It’s scripture-derived vanity. Sure, human vanity latches onto it, but the fact that a something can be abused does not invalidate that thing.
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So God is vane? (Or at least supports vanity)
Richard
No, God sets forth truth – people get vain about some of it.
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welcome aboard. interesting reading, made me aware I never read the watchers.
I see the Fall as a myth about the recognition of the self, the poetic description of puberty, e.g. the rejection of the authority of the eternal father over the self, going along with the discovery of the “¬private parts”. Death is not a punishment of God for sin, bit the logical consequence of defining ones agency in the material self. It helps you to form a worldview that allows you a meaningful interaction with reality.
the information that plants were existing before the stars were visible in the sky makes you wonder how they knew. It looks like it was a poetic description of genesis that could be understood by those who could not read and write.
Where does He do that? How? Without any evidence? By biasing eyes to hear? Ears to see?
Science has nothing to say about spiritual things so there is no conflict. But personally I am not interested in the “watchers motif.” I believe in angels but think the “Nephilim” of Genesis 6 are just the “men of renown” who are descended from A&E contributing to the beginning of human civilization. Nor do I accept the book of Enoch as inspired or the idea of some ancient rebellion of the angels, and definitely not some angel human half-breeds (angels are spiritual beings).
yes
I don’t think genetics or genealogical has anything to do with it – that is just biology. The Bible is about relationship with God and His communication with us – IDEAS (like love and justice) not biology or genetics!
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Why do you go with an interpretation that was invented solely to get supernatural beings out of the picture?
Plenty of scholars who accept the supernatural would adopt a Sethite intepretation or at least reject the idea of angels interbreeding with humans. Included here are Augustine (City of God 15.23) and Aquinas (Summa Theologica – Part 1, Question 51, Article 3), two people who were not trying to remove supernatural elements from Christianity. The Catholic tradition in general, as far as I am aware, does not hold that angels, pure spiritual beings, can actually reproduce with humans. Pitre and Bergsma partially argue against the angel interpretation on these grounds:
“Despite its popularity, this theory, from a theological perspective, is impossible, since angels are “spiritual, non-corporeal beings” (CCC 328); this means that they do not have bodies and hence cannot reproduce with human beings. From a literary perspective, a major weakness of this theory is that these angelic beings would never be mentioned elsewhere in Genesis. Moreover, in the narrative, the Flood is the result of the sin of the “sons of God”, yet it is not angelic beings but “man” who is blotted out from the earth (Gen 7:4). This view turns Genesis 6:1-4 into a philosophically incredible and literarily inexplicable fragment in which these supposed angelic beings come out of nowhere and then immediately disappear from the narrative.” – A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament
Their objection is based on a plain reading of the account. If they didn’t think it was describing an actual event that happened in the past, then even if Angels could not breed with human women, they could still accept the account as saying they did since its not narrating something that actually happened, but telling a made up story for whatever purpose. They adopt a Sethite interpretation
The sons of Seth interpretation, adopted here, is the common view of the Catholic tradition. Scripture and ancient Near Eastern literature employ “son” as a covenant category (Ps 2:7; 89:26-28; Ex 4:22). In the narrative of Genesis, the “sons of God” are Sethites, heirs of the covenant of adoptive divine sonship from Adam. The “daughters of men” would be the women descended from Cain, the line that has turned its back on the presence of God (Gen 4:16).
“From a literary perspective, the Sethite interpretation is supported by the fact that the Pentateuch repeatedly depicts intermarriage between men of the covenant line and women from other peoples who do not worship the Lord as something to be avoided (e.g., Gen 16, 24, 26:34-35; 28:6-9; Num 25:1-5, etc.). It also makes much more sense of the Flood that follows: as a result of intermarriage, the covenant people become so corrupted that all the world is violent like Cain’s descendants, with the sole exception of Noah and his family, the righteous “remnant” of the line of Seth. ”:
Vinnie
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Perhaps because it just seem to be another version of
“It’s not my fault!” The Angels did it!
Richard
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I don’t think that is what it is doing. But certainly…
- compatibility with evolution (i.e.) all those other humans in the world – “daughters of men.”
- rejecting the attempt to link evil with genetics and race
- another version of “It’s not my fault!” The Angels did it! Yes, reaffirming the link of evil with the free will choice of children, not servants, is a better theodicy.
- better agrees with the divide between the objectivity of material/science and subjectivity of spiritual. i.e. no evidence of any half angelic race, which hardly even seems coherent.
- Since the observation of supernatural beings is not exactly thick on the ground, avoiding a proliferation of supernatural beings looks pretty sensible to me.
The objections raised here reflect later theological traditions rather than what the text itself and its ancient context actually communicate.
First, “sons of God” (bene elohim) in the Hebrew Bible consistently refers to divine beings, not human lineages (Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7; Psalm 29:1, 89:6; Dan 3:25). There’s no instance where it unambiguously means “Sethites.” The Hebrew for human lineage would be “sons of Seth” (bene-Shet)—that’s how Genesis names other lineages (4:26, 5:3).
