Grace
Theological Journal 5.1 (1984) 13-36
Copyright © 1984 by Grace
Theological Seminary, cited with permission.
THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF
GENESIS 6:2, 4
ROBERT C. NEWMAN
The exegesis of Gen 6:2, 4 in ancient
times is surveyed among
extant
sources, both Jewish and Christian. These interpretations are
categorized
as either "supernatural" or "nonsupernatural"
depending
upon the
identification of the "sons of God." It is observed that the
interpretation
of "sons of God" as angels and "Nephilim"
as giants
dominates.
This interpretation also seems to be that of the NT:
almost
certainly in Jude 6 and 2 Pet 2:4, and probably in 1 Cor
and Matt
tation and its validity are made.
* *
*
Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the
land, and daughters were born to them, that
the sons of God saw that
the daughters of men were beautiful; and
they took wives for themselves,
whomever they chose. Then the LORD said,
"My Spirit shall not strive
with men forever, because he also is flesh;
nevertheless his days shall be
one hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on 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
(Gen 6:1-4 NASB).
This passage has been a center of
controversy for at least two
millennia.
The present form of the dispute is rather paradoxical. On
the one
hand, liberal theologians, who deny the miraculous, claim the
account
pictures a supernatural liason between divine beings
and
humans.1
Conservative theologians, though believing implicitly in
angels and
demons, tend to deny the passage any such import.2 The
1E.g., A. Richardson, Genesis 1-11 (London: SCM, 1953); E.
A. Speiser, Genesis
(AB; Garden
City: Doubleday, 1964); D. Vawter, On Genesis: A
New
City:
Doubleday, 1977); G. von Rad, Genesis: A
Commentary (rev. ed.;
2E.g., G. Ch. Aalders, Genesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1981); H. G. Stigers, A
Commentary
on Genesis (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1976); J. Murray, Principles of
Conduct (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1957) 243-49.
14 GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
liberal
position is more understandable with the realization that they
deny the
historicity of the incident and see it as a borrowing from
pagan
mythology. The rationale behind the
conservative view is more
complex:
though partially a reaction to liberalism, the view is older
than liberal
theology. Moreover, the conservative
camp is not unani-
mous in
this interpretation; several expositors see supernatural liasons
here, but
ones which really occurred.3
The concern in this article, however, is
not to trace the history of
interpretation
of this passage, nor (basically) to discuss modern argu-
ments for
and against various views. Rather, the
concern is to see
how it was
understood in antiquity and (if possible) why it was so
understood.
Gen 6:1-4 seems to be something of an
"erratic boulder" for all
interpreters,
standing apart to some extent from its context.
The
preceding
chapter consists of a 32-verse genealogy extending from
Adam through
his son Seth to Noah and his sons. God
is mentioned
in three
connections only: he creates man (5:1),
walks with Enoch
(
verses of
chapter 4, we pick up two more references: Seth is God's
replacement
for Abel (
the time of Enosh (
quickly into
the flood, beginning with God's observation that both
man and
beast must be wiped out because man's wickedness has
become very
great.
From the passage and its context a number
of questions arise. Who
are the
"sons of God" mention in 6:2, 4?
The phrase occurs nowhere
else in the
context or even in Genesis. Who are the
"daughters of
men"? This phrase at least seems to be related to v
1, where "men"
have
"daughters" born to them. Why
does the text say "sons of God"
and
"daughters of men" rather than "sons of men" and
"daughters of
God"? How is God's reaction in vv 3 and 5 related
to all this? Are
these
marriages the last straw in a series of sins leading to the flood or
not? Who are the "Nephilim"
in v 4? Are they the offspring of the
sons of God
and the daughters of men or not? Are
they the "mighty
men"
mentioned in the same verse? Is it their
sin which brings on the
flood?
The scope of this article does not permit
an investigation of all
these
matters. We shall concentrate on two: the phrase Myhlxh ynb,
usually
translated "sons of God" (vv 2, 4) and the word Mylpn,
here
transliterated
"Nephilim" (v 4). Though other matters are
of interest
3U. Cassuto,
A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: Part I: From Adam to
Noah.
Gen 1-68 (Jerusalem: Magnes and Hebrew
University, 1961); H. M. Morris, The
Genesis
Record (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1976); W. A. Van Gemeren, "The
Sons of God
in Genesis
6:1-4," WTJ 43 (1981) 320-48.
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS
6:2, 4 15
and will
influence one's interpretation, these two seem to constitute
an
interpretive watershed.
For ease of discussion we shall divide the
various interpretive
schemes into
two broad categories which we label "supernatural" and
"nonsupernatural" (this rather clumsy term being used
to avoid the
connotation
of "proper" which "natural" would give). The super-
natural
category will include any views in which the sons of God are
not human,
and the nonsupernatural those in which they are
human.
Within each
category we shall proceed more or less chronologically
from the
earliest extant examples to late antiquity, giving greater
attention to
earlier materials. The NT will be
omitted from this
preliminary
survey, but we shall return to it later to see if it favors
one of these
interpretations. Thereafter we shall
examine possible
exegetical
bases for the various views and seek to draw some conclu-
sions
regarding not only what was done in antiquity but how we
should
interpret the passage. We hope also to
provide some general
methodological
suggestions.
THE SUPERNATURAL INTERPRETATION
Among extant materials interpreting Gen
6:2, 4, the supernatural
view is
older, though we cannot be sure in which work it appears
first, the
LXX or I Enoch.
LXX
The Old Greek version of the Pentateuch, traditionally
known
as the LXX,
was probably produced in the middle of the 3rd century
B.C.4 Extant MSS of Genesis render Myhlxh ynb variously as ui[oi< tou?
qeou? and a@ggeloi tou? qeou?.5 The latter alternative clearly moves the
4J. W. Wevers,
"Septuagint," IDB 4 (1962) 273; E. M. Blaiklock,
"Septuagint,"
ZPEB 5
(1976) 343-44.
5See the relevant textual
footnotes in A. Rahlfs, Septuaginta
(7th ed.;
Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1962) 8, and especially
in J. W. Wevers, Genesis
(Gottingen LXX: Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1974)
108. The variant
a@ggeloi is the minority reading among extant MSS
and versions, but it is supported by
many
witnesses, including Codex Alexandrinus (4th century
A.D.), as well as Philo and
Josephus, both
writing in the 1st century A.D. though extant only in much later MSS.
These latter
comment on the passage in such a way that their reading cannot be
dismissed as
a scribal error from later Christian copyists. ui[oi< is
the majority reading,
for which the
most important witnesses are papyrus 911 (3rd century A.D.) and Codex
Coislinianus (7th century). The Gottingen LXX favors
the latter reading since it is
supported by
all the MS groups, though none are as early as Philo and Josephus. Yet
the
influence of the MT on the transmission of the LXX might well explain ui[oi<,
even
if a@ggeloi were the original translation. It is therefore impossible to be
certain whether
a@ggeloi was the original translation or an early midrashic corruption.
