It Might All Just be One Really Long Story With a Lot of Digressions (part one of a series: What came before Genesis?)

Image:  Encyclopedia Britannica

This extremely LONG post will raise a number of sometimes uncomfortable questions and will offer few answers. 

Many of these questions have remained unanswered for thousands of years and I am certainly not smart enough to believe I know all the answers.  For convenience, I am including citations from religious and history websites as well as books and scholarly papers.  At the end, I am including a list of suggested further reading.  I am trying not to cite things that will be hard to find for people who do not collect theology books.  Also, I will support my arguments, but I have no desire and will make no attempt to convince anyone of anything or to debate or defend my opinions.

General but important disclaimer:  In this post, I will refer to both Christian and Jewish traditions, interpretations, and dogma.  I am not an expert in theology, but I pay attention.  I must point out, by way of full disclosure, that I was not brought up in, nor had formal training in Judaism.  What I have concluded here is based on my reading and interpretation of scholarly research, textbooks, Bible commentaries, and other sources.  I was brought up and have been involved with Christian denominations since birth.  My interpretations and conclusions about Christianity are the results of 70-plus years of personal experience as well as the previously cited sources.  I have no degrees in theology.  However, I have completed courses in Old Testament from Yale Divinity School and Dallas Theological Seminary.  I do not read or speak Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, or Latin.

I will begin by presenting what we know to be true.  These are the basic facts from which I present my premises and questionss. I will then introduce material containing confounding questions from a wide variety of sources.  Finally, I will pose some general questions and will invite the reader to comment, study further, or if you know everything, let me know what the hell is going on.

 

Things we know: (if you do not accept these as true, you are wasting your time reading further.)

1.    Almost every culture has a creation myth.

2.    Many of these creation myths have striking similarities. 

3.    The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have a creation myth. 

4.    Many religious traditions see themselves as special in the eyes of the god or gods they accept and/or worship. 

5.    The Hebrew Bible, including The Torah was written, compiled, and edited by rabbis and scholars prior to, primarily during, and after the Babylonian captivity. 

6.    The individual books of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Holy Bible were authored by many different people over many centuries.  Moses DID NOT write the Torah.  Yeshua's disciples DID NOT write the Gospels.  Saul the Letter Writer (Paul, the self-appointed apostle), did not write some or all of the epistles attributed to him.  The author of the Book of Revelation (c. 95-96 CE), identified only as John of Patmos, is known hardly at all. 

7.    Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have each split into factions, over and over, for reasons no one can adequately explain. 

8.    The book we know as the (Christian) Holy Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments, was written (utilizing already existing books from the Hebrew Bible), edited, and compiled continuously beginning about 65-100 CE until the "First Council of Nicea" in 325 CE, a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. "Final dogmatic articulations of the canons were made at the Council of Trent of 1546 for Roman Catholicism, the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the Church of England, the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for Calvinism, and the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for the Eastern Orthodox Church."  (Wikipedia).  The most commonly cited English version of the Christian Holy Bible was translated in England in 1611 under orders of James I (VI), translated with a view to giving English kings a "divine right" to rule.  That, in itself, should make the translation suspect, but that is the subject of a subsequent post.  The bishops attending the council each had books they wanted to see included in the Bible.  One bishop, Athanasius of Alexandria, had the foresight to bring what he believed to be a complete and official list of books.  After the bishops had argued and insulted each other for a few days, Athanasius's list was adopted as the canon of the Holy Bible.

 

 Image: Encyclopedia Britannica.

 

 9.    There are books that were excluded from the Christian Holy Bible and from the Hebrew Bible for various reasons.  Some of these books appear in versions of the Bible but not others.  Some have been found in fragments and whole books hidden in caves and found accidentally in the twentieth century CE.  These are known as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library.  These finds included many books contained in the modern Bible and many that were not.  It is clear that the early Christians existed in different sects with different beliefs.  Each denomination or form of religion is free to include or exclude books in their sacred texts.  As it has played out, however, individuals, according to these traditions, are not free to do that. 

10.    We are here considering the traditions, sacred writings, beliefs, and practices of the first two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity.  The third, Islam, will be a topic of future posts.  Before we can proceed, we need to explore some things we know about other religions which were practiced before, during, and after the Abrahamic religious traditions that we are considering.

