Who were the Sons of God? (Gen:6:1-4)

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Question: "Who do you think were the sons of God in Genesis 6:1-4?”

Genesis 6:1-4 tells us, “When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days – and also afterward – when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” There have been several suggestions as to who the sons of God were, and why the children they had with daughters of men grew into a race of giants (that is what the word Nephilim seems to indicate).

The three primary views on the identity of the “sons of God” are that (1) they were fallen angels, or (2) they were powerful human rulers, or (3) they were godly descendants of Seth intermarrying with wicked descendants of Cain.

Giving weight to (1) is the fact that in the Old Testament the phrase “sons of God” always refers to angels (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). A potential problem with (1) is the fact that Matthew 22:30 indicates that angels do not marry. The Bible gives us no reason to believe that angels have a gender, or are able to reproduce.

Views (2) and (3) do not have this problem.
The weakness of views (2) and (3) is that ordinary human males marrying ordinary human females does not account for why the offspring were “giants” or “heroes of old, men of renown”. Further, why would God decide to bring the Flood on the earth (Gen 6:5-7) when God had never forbidden powerful human males or descendants of Seth to marry ordinary human females or descendants of Cain. The oncoming judgment of Genesis 6:5-7 is linked to what took place in Genesis 6:1-4. Only the obscene, perverse marriage of fallen angels with human females would seem to justify such a harsh judgment.

It is believed that view (1) to be the most likely position. Yes, it is an interesting “contradiction” to say that angels are sexless and then to say that the “sons of God” were fallen angels who procreated with human females. However, angels are spiritual beings (Heb 1:14), and yet can appear in human, physical form (Mark 16:5).

The men of Sodom and Gomorrah wanted to have sex with the two angels who were with Lot (Gen 19:1-5). Perhaps angels are capable of taking on human form, even to the point of replicating human sexuality – and possibly even reproduction. Why do the fallen angels not do this more often? It seems that God imprisoned the fallen angels who committed this evil sin, so that the other fallen angels would not do the same (as described in Jude 6).

Earlier Hebrew interpreters, apocryphal, and pseudopigriphal writings are unanimous in holding to the view that fallen angels are the “sons of God” mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4. This by no means closes the debate, but the view that Genesis 6:1-4 involves fallen angels mating with human females has a strong contextual, grammatical, and historical basis.

We may never know the truth about who the Sons of God were, Any ideas?
 
I always assumed them to be falled angles who, to men, could still bring about their “heavenly” guise. I suspect that these may be the ones behind the Muhommedian and Morman…things.

Still, right up until the flood, the world shore was different place, eh? Giants and demons and mist from the ground! Oh my!

This tale here is why women were made to wear veils over their heads, or so I was told.
 
D-R Bible, Haydock Commentary:

Ver. 1. Daughters. These had borne equal proportion with the males from the beginning; but here they are particularized, because they were the chief instruments in corrupting the descendants of Seth. (Haydock) — Even the sons of these libidinous people were so effeminate, as to deserve to be called women. (Menochius)

Ver. 2. The sons of God. The descendants of Seth and Enos are here called Sons of God, from their religion and piety: whereas the ungodly race of Cain, who by their carnal affections lay grovelling upon the earth, are called the children of men. The unhappy consequence of the former marrying with the latter, ought to be a warning to Christians to be very circumspect in their marriages; and not to suffer themselves to be determined in choice by their carnal passion, to the prejudice of virtue or religion. (Challoner) — See St. Chrysostom, hom. 22, &c. Some copies of the Septuagint having the angels of God, induced some of the ancients to suppose, that these spiritual beings (to whom, by another mistake, they attributed a sort of aerial bodies) had commerce with women, as the pagans derived their heroes from a mortal and a god. But this notion, which is borrowed from the book of Henoch, is quite exploded. (Calmet) — The distinction of the true Church from the synagogue of satan, here established, has been ever since retained, as heretics are still distinguished from Catholics. (Worthington) (St. Augustine)