16 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
text in a
supernatural direction, even though a@ggeloj sometimes
means a
human messenger (e.g., Gen 32:3, 6).
This variant is already
cited and
discussed by Philo,6 so apparently predates the 1st century
A.D. In Gen 6:4 Mylpn is translated gi<gantej;
without textual variation.
The Greek
word, usually rendered "giant," indicates a warrior of
large
stature7 and translates rbg in Gen 10:8, 9.
I Enoch
Possibly older than the LXX is the book of
Enoch, an apocalyptic
work of
great diversity organized around revelations allegedly given
to the
patriarch of this name. The particular material we are concerned
with is
thought to be pre-Maccabean by Charles and from the
early
2nd century
B.C. by Eissfeldt. In any case, fragments from this
part of
Enoch have been found at
dates to the
pre-Christian era.8
The first five chaps. of Enoch
present a mostly poetic picture of
the coming
of God to earth in judgment and what this will mean for
the wicked
and the righteous. Chap. 6 begins:
And it came to pass when the children of
men had multiplied, in those
days were born unto them beautiful and
comely daughters. And the
angels, the children of heaven, saw and
lusted after them, and said to
one another: 'Come, let us choose wives
from among the children of
men and beget us children.' (1 Enoch
6:1-2)
The account
goes on (chaps. 6-8) to tell how two hundred angels
came down on
taught them
science, magic and technology, and begot by them giants
over a mile
high! Along with Semjaza, principal attention is
given to
the angel Azazel, who taught mankind metallurgy for weapons and
jewelry.
The good angels report these things to God
(chap. 9), who sends
Uriel to
warn Noah of the coming flood, Gabriel to destroy the
giants,
Raphael to take charge of Azazel, and Michael to deal
with
6Philo, On the Giants 6.
7H. G. Liddell, R. Scott and H.
Drissler, A Greek-English Lexicon. Based on the
German Work
of Francis Passow (New York: Harper and Bros., 1879) 292. [Not in
recent
edition.]
8R. H. Charles, Apocrypha
and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (
Clarendon,
1913), 2. 163; O. Eissfeldt,
The Old Testament: An Introduction (
Blackwell,
1965) 618-19. M. Rist ("Enoch, Book of,"
IDB 2 [1962] 104) would date
this section
later, ca. 100 B.C. In any case,
fragments of this part of Enoch have been
found at
Qumran: see O. Betz, "
Books of
Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of
139-40, 164.
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 17
Semjaza and
his fellows. The instructions given to Raphael and
Michael are
of particular interest:
Bind Azazel hand
and foot, and cast him into darkness: and make an
opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And
place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and
cover him with darkness,
and let him abide there for ever, and
cover his face that he may not see
light. And on the great day of judgment he
shall be cast into the fire.
(1 Enoch 10:4-6)
Go, bind Semjaza
and his associates who have united themselves
with women so as to have defiled
themselves with them in all their
uncleanness. And when their sons [the
giants] have slain one another,
and they have seen the destruction of
their beloved ones, bind them
fast for seventy generations in the
valleys of the earth, till the day of
their judgment and of the consummation,
till the judgment that is for
ever and ever is consummated. (1 Enoch
10:11-12)
Thus Enoch presents an
interpretation of Gen 6 in terms of
angelic
cohabitation with women, resulting in gigantic offspring. The
angels who
sinned are bound to await the final judgment.
Jubilees
The Book of Jubilees [Jub.]
is an expanded retelling of Genesis
and part of
Exodus. It provides an elaborate
chronology based on
sabbatical
cycles and jubilees, plus a theory that the patriarchs ob-
served
various Mosaic regulations even before they were given at
Sinai. Charles and Tedesche
date the book in the last half of the 2nd
century
B.C., while Eissfeldt puts it about 100 B.C. More recently
VanderKam has
presented detailed arguments for a somewhat earlier
date, around
150 B.C.9
Though apparently dependent on 1 Enoch
or one of its sources,
Jub.
differs from Enoch on the reason for the angels' descent to earth:
...and he called his name Jared; for in
his days the angels of the Lord
descended on the earth, those who are
named the Watchers, that they
should instruct the children of men, and
that they should do judgment
and uprightness on the earth. (Jub. 4:15)
Chap. 5
follows with an expansion of Gen 6, in which these Watchers
cohabit with
women and the offspring produced are giants. The
sinning
angels are not named, but God's response to their sin is
described:
9Charles, Pseudepigrapha
6; S. Tedesche, "Jubilees, Book of, " IDB 2
(1962) 1002;
Eissfeldt, OT
Introduction 608; J. C. VanderKam, Textual and
Historical Studies in
the Book of
Jubilees (HSM 14;
Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977) 283-84.
18 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
And against the angels whom He had sent
upon the earth, He was
exceedingly wroth, and He gave command to
root them out of all their
dominion, and He made us [one of the good
angels is speaking] to bind
them in the depths of the earth, and
behold they are bound in the midst
of them and are (kept) separate. (Jub. 5:6)
Other Pseudepigrapha
The other works included in Jewish pseudepigrapha which refer
to this view
are late. Both 2 Enoch 18 and 2 Baruch [Bar] 56 mention
the angels
of Gen 6 as being punished by torment, the former indicat-
ing that
they are under earth, the latter as being in chains.
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs [T.
12 Patr.] make
reference to
this view more than once, but the date and nature of
these works
are problematical since they are Christian in their present
form.
Whether the Testaments are basically pre-Christian with some
later
editing, or basically Christian using some older Jewish materials,
is still
hotly debated.10 In any case
T. Reub. 5:5-7 presents an
unusual
variant of the supernatural view: the actual cohabitation is
between
humans, but the spiritual influence of the angels produces
giants:
Flee, therefore, fornication, my children,
and command your wives and
your daughters, that they adorn not their
heads and faces to deceive
the mind: because every woman who uses
these wiles hath been reserved
for eternal punishment. For thus they
allured the Watchers who were
before the flood; for as these continually
beheld them, they lusted after
them, and they conceived the act in their
mind; for they changed
themselves into the shape of men, and
appeared to them when they
were with their husbands. And the women
lusting in their minds after
their forms, gave birth to giants, for the
Watchers appeared to them as
reaching even unto heaven.
T. Naph.
3:3-5 gives a supernatural interpretation of Gen 6: 1-4
in a
grouping of examples which parallels those in Jude and 2 Pet:
The Gentiles went astray, and forsook the
Lord, and changed their
order, and obeyed stocks and stones,
spirits of deceit. But ye shall not
be so, my children, recognizing in the
firmament, in the earth, and in
the sea, and in all created things, the
Lord who made all things, that ye
become not as
manner the Watchers also changed the order
of their nature, whom the
Lord cursed at the flood, on whose account
he made the earth without
inhabitants and fruitless.
