Not to draw the conversation off target, but I checked the USCCB footnotes on that paragraph.
Before drawing attention to the USCCB explanation, I want to also relate that
"according to Jewish tradition the Torah was revealed to Moses in 1312 BCE at Mount Sinai;[7] (another date given for this event is 1280 BCE).[8] "
- ^ a b Kurzweil, Arthur (2008). The Torah For Dummies. For Dummies. p. 11. ISBN 9780470283066. media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/59/04701734/0470173459.pdf. Retrieved 2010-08-19.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah
Now, USCCB translation of Genesis 6:
usccb.org/nab/bible/genesis/genesis6.htm
1
1 “When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them,
2
2 the sons of heaven saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose.
3
3 Then the LORD said: “My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years.”
4
4 At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown.
5
5 When the LORD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil…”
Footnotes
1 [1-4] This is apparently a fragment of an old legend that had borrowed much from ancient mythology. The sacred author incorporates it here, not only in order to account for the prehistoric giants of Palestine, whom the Israelites called the Nephilim, but also to introduce the story of the flood with a moral orientation–the constantly increasing wickedness of mankind.
2 [2] The sons of heaven: literally “the sons of the gods” or “the sons of God,” i.e., the celestial beings of mythology.
3 [3] My spirit: the breath of life referred to in Genesis 2:7. His days . . . years: probably the time God would still let men live on earth before destroying them with the flood, rather than the maximum span of life God would allot to individual men in the future.
4 [4] As well as later: According to Numbers 13:33, when the Israelites invaded Palestine and found there the tall aboriginal Anakim, they likened them to the Nephilim; cf Deut 2:10-11. Perhaps the huge megalithic structures in Palestine were thought to have been built by a race of giants, whose superhuman strength was attributed to semi-divine origin. The heroes of old: the legendary worthies of ancient mythology.
5 [6:5-8:22] The story of the great flood here recorded is a composite narrative based on two separate sources interwoven into an intricate patchwork.
To the Yahwist source, with some later editorial additions, are usually assigned Genesis 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 7-10, 12, 16b, 17b, 22-23; 8:2b-3a, 6-12, 13b, 20-22.
The other sections come from the “Priestly document.” The combination of the two sources produced certain duplications (e.g., Genesis 6:13-22 of the Yahwist source, beside Genesis 7:1-5 of the Priestly source); also certain inconsistencies, such as the number of the various animals taken into the ark (Genesis 6:19-20; 7:14-15 of the Priestly source, beside Genesis 7:2-3 of the Yahwist source), and the timetable of the flood (Genesis 8:3-5, 13-14 of the Priestly source, beside Genesis 7:4, 10, 12, 17b; 8:6, 10, 12 of the Yahwist source).
Both biblical sources go back ultimately to an ancient Mesopotamian story of a great flood, preserved in the eleventh tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic. The latter account, in some respects remarkably similar to the biblical account, is in others very different from it.
REALLY? :banghead: God gives Moses a “fragment of an old legend”.