Ver. 3. His days shall be, &c. The meaning is, that man’s days, which before the flood were usually 900 years, should now be reduced to 120 years. Or rather, that God would allow men this term of 120 years, for their repentance and conversion, before he would send the deluge. (Challoner) — He spoke therefore to Noe in his 480th year. (St. Augustine) — Those who suppose, that he foretold this event 20 years later, think with St. Jerome, that God retrenched 20 years from the time first assigned for penance. The Spirit of the sovereign Judge was fired with contending; or, as others translate it, with remaining quiet as in a scabbard, and bearing with the repeated crimes of men. He resolved to punish them severely in this world, that he might shew mercy to some of them hereafter. (St. Jerome, 9. Heb.) (Calmet) — If we suppose, that God here threatens to reduce the space of man’s life to 120 years, we must say, at least, that he did it by degrees; for many lived several hundred years, even after the deluge. In the days of Moses, indeed, few exceeded that term. But we think the other interpretation is more literal, and that God bore with mankind the full time which he promised. (Worthington)

Ver. 4. Giants. It is likely the generality of men before the flood were of a gigantic stature, in comparison with what men now are. But these here spoken of, are called giants, as being not only tall in stature, but violent and savage in their dispositions, and mere monsters of cruelty and lust. (Challoner) — Yet we need not imagine, that they were such as the poets describe, tearing up mountains, and hurling them against heaven. Being offspring of men, who had lived hitherto with great temperance, but now gave full scope to their passions, and the love of the fair daughters whom they chose, we need not wonder that they should be amazingly strong and violent. Nephilim, rushing on, as Ag. translates. That there have been giants of an unusual size, all historians testify. Og, Goliah, &c. are mentioned in Scripture, and the sons of Enac are represented as much above the common size, as the Hebrews were greater than grasshoppers, Numbers xiii. 34. If we should suppose they were four or five times our size, would that be more wonderful that they should live nine or ten times as long as we do? See St. Augustine, City of God xv. 9, 23; Calmet’s Dissert. &c. Delrio affirms, that in 1572 he saw at Rouen, a native of Piedmont, above nine feet high. (Haydock) — Of old. The corruption of morals had commenced many ages ago, and some of the sons of Seth had given way to their lusts; so that we are not to suppose, that these giants were all born within a hundred years of the flood, as some might suppose from their being mentioned here, after specifying the age of Noe, chap. v. 31. (Haydock)
 
SeanTom said:
Open for discussion:

Question: "Who do you think were the sons of God in Genesis 6:1-4?”

Genesis 6:1-4 tells us, “When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days – and also afterward – when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” There have been several suggestions as to who the sons of God were, and why the children they had with daughters of men grew into a race of giants (that is what the word Nephilim seems to indicate).

The three primary views on the identity of the “sons of God” are that (1) they were fallen angels, or (2) they were powerful human rulers, or (3) they were godly descendants of Seth intermarrying with wicked descendants of Cain.

Giving weight to (1) is the fact that in the Old Testament the phrase “sons of God” always refers to angels (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). A potential problem with (1) is the fact that Matthew 22:30 indicates that angels do not marry. The Bible gives us no reason to believe that angels have a gender, or are able to reproduce.

Views (2) and (3) do not have this problem.
The weakness of views (2) and (3) is that ordinary human males marrying ordinary human females does not account for why the offspring were “giants” or “heroes of old, men of renown”. Further, why would God decide to bring the Flood on the earth (Gen 6:5-7) when God had never forbidden powerful human males or descendants of Seth to marry ordinary human females or descendants of Cain. The oncoming judgment of Genesis 6:5-7 is linked to what took place in Genesis 6:1-4. Only the obscene, perverse marriage of fallen angels with human females would seem to justify such a harsh judgment.

It is believed that view (1) to be the most likely position. Yes, it is an interesting “contradiction” to say that angels are sexless and then to say that the “sons of God” were fallen angels who procreated with human females. However, angels are spiritual beings (Heb 1:14), and yet can appear in human, physical form (Mark 16:5).

The men of Sodom and Gomorrah wanted to have sex with the two angels who were with Lot (Gen 19:1-5). Perhaps angels are capable of taking on human form, even to the point of replicating human sexuality – and possibly even reproduction. Why do the fallen angels not do this more often? It seems that God imprisoned the fallen angels who committed this evil sin, so that the other fallen angels would not do the same (as described in Jude 6).

Earlier Hebrew interpreters, apocryphal, and pseudopigriphal writings are unanimous in holding to the view that fallen angels are the “sons of God” mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4. This by no means closes the debate, but the view that Genesis 6:1-4 involves fallen angels mating with human females has a strong contextual, grammatical, and historical basis.