10Eissfeldt, OT Introduction
631-36; M. Smith, "Testaments of the Twelve Patri-
archs,"
IDB 4 (1962) 575-79; M. E. Stone, "Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs," IDB
Supp (1976) 877.
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 19
Among the materials found in caves near
the
Genesis Apocryphon [IQapGen] and the
refer to the
supernatural interpretation. The former
is a retelling of
Genesis in
popular style, extant only in one fragmented MS, which has
been dated paleographically to the late 1st century B.C. or early 1st
century A.D.11 On the basis of a detailed comparison of
contents with
1 Enoch and Jub.,
Vermes believes that apGen
is older and a source
for both,
"the most ancient midrash of all." Fitzmyer disagrees,
dating apGen in the same era as the extant MS.12 Certainly it is no
later than
the Roman destruction of
little
remains of the scroll's col. 2, Lamech is fearful
that his wife's
pregnancy
(her child will be Noah) is due to "the Watchers and the
Holy
Ones," but she stoutly denies it.
The CD is a sort of covenant-renewal
document: the history of
the
community (presumably
are exhorted
to covenant faithfulness. Cross and Vermes date the
work to
about 100 B.C.13 Speaking of
the "guilty inclination" and
"eyes
of lust," the author says:
For through them, great men have gone
astray and mighty heroes have
stumbled from former times until now.
Because they walked in the
stubbornness of their heart the Heavenly
Watchers fell; they were
caught because they did not keep the
commandments of God. And
their sons also fell who were tall as
cedar trees and whose bodies were
like mountains. (CD 2:16-19)
Philo
In his treatise On the Giants, the
Alexandrian Jewish philosopher
Philo (20
B.C.-A.D. 50)14 quotes the Old Greek version of this passage
with the
readings a@ggeloi tou? qeou? and gi<gantej.
Unfortunately
Philo is not
always a clear writer. Apparently he takes the literal
meaning of the
verses to refer to angels and women since, immediately
after
quoting Gen 6:2, he says:
It is Moses' custom to give the name of
angels to those whom other
11J. A. Fitzmyer,
The Genesis Apocryphon of
(BibOr 18A; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1971) 15.
12G. Vermes,
Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (SPB 4;
13F. M. Cross, Jr., The
Ancient Library of
(rev. ed.;
Garden City: Doubleday, 1961) 81-82n; G. Vermes, The
English (Baltimore: Penguin, 1968) 95.
14All dates are approximate
throughout.
20 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
philosophers call demons [or spirits], souls
that is which fly and hover
in the air. And let no one suppose that what is here said
is a myth.15
After a
lengthy discussion arguing for the existence of non-corporeal
spirits,
however, Philo proceeds to allegorize the passage:
So, then, it is no myth at all of giants
that he [Moses] sets before us;
rather he wishes to show you that some men
are earth-born, some
heaven-born, and some God-born.16
Roughly
speaking, these three categories Philo enumerates correspond
to people
primarily concerned about the physical, the intellectual and
the
mystical, respectively. Philo's sympathies definitely lie with the
second and
third. He has no interest in stories about physical mating,
and is
probably best understood as rejecting the literal meaning of
this
passage.17 If so, we have in
Philo a literal exegesis which gives the
supernatural
interpretation and an allegorical exegesis which provides
a very
unusual sort of nonsupernatural view.
Josephus
From late in the 1st century A.D. comes the
Jewish Antiquities of
Flavius
Josephus (A.D. 37-100). The first eleven
books of the Antiqui-
ties retell the biblical history with various
elaborations based on
Jewish
traditions. In book one, just before recounting the flood,
Josephus
says:
For many angels of God now consorted with
women and begat sons
who were overbearing and disdainful of
every virtue, such confidence
had they in their strength; in fact, the
deeds that tradition ascribes to
them resemble the audacious exploits told
by the Greeks of the
giants.18
In addition to this clearly supernatural
interpretation, Franxman
sees
evidence for a nonsupernatural interpretation
involving Sethite-
Cainite
intermarriage: in the immediately preceding sentences of
Josephus, we
are told that the Sethites continue virtuous for
seven
generations
and then turn away from God and become zealous for
wickedness,
a feature of later Sethite-Cainite views.19 Yet nothing
about
intermarriage of Sethites and Cainites
appears in the extant
15Philo, Giants 6-7.
16Ibid., 60.
17See
notes that
Philo denies the historicity of Sarah and Hagar in On Mating 180.
18 Josephus, Antiquities 1.73.
19T. W. Franxman,
Genesis and the 'Jewish Antiquities' of Flavius Josephus
(BibOr 35; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1979) 80-81.
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGE,SIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 21
copies of
Josephus, so Franxman must postulate this in a
non-extant
source he
used.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan
It is difficult to know where to place the
targumim. These
Aramaic
translations of Scripture (often paraphrases or even commen-
taries)
have an oral background in the synagogue services of pre-
Christian
times, but their extant written forms seem to be much
later.20 Among these, the Targum
Pseudo-Jonathan [Tg. Ps.-J.] pre-
sents at
least a partially supernatural interpretation. Although in its
extant form
this targum is later than the rise of Islam in the
7th
century
A.D., early materials also appear in it.21 In view of the
rabbinic
reactions to the supernatural view by the 2nd century A.D.
(see below),
our passage is probably one of its early parts:
And it came to pass when the sons of men
began to multiply on the
face
of the ground, and beautiful daughters were born to them, that the
sons of the great ones saw that the
daughters of men were beautiful,
with eyes painted and hair curled, walking
in nakedness of flesh, and
they conceived lustful thoughts; and they
took them wives of all they
chose. . . . Shamhazai
and Azael fell from heaven and were on earth in
those days, and also after that, when the
sons of the great ones came in
unto the daughters of men, and they bare
children to them: the same
are called men of the world, the men of
renown. (Tg. Ps.-J. 6:1-2,4)
Here the phrase "sons of the great
ones" may reflect a nonsuper-
natural
interpretation, but the reference to Shamhazai and Azael
falling from
heaven certainly does not. The names given are close to
those in 1
Enoch, considering that the latter has gone through two
translations
to reach its extant Ethiopic version. Notice also that the
Nephilim are
here identified with the angels rather than their offspring
as in Enoch,
Jub., and Josephus.
As we shall see below, the supernatural
interpretation was even-
tually
superceded in Jewish circles by a nonsupernatural
one, probably
in the
century following the fall of
former can
still be seen in later rabbinic literature.
Early
Christian References
Passing over the NT for the time being,
we find abundant early
evidence for
the supernatural interpretation in Christian circles. Justin
Martyr (A.D.
