Exodus 21:22)īecome a Member of Biblical Archaeology Society Now and Get More Than Half Off the Regular Price of the All-Access Pass! Explore the world’s most intriguing Biblical scholarshipĭig into more than 9,000 articles in the Biblical Archaeology Society’s vast library plus much more with an All-Access pass. (Coincidentally the root of the word Nephilimis used elsewhere for miscarriages and other strange births. The audience of Genesis would have definitely understood these so-called “fallen ones” to be the offspring of celestial beings and human women. They include the likes of Baal, Anath, Astarte, Yam, and Mot. In the texts of the cultures that surrounded Israel, like the Canaanite literature found at Ugarit, the “sons of God” similarly appear as divine beings in the service to the king of the gods, El, and his queen, Asherah.
In the biblical texts, the “sons of God” are usually described as lesser heavenly beings in the service of the Most High. Though centuries of rabbinical and church tradition would say otherwise, the audience to whom the text was intended would have understood the “sons of God” to be the members of the divine assembly mentioned throughout the literature of the ancient Near East, including the Bible (see Job 6:1 Job 38:7 Psalm 29:1 Psalm 82). These offspring were known as the Nephilim (literally, “the fallen ones”), and they were the “mighty ones of old” and “men of renown.” In the text we discover that the “sons of God” (Hebrew Benai-Elohim) succumbed to their passions for the “daughters of Men” and had children with them. But the questions remain all the same: Who are these “sons of God” and their Nephilim children, and why would the author of Genesis choose to mention them at all? More often than not it’s just easier to shrug our shoulders and move on to the story of Noah and his family. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. And they took as their wives any they chose.
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. Sandwiched between the genealogies of Adam’s descendants and the tale of Noah’s flood are a few enigmatic verses that leave many of us scratching our heads and wondering what it’s all about: An artistic representation of love being corrupted and God bringing it to an end. Divine love bringing an end to an illicit trust between Cupid and the Devil.
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