WAT005 – The Big Sin and the Flood

For the past couple of weeks I have been pointing out how the serpent in the garden of Eden may be a Seraphim angel and why that understanding might be so important to understanding the biblical “original sin” and what’s going on in the book of Genesis. Today I’m going to quit beating around the bush and start diving into that more deeply.

For about thirty or so years now, I have been familiar with the story of the watchers and a strange group of individuals known in the Bible as the Nephilim. This comes from an interpretation of Genesis chapter 6 that is not terribly popular in mainstream Christianity for what will be obvious reasons soon. The story revolves around just a few verses in the beginning of Genesis Chapter 6 which didn’t make a lot of sense to me growing up and became a sort of obsession of mine for many, many years. Let’s begin by reading the strange passage in Genesis chapter 6.

6 When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, ² the sons of God saw that they were fair, and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. ³ Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide^[a] in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” ⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

⁵ The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. ⁶ And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. ⁷ So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the humans I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air—for I am sorry that I have made them.”

Genesis 6:1-7, NRSVUE

I hate to digress but once again, let’s set aside for a moment how it is a perfect and all-knowing God can make a mistake and “regret” a decision he has made. This in itself is contrary to what most Christians want to believe about God (i.e. that he is perfect and flawless). Yet, here we see God having remorse over his own decision (which means either he didn’t see it coming and thus does not know everything) and also shows “God” having regrets (suggesting he made a mistake). But again, let’s set that argument aside for the moment to discuss what’s happening in Genesis 6.

In my mind, as a young Christian, I could not help but think that whatever it was that was happening here in verses 1-7 is the SOLE reason the Bible gives for why God decided to kill everyone (save one family) in the Biblical flood. In other words, somehow the phrase “the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and took wives for themselves” directly relates to the statement “Then the Lord said my spirit shall not strive with man forever because he is flesh….” and “The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth.” What exactly was the huge sin here that made God so angry and sorry he’d made “man” that he decided to “blot man whom I have created from the face of the land (including animals)…” and declare “for I am sorry that I have made them.”?

The modern church mostly asserts today that the phrase here in Genesis “the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful” simply means that “God fearing” people began to marry unbelievers. I’m sorry, but I’ll be blunt. That interpretation is complete horseshit. Not ONLY does it not make sense considering how many other “sins” seem far worse than believers marrying unbelievers but I came later to find out that it totally ignores what just about EVERYONE at the time thought those verses meant when it was written. Let me share some of that now.

First and foremost for me was the realization that the phrase “sons of God” in Hebrew writings (i.e. the Bible) is a phrase used almost EXCLUSIVELY for angels. If you do not believe me it is easy to look up and prove for yourself or, if need be, I’ll cite verses showing the phrase “sons of God” used over and over for angels. In other words, other times in the Bible the phrase “sons of God” come up it refers to angels. Therefore another way of reading the verse would be “when men began to multiply…and daughters were born to them…the angels began seeing that the daughters of men were beautiful and took wives for themselves of whomever they chose.”

The way I saw it, if this were true then it was possible that what enraged God so much was that spiritual or angelic beings had come down and started having sexual relations with physical beings (or the daughters of men). This was an abomination to “God” or the “gods” and a LOT more in line with something I would consider worthy of making “God” so furious as to regret that he had even made them.

As an aside, I remember a church leader mockingly telling me once as a young man that “some people think this verse means angels began having sex with women, but that is ridiculous.”.

Really? Is it ridiculous? Because what I found out after doing a LOT of research as a grown man is that this is EXACTLY what most people of the day (as evidenced by extra biblical sources) SAID happened and is more consistent with the what was a commonly held belief of people at the time. In fact, it was STILL the commonly held belief of people in Jesus’ day and hundreds of years AFTER he died. I even believe Jesus loosely referred to the story himself and the so-called apostle Paul FLAT OUT referred to the story more than once. I will demonstrate all that shortly. And, if you wonder why I call Paul the “so-called” apostle, you might be interested in my book Paulinity: Identifying Christianity’s False Apostle.