100-160) says, in his Second Apology:
20J. Bowker,
The Targums and Rabbinic Literature
(Cambridge: University, 1969)
14; M.
McNamara, Targum and Testament (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972) 86-89.
21Bowker, Targums
26; McNamara, Targum and Testament 178.
22 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
God, when He had made the whole world, and
subjected things earthly
to man, . . . committed the care of men
and of all things under heaven
to angels whom He appointed over them. But
the angels transgressed
this appointment, and were captivated by
love of women, and begat
children who are those that are called
demons.22
Justin goes
on to tell how the human race was subdued to the angels
by being
introduced to magic, fear, false worship and lust, and how
they were
trained in all sorts of wickedness. Justin accepts the pagan
mythologies
as having some historical veracity, describing the acts of
these angels
and demons rather than the gods.
Clement of
interpretation
in his Miscellanies: ". . . the angels who had obtained
the superior
rank, having sunk into pleasures, told to the women the
secrets
which had come to their knowledge. . . ."23
Tertullian
(A.D. 160-220) speaks of the incident several times. In
On Idolatry 9, he says that "those angels, the
deserters from God, the
lovers of
women," revealed astrology to mankind. In his work
Against Marcion 5.18
he argues that Paul's reference to "spiritual
wickedness
in the heavenlies" (Eph
wicked
creator-god, but to the time "when angels were entrapped into
sin by the
daughters of men." And in his treatise On the Veiling of
Virgins 7, he argues that Paul's reference to
veiling "because of the
angels"
(I Cor
Lactantius (A.D.
240-320), in his Divine Institutes 2.15, teaches
that God
sent the angels to earth to teach mankind and protect them
from Satan,
but that Satan "enticed them to vices, and polluted them
by
intercourse with women." This is closer to Jub.
than Enoch. The
sinning
angels, Lactantius continues, could not return to
heaven, so
they became
demons of the air. Their half-breed offspring could not
enter hell (hades?), so they became demons of the earth. All of this
Lactantius
connects with pagan mythology and the occult.
Similar materials are found in the Clementine
Homilies 8.11-15
and the Instructions
of Commodianus (chap. 3), neither of which is
likely to
predate the 3rd century.24 The Homilies add the unusual idea
that the
angels had first transformed themselves into jewels and
animals to
convict mankind of covetousness. Perhaps this was derived
from some of
the stories about Zeus, as the writer says: "These things
also the
poets among yourselves, by reason of fearlessness, sing, as
they befell,
attributing to one the many and diverse doings of all"
(
22Justin, Apology 2.5.
23Clement, Miscellanies
5.1.10.
24See the relevant articles in
F. L. Cross, The
Church (London: Oxford, 1958).
.
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 23
THE
NONSUPERNATURAL INTERPRETATION
The earliest extant examples of the nonsupernatural interpreta-
tions of
Gen 6:2, 4 come from the 1st century A.D. and thus are later
than the
earliest specimens of the supernatural interpretation. Since
all come
centuries after Genesis was written, it is not possible to be
sure which
is the oldest.
First
Century Sources
As mentioned previously, Philo prefers an
allegorical interpreta-
tion of
Gen 6:1-4 in which God-oriented persons (sons of God) may
fall and
become earth-centered (beget giants, the "earth-born") by
consorting
with vice and passion (daughters of men).
The Biblical Antiquities of
Pseudo-Philo is another work which
retells
biblical history, in this case from Adam to Saul. By an
unknown
writer, it was attributed to Philo because it circulated with
his genuine
works. It is usually dated shortly before or after the fall of
Jerusalem.25 Chap. 3 begins:
And it came to pass when men had begun to
multiply on the earth, that
beautiful daughters were born unto them.
And the sons of God saw the
daughters of men that they were exceeding
fair, and took them wives of
all that they had chosen. And God said: My
spirit shall not judge
among all these men forever, because they
are of flesh; but their years
shall be 120. (Bib. Ant. 3:1-2)
On the surface this does not appear to be
an interpretation at all,
and perhaps
it is not. The writer does not mention the Nephilim,
but
this may be
merely a case of epitomizing. Yet the rendering of the
biblical Nvdy (Gen
6:3) by "judge" at least foreshadows Targum
Neofiti,
to be
discussed below. Likewise the rabbinical exegesis of Gen
6:2--"they
took wives of all they chose"--is anticipated in an earlier
remark of
Pseudo-Philo: "And at that time, when they had begun to
do evil,
everyone with his neighbor's wife, defiling them, God was
angry"
(2:8).
Second
Century Sources
Three translations of the OT into Greek
were made in the 2nd
century
A.D.: one by
another by Symmachus, said to be an Ebionite,
late in the century;27
25G. W.
(Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1981) 265-68.
26J. W. Weyers,
"
27J. W. Weyers,
"Symmachus," IDB 4 (1962) 476.
24 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
and a third
by Theodotion, of whom little is known. Theodotion
reads ui[oi> tou?
qeou? and gi<gantej like many MSS of the LXX, adding
nothing new
and not clearly either supernatural or nonsupernatural.28
the problem
of the one true God having sons than it does a preference
for either
of the interpretations we are considering. Symmachus
has
ui[oi>
tw?n dunasteu<ontwn, meaning either "sons of the
powerful" or
"sons
of the rulers," rather like the targumic views
to be discussed
below and
that of Meredith Kline.29 For
the Nephilim,
e]pipi<ptontej, meaning "those who fall upon,"
which might be either
supernatural
"those who fall upon (earth)" or nonsupernatural
"those
who
attack." Symmachus has bi<aioi,
"violent ones." Both the
second
translation
of
The Targumim
Targum
Neofiti [Targ.
Neof] is the only complete extant MS of
the
Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch. The MS is from
the 16th
century, but
its text has been variously dated from the 1st to the 4th
centuries
A.D.30 In place of the Hebrew
Myhlxh ynb is the Aramaic ynb
xynyyd, "sons of the judges," using a
cognate noun to the verb Nvry
appearing in
the MT of Gen 6:3.31 Nephilim is rendered by hyrbyg,
"warriors."
The text of the targum seems to reflect a nonsupernatural
interpretation,
unless we press the last sentence of 6:4--"these are the
warriors
that (were there) from the beginning of the world, warriors
of wondrous
renown"--so as to exclude human beings. However, the
MS has many
marginal notes, which presumably represent one or
more other
MSS of the Palestinian Targum.32
One such note occurs at
6:4 and
reads: "There were warriors dwelling on earth in those days,
and also
afterwards, after the sons of the angels had joined (in
wedlock) the
daughters of the sons."33
Thus the text of Targ. Neof
seems to be nonsupernatural while a marginal note is clearly super-
natural.