 11.    It is not reasonable to study theology without considering anthropology and vice versa.  Homo Sapiens seems to have developed religion early in the cycle of evolution.  It is the most logical step for a species that is curious about itself and its world but has no understanding of physics, chemistry, biology, or any of the sciences we rely on today to solve our problems.  To our earliest ancestors, it made sense to attribute things they did not understand to an unseen force.

 Note on names:  I hope this will dispel confusion.  The name of the central figure in Christianity is "Yeshua" (Joshua). NOT "Jesus."  The name of the Hebrew and Christian god is YHWH.  It is not "God," "El," El Shaddai," "Elohim," or "Jehova."  I acknowledge that some of the Biblical authors use "Elohim" and other names.  "YHWH" is the exact name given to Moses by YHWH in Exodus.  He was specific.  While I realize that this will be annoying or worse to some, I am following the story as written.  I cannot meet everyone's theological rules. 

Some of the writers of the Torah, known to scholars as the "E source" used a form of the word or name "El" or "Elohim" for this deity.  It is a root that also produces the Muslim name "Allah" for the same deity.  Throughout the English Bible, the name of the deity is given or translated from Hebrew and Greek as Lord, Almighty, Adonai, and others.  In Exodus, YHWH told Moses that He was previously known to the children of Israel as "El Shaddai," but that his name is YHWH.  In some traditions, this name is not pronounced nor written in that form.  My belief is that if we are going to follow the story, we have to accept what the text says.  We do not have to believe it, but we have to accept it as THE TEXT, or none of this has any value. 

Near the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, lies a region known generally as Mesopotamia.  Originally, this was the "land between two rivers" (the Tigris and the Euphrates) but more generally refers today to a broader region extending from the Nile delta (the Biblical 'land of Goshen') across the northern Sinai peninsula, up the eastern Mediterranean coast (the Levant, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Israel, and eastward, encompassing the area between the rivers and surrounding territory.  This area has also been known as the Fertile Crescent, and has been known, together with areas of the Caucuses Mountains and Anatolia as the earliest and original "civilization."

 

 Image: Encyclopedia Britannica.

 

 

 

Image: Wikipedia.

Over the course of many centuries, many empires, including Egypt, Akkadia, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, have ruled these lands and have introduced a great many religious ideas, mythologies, gods, goddesses, angels, other creatures, devils, and demons of many kinds.  These various religious traditions served the purposes of explaining natural phenomena, providing rules by which to live and worship, and providing opportunities for the rich and powerful to control the poor and weak.

Through the growth and decline of these empires, faiths, upheavals, and settlements, the traditions of one century, age, or place merged, separated, changed, reverted, cooperated, and competed for the attention of the people with all the others.  By the time the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Holy Bible were written, edited, and compiled, Jewish and Christian scholars, priests, rabbis, theologians, bishops, etc. had been exposed to and had been influenced by every one of these other cultures and religious traditions. 

At least since the time of the Exodus described in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, Judaism and Christianity have been known and recognized as monotheistic religions, meaning strictly that their adherents believe in and worship a single god, in this case, YHWH.  Biblical scholars will quickly show how, even in these strictly monotheistic faiths, that has not always been the case in popular religious observance.  We also must recognize that in Christianity, the number and nature of the "Godhead" were clearly under sometimes violent debate, among a large number of Christian sects, until the fourth century CE, when the Trinity was agreed upon. 

In addition to the ONE GOD (YHWH) of Judaism and Christianity, these faiths recognize angels, devils, and demons as "supernatural," non-human, sometimes anthropomorphic beings.  Beyond these, however, neither faith officially recognizes any others as real and existent. 

I believe it might come as something of a surprise to the everyday Christian or Jew that both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Holy Bible make regular mention of additional "heavenly" creatures, specifically, those known as the Nephilim and the Anunnaki (Anakites, Sons of Anan).  There are references to a Council of Heaven, which implies additional divine personages. 

Some observant readers will expect me to insert here, a discussion of Erik VonDaniken and his followers who have, somewhat fancifully it seems to me, offered theories that these creatures from ancient Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian mythological pantheons are actually visitors from outer space who taught stone age man technologies beyond those of the twenty-first century.  Please be either disappointed or relieved that that is not where this is leading.