For the moment let’s just accept that it’s possible the Bible itself has already defined the term “sons of God” as being angels (which it does). Now let’s look at the book of Enoch, a book the early church held as scripture through the time of Jesus but later came to reject. By the way, part of the reason I believe the church rejected this book and others like it was that it left no room for arguing what Genesis was talking about. Once these sources were removed, the church was able to start re-interpreting the verses and putting a new spin on it. Here is what the Book of Enoch says about the flood:

“In those days, when the children of man had multiplied, it happened that there were born unto them handsome and beautiful daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven , saw them and desired them; and they said to one another, ‘Come, let us choose wives for ourselves from among the daughters of man and beget us children.’ And Semyaz, being their leader, said unto them, ’I fear that perhaps you will not consent that this deed should be done, and I alone will become (responsible) for this great sin.’ But they all responded to him, ‘Let us all swear an oath and bind everyone among us by a curse not to abandon this suggestion but to do the deed.’ Then they all swore together and bound one another by (the curse) And they were altogether two hundred;” –

1 Enoch 6:1-7

Wow! This couldn’t be any more clear and is certainly not ambiguous. It allows NO alternate interpretation of godly men marrying unbelievers. Not only is it CLEAR that angels were coming down to have sexual relations with women but it clarifies that they knew this would be a GREAT SIN and were afraid of being punished by God for it. This is totally in keeping with why God would become so infuriated with the “sin” that he wiped out all creation including the bastard children of the watchers. Enoch continues the story here:

“they took wives unto themselves, and everyone (respectively) chose one woman for himself, and they began to go unto them. And they taught them magical medicine, incantations, the cutting of roots, and taught them (about) plants. And the women became pregnant and gave birth to great giants whose heights were three hundred cubits. These (giants) consumed the produce of all the people until the people detested feeding them. So the giants turned against (the people) in order to eat them.” –

1 Enoch 7:1-5

Again, no ambiguity here. The Book of Enoch, which was well known at the time, clearly states that angels were having sexual relations with women and that their children were literal giants (even describing their height) and that these giant children began to devour everything. Contrast this again with Genesis 6 in various English translations

⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

Genesis 6:4, NRSVUE

Many translations still contain the English translation “giants” here. Other translations instead use the word “Nephilim” (which Biblical commentators will tell you refers to giants). Again, modern Christianity has largely come to reject the story of the watchers and the giants and try and write out the story of the watchers from the Bible so they prefer not to use the term “giants” in modern translations. Furthermore, most denominations will teach that these were not literal “giants’ but rather figuratively giants. In other words, they were giant intellectuals or men of “great renown”, but certainly not literal giants. The modern church tries hard to reject any reference to literal giants by reinterpreting the passage to refer to godly men marrying ungodly women and that their children were just highly regarded (not giant children bred from the mix of angels and humans or “between their offspring” and “ours”).

I find it ironic that the modern Church tries so hard to pretend that the giants of Genesis six are not literal giants considering the Bible has many references to giants. Remember the story of David and Goliath? Goliath was not a singular really tall dude but rather a giant from an entire race of giants known as the Philistines. When conquering the land of Canaan, the Israelites encountered giants several times and were terrified of them. Israeli spies are even said to have sneaked into the giant’s lands and brought back giant fruit and described how they (the spies) were puny in the giants eyes. Sadly, I have seen many modern Christians suggest that the Israels spies were just weak men who were afraid and over-exaggerated the size of inhabitants of the land. Again, anything to try and downplay that giants were real and literal thing in the eyes of the original “believers”.

I want to also point out there. I am not saying there were or were not literal giants in the land. What I’m saying is that the original writers and recipients of the story believed that they were literal giants. The idea of “figurative” or “mental” giants is an attempt by modern man to explain away a belief that doesn’t seem scientifically plausible.

Another interesting extra biblical source which shows us the common understanding and true meaning of the passage in Genes is the early Christian writer Philo of Alexandria who lived from 20 BC to about 50 AD (in other words during the exact time Jesus was said to be alive. His writings again show us that the understanding of angel and human relations was COMMONLY understood in the time of “Jesus”.

