The Fallen Ones (Part 2 of 3)

Embodiment of Evil: The Unnatural Offspring

               In this session, we will pick up our study of the Fallen Ones where we ended in Part 1. The answers to the three questions posed at the end of last session are going to be primary subject matter for this post, Part 2. The questions were:

• Who were the “sons of God” mentioned in Genesis 6:2 and 6:4?
• Who were the “daughters of men” mentioned in Genesis 6:2 and 6:4?
• Who were the “Nephilim” mentioned in Genesis 6:4?

There are many different views, with three primary theories proposed and circulated among Biblical scholars and students of theology. I subscribe to and will build a case for one of these three views. I will also explain the other two, and provide reasons why I reject them. But first, I want to engage in some additional etymologies (word studies).

The Nephilim

Last time we discussed the words “Nephilim” and “giants” as they are used in the New American Standard and New International (Nephilim) and King James (giants) translations of the Bible. Other popular translations use the following: New King James- giants; New Living- Nephilites; English Standard- Nephilim; Revised Standard- Nephilim. Let’s briefly review and slightly expand our study of these two words and how they came to be in our English Bibles.

Nephilim is a Hebrew word that comes from the Hebrew root word “nephal.” Nephal means “to fall, lie.”¹ Based upon its root word, Nephilim can mean “the fallen ones.” The verb root means “to fall away” or “to cast down” or “desert.”² Nephilim can also mean “giant; a bully or tyrant.”³ The English Bibles which use the word Nephilim use it as a direct transliteration; rather than attempt to translate the word, it is transliterated from Hebrew to English as a proper noun.

Giant is an English word that means “a legendary creature usually thought of as being an extremely large and powerful person; a person or thing that is very large, powerful, or successful.”⁴ The English Bibles which use the word giants translate it from the Hebrew word Nephilim. The Nephilim are referred to in Genesis 6:4 as “men of renown” in the King James, New American Standard, and New International Versions. The Hebrew word used here is “HaGibborim” which means “the mighty ones.”⁵ The shortened Hebrew word is “Gibborim” which means “mightiest” which comes from the Hebrew root word “gabar” which means “mighty.” This word, HaGibborim, was translated into the Septuagint (discussed in Part 1) as the Greek word “gigantes.” Gigantes was then transliterated into the English word “giants” in some English Bibles. But the actual Greek word gigantes comes from the Greek root word “gigas” and means “earth-born.”⁶ Even though the Hebrew word Nephilim can contain within it the meaning of giant, since it holds much more meaning than that, and since its Greek translation gigantes was transliterated into English giants, I believe the English translations that retain Nephilim as a proper noun are more accurate. But I do not believe any of the English Versions are incorrect, I just believe a proper study of Nephilim reveals a greater understanding than the simple rendering of giants.

But all of this doesn’t explain who these Nephilim actually were. Genesis 6:4 states:

“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” (NASB)

So the Nephilim were the offspring produced by the reproductive union of the sons of God with the daughters of men. But that only tells us how this group of beings came to exist. Who were the Nephilim? I will answer that question, but first I want to answer the other two questions. Who were the sons of God? Who were the daughters of men?

The Sons of God

The term “sons of God” used in Genesis 6:2 and 6:4 is a translation of the Hebrew “Bene HaElohim.” One thing a study of the Hebrew words tell us is that the Bene HaElohim were a direct creation of God.⁷ Read here the term Bene HaElohim (sons of God) being used in Genesis:

“that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.” (Genesis 6:2, NASB)

“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” (Genesis 6:4, NASB)

Read the following passages to see the term Bene HaElohim (sons of God) being used elsewhere in the Old Testament:

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.” (Job 1:6, NASB)

“Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.” (Job 2:1, NASB)

“When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:7, NASB)

Ask any serious Bible student who the “sons of God” were in the Job passages and they will provide the answer clearly. In the Job passages, the Bene HaElohim were angels. In fact, the New International Version even uses the word “angels” in place of “sons of God” in all three passages in Job.

               A similar, but slightly different, term (Bene Elim) is used in Psalm 29:1:

“A Psalm of David. Ascribe to the LORD, O sons of the mighty, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.” (NASB)

Read the same passage translated slightly differently:

“A PSALM OF DAVID. Ascribe to the LORD, you heavenly beings, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.” (NIV)

               The term Bene HaElohim (sons of God) refers to angels, or angelic beings, or heavenly beings. It does so in Job. Any Bible scholar will recognize that. It does so in Genesis. But for some reason (and we will discuss some possibilities later in this session), many Bible scholars have difficulty recognizing that. But to further emphasize my conclusion regarding the identity of the sons of God, let’s look back at the two passages from Genesis. In the New American Standard Bible, Genesis 6:2 states, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful,” and Genesis 6:4 states, “when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men.” The New International Version makes a more apparent distinction between the two groups with its translation of the Genesis passages. It translates Genesis 6:2 as, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful,” and Genesis 6:4 as, “when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans.” I think the way the translators of the New International Version translated these two passages provides additional support to the identification of the sons of God as beings other than human.