Second, the idea that angels are incorporeal and cannot interact physically contradicts Scripture itself. Divine beings appear as men who wrestle (Gen 32:24-30), eat and drink (Gen 18:1-8, 19:1-3), and are physically present (Judges 13; Hebrews 13:2). The question isn’t their normal state, but whether divine beings transgressed boundaries—which is precisely what Genesis 6:1-4 describes as aberrant.
Third, there’s no prohibition anywhere in Genesis against Sethites marrying Cainites. When God forbids intermarriage, He says so explicitly (Deut 7:3-4). The text gives no indication these lines were forbidden to intermarry or even remained distinct groups.
Fourth, the passage explicitly mentions the Nephilim as offspring of these unions (Gen 6:4), reappearing in Numbers 13:33 along with other giant clans (Rephaim, Anakim, Emim) throughout the conquest narrative. This had lasting physical consequences.
Fifth, Second Temple Judaism unanimously understood this as divine beings—1 Enoch, Jubilees, Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus. The NT writers affirm it (2 Peter 2:4-6; Jude 6-7; 1 Peter 3:19-20).
The Sethite view emerged in the 4th-5th centuries largely to counter 1 Enoch’s popularity. Augustine and Aquinas worked from later theological frameworks, not ancient context.
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Is this a case of
“We must accept what the ancients believed”?
Honestly, have you ever seen an angel or heavenly being walking around in plain sight? Let alone courting or sexually interacting with humans?
Richard
No, it’s a case of letting words say what they actually mean.
How do you know you haven’t?
There more references (implied or otherwise) to deities and supernatural powers (stopping the sun, ground opening up, all non-randomly in time) in the Old Testament than there are references to an afterlife.
Saul’s demand to the sorceress to produce the spirit of Samuel is the doozy of an exception!:
**1 Samuel 28:9**
The woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land. Why then are you laying a trap for my life to bring about my death?”
Followed by verse 14:
”He said to her, “What about his appearance?” She said, “An old man is coming up! He is wrapped in a robe!” Then Saul realized it was Samuel, and he bowed his face toward the ground and kneeled down…”
Samuel comes UP…. an ancient depiction of the soul’s destination!
This is also the only instance where elohim is used of a human – specifically a dead one.
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LOL right… because it means God’s chosen people and those with godly behavior not people of a specific lineage: Deuteronomy 14:1, Matthew 5:9, Romans 8:14, Gal 3:26. The Adam, Eve, and their children just happen to be the first people chosen by God.
Job 1, Psalm 29:1, Palm 89:6, Dan 3:25 makes no reference to divine beings – it can mean anything in those passages. To be sure they talk of beings in the presence of God, but often people like Enoch and Elijah are spoken of as being in heaven with God.
Yes spiritual beings like angels are capable of physical interactions, but this is not the same as saying they are capable of breeding with human beings. And other passages tell us they have no such capability, Matthew 22:30.
“Fourth” there is no mention of angels in Gen 6:4 or Numbers 13:33. “Fifth” the one constant in such literature is diversity of ideas and speculation not unanimity and no the NT writers do not affirm anything of the kind. You are just piling interpretation on interpretation like a house of cards.
I speak of observations and you reply with literary references… literary references include elves, goblins, dragons, magic rings, werewolves, and fairies. These are not observations.
No, he’s interpreting according to a standard rule: stick with the cultural context. We know the context of Genesis 6, and it has elohim as what the word means: heavenly beings.
No. The fact that the word “God” is in the phrase “sons of God” does not make them supernatural beings – not in Genesis 6:2 any more so than it is in the text of Deuteronomy 14:1 or Romans 8:14.
So you throw good scholarship out the window – fine.
We know the cultural context – your complaint about it is useless.
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This is not really my cup of tea. I think it’s a rabbit hole without an end but your reply is substantial and deserves some pushback, so I’ll happily give some. I reiterate that my main point is that it is not accurate to say the Sethite interpretation is aimed at removing supernatural elements from the Bible. Countless Christians and Jews have embraced it. It was aimed at saving scripture from embarrassment. A number of critics seem to have roasted scripture on this basis and for good reason.
It’s a fair point but if we want to use the historical-critical method and talk about “ancient contexts”, why must the meaning of a word used in Genesis match its usage in Job, Psalm and Daniel? Are all these works contemporaneous with one another and from the same general provenance in your mind? Without establishing such a connection, this sort of argument does not really follow in my mind. I’ve seen nothing about the specific ancient context of Genesis 6? Such as where, when and by whom it was written, what sources it used, where they came from how old the belief inside actually are. As a simple example. If Genesis 6 dated to 1000BC and the final form of Daniel dates to 167-164 BCE, well over 800 years later, why would I assume the words must carry the same meaning or be used the same across different works many centuries apart? I am not advocating for these dates and parts of Daniel may be based on traditions going back to the 6th century BCE, but if want to look at ancient contexts and make linguistic arguments, which means using the historical-critical method, we need to actually be critical.