28See the lower set of
footnotes in the Gottingen LXX for the readings of
these
other Greek
versions.
29M.
G. Kline, "Divine Kingship and Genesis 6:1-4," WTJ 24 (1962)
187-204.
30See Bowker,
Targums 16-20; McNamara, Targum
and Testament 186; M. McNa-
mara,
"Targum," [DB Supp (1976) 858-59; R.
LeDeaut, "The Current State of Tar-
gumic
Studies," BTB 4 (1974) 5, 22-24.
31 A. Diez
Macho, Neophyti 1.. Genesis (
de Investigaciones Cientificas,
1968) 33, 511.
32S.
Neofiti 1
(SBLASP 2; Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977) 12, 14; our passage and marginal
note are not
discussed.
33Diez Macho, Neophyti 511.
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 25
The Targum
of Onqelos [Tg.
Onq.] became the official targum
to
the
Pentateuch for Judaism. According to the Babylonian Talmud
[Bab. Talm.] (Meg.
3a) it was composed early in the 2nd century A.D.,
but this
seems to be a confusion with the Greek translation of
Although the
relations between the various targumim are
complicated
by mutual
influence in transmission, Onq. was probably
completed
before A.D.
400 in
In our
passage Onq. reads xybrbr ynb,
"sons of the great ones,"
probably
referring to rulers.35 For Nephilim it has xyrbyg.
Etheridge's
translation
"giants" for this is possible, but not necessary, as Aberbach
and Grossfeld prefer "mighty ones."36
Christian
Interpretations
Meanwhile, the nonsupernatural
interpretation begins to show
up in
Christian circles. Julius Africanus (A.D. 160-240) wrote a
History of
the World which has
survived only in fragments quoted by
later
authors. In one of these Julius says:
When men multiplied on earth, the angels
of heaven came together
with the daughters of men. In some copies
I found "sons of God."
What is meant by the Spirit in my opinion,
is that the descendants of
Seth are called the sons of God on account
of the righteous men and
patriarchs who have sprung from him, even
down to the Saviour
Himself; but that the descendants of Cain are
named the seed of man,
as having nothing divine in them. . . .37
There is no
context to work with here, but it sounds as though Julius
has derived
this view on his own.
Augustine (A.D. 354-430) discusses Gen
6:1-4 in his City of
His basic
approach is seen in 15.22:
It was the order of this love, then, this
charity or attachment, which the
sons of God disturbed when they forsook
God and were enamored of
the daughters of men. And by these two
names (sons of God and
daughters of men) the two cities [city of
sufficiently distinguished. For though the
former were by nature chil-
dren of men,
they had come into possession of another name by grace.
34Bowker, Targums
22-26; McNamara. Targum and Testament
173-76.
35A. Sperber,
The Bible in Aramaic; I: Targum Onkelos (Leiden: Brill, 1959)
9.
36J. W. Etheridge, The Targums of Onkelos and of
Jonathan ben Uzziel on the
Pentateuch
with the Fragments of the
Genesis (New York: Ktav,
1982) 52.
37A. Roberts. J. Donaldson. A.
C. Coxe and A. Menzies, The
Ante-Nicene Fathers
(Buffalo:
Christian Literature, 1886), 6. 131.
26 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
Augustine
goes on (15.23) to admit that angels do appear in bodies,
and that
stories were at this time being told of women being assaulted
by sylvans and fauns, but he says "I could by no means
believe that
God's holy
angels could at that time have so fallen." He interprets
2 Pet 2:4 as
referring to the primeval fall of Satan. The word "angel,"
he points
out, can with scriptural warrant be applied to men. Besides,
the giants
were already on earth when these things happened, and so
not the
offspring of the sons of God and daughters of men. Also the
giants need
not be of enormous stature but only so large as sometimes
seen today.
God's response in Gen 6:3 is directed against men, so that
is what the
"angels" were. He dismisses with contempt "the fables of
those
scriptures which are called apocryphal."
Rabbinic
Literature
The Mishnah is a
concise topical summary of the oral rabbinic
legal
traditions written about A.D. 200. It contains no reference to
Gen 6: 1-4
to the best of my knowledge, but this is not surprising in
view of the
preponderance of halakah rather than haggadah.
The Midrash Rabbah [Midr. Rab.] is a collection of interpretive
comments on
the Pentateuch and the five Megillot (Ruth, Esther,
Ecclesiastes,
Song of Solomon and Lamentations). The earliest of
these is
Genesis Rabbah [Gen. Rab.],
which Strack puts "not much
later than
the Palestinian Talmud" (ca. A.D. 400) and Epstein sees as
mainly from
the 3rd century A.D.38 We have an extended discussion of
our passage
in Gen. Rab. 26.5-7. R. Simeon b. Yohai (A.D. 130-160)
is quoted as
identifying the "sons of God" as "sons of nobles" and as
cursing all
who call them "sons of God." The reason for their title
"sons
of God" is their long lifespans. To explain why
marrying
women would
be such a sin as the context indicates, R. Judan
(A.D.
325)
explains that tbF, "beautiful" (Gen 6:2), should
be taken as a
singular
adjective: the noblemen enjoyed the bride before the bride-
groom could.
The phrase "they were beautiful" meant they took
virgins;
"they took wives for themselves" meant they took married
women;
"whomever they chose" meant they indulged in homosexuality
and
bestiality. Regarding the interpretation of "Nephilim,"
the rabbis
apparently
used Num
Anakim at
the time of the Exodus. With this hint and the aid of Deut
2:10-11,
20-21, they obtained five other names for the Nephilim
by
which to
describe them using etymological word-play. Two of these
are rather
supernatural sounding: "Gibborim: . . . the
marrow of each
one's thigh
bone was eighteen cubits long"; "Anakim: .
. . their necks
38H. L. Strack,
Introduction to Talmud and Midrash
(Philadelphia: JPS, 1931)
218, 65;
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 27
reached the
globe of the sun." The term "Nephilim"
is understood as
teaching
that "they hurled (vlyph) the world down, themselves fell
(vlpn)
from the world, and filled the world with abortions (Mylypn)
through
their immorality."
A few scattered references occur in the
Babylonian Talmud, a
compilation
of the Mishnah and its commentary finished in the 6th
century
A.D. A relatively clear allusion to the nonsupernatural view
occurs in Sanh. 108a, in a context of the corruption of the
generation
at the time
of the flood. R. Jose (A.D. 130-160) is quoted:
They waxed haughty only on account of
covetousness of the eyeball,
which is like water, as it is written, And
they took wives from all they
chose. Therefore he punished them by
water, which is like the eyeball,
as it is written, All the fountains of the
great deep were broken up, and
the windows of heaven were opened.
There is a
word-play here on Nyf, which can mean either
"fountain" or
"eye." The main point, however, is that the
punishment was designed
to fit the
crime. Thus those who died in the flood
are understood to
be those who
took the wives. If the attribution to R.