My thesis is much more simple.  It is two-fold: 

No one religion stands as a single method or way to achieve a desired end, whether we call it Heaven, Paradise, the Promised Land, Nirvana, the Truth, the Light, or anything else. 

Priests, rabbis, preachers, bishops, and other religious leaders have, since time immemorial, been willing, if not eager, to deceive, evade, equivocate, and flat-out lie to protect power and wealth, and to cover up when they cannot provide an answer they think the flock will accept.

This is my theory.  It does not require either magic or space aliens. 

Let us see what is known within and outside the Abrahamic tradition about these creatures, the Nephilim and the Anunnaki.

"The Nephilim; Hebrew: נְפִילִים are mysterious beings or people in the Hebrew Bible who are described as being large and strong.  The word Nephilim is loosely translated as giants in most translations of the Hebrew Bible, but left untranslated in others. Some Jewish explanations interpret them as hybrid sons of fallen angels (demigods). 

The main reference to them is in Genesis 6:1–4, but the passage is ambiguous and the identity of the Nephilim is disputed.  According to the Book of Numbers 13:33, a report from ten of the Twelve Spies was given of them inhabiting Canaan at the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan. 

A similar or identical biblical Hebrew term, read as "Nephilim" by some scholars, or as the word "fallen" by others, appears in the Book of Ezekiel 32:27 and is also mentioned in the deuterocanonical books Judith 16:6, Sirach 16:7, Baruch 3:26–28, and Wisdom 14:6." 

"Fallen angels were believed by Arab pagans to be sent to earth in form of men. Some of them mated with humans and gave rise to hybrid children. As recorded by Al-Jahiz, a common belief held that Abu Jurhum, the ancestor of the Jurhum tribe, was actually the son of a disobedient angel and a human woman."     -Wikipedia: Nephilim

"Anak (Hebrew: עֲנָק): a homophone to a word for "giant, long neck, necklace"; Hebrew pronunciation: [ʕaˈnaq]) is a figure in the Hebrew Bible. His descendants are mentioned in narratives concerning the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. According to the Book of Numbers, Anak was a forefather of the Anakim.  Ten of the twelve Israelite spies described them as very tall descendants of Anak, (compare Genesis 6:1–4). The text states that the giant stature of the Anakim was the standard by which other giant races were measured, such as the Rephaites, and that Anak was a son of Arba. 

The sons of Anak are first mentioned in Numbers 13. The Israelite leader Moses sends twelve spies representing the Twelve Tribes of Israel to scout out the land of Canaan. The spies enter from the Negev desert and journey northward through the Judaean hills until they arrive at the brook of Eshcol near Hebron, where reside the sons of Anak: Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai. After the scouts have explored the entire land, they bring back samples of the fruit of the land; most notably a gigantic cluster of grapes which requires two men to carry it on a pole between them. The scouts then report to Moses and the congregation, that "the land indeed is a land flowing with milk and honey". However, in Numbers 13:33, ten of the twelve spies state that the inhabitants of the land are descended from the Nephilim, discouraging the Israelites from even attempting to possess the land. They reported that the men were taller and stronger than the Israelites, and that they felt like grasshoppers in their presence. However, the faithful spies Caleb and Joshua do not verify this report, leading some scholars to believe that the fearful reports from the other ten are hyperbolic and should not be taken literally.

The Anakites are later mentioned briefly in the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges. Caleb, one of the twelve spies sent by Moses into Canaan, later drove out the descendants of Anak — his three sons — from Hebron, also called Kiriath Arba (Judges 1:20)." - Wikipedia

One of the earliest written stories or epics in the entire region is known as The Epic of Gilgamesh, which has a reference to a flood, much like the flood in Genesis.  Many scholars believe that this flood story could be a source for the flood story in Genesis. (Baden, Dever, Friedman) 

"The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic in Akkadian. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates back to the 18th century BC. - Wikipedia

It should be noted that we have several versions of the Gilgamesh epic that predate the writing down of any book in the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Holy Bible.  The epic contains a flood story that has many analogs to the flood story in Genesis.