That there is ‘no instance where it unambiguously means “Sethites”’ is also irrelevant to me because where else would it be used and Genesis 6 follows five and four which is very much concerned with the the lineages of Seth and Cain. The writing is on the wall.
The text gives plenty of indication to me that there is a difference between these two lines. From Bergsma
“This culture is not without its shadows, however: its degeneration is suggested by the fact that Lamech, in the sixth generation from Cain, is a violent braggart and inventor of bigamy who intimidates his wives by boasting of his murders (Gen 4:23-24). In keeping with the method of the sacred author of Genesis, the text does not explicitly condemn the sexual license (bigamy) and violence (murder) of Lamech but, rather, suggestively associates these developments in human history with the family of Cain, the first murderer. Thus Cain’s descendants are worse than Cain himself (Gen 4:24). Some hope is introduced into this picture by the announcement of the birth of Seth (Gen 4:25), who is associated with worship and the time when human beings “began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 4:26). At this point, the text traverses the long time between Adam and Noah by means of the first of many toledoth (“generation”) sections in Genesis (Gen 5:1-32). In contrast to the line of Cain, Adam’s genealogical line, traced through Seth, is marked by extremely long life-spans, righteous figures such as Enoch, who “walked” (Hebrew halak) with God “ (Gen 5:21-22), and Noah, who is prophetically described as a kind of deliverer figure who will bring “relief” (Hebrew nuach) to the world (Gen 5:29).” A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament
And of course right after this second line is finished we see Genesis 6:1-4. If this account describes sinning angels, they come from nowhere and go nowhere (humans are punished). A fuller evaluation would need to break Genesis down by sources if we want to go the historical-critical route. Looking at the final form of scripture, I see 6 as continuing off of 4 and 5.
Maybe also 2 Baruch per wiki. Walton doesn’t think the NT supports this view:
It is true that the punishment cited in Peter and Jude is the same punishment meted out to the angels in 1 Enoch’s interpretation of Genesis 6, but it must also be admitted that this same punishment is cited in the book of 1 Enoch on other occasions as applied to disruptive angels. Furthermore, Jude does not cite marriage of angels to human women, though he easily could have. Finally, to speak of an act of porneia 13 by the angels, as Jude does, is inappropriate in describing Genesis 6, for there the women are taken
as wives, whereas porneia is usually reserved for extramarital sexual activity. 14 Having concluded, therefore, that the New Testament does not endorse an “angels” view, we will proceed with the “rulers” view in this section and the next.
Not to mention, Philo is probably first half of the first century and Josephus is second half. 1 Enoch is written over a few hundred years probably ending in the first century. Jubilees probably dates 100-150 BC. These are certainly early views, but possibly many centuries removed from Genesis 6:1-4. So while I would call them evidence in favor of the angelic integration – if I were making a pro and con list–they are hardly definitive.
I sometimes wonder why angels never appear as women. These non-physical, agendered beings of pure spirit are so attracted to biological females they come to earth as males and take them as wives? I believe it was Tertullian who suggested this is why Paul cautioned women to cover their heads. I must admit that I am super curious why these angels did not also become women and marry human men? One wonders how, as spiritual beings lacking actual genitalia, they became so enamored with these human women as to copulate with them. This is probably one of several reasons why later Christians were quite embarrassed by this interpretation.
At any rate, I’ll go with the concordant reading for the sake of argument. It doesn’t contradict my scripture because in the fully scriptural (for Catholics and Orthodox) Tobit 12:19, Raphael tells Tobias: “When you thought you saw me eating, I did not really eat anything; it only seemed so.” Angels are being of pure spirit who don’t eat physical food nor do many theologians believe they can actually impregnate women. Somehow they can manifest themselves to appear physically and do things in our world–usually for short durations. But even wrestling overnight is not putting down roots and starting a family. Some would also point to Jesus when he said we will be like the angels in heaven who do not marry. There are other interpretations of this of course. But many would also include metaphysics here. “You look at Thomistic angelology or any angelology of the fathers, each angel is its own species. They don’t procreate, they don’t generate. So the idea that they even have the power to generate is actually metaphysically impossible, theologically erroneous.” [Link] We may have to try to secure some angel DNA next time one appears.
It became more popular as angels correctly became less anthropomorphized and seen as spiritual beings. I think that is what is missing from those who wish to maintain an angelic interpretation that is hundred of years removed from Genesis over a somewhat later one .
Nonetheless, the angel interpretation is ancient and quite strong. It has a lot of things going for it but I think you vastly overstate the evidence. The Sethite view has quite a few things in its favor as well and it is hard to rule out the view of people like Walton who view the sons of God as kings.
Vinnie