The Daughters of Men

               We have already seen from the last paragraph that the New International Version translates the daughters of men as daughters of humans. But let’s look more closely at this term daughters of men from Genesis 6:2 and 6:4 as it is rendered in the King James Version and New American Standard Bible. The term “daughters of men” is a translation of the Hebrew “benoth adam.”⁸ There really isn’t any controversy surrounding this term in Biblical scholarship. Even though the meaning of the reproductive union of the sons of God with the daughters of men is debated (which we will tackle shortly), the term “daughters of men” itself is clearly understood to be human women. These were daughters, so they were female, and they were daughters, or children, of men, so they were of the genetic line of Adam (and Eve). They were biological human beings, and specifically, human women.

Questions Answered

               Building upon what we have uncovered so far in this study, I make the following assertions by way of answering the questions posed earlier:

• Who were the “sons of God” mentioned in Genesis 6:2 and 6:4?
• They were angels; specifically fallen angels (which will be elaborated upon shortly).
• Who were the “daughters of men” mentioned in Genesis 6:2 and 6:4?
• They were human women.
• Who were the “Nephilim” mentioned in Genesis 6:4?
• They were the (unnatural) offspring spawned by the biological, reproductive (sexual) union of fallen angels with human women. They were giants (physically large) by comparison with full-bred humans. They were reputed to be very strong (“mighty men”) and famous (“men of renown”).

Before we continue in our discussion of the “fallen ones” I want to take a slight detour into the subject of Angelology. I mentioned just above that the angels referenced in Genesis 6:2 and 6:4 are “fallen angels.” I want to explain that a little more, as a clear understanding of this distinction will become important as we progress in this study.

There are two types of angels mentioned in the Bible. There are angels that are loyal servants of God. And there are angels that followed Satan in rebellion against God. These latter angels are known in Christian theology as “fallen angels.” Now some people think that the “demons” mentioned in the Bible are these fallen angels. I happen to think that demons are a different category of beings, but I don’t want to muddy the waters with such a study at this point. I might touch upon that a little in Part 3 of this series, but don’t hold me to it. For the purposes of this study, we are going to limit ourselves to two divisions of angelic host, those loyal to God and those that are fallen (and following Satan).

Now Satan (also known as the Devil) is also an angel. In fact, he is the most powerful of all the angels. His angelic name is Lucifer. Despite his magnitude of power within the angelic structure, he is a created being and is subject to the sovereignty of God, the Creator. This means that God is more powerful than Lucifer. In fact, the two cannot be compared any more than you or I (as created beings) can be compared to God. He is the ultimate entity. In fact, all other entities are defined in their existence in relationship to Him. I have discussed ontology in other blog posts, so we won’t dive deeper into that here, but it is a fascinating philosophical study.

We know from the Bible that when Satan rebelled against God, one-third of the angels followed him in rebellion. If you want to read some of the primary Biblical passages regarding this event, see Ezekiel 28:13-19, Isaiah 14:12-17, and Revelation 12:3-9. There are many other passages that support this as well, but that is not the focus of this study; I am merely presenting this as background material. These angels that fell with Satan are the fallen angels. There are organizational ranks and structures within angelic society, both those loyal to God and those fallen. The fallen angels are at war with the angels who are loyal to God. The war is in the spiritual realm (hyper-dimensional) but involves our physical realm as well. I think this is enough explanatory information to provide an adequate background at this point.

The theory regarding the Nephilim that I asserted at the beginning of this section is known in theology as the “Angel View” of Genesis 6. This Angel View is referencing the identity of the “sons of God.” Now I want to mention a couple of other dissenting theological theories regarding the nature and origin of the Nephilim. The first theory is the “Lines of Seth View,” again in reference to the sons of God. This view proposes that the “sons of God” refer to male descendants of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. It proposes that the “daughters of men” refer to female descendants of Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve, who killed his brother Abel (the second son of Adam and Eve). The assumption is that Cain’s descendants, having descended from an ancestor who was cursed by God, somehow maintained a separate identity distinguishable from the descendants of Seth. Another assumption of this view is that Seth’s descendants were Godly and Cain’s were not.⁹

The next theory is that the “sons of God” refer to “immoral human kings” or wicked human royalty. The “daughters of men” have no special meaning here other than that they were not wicked human royalty but were just regular human women. This view is relatively new in Biblical scholarship and is based upon more recent archeological support for the term “sons of God” having been used in ancient times to refer to kings.¹⁰

I reject both of these theories for numerous reasons, some of which I will discuss herein. I reject the Lines of Seth View because it gives priority to Cain’s descendants and Seth’s descendants over the descendants of all of the other children of Adam and Eve. Nowhere does the Bible divide ancient humanity along these lines. There were other children of Adam and Eve and no doubt all of the descendants intermingled with one another. Furthermore, nowhere does Scripture record that God commanded Cain’s children and Seth’s children to maintain separation from one another. Furthermore, nowhere does Scripture even imply that Seth’s descendants were, on the whole, more Godly than Cain’s. Finally, one must question why a physical union of Seth’s male descendants with Cain’s female descendants would produce strange physical offspring (such as the Nephilim clearly are described here and elsewhere in the Bible) when both Seth and Cain descended themselves from the same parents, Adam and Eve.