 

Things we do not know, do not understand, or are willing to speculate about:

1.  The Book of Genesis, accepted by Jews and Christians contains a person known as Noah.  Noah is the man we know from the story of the ark, the rain, and the animals.  Not all of the books written in the ancient Hebrew tradition treat Noah in the same way.  

"Noah appears in Genesis 5:29 as the Son of Lamech and ninth in descent from Adam. In the story of the Deluge (Genesis 6:11–9:19), he is represented as the patriarch who, because of his blameless piety, was chosen by God to perpetuate the human race after his wicked contemporaries had perished in the Flood." (Wikipedia) 

In the Biblical story, YHWH became angry with the human race and told Noah that He would cause the rain to flood the Earth and kill all the people, animals, and plants.  In different sections of Genesis, Noah is instructed by YHWH to build a watercraft, an "ark," in which he and his family and a specific number of animals, which is contradictory in the text, will live until the flood waters have subsided.  Noah was chosen because he was "a righteous man, blameless in his generation, Noah walked with YHWH." (Holy Bible, NRSV) 

Also in Genesis, an account of the reasons that humans have turned to wickedness is told (Genesis 6:1-7): 

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,  2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.  3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.  4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.  5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.  7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."  (Genesis 6:1-7 KJV) 

In our Bibles, Hebrew and Christian, the Book of Genesis tells us specifically that Sons of God came to daughters of men and impregnated them, producing a race of giants or demi-gods. 

We learn here that the actual BIBLE we all grew up with describes hybrid creatures which are from "sons of Elohim" and daughters of men.  There is no further explanation offered. 

I am confident that this fact has not been a regular topic of conversation in Sunday School classrooms or in Pastors' sermons in churches. 

The Books of Enoch were among many books considered but not included in the Biblical canon of either the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Holy Bible.  The book, however, was likely written around the same time as Genesis and contains some of the same stories and some that are not found in Genesis. 

From the non-canonical First Book of Enoch, written at least as long ago as any part of Genesis:

"NOAH--THE BIRTH OF NOAH 

Methuselah took a wife for his son Lamech, and she bore him a man-child. The body of the babe was white as snow and red as a blooming rose, and the hair of his head and his long locks were white as wool, and his eyes were like the rays of the sun. When he opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house, like the sun, and the whole house was very full of light. And when he was taken from the hand of the midwife, he opened his mouth and praised the Lord of righteousness. His father Lamech was afraid of him and fled, and came to his own father Methuselah. And he said to him: "I have begotten a strange son; he is not like a human being but resembles the children of the angels of heaven, and his nature is different, and he is not like us, and his eyes are as the rays of the sun, and his countenance is glorious. And it seems to me that he is not sprung from me, but from the angels, and I fear that in his days a wonder may be wrought on the earth. And now, my father, I am here to petition thee and implore thee, that thou mayest go to Enoch, our father, and learn from him the truth, for his dwelling place is among the angels." (Sacred-texts.com)

Image: Torah.com

Image: Encyclopedia Britannica

And so, Noah is described as one who did not look human, but divine.  Remember that Genesis says that Noah "walked with God."  

This certainly does not sound like the Noah we learned about as children. 

The non-canonical Books of Enoch contain the Ark story and elucidate many things about Noah not included in the Book of Genesis.  I recommend that the reader take a look at the Books of Enoch to gain an understanding of how contradictory different interpretations of the same events can be, even among the faithful.  It might also be of interest to note that Genesis contains, as well as two completely different and conflicting creation myths, two conflicting accounts of Noah and the flood.  Scholars attribute these differences to the different sources of what became the Torah and the Old Testament, a source which used the Hebrew name "Elohim" and one which used the name "YHWH."  Preachers will offer no explanation that makes any sense. 

"The true authorship of the Book of Enoch (as well as the canonical books) is unknown but it is believed to be the work of a number of different authors over hundreds of years, with each portion having been added separately. Traditionally, however, it is attributed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of the biblical Noah." (Jerusalem Post) 

Enoch is also one of the three people in the Bible taken up to heaven while still alive (the only others being Elijah and Yeshua).  Fragments of the Book of Enoch in Aramaic and Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

The Book of Enoch certainly varies from the concepts we were taught in our religious education! 

Why was Enoch not included in the Bibles of either Judaism or Christianity? 