Jose here is
trustworthy,
then this view was in circulation by the middle of the
2nd century
A.D., in agreement with the testimony of Symmachus
and
Gen. Rab.
Elsewhere in the Talmud there are
scattered remnants of the
supernatural
view. Yoma
67b refers to the scapegoat being called
Azazel
because it atones for the "affair of Uza and Aza'el," probably
a reference
to the Shamhazai and Azael
of 1 Enoch and Tg. PS.-J.39
Nid. 61a
speaks of an Ahijah, son of Shamhazai.
NT
INTERPRETATION
The supernatural interpretation clearly
existed before NT times,
as did
Philo's peculiar nonsupernatural view. Whether or not
the later
rabbinic
view (that the sons of God were judges or noblemen) or the
later
Christian view (that the sons of God were Sethites)
existed at
this time,
we cannot say, but there is no positive evidence for them.
What does the NT have to say? Does it
refer to Gen 6:2, 4 at all?
If so, how
does it interpret the passage? First, unlike hundreds of
other OT
passages, the NT nowhere explicitly quotes this passage.
Any NT
reference will therefore have to be merely an allusion. What
will count
as an allusion? Proponents of a nonsupernatural view
will
be at
something of a disadvantage: references to the wickedness of
men at the
flood are not decisive in favor of the nonsupernatural
39L. Ginzberg,
The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia: JPS, 1937),5, 152, explains
how "Shamhazai" may be derived from "Uza,"
28 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
view, but
references to wicked angels will have to be assigned to some
other event
if this view is to stand.
2 Pet 2:4
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 . . .
Is this a reference to Gen 6 or to the
primeval fall of Satan
before
reference to
the flood and to
would be
chronological in either case. It is given as an example of
judgment to
the readers of the epistle, and examples, when not
explained,
can be presumed well-known to the original readers. The
other two
examples are both well-known because they occur in Scrip-
ture. The primeval fall, however, would be almost
totally inference,
whereas the
supernatural view would see this as a popular understand-
ing of
Scripture at the time. Certainly some measure of popularity is
to be
inferred from its occurrence in the pseudepigrapha,
Scrolls,
Philo and Josephus.
The word "pits" (siroi?j) is a variant; some MSS read seirai?j,
"chains."
Either word would fit the description of the angels' punish-
ment in 1
Enoch and Jub., but this must be a new
revelation (which
happens to
match an old view of Gen 6!) on the nonsupernatural
view.
Similarly for the details about "darkness" and the angels' being
"reserved
for judgment." The verb translated "cast into hell" is tar-
taro<w,
derived from Tartarus, "a subterranean place
lower than
Hades where
divine punishment was meted out."40
This passage seems strongly to support
the supernatural interpre-
tation of
Gen 6, even though it raises problems regarding the extra
detail it
shares with Enoch and Jub. not found in
Genesis. We will
address this
question later.
Jude 6
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.
Jude 14-15 contains a quotation that
appears almost word-for-
word in 1
Enoch 1:9,41 so it is difficult to argue that Jude knew
nothing of 1
Enoch 6. All the features of Jude 6
fit 1 Enoch better
40BAGD, 805.
41With attestation in the
4QEnc.
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 29
than they do
Jub., where the angels were on earth before
sinning, and
were even
sent there by God. To explain Jude 6 of
the primeval fall,
one must see
further new revelation here also, namely that this fall
involved
leaving their oi]khth<rion, "dwelling" or "abode."
On the
other hand,
this is not necessary for the supernatural view, as the
angels would
at least have to come to earth to get their wives (Gen
6:2) and
their offspring the Nephilim are explicitly said to
be "on
earth"
(Gen 6:4).
In addition, Jude's next example (v 7) of
seems to
refer back to this example when it says "they [
immorality
and went after strange flesh." One might seek to avoid
this by
reading "they [the cities around
same way as
these [
is tou<toij, which more naturally refers to the
angels (masculine) than
to
the same
verse by the feminine pronoun au]ta<j.
Likewise "gross
immorality"
and "strange flesh" are two points of real parallelism
between the
violent homosexuality of
liasons of
the supernatural interpretation. It seems that Jude 6 strongly
indicates a
supernatural interpretation of Gen 6:1-4.
1 Cor
Therefore the woman ought to have (a
symbol of) authority on her
head, because of the angels.
This verse has puzzling elements for any
interpreter because of
its
briefness and lack of explanation. So little is known about the
activity of
angels that one cannot rule out some obscure allusion to
the presence
of good angels at Christian worship who would be
offended by unsubmissive women.42 Yet one can easily find more
serious
offenses for the angels to be upset about in the Corinthian
worship
services, e.g., misuse of tongues (chaps. 12-14) and disorderly
conduct at
the Lord's Supper (
pretation of
Gen 6 would supply an excellent reason why this phrase
would occur
in this context and the statement would become far less
cryptic. Tertullian so understood the passage by A.D. 200. This
context
might also
fit the context tangentially, with woman being made for
man (v 9)
perhaps suggesting she was not made for angels, and the
veiling
indicating she was under the authority of father or husband.
42E.g., R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of I and II Corinthians (
30 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
I Pet
For Christ also died for sins. . . that He
might bring us to God, having
been put to death in the flesh, but made
alive in the Spirit, in which
also He went and made proclamation to the
spirits (now) in prison,
who once were disobedient, when the
patience of God kept waiting in
the days of Noah. . . .
This, too, is a puzzling passage which
bristles with uncertainties
no matter
how one interprets Gen 6: 1-4. Yet it seems clearly to point
to spirits
disobedient at the time of Noah. The word "spirit" may
have been
chosen by Peter to picture disembodied men (cf. Luke
Acts
passage
concerns a "descent into hell," the supernatural interpretation
might at
least suggest a rationale for singling out those particular
spirits
associated with the time of Noah: the events of Gen 6:1-4 may
have been an
attempt to thwart or pre-empt the incarnation. By itself
the passage
hardly proves the NT favors the supernatural interpre-
tation.
Matt
For in the resurrection they neither
marry nor are given in marriage,
but are like the angels in heaven.
This is probably the most common passage
on which the super-
natural
interpretation is refuted.43
It is quite naturally understood to
teach that
angels cannot marry and therefore they never have. Like-
wise, the
terminology recalls Gen 6:2, since "to take a wife to oneself"
is a
standard OT idiom for marriage. But perhaps the term "angels" is
intentionally
qualified by the phrase "in heaven." In the supernatural
interpretation
it was not the angels in heaven that took wives, but
those who
left heaven (cf. Jude 6: "abandoned their abode") and
came to
earth to do so. This would not be so obscure an allusion in
NT times as
it seems to us today if the supernatural interpretation
were then
common knowledge as the evidence indicates. The same
phrase
"in heaven" occurs in the parallel passage in Mark (
does not
occur in Luke (
angels are
in view.