I reject the king or royal view because there is no Biblical basis to support it. The Bible doesn’t make any reference or build any case for such a view. It is entirely speculative.

Therefore, I assert that the Nephilim were unnatural, biological hybrids, resulting from the reproductive capacities of fallen angels and human women. I believe that many people have a difficult time conceptualizing or accepting such a proposal and as a result instead turn to more comfortable explanations like the Lines of Seth View, or the immoral human kings view. I certainly understand that the Angel View is creepy, spooky, strange-sounding, and downright frightening. But such emotional responses cannot themselves be justifiable reasons to dissuade us from the possibility that the Angel View is true. I stated at the onset of this study that this subject was controversial and somewhat conjectural. But I do believe it is the best fit for the available information.

Looking outside of the Bible, we do see other cultural mythos related to such a possibility. Many ancient cultures have legends of half-god (or supernatural, or “star people”), half-human beings. Such stories can be found in the mythologies of ancient Sumerians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Incans, Mayans, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Indians, Bolivians, South Sea Islanders, and even the Native American Sioux.¹¹ The Greek demigod Hercules was supposedly the hybrid offspring of a “god” mixing with a human woman.

In the case of the Nephilim mentioned in Chapter 6 of Genesis, they were all wiped out in the global Flood. But such beings arose again later in the Bible (remember, Genesis 6:4 stated “and also afterward”). For example, other tribes like the Rephaim, Emim, Horim, and Zamsummim (Genesis 14, 15, and elsewhere). Also, there were the the sons of Anak, or Anakim (giants) inhabiting the land of Canaan in Numbers 13. Og the king of Bashan, and Goliath, and Goliath’s brothers all fall into this group as well.¹² All of these inhabitants of Canaan were wiped out by the Israelites under the command of God. We will discuss this more in Part 3.

Some Bible students have theological difficulty with the Angel view because of Jesus’s words in Matthew 22:30:

“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” (NASB)

But let’s be cautious not to infer something from the text that isn’t there. The Bible says that the angels in heaven don’t marry. It doesn’t say that they can’t marry, or can’t reproduce genetically with humans. In addition, the angels is heaven are by implication those angels that remained loyal to God. The fallen angels are by their very nature in rebellion against Him, and His Law, and His natural order. Quite simply, we do not know what the full capabilities of angels are. We do know that they can assume human form and even eat food (Genesis 18). Other passages throughout scripture discuss different forms and abilities of these beings.

               We also know a couple of other things from the New Testament. Read the following passages:

“And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.” (Jude 6-7, NASB)

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;” (2 Peter 2:4-6, NASB)

Some scholars think, and I agree, that these passages refer to the happenings in Genesis 6 and that these passages support the Angel View of the sons of God and their offspring, the Nephilim. Now we don’t know that for sure, but let’s analyze these verses a little.

The first passage discusses angels who leave their proper domain (possibly referencing a habitat or state of being) for some other domain, and as a result are punished by God. Not all fallen angels are currently being held in bonds awaiting the final judgment, so it can be understood that these angels committed some special wickedness. The passage compares the sin of these angels to the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, which we know was primarily sexual sin.

The second passage again makes reference to a select group of fallen angels that committed some special wickedness that caused them to be cast into “Tartarus” (hell). I discuss this place, and the usage of this word in an earlier blog post of mine entitled “After Death.” Feel free to read more about it in that blog post. But again, in this passage, a reference is made to Sodom and Gomorrah. If you notice, a reference is also made to the time of Noah and the Flood.

Final Thoughts

So we have established the identity of the sons of God, the daughters of men, and the Nephilim. The Fallen Ones are now identified in terms of origin and nature. But some questions remain.

What is the purpose of their existence? Why would some of the fallen angels be involved in this type of activity? Where does this fit into the scheme of spiritual warfare? And, the most frightening question, might this happen again?

We will tackle these questions in Part 3 of this series, The Fallen Ones.

Footnotes

All of the text of the various English language Bible translations was obtained online from the Blue Letter Bible. http://www.blueletterbible.org/

1. Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Unabridged, Electronic Database. Biblesoft, Inc., 2006. November 10, 2014. http://biblehub.com/hebrew/5307.htm
2. Missler, Chuck. Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002. Page 26.
3. Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Unabridged, Electronic Database. Biblesoft, Inc., 2006. November 10, 2014. http://biblehub.com/hebrew/5303.htm
4. Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online. November 10, 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/giant
5. Missler, Chuck. Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002. Page 26.
6. Missler, Chuck. Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002. Page 27.
7. Missler, Chuck. Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002. Page 26.
8. Missler, Chuck. Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002. Page 26.
9. Zodhiates, Spiros. Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible. Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1991. Page 11.
10. Zodhiates, Spiros. Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible. Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1991. Page 11.
11. Missler, Chuck. Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002. Page 28.
12. Missler, Chuck. Learn the Bible in 24 Hours. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002. Page 29.