Entire books have been written about this question.  I have a simple theory:  The books of the various Bibles we have today were chosen because scholars and religious leaders believed they could explain away the many, many contradictions which occur when books are written, re-written, and copied over centuries by hundreds of people.  Enoch and other books were excluded because these scholars, rabbis, priests, and bishops could not figure out how to explain the profound contradictions.  I believe it is just that simple.

We have seen that religious leaders have become quite evasive when difficult questions are posed.  The posers of these embarrassing questions are branded as troublemakers, heretics, or worse. 

Let us turn, now, to religious traditions across centuries and around the world which raise questions that serve mostly to confuse divinity students and generate best-selling books. 

I will state here, for the record, that I am not proposing any theory that includes space aliens as ancient sources of technology or esoteric knowledge for man.  I do NOT believe that the Bible authors were writing about UFOs and alien beings.  I am NOT a proponent of the theories of Erich von Däniken and his followers.  I am, however, including discussions of phenomena that have not been fully explained. 

Within the stories contained in The Book of Genesis, there are descriptions and stories of beings and creatures not included in the traditional Judeo-Christian cast of characters.  Some of these beings and stories are developed more completely in the Books of Enoch. 

For example, as we revisit the Genesis story, Genesis 6:4 reads: 'The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.' 

This is an incredibly confusing passage. We know almost nothing about the Nephilim. Who were these beings, why are they important to the surrounding narrative in Genesis, and why are they never heard of again? 

Before we attempt to answer that, let’s take a look at the broader context. Genesis 6:1–4 reads: 

"When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their 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 humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown." 

-https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/who-are-the-nephilim-in-genesis-6

I would wager that you did not hear about these creatures, the Nephilim, in Sunday School.  We look, now, at several discussions of these creatures which appear in the Torah and the Holy Bible but whom no preacher, priest, or rabbi wants to talk about. 

The word Nephilim is found in the Bible two times. The first is in Genesis 6:1-6 and then again in Numbers 13:33. Scholars and commentators translate the word Nephilim as giants or fallen ones. 

The Nephilim are "mighty men" described in the Old Testament as incredibly large and physically strong. They are the children of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of man." Nephilim is translated as giants in some versions of the Hebrew Bible but left untranslated in others. 

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. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)

According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia regarding the Nephilim: 

"This word, translated "giants" in the King James Version, but retained in the Revised Version (British and American), is found in two passages of the Old Testament--one in Genesis 6:4, relating to the antediluvians; the other in Numbers 13:33, relating to the sons of Anak in Canaan. In the former place the Nephilim are not necessarily to be identified with the children said to be borne "the daughters of men" to "the sons of God" (Genesis 6:2-4); indeed, they seem to be distinguished from the latter as upon the earth before this unholy commingling took place. But it is not easy to be certain as to the interpretation of this strange passage. In the second case, they clearly represent men of gigantic stature, in comparison with whom the Israelites felt as if they were "grasshoppers." This agrees with Genesis 6:4, "The mighty men that were of old, the men of renown." Septuagint, therefore, was warranted in translation by Gigantes.  There is almost always variance when discussing the Nephilim details in Christian circles today. Is there a correct answer to who precisely the Nephilim were? Scholars and theologians find this subject fascinating." 

-International Standard Bible Encyclopedia 

 

The Sons of God 

In his book, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, Professor John Collins, Yale Divinity School) discusses Biblical and non-canonical stories in books that were included in the Bible and those that were rejected.  This is his discussion of the Nephilim.  Note that Professor Collins eludes here to the “Eloist” (E source), “Yahwist” (J source), and “Priestly” (P source) of parts of the story woven together probably during the Babylonian captivity. 

The brief notice about “the sons of God” (that is, gods, or heavenly beings) in Gen 6:1-4 is difficult to assign to a source. (The statement in v. 3, where YHWH limits the span of human life, is not necessarily part of the story about the sons of God [Elohim], and may be intrusive.) The episode of the sons of God seems to be a fragment of a polytheistic myth. 

Like many of the stories in Genesis, it has an etiological aspect: it explains the origin of the Nephilim (literally, “fallen ones”), the “heroes of old.” In the Greek and Latin versions, the Nephilim are rendered as “giants”—a translation suggested by the fact that the Giants in Greek mythology (as narrated in Hesiod’s Theogony) were born of the union of Heaven and Earth. Evidently, such a story was current in ancient Israel, and it was incorporated by the Yahwist as part of the account of the Primeval History.  