We may never know the truth about who the Sons of God were, Any ideas?
Click to expand...
I would say “sons of God” refers to Adam’s lineage through Seth (after blessed Abel was murdered and only Cain remained). One important thing to consider is Genesis 5 the chapter right before Gen 6 :). There it gives a lineage of Seth to Noah and these men could very logically be the “sons of God”.

One interesting fact I just noticed is that ch 5 mentions how these men lived hundreds of years, yet ch 6 makes the claim to reduce men’s lifespans to 100, thus another proof sons of God refers to the men of Gen 5.

Another very interesting clue I came across a while ago for why I say Seth is in Luke 3:23Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, 24the son of Matthat,
…
…
the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
37the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch,
the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel,
the son of Kenan, 38the son of Enosh,
the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
the son of God.
Doing a word search just this moment I found “sons of God” can refer to Christians: Jn 1:12; Rom 9:26. However Im not sure if thes and other places are actually in greek “sons of God” or “children of God”.
 
The Sons of God is the line decended from Adam through Seth . Seth because he is the first child of Adam and Eve’s born 'in his father’s image. The descendents of Cain are the daughter’s of men because the culture that springs from Cain is matriarchal. When Cain was born Eve said " I have got me a man with the help of God." Here we see that Cain is a possession of Eve’s and she views herself as the generating force behind procreation. Cain’s perception of his own meaning would be fulfilled in the purpose set by his mother. The maternal care Cain received lacked the most of all Eve’s children.
By the time Seth is born we see that Eve has become a different mother. When Seth is born she say’s " God has granted another offspring to replace Cain (first born) who killed Abel. Apparently the cry of all the the blood ever shed on earth that God pointed out for Cain to hear was also heard by Eve. Notice that she is no longer the generating force and possessor of life but the receiver of a gift. She refers to Seth as her ‘offspring’ not ’ a man". Her perspective of her own meaning has realigned with the Truth. Consequently she acknowledges Adam as the generating force on earth in that she produces a child in his image and God as the primary generator of life.

The sons of God decend from the most perfect image of God on earth, Seth and recognize the male as the generating force on earth.

The daughters of men decend from Cain who was born of woman who sat on her throne, was no widow and was not in mourning. ( not untill Cain killed Abel) This maternal experience of the first born of sin would permeate and drive the daughters of men and reveal it’s quality in them as a race that recognizes the power of fertility as the creative force of life and woman as the generating procreative force on earth.

Notice that the sons of God are tempted to practice polygamy in genesis six and that the first polygamist mentioned is Lamech (7th in Cain’s line) who revenge becomes complete in. This passage describes the increasing sin in man and words from the man who it becomes complete in. The words that are spoken in this passage are addressed to his two wives.

The daughters of men
 
I don’t know how far into this you want to go, I sure don’t want to go very far with it 🙂 , but essentially you’re dealing with an idiom, sorta, and it gets into some pretty significant scholarly debates as to the ‘morphology’ of the word and what it actually means.

I’m also a little suspicious of the question, whether I’m playing into a ‘pot-stirrer,’ but here goes…

So, morphology is the ‘shape’ or structure of a word, and if you dig down on this (you have to) it comes up in the scholarly translations that the word is spelled (very slightly) differently a couple times in the Hebrew texts. So what?

Simply put, one of these spelling inconsistencies preserve the ‘root’ of the word for us, and gives us the root that is pluralized with the -im ending (in Hebrew), and this root’s meaning is related to ‘giant-ness,’ ‘giants’ et Al. Without wading into the deep end, the reason this is and has been a challenge is because the two competing rootwords differ by a mere vowel(!) in the original Hebrew, so determining which one it actually was required us to get that darned vowel (Hebrew originally, at the time of writing of the OT, didn’t write out the vowels, the ‘yod’ was preserved in Numbers). Nutshell, it’s ‘giant,’ the word is not using the root that would indicate any ‘fallen’ nature, or mere ‘great’ stature (See the already quoted Haydock commentary, #4).

There are ‘hard and fast’ answers occasionally!
 
