Yes, I'm actually very familiar with this interpretation describing that fallen angels and earthly women created a hybrid race of giants in the land, that ultimately were done away with (actually, I was about 7 years old when I first read on this). It makes for interesting reading, and the theology to back it up is there, but another view holds that when the Bible quotes "sons of God" in this passage of Genesis, that it refers to Holy, or set apart men, who gave themselves to women they were not to take part in. Either view can be easily supported with scripture, but at best we can walk away with the understanding that the union between these "set apart" sons of God, and the women the copulated with, was an unholy union that resulted in an "race" of Giants. In otherwords:
- The union was not blessed by God
- The son's of men were set apart, and disobeyed God
- The result of disobedience led to an race of offsping that worked against God's purpose for man
Some probable examples of these giants can be seen when:
- The children of Israel came to the Promised Land
- David faced Goliath
- Goliath's "brothers" were killed during the later reign of David
Some other things to take into consideration:
- In the New Testament, Jesus implies that angels are asexual
- Spiritual beings do not reproduce sexually. Man is the only spiritual/flesh being known to reproduce sexually
I am not proposing one view over another, but it is interesting to note that for the sake of eschatology (the study of the end times) the stance that "sons of God" in this passage can be interpreted as fallen angels does provide for a more interesting and complete picture of what was going on outside the realm of the natural here on earth. However, as long as you can walk away with the knowledge of these two stances on the subject, and the first three points I've mentioned, I feel you've gotten the point of why this particulare story is mentioned in scripture.
i am reading Tim Lahayes's "Charting the End Times" and i came across something that doesnt fit my theology and wanted to get some opinions on it. i typed the section below:
Polluting the Bloodine
In the days from Adam to the Flood (about 1000 years), during a time of rapid population growth, Satan attempted to pollute the pure bloodline of Adam. He did this by allowing the cohabitation of fallen angels with women whom they found appealing, and thus produced "Nephilim", or fallen ones, in an attempt to corrupt the "seed of the woamn" and thwart the redemptive plan of GOD.We read about this in Genesis 6:1-4 and Jude 7, and this is the likely reason that GOD resorted to the extreme measure of sending a flood to destroy the whole human race, with the exception of Noah's family. Through Noah's family GOD preserved the purityof the original bloodline of humans; the sin of mixing "strange flesh" with human flesh cannot happen again because GOD imprisoned these fallen angels in Tartarus (2Peter 2:4-10)
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