Nothing further is said in Genesis to develop this connection. In later tradition, however, it grew into a full-fledged myth. In the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36), an apocalyptic work written in Aramaic in the third or early second century BCE, the sons of God become “the Watchers,” angelic beings who descend to earth in an act of rebellion. The Watchers then impart to humanity all kinds of forbidden knowledge. The giants whom they beget cause great havoc on earth because of their lawless behavior. Eventually, the flood is sent to cleanse the earth. The book of Jubilees (written in Hebrew, second century BCE) also makes the connection between the descent of the fallen angels and the spread of wickedness on earth. Unlike 1 Enoch, however, Jubilees claims that the Watchers originally came down to teach men to do what is just and right on earth (Jub. 4:15), although they subsequently sinned by entering into unions with the daughters of men. The myth of the fallen angels had a long life in Western tradition and received a classic form in John Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost. The biblical text, however, contains only the germ of this myth. The Yahwist located responsibility for sin in the actions of human beings rather than in those of fallen angels, and this was also true of the Priestly editor of the Primeval History. 

Professor James Kugel (Harvard) considers the story of the Nephilim both in the Bible and in other, older, nearby traditions.

A Bad Match 

"The Bible says little openly. One rather cryptic passage, however, seemed to interpreters to imply that one truly evil thing had occurred just before the flood episode: 

“When people began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they married such of them as they chose. Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years:' 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. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth.” - Gen. 6:1-5 

The flood must have come about, directly or indirectly, as a result of this union. Perhaps it was because of some sort of sexual profligacy implied in this passage, or because the mating of these two groups brought about a new race of beings who were given over to sinfulness, or because, through their contact with the humans, the angels had passed along a knowledge of secret things that led to the humans' corruption. All three traditions are found intermingled even in the most ancient writings of the period.  (The phrase "at that time" is not found in Gen. 5:24; its addition appears designed to reflect the motif "Enoch the Penitent." Note also that both the "200 years" and "transferred" here agree with the Septuagint against the traditional Hebrew text.) 

And the angels, the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another: Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the children of men, and let us beget for ourselves children. (That is, the "sons of God" spoken of in Gen. 6:1.)

And they took wives for themselves and everyone chose for himself one each. And they began to go in to them and were promiscuous with them. 

And they taught them charms and spells, and showed to them the cutting of roots and trees. And they became pregnant and bore great giants, whose height was three thousand cubits. These devoured all the [products of the] toil of men, until men were unable to sustain them. Then the giants turned against them in order to devour men. And they began to sin against birds, and against animals, and against reptiles, and against fish, and they devoured one another's flesh and drank the blood from it. 

And the women bore giants, and thereby the whole earth has been filled with blood and iniquity. (In this part of 1 Enoch, the act of the "sons of God" in mating with the "daughters of men" is interpreted as a rebellion against God, a "great sin" (1 Enoch 6:3). The "giants" (see below) apparently result from this forbidden union. Even though the Bible seems to praise them as "men of renown;' our text presents them as a race of tyrannical and oppressive creatures who terrorize humanity, deplete the earth's resources, and spread violence and death everywhere. -1 Enoch 6:2-7:5, 9:9 

In examining these and other ancient traditions about the flood, it is difficult to judge how much of their contents arose exclusively out of a contemplation of the biblical material and how much may have been influenced by outside factors. (This is particularly so in the case of 1 Enoch, which, because of its great antiquity and its overall connection to Mesopotamian lore-which had itself preserved the memory of a great flood-may well have passed on traditions originally unrelated to the biblical text.) Whatever their origins, however, these traditions, transmitted to later readers, suggested that the flood narrated in Genesis had, in one of the three ways mentioned, resulted from the disastrous union of human females with the angels.  In this part of 1 Enoch, the act of the "sons of God" in mating with the "daughters of men" is interpreted as a rebellion against God, a "great sin" (1 Enoch 6:3). The "giants" (see below) apparently result from this forbidden union. Even though the Bible seems to praise them as "men of renown;' our text presents them as a race of tyrannical and oppressive creatures who terrorize humanity, deplete the earth's resources, and spread violence and death everywhere. (1 Enoch was itself undoubtedly considered by many to be sacred Scripture-it is cited, for example, in the New Testament, Jude 14-and its contents were themselves interpreted and passed on as authoritative teachings supplementing the Genesis narrative." (Kugel, 1997) 

