people like the church fathers did such thing. There’s no such thing as “heresy” since theres not a doctrine by God himself.
If the minority doesn’t agree on something it doesn’t mean they are “wrong”.
God created a place that knew suffering could thrive . Sadly he chose the “free will” path as many here will point out. Why? I don’t know the answer,but some here will tell you “there’s not other way”. Same thing with angels. He created them in that way but not us. Why?
Some here will say the same thing.
A better question. How can God create us “in his image” if he is not a physical beign and he is “love” and “good” himself.
And if God is these things and we are supposed to be too as well does that min that since sin can enter us it can enter God since ? (You know because we are in his image)
I personally don’t have any answer if the above. And no one has ,so take all these answers with a grain of salt.
A lot here will condemn such thing but I suggest reading old “doctrines” or some would call it" heresies". The gnostics or some early Christian groups had interesting theologies concerning the questions asked above.
It is interesting how we humans often have an internal need to develop a speculative explanation (‘hypothesis’) about everything, even when we have extremely little facts.
What is the start (creation) of angels? We do not know.
What happened that gave us an explanation of how and when a rebellion started among angels? That is not told in the biblical scriptures.
According to a doctoral thesis I read, the tradition of Enoch included stories about angels (watchers) around the time of Noah. This tradition was circulating among hebrews and got new fuel during the ‘intertestamental’ period when some writers wrote about fallen angels. That brought the idea of Lucifer and the rebellion of angels to hebrew believers living during the period of NT. Probably many hebrew believers were thinking along that line but the source of the information was other tradition and writings, not the OT.
What is our attitude towards the tradition of Enoch and fallen Lucifer may differ but at least we should realize that the source of this information is not the biblical scriptures of the OT. We may interpret some texts in the prophets as telling about a fallen angel called Lucifer but that is mainly weakly supported later interpretation, not something that pops up from the texts.
Out of curiosity does anyone know whatever happened with Klax?
I’m missing @T_aquaticus.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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