The Nephilim were ‘divine’ beings who belonged to a heavenly court.Other references in Num13:33;Dt2: 10-11- suggest the origin of “giants” and heroes of old…These beings attracted by human women’s beauty married them and sired children. what is wrong about this is it blurs the boundaries between human and divine.-mixing of heaven and earth is prohibited- the tree of life and knowledge(gen .3:22-24) is taboo,🙂
 
In Medieval demonology, demons can take on either gender as they have none of their own. Incubi and Succubi could mate with humans by manifesting as female (sucubi) and attacking a human male in his sleep (aka nocturnal emissions) and collecting the semen and taking it to a human female as an incubus and raping her. The resulting pregnancy is unnatural and changed because of the demonic interference. Hence ‘spawn of the devil’ myths.

I believe the Sons of God were angels and this is the reason they were ‘fallen’. Angels have materialized before. I think the resulting offspring are the basis for the myths of ancient gods and goddesses and heroes in Classical Pagandom. And that even some of the half-beast creatures and monsters may have been result of this unsanctioned unnatural gene tampering. Fits in with the cosmic astronaut myths too. There had to be some reason that the world was considered so bad it was beyond redemption and had to be destroyed by flood. There is always a grain of truth in every myth.
 
Fellow Christian,

Do you know the source used by Scot Hahn? There were a lot of good comments in these postings but I’m not sure any of us really know who the Sons of God were as mentioned in Gen 6:14. Many of the posts made sense, even though they differed from other posts.

This was a “nice to know” and not a “need to know” question. But I must say that we did have some interesting comments.

God bless you all
 
Ravyn_Guiliani said:
In Medieval demonology, demons can take on either gender as they have none of their own. Incubi and Succubi could mate with humans by manifesting as female (sucubi) and attacking a human male in his sleep (aka nocturnal emissions) and collecting the semen and taking it to a human female as an incubus and raping her. The resulting pregnancy is unnatural and changed because of the demonic interference. Hence ‘spawn of the devil’ myths.

I believe the Sons of God were angels and this is the reason they were ‘fallen’. Angels have materialized before. I think the resulting offspring are the basis for the myths of ancient gods and goddesses and heroes in Classical Pagandom. And that even some of the half-beast creatures and monsters may have been result of this unsanctioned unnatural gene tampering. Fits in with the cosmic astronaut myths too. There had to be some reason that the world was considered so bad it was beyond redemption and had to be destroyed by flood. There is always a grain of truth in every myth.
Click to expand...
One of the Apologists says this:

Dear Jim.

It ain’t so! Angels are spirits and do not have bodies. So they don’t have genders either—even though some of them have been given masculine names. They are certainly unable to have sexual relations with anybody.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.

This is the link to it
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=69993
😃

The ‘sons of God’ may be the decendents of Seth that had not intermarried with the decendents of cain.
 
Pete said:
One of the Apologists says this:

Dear Jim.

It ain’t so! Angels are spirits and do not have bodies. So they don’t have genders either—even though some of them have been given masculine names. They are certainly unable to have sexual relations with anybody.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.

This is the link to it
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=69993
😃

The ‘sons of God’ may be the decendents of Seth that had not intermarried with the decendents of cain.
Click to expand...
as spirits. but they can materialize bodies and have, complete with genders.
 
Fr. Vincent,

In Gen 6:2, “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”.

The notations for “sons of heaven” in my St. Joseph’s New American bible states: "The sons of heaven: literally ‘the sons of the Gods’ or “the sons of God”

In Gen 6:4: “At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth, 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.,”

I would appreciate your giving me your interpreatation of the above references. it could be that i am missing something here.

Respectfully, .
 
SeanTom said:
Fr. Vincent,

In Gen 6:2, “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”.

The notations for “sons of heaven” in my St. Joseph’s New American bible states: "The sons of heaven: literally ‘the sons of the Gods’ or “the sons of God”

In Gen 6:4: “At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth, 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.,”

I would appreciate your giving me your interpreatation of the above references. it could be that i am missing something here.

Respectfully, .
Click to expand...
The ‘Sons of God’ refer to the descendants of Adam, through his son Seth. The daughters of man refer to the daughters of Caine. ‘Heroes of old, the men of renown’, means self centered men, those wishing to make a name for themselves without God.

Nephilim is an ancient variant of “the mighty men of old”. Nephilim, are a race of giants mentioned in Numbers 13:33 as the giant inhabitants of Canaan, the children of unholy unions. Check Numbers 13:33 and see if that helps you out. I hope that was helpful. 😃
 
Deacon Joseph,

Thanks. Gets a bit complicated, doesn’t it? I think I’ll stick all these postings on this subject in my “not need to know” file.🙂 I do appreciate your comeback.
 
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