Genesis 6

GENESIS 6 -- Sunday, March 20, 2011

• 1-2 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Some say the "Sons of God" who had sexual intercourse with the "daughters of men" were actually angels, or demons, or angels who became demons after getting laid. But loyal angels would never have sex with women, and fallen angels would never be called sons of God. When the Sons of God knew the daughters of men, this was simply members of the clan of Seth marrying outside of their clan and forsaking the original religion.

• 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.

God said this in 2227 BC, when there was 120 years left before the Great Flood.
Monday, March 21, 2011

• 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.

Much demonology can be traced to a sloppy reading of Genesis 6:4. In the Hebrew the word used for giants is Nephilim and some versions of the Bible simply carry that word over without translation. Somewhere along the line, people got it into their head that the Nephilim were the offspring of angels and men. But a closer look at the verse reveals the clause "and also after that" which separates the Nephilim story from the sons of God story. The final piece of evidence is the appearance of the word Nephilim again in Numbers 13:33, rendered in English as:

And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

Unless the Nephilim had their own Ark, they would have all been swept away with the flood. So Nephilim is just your run of the mill generic giant, not a demigod or union of divine angel and mundane human flesh. They were the Jewish equivalent of our modern Sasquatch myth.

Besides, angels are spirits, and they only rent bodies like a tuxedo for specific tasks, such as wrestling with Jacob. So we must conclude the "Sons of God" were merely the line of Seth, who pre-figured the Hebrews, who in turn pre-figured the Church. They preserved a reverence and awe of Yahweh and the ordinances of worship inaugurated by Abel.

The "daughters of men" referred to everyone else, in the line of Cain, who had long been estranged from God and knew him not.

This process continued until only Methuselah, Noah, and Noah's immediate family remained faithful among the Sons of God. Upon the death of Methuselah, God sent the flood, but saved eight persons, including Shem, whose line produced Abram. We can trace a continuous, blessed remnant from Adam to Christ.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011

• 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.

What tipped God over into this viewpoint? Lamech, great-grandson of Cain, who boasted to his wives of murdering a man rather than showing any remorse.

• 6-7 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 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.

The theology of Genesis has Yahweh existing in linear time with the rest of us. He doesn't know how the future will pan out, and when things go sour, he feels regret at having chosen that course of action. This Yahweh bears little resemblance to the ineffable, omniscient, eternal God that is asserted to exist by theologians today.

• 8-10 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Isaiah said our own righteousness is like a filthy rag to God. Apparently Noah's rag was the least filthy one in all the world. He was of the line of Seth, the "sons of God", and neither he nor his sons intermarried with the line of Cain, and they practiced with perfection the ritual animal sacrifices established by Abel.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011

• 11-13 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

It had become a dog-eat-dog world. Even the animals killed each other for food now, when tbey were supposed to just eat green leaves. So God decided to meet violence with violence. He would kill everyone except Noah and start all over, and see if that nipped violence in the bud. It was worth a try.

• 14-17 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch, And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

God told Noah to build an ark with roughly the same displacement of a US Navy fast combat support ship like the Sacramento class oilers. Noah was told to use an unknown material called "gopher wood" but the text could refer to all the times Noah ran out of lumber while he was working and told his sons to "go for wood."

• 17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

After the so-called "Fall of Man" God himself cursed the land, but now he acted surprised when all of creation demonstrated the brokenness of the very curse he cursed.

• 18 But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.

God proposes to enter into the first of four covenants he will contract with mankind. The Noahide Covenant would cover Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives, and by extension all of mankind, since according to the Biblical narrative we are all descended from these eight people.

• 19-20 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

In Chapter six, God tells Noah to take into the ark a male and female representative of every beast of the earth and every bird. In Chapter seven there will be a change of plan. God will tell Noah to take seven of each species of bird, and seven of each clean beast.
Friday, March 25, 2011

• 21-22 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Now we have a problem. Elephants for example (and there are two vastly different genera, Asian and African) eat low density food such as hay, and the four elephants on the ark would have required a total of about 50 tons of food for the duration of the flood. The ark itself, with three levels, and many rooms (to keep the birds from eating the bugs) and many interior wooden struts to prevent the bulkheads from caving in would have only had about three thousand tons of available cargo capacity before it sank. And there are between five and seven million species of animals.

That completely disregards the problem of whether any species is genetically viable after reducing it to only two members.