“And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, they took unto themselves wives of all of them whom they Chose.”{#ge 6:2.} Those beings, whom other philosophers call demons, Moses usually calls angels; and they are souls hovering in the air. And let no one suppose, that what is here stated is a fable, for it is necessarily true that the universe must be filled with living things in all its parts, since every one of its primary and elementary portions contains its appropriate animals and such as are consistent with its nature; –the earth containing terrestrial animals, the sea and the rivers containing aquatic animals, and the fire such as are born in the fire (but it is said, that such as these last are found chiefly in Macedonia), and the heaven containing the stars: for these also are entire souls pervading the universe, being unadulterated and divine, inasmuch as they move in a circle, which is the kind of motion most akin to the mind, for every one of them is the parent mind. It is therefore necessary that the air also should be full of living beings. And these beings are invisible to us, inasmuch as the air itself is not visible to mortal sight. (But it does not follow, because our sight is incapable of perceiving the forms of souls, that for that reason there are no souls in the air; but it follows of necessity that they must be comprehended by the mind, in order that like may be contemplated by like.
–

Philo, On the Giants II: 6-9

This passage makes it clear that the modern man of Jesus day did not believe that the story of the flood and the angels who had sexual relations with women was just a “fable” or “myth”. They believed this was LITERAL. And, I would argue, it was the belief of MOST believers in Jesus day (even, dare I say, Jesus himself). In fact, I will show soon how Jesus himself seems to support this concept and most assuredly Paul writes about it in very clear language (though the modern church often struggles to understand Paul’s words since they have rejected the source material).

Another reliable source that shows us what the common man believed in Jesus day comes from the famous writer Josephus, another contemporary of Jesus. Christian bible scholars frequently study and quote from the works of Josephus to better understand the culture in which Jesus lived.

In 1:73 Josephus tells that “for many angels of God now consorted with women and beget 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.”

Josephus, Jewish Antiquities (LCL; tr. H.S.J. Thackeray; Cambridge: Harvard University Press/London: Heinemann, 1967 ) 4.35.

The Jewish historian Josephus also made it clear in his writings that it was the consistent and commonly held belief in the time of Jesus that the watchers referred in the Bible were a group of angels who came down from heaven and had sexual relations with human women which ultimately resulted in “God” becoming so angry that he wiped out the entire population to rid the earth of their offspring. These “Watchers,” the author of the book I’m reading now points out, specifically are Seraphim (or serpent like) beings and thus the “serpent” in the garden was likely a Seraphim angel, perhaps one that broke the rules and mingled with lowly “beasts of the field” in this material realm.

The author continues:

According to the ancient accounts of our fellow travelers, these extraordinary lightning-like beings have supernatural powers, including shape-shifting and phasing between the immaterial and material realms.

The Watchers: Lost Secrets of Ascension, Resurrection and Perfection
William Henry, location 49

I believe a strong argument can be made that the original “sin”, according to many early believers, was that a spiritual being essentially “phased” into our material realm and had relations with a woman (perhaps Eve). THIS, if it were true, would explain why Eve’s punishment was increased pain in childbirth and why immediately upon partaking of the “forbidden fruit” she was ashamed of her nakedness and hid her sexual parts from the LORD. It also goes along with a theme later in Genesis (just four chapters later) when the ultimate result of angels mixing with humans leads to God being sorry he even made man.

I have one more final interesting thought from the book I’m reading which I’d like to leave you with today. In the next post I’ll be providing the evidence that both Jesus and Paul were familiar with the story of the watchers (and the notion that angels that had sex with women). Until then, let’s consider an interesting observation from the author of the Watchers: Lost Secrets of Ascension, Resurrection and Perfection.

Fascinatingly, with the addition of another ‘a’, seraphim becomes seraphaim. Raphaim means ‘giant’ and is another name for the Nephilim, the offspring of the Watchers. Combining ser (serpent) with raphaim (giant) yields seraphaim = giant serpents.

The Watchers: Lost Secrets of Ascension, Resurrection and Perfection
William Henry, location 59