Professor Kugel also provides a consideration of these giants: 

"The Wicked Giants 

In particular, attention came to be focused on the offspring of the angels ("sons of God") and the humans. On the one hand, the Bible describes these hybrid offspring as "mighty men of old, men of renown" (Gen. 6:4)-which certainly makes them sound good. On the other hand, since the very next verse speaks of the "wickedness" of humanity, most interpreters were inclined to see these divine-human creatures in a less-than-positive light. 

One clue as to their true nature lay in the sentence cited earlier, "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" (Gen. 6:4). It was not clear to interpreters if these Nephilim were the divine-human hybrids, or if they merely were around at the time when this mating took place. Nor was the meaning of the word "Nephilim" crystal clear to them. However, this word does occur in one other place in the Bible, in the report of the Israelite spies whom Moses sent to scout out the land of Canaan: 

[The returning spies said:] The land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them. - NUll. 13:32-33 

This passage implies that Nephilim were giants, "men of great stature;' in comparison to whom the spies "seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them:' Here, then, was an indication from elsewhere that the word "Nephilim" meant "giants:' This identification of the Nephilim in Gen. 6:4 is attested early: The giants were on the earth in those days, and after that, when the sons of God went into the daughters of men. - Septuagint Gen. 6:4 If the Nephilim were giants, then it did make sense that they were the offspring of the "sons of God" and human females-where else would giants come from but such a divine-human union? And if they were described as "mighty men of old, the men of renown;' this was probably just a reflection of their great physical size, not of their moral standing.  " (Kugel, 1997)

Floods, arks, and giants appear in many traditional stories in the area in and around Canaan. The variations of the flood stories bear a lot of similarities and a lot of differences.  In his book, The Ark Before Noah, Irving Finkel discusses some of these traditions. 

"It is reasonable, I suggest, to assume that the Hebrew description in the Bible reflects an oblong boat of this pattern, which, like the coracle, was surely commonly seen on the rivers of Mesopotamia in antiquity, and was encountered there by the Hebrew poets,

 ... 

The existence of such boats contributes an important element to our assessment of the Hebrew encounter with the Babylonian story. If the oblong shape of the Hebrew ark reflects an existing type of Babylonian boat easily seen ‘out of the window’, this has direct implications for the transmission of the story. It is conceivable that, while Utnapishti at Nineveh ended up tweaking a square ark out of a circular one, another and unknown cuneiform edition tweaked this a little further into an oblong, convinced that a cubic boat would never work and swayed by the existence of the oblong barge-type called a ṭubbû. While retaining virtually the same base area (15,000 cubits2 as against 14,400 cubits2), the length and width of the Ark were adjusted to round numbers reflecting the relative proportions of such a barge. The importance and brevity of the biblical description of Noah’s Ark meant that successions of scholars, religious and otherwise, have pored over these lines of Noah text. 

The Ark in the Koran Nuh’s [Noah] lifeboat Ark had no special name, but is referred to as safina, the common word for boat, Sura 54:3 describing it as ‘a thing of boards and nails’. There is no Koranic counterpart to the details of building the Ark or its appearance, although Abd Allah ibn Abbas, a contemporary of Muhammad, wrote that when Noah was in doubt as to what shape to make the Ark Allah revealed to him that it was to be shaped like a bird’s belly and fashioned of teak wood. In Islam, too, there was much later discussion and analysis of the story and its implications by the religious authorities. Abdallah ibn Umar al-Baidawi, writing in the thirteenth century, explains that in the first of its three levels wild and domesticated animals were lodged, in the second the human beings, and in the third the birds. On every plank was the name of a prophet. Three missing planks, symbolising three prophets, were brought from Egypt by Og, son of Anak, the only one of the giants permitted to survive the Flood, and the body of Adam was carried in the middle to divide the men from the women. There was a tradition that Noah had to say, In the Name of Allah! when he wished the Ark to move, and the same when he wished it to stand still.  (Finkel, 2014) 

We see that in many of the mythologies of the area with which the Bible is concerned (roughly the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea), some patterns emerge. 