Other NT
Passages
No other passages strongly favor either
interpretation. References
to the
abyss-as an unpleasant abode for demons (Luke
43E.g.,
F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The
Pentateuch (1875;
reprinted
NEWMAN: THE
ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 31
prison for
some sort of supernatural locusts (Rev 9:1-11), and as the
source for
the beast (Rev 11:7)--are consistent with either view,
though
somewhat parallel to the binding beneath the earth described
in 1
Enoch and Jub. So is the reference to the binding of Satan
in
Rev 20. A Sethite-Cainite
view of Gen 6:1-4 might serve as a basis
for Paul's
remarks about mixed marriages in I Cor 7:9, 15, but
these
could easily
be generalized from OT regulations against intermarriage
with
Gentiles. In spite of the interpretation
commonly given to Matt
supernatural
interpretation of Gen 6:1-4.
SOURCES OF THE INTERPRETATIONS
Here we move from the solid ground of
extant sources to the
thin ice of
speculation. Since the authors rarely write
anything directly
about their
sources or methods, we are left to inferences from what
they do
write. Patte
summarizes the situation nicely for the
commentators
At first one wonders what is the actual
relationship between the biblical
text
quoted and its interpretation, The author is giving us the results of
his use of Scripture without emphasizing
the process itself.44
Studies in
the NT and the intertestamental literature indicate
that this
situation is
not confined to
Several sources for these interpretations
can be imagined: (I) pure
invention;
(2) borrowing from another source, whether an earlier
writing, an
oral tradition, or even pagan mythology; (3) extra-biblical
revelation,
whether divine or occult; and (4) influence from other OT
passages
thought to be relevant. This list is probably not exhaustive.
The first category is doubtless
important: new ideas for the
interpretation
of a given passage will continue to arise until at least
the simpler
alternatives are exhausted. Borrowing from an earlier
written or
oral source may also be important. As long as these
sources are
interpretations of the passage at hand, this will merely
serve to
push the origin of the interpretation back into non-extant
sources. Charles
believes this is what happened for our passage in
1 Enoch, which he attributes to a non-extant Book
of Noah.45 The
idea that
the Jews borrowed from pagan myth is popular among
liberals.
Where Jews believed that the event reported in a pagan myth
really
happened, they might have done so, though this is hard to
imagine for
the Pharisees or Essenes. Indeed, in some of these
cases,
the events
reported may actually have happened!
44D. Patte,
Early Jewish Hermeneutic in
Scholars,
1975) 303.
45Charles, Pseudepigraph
163.
32 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
Regarding extra-biblical revelation, Patte and Russell believe
that some of
the apocalyptic literature may be based on actual visions
experienced
by the author.46 Whether Patte accepts the miraculous or
not is not
altogether clear: he speaks of these visions as "psychical"47
yet also as
being put together by "creative imagination" from materials
in the
author's memory.48 Frederic
Gardiner favors earlier unrecorded
divine
revelation as a source for some of the materials in 2 Pet and
Jude:
Particulars of their [fallen angels']
history may have been from time to
time incidentally revealed which have not
been mentioned in the volume
of inspiration, but may nevertheless form
a true basis for various
traditions concerning them. This seems
probable from the way in
which both St. Peter and St. Jude speak of
them, citing certain facts of
the history, not elsewhere revealed, as
well-known truths.49
Neither
should occult activity be ruled out in some Jewish sectarian
circles at
this period.
Yet some of the interpretations which we
see here may be based
on other OT
passages thought to be relevant to Gen 6:1-4. Both the
NT and the
Jewish literature throughout this period often weave
together OT
passages from various locations.50
This may even be the
case when it
is not so obvious:
. . . in many cases where we cannot
understand the reason for a
targumic
interpretation, one should resist the temptation to conclude
that it is the product of the mere fancy
of either the targumist or of the
community. . . . On the contrary, we should assume that in
most
instances the targumic
interpretations are the result of an explanation
of Scripture by means of Scripture.51
This fourth
category is the most easily investigated since the OT is
extant.
Consider first the interpretation
of Myhlxh ynb,
"sons of God."
The various
interpretations are most easily seen as a combination of
categories
(1) and (4) above, working out the simple alternatives on
the basis of
Scriptural parallels. The phrase occurs in Job 1:6 and 2:2
in a
heavenly context, and Satan is associated with them. Thus the
46Patte, Hermeneutic
182; D. S. Russell, Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyp-
tic (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964) 172.
47Patte, Hermeneutic 183, 201.
48Ibid., 183.
49F. Gardiner, The Last of
the Epistles: A Commentary Upon the Epistle of St.
Jude (Boston: John P. Jewett, 1856) 72.
50See Patte,
Hermeneutic 184, and throughout, on anthological style.
51Ibid., 67.
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 33
supernatural
view "angels" arises easily.
On the other hand, Myhlx is
occasionally
used of rulers and judges in the OT (e.g., Exod 22:8,
9),
from which
the Jewish nonsupernatural interpretation may be
derived.
It is
possible that the targumic rendering "sons of
the great ones" in
Tg.
Ps.-J. and Tg. Onq. may have
another origin--an etymological
translation
to protect the transcendence of God by denying that he
has any
sons. Philo's mystical and moralizing exegesis of Gen 6:1-4 is
a general
characteristic of his technique. It is borrowed from the
ethical and
anti-historical, anti-physical side of hellenistic
Greek
philosophy.
Perhaps it might be said to be influenced by pagan
mythology by
way of negative reaction. The Christian nonsupernatural
view--"sons
of Seth" or believers--is most likely based on the NT use
of
"sons of God" for believers (e.g., in John
The interpretation of Mylpn by
"giants" is easily understandable
for both the
supernatural and nonsupernatural views. The word
Nephilim only
occurs elsewhere in the OT in Num 13:33, where it is
associated
with the large size of the Anakim. Perhaps the
reference
here to the
Israelites being like grasshoppers in their sight explains
the rabbinic
remark (Gen. Rab. 26.7) that the "marrow
of each one's
thigh was
eighteen cubits long." If we take the grasshopper's "thigh"
as one inch
long and the human thigh as one cubit long (ca. 18
inches), the
proportion is exact!
Regarding the binding of the angels
mentioned in 1 Enoch, Jub.,
2 Pet and
Jude, this feature may depend on an earlier source going
back to explicit
revelation, or it may be derived from Isa 24:21-22:
So it will happen on that day,
That the LORD will punish the host of
heaven on high
And the kings of the earth, on earth.
And they will be gathered together
Like prisoners in the dungeon [lit.
"pit"]
And will be confined in prison
And after many days they will be
punished.
We would
normally interpret this passage eschatologically
because of
the context.
Yet it might be understood as the eschatological punish-
ment for
an earlier sin, especially if we follow the Qumran Isaiah MS
lQIsaa, which reads vpsx (perfect) instead of the usual vpsxv (perfect
with waw), giving a past tense instead of future:52
They were gathered together . . .
And will be confined . . .
And after many days they will be punished.
52BHK, 64ln.
34 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
In any case
the passage refers to the confinement in a pit of what
appear to be
angelic beings, like prisoners (chained?), with an eschato-
logical
punishment after many days. The
reference in the context (Isa
24:18-19) to
"windows above" being opened and the earth being split
is certainly
reminiscent of events at the beginning of the flood (Gen
seen as
strictly eschatological, its parallels with the flood may have
suggested a
parallel mode of punishment to interpreters favoring a
supernatural
view of Gen 6:1-4.
Most of the angelic names in Enoch
are modeled on the biblical
angelic
names "Michael" and "Gabriel," using the theophoric element
"El"
for God and either angelic spheres of authority or divine
attributes.53 One exception is "Shamhazai,"
but Ginzberg sees the
first
syllable as Mw, "name," a common targumic substitute for the
divine name.
"Azazel," too, is of special interest, and
it may suggest
that other
angelic names are derived from OT texts.
The name (or
something
close to it) occurs in the scapegoat passage in Lev 16:8.
One goat is
for the LORD, the other for Azazel, taking lzxzf as a
proper noun
instead of a term meaning "entire removal."54 The word
may well
have been puzzling, and the reference in Lev 17:7 to goats as
objects of
worship might have led early interpreters to speculate that
there was
something supernatural about "Azazel."
Charles notes that
"Dudael," the place of Azazel's
binding in 1 Enoch 10:4, is in the
wilderness
and on "rough and jagged rocks" just like the place to
which the
scapegoat is taken in Tg. Ps.-J.55
Thus it appears that a number of details
appearing in the various
interpretations
of Gen 6:2, 4 can be derived--rightly or wrongly--from
other OT
passages. This does not prove that they actually arose in
this way.
CONCLUSIONS
We have now examined the ancient
interpretation of Gen 6:2, 4
in Jewish
literature, in Christian literature and in the NT in particular.
The earliest
extant view is the supernatural one, that the "sons of
God"
were angels and that the "Nephilim" were
their gigantic off-
spring. The
sin in this case was the unnatural union between angels
and humans.
Going beyond the text of Genesis, this view pictures the
offending
angels as being bound and cast into dark pits until the day
of judgment.
This interpretation seems to have been popular at the
time of
Christ. The nonsupernatural interpretations are not
extant
53See Charles, Pseudepigrapha 191; Ginzberg,
Legends, 5, 152-53; Milik, Books of
Enoch, on 4QEna,
54BDB, 736.
55Charles, Pseudepigrapha
193.
NEWMAN: THE ANCIENT EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 6:2, 4 35
until later
and take two basic forms which we may for convenience
label
"Jewish" and "Christian." The Jewish view sees the
"sons of
God" as
judges or noblemen and the "Nephilim" as
violent warriors.
The sin
involved is unrestrained lust, rape, and bestiality. The Chris-
tian view
sees the "sons of God" as Sethites or
believers in general,
the
"daughters of men" as Cainites or
unbelievers, and the sin as
mixed
marriage.
After investigating possible NT references
to this passage, it
appears
highly likely that the NT does refer to this incident, almost
certainly in
Jude 6 and 2 Pet 2:4. Other passages are less certain, but
1 Cor 11: 10 and Matt 22:30 are probable. Though serious
questions
can be
raised whether Matt
supernatural
interpretation, Jude and 2 Pet clearly favor the super-
natural
position.
Do Jude and 2 Pet endorse this
interpretation or only mention
it? One
might be inclined to dismiss Jude's reference as an ad
hominem
argument against opponents who accepted the OT pseude-
pigrapha
since he apparently quotes 1 Enoch 1:9 in v 14 and cites a
no longer
extant portion of the Assumption of Moses in v 9.56 Yet
there is no
hint in the context that Jude in any way distances himself
from these
citations. In 2 Pet 2, the whole structure of the argument
(vv 4-9)
indicates that Peter endorses the historicity of this angelic
sin: if God
judged those notorious sinners of antiquity, then he will
judge these
current false prophets who engage in similar activities.
Not only do Jude and 2 Peter seem to
endorse the supernatural
interpretation
of Gen 6, they also mention some of the details found
in 1
Enoch and Jub. which do not occur in the
Genesis account.
Liberal
theologians have no difficulty here, since they treat all of this
as
superstitious nonsense, but how are those who believe in the Bible
to respond?
Although part of the evangelical
resistance to the supernatural
interpretation
is exegetical and part is theological, some resistance
seems to be
due to rationalistic assumptions. Especially in the fields
of science,
history and Biblical studies, a "minimal-miracle" stance
may be
adopted, if for no other reason than that miracles pose a
roadblock to
investigation. However, whenever a minimal-miracle
approach
begins to produce a crop of problem passages, we should
consider the
possibility that we are wresting Scripture or other data.
It is also possible that evangelicals
along with liberals have
adopted too
readily the enlightenment-evolutionary view that the
56For ancient patristic
evidence that this incident appeared in the Assumption of
Moses in their times, see C. Bigg, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the
Epistles of
St. Peter and St. Jude
(ICC; New York: Scribners, 1909) 331; a complete
list of
texts is given in R. H. Charles, The Assumption of Moses (London: Black,
1897)
107-10.
36 GRACE THEOLOGICAL
JOURNAL
ancients
were ignorant and superstitious. Perhaps an over-reaction to
the excesses
of the medieval Catholic Church is also to blame. Of
course the
ancients (except in the case of inspiration) were fallible and
influenced
by the dominant worldviews of their times, but so are we.
They did not
have the leisure, technology, communications, and
libraries
that we have, so we should not expect their scholarship to be
as
impressive as ours. But they weren't
fools! When all of human
history
testifies against our times to the reality of the supernatural
and the
occult, we evangelicals (of all people) would be foolish to
dismiss this
testimony out of hand, especially when it corroborates
biblical
testimony.
May it not be possible that we
enlightened, 20th-century Chris-
tians can
learn something positive from the ancient exegetes? Perhaps
they were
right in seeing an angelic incursion in Gen 6:1-4 and we are
wrong in
denying it. Perhaps with a great interest in the supernatural
and angels
some ancient interpreters scoured the Scriptures to locate
any hints it
might contain on this subject. In such a case, they might
well have
reached some valid insights which God preserved by
inscripturation in the NT.
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
Grace
Theological Seminary
www.grace.edu
Please
report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at:
thildebrandt@gordon.edu