1.    There was a great flood, caused by YHWH (or Allah or another appropriate deity). 

2.     There were people, chosen by the deity, who would survive the flood and would re-populate the earth.  (These writers were obviously not knowledgeable of genetics.) 

3.    At some time, in some versions, giants existed on the Earth. 

4.    In some traditions, these giants brought about the flood by teaching wickedness to men. 

5.    In some versions (and also versions in other, widely scattered parts of the world), a savior being, larger than life (a giant?) and smarter than men, teaches mankind skills and science.

6.    These themes recur time and again in the legends of this geographical area.  As we will see in future posts, these legends are very like creation and flood legends from the far reaches of human settlement, China, The Americas, Polynesia, and Europe. 

7.  It is important, in considering these stories that the FLOOD was caused in most of these legends by the WICKEDNESS OF MAN.  This wickedness, in some versions, is caused by supernatural beings mating with humans and producing a race of GIANTS.  These GIANTS go about destroying things, teaching wisdom and skills to men, and causing sin, which makes the DEITY regret his creation and kill it.  In other versions, man becomes wicked due to his own lust and selfishness, and the flood is again seen as a cleansing agent.  In these versions, following the FLOOD, a savior figure, LARGER THAN LIFE, comes from SOME OTHER PLACE and teaches man the skills he needs to advance technologically.  We will explore these versions in future posts.

We have seen that the Bibles we have today, both Jewish and Christian, contain stories, fragments of stories, and references that THE TEXT DOES NOT EXPLAIN. 

In any other book, this would be a minor detail but in the GUIDE TO FAITH AND PRACTICE that The Bible is claimed by millions to be, they are profound.  Introducing DIVINE BEINGS and providing absolutely NO EXPLANATION is a MAJOR FLAW that was created by men who sought prestige, power, and wealth, and that fails to provide the reliable answers men seek. 

There is much to explore in these texts and many more questions to ask.  In subsequent posts, we will be looking at the Old and New Testaments and the Hebrew Bible in some additional detail.  We will also consider the possible source of all the flood myths and whether the creatures introduced in Genesis and Enoch have analogs in other cultures, in other places, and at other times.

 

Recommendations for further reading: 

Armstrong, Karen. The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World). Grove Atlantic. Kindle Edition.  2006 

Baden, Joel S.  The Composition of the Pentateuch Yale University Press  2012 

Berlin, Adele and Brettler, Marc Z.  The Jewish Study Bible, Tanakh Translation. Jewish Publication Society, Oxford University Press 1985 1999

Callahan, Tim  Secret Origins of the Bible  Millenium Press 2002 

Collins, John Introduction to the Hebrew Bible Fortress 2007 

Covenant Christian Coalition  The Complete 54-book Apocrypha  Covenant Press 2022

Dever, William  Has Archaeology Buried the Bible?  EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN 2020
 
Dever, William G.; Adam Zertal; Norman Gottwald; Israel Finkelstein; P. Kyle McCarter Jr.; Bruce Halpern. The Rise of Ancient Israel (p. 2). Biblical Archaeology Society. Kindle Edition. Copyright © 2012 Biblical Archaeology Society 935335-81-8
 
 
Dever. William G.  What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel  Kindle Edition.
 
Finkel, Irving The Ark Before Noah Doubleday 2014

Friedman, Richard Elliott.  The Bible with Sources Revealed  HarperOne 2003 

Friedman, Richard Elliott  Commentary on the Torah  Harper SanFrancisco  2001 

Holy Bible The KJV Study Bible (King James Bible). Barbour Publishing, Inc. Kindle Edition. 

Holy Bible  King James,  Strong, James. The King James English-Hebrew/Greek Reverse Interlinear Bible  Kindle Edition. 

Holy Bible  NSRV  Nelson Press  Nashville 

Kugel, James   TRADITIONS OF THE BIBLE Harvard 1997 

Metzger, Bruce and Coogan, Michael D.  The Oxford Companion to the Bible  Oxford University Press  1993 

Orr, James  International Standard Biblical Encyclopedia  The Howard-0Severance Company  1915