Who were those 'Sons of God'?
By Pose123
@Pose123 (21635)
Canada
June 18, 2012 11:28am CST
In Genesis 6:1-2, we are told that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took wives from among them. Who were those sons of God and where did they come from? I have always found this interesting and would like to hear the opinion of others.
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12 responses
@barehugs (8973)
• Canada
19 Jun 12
According to Eric Von Daniken,(author of "Chariots of the Gods")The Sons of God were large humanoids ( were called Giants) from another world who landed their space-craft on earth. These son's of god interbred with daughter's of men and they bore children to them, and the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)
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@Pose123 (21635)
• Canada
19 Jun 12
Hi barehugs, I don't know where Eric Von Daniken could have gotten his evidence, but I'm sure a lot of people felt that these sons of God came here from space. After all to those people anyone who came down from the sky would be Gods or sons of God. sometimes those old legends had some measure of truth to them. What about some of these people living to more nine hundred years? If they lived even half of that, wouldn't it have made them a superior race? In any case it's an interesting statement to find in the Bible. Thank you for sharing. Blessings.
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@Graptopetalum (1807)
• Canada
19 Jun 12
I don't think the idea of aliens visiting Earth in the past is inherently ridiculous. The trouble is that Von Daniken used it to explain everything and rather discredited the idea. It's unlikely that aliens could interbreed with humans.
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@Pose123 (21635)
• Canada
19 Jun 12
Hi visavis, I believe that men and women are equal, although it's clear that people didn't think so back then. It seems very strange that it says the sons of God and the daughters of men. I understand that many years later, Jesus taught people to think of God as a father figure. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this interesting topic. Blessings.
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@Graptopetalum (1807)
• Canada
19 Jun 12
visavis, if all humans are sons of God who were the "daughters of man"? Clearly this refers to people interbreeding who shouldn't have been so this answer is logically problematic.
@Graptopetalum (1807)
• Canada
20 Jun 12
Pose, I don't really know if people thought men were more important than women. I know the Bible mentions men and says they married but says nothing about their wives but I don't know why.
I'm not sure if you should read too much into the word "sons" as the Hebrew word used is "benai" which can also mean "children", "descendents" or "group". Then "daughters" is more specific and only males can marry females and produce offspring. Did the converse also occur? This is a very mysterious Bible passage.
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@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
13 Dec 12
So the Sons of God were just 'plain-ol` guys' who served one G*d rather than natural guys (Wiccans) who serve each individual thing as if there's some g*d in charge of it.
Leads a guy to have more power, when he's the CEO's assistant rather than that of a 'district manager.'
@Pose123 (21635)
• Canada
24 Jun 12
Hi aerous, Thank you for commenting and I too would be interested in specific references. There are so many interpretations of the Bible that it's difficult to know what you are speaking of here. I have been reading the Bible for more than sixty years and I can understand why there are so many denominations within Christianity. Blessings.
@prashu228 (37526)
• India
18 Jun 12
i too heard the same , that the sons of God are angles, but i wonder how can it happen? how come angles come and marry humans..are angles like humans? ..hmm..dont know,still have many doubts
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@CODYMAC (1356)
• San Diego, California
11 Jul 12
Hello, Pose123. They were the sons of Adam, through Shem. Adam was the first "son" of GOD. (Luke 3:38)
These men were marrying the line of Cain. Their children were not "GIANTS" they were tyrants. In other words, much like the Egyptians were just before Moses came on the scene.
Real "giants" existed, but these men and even the women were giants anyway. There are many differences that prevent us today from being as big as they were. The atmosphere was different, and there was 37-48% more oxygen in the air. Giant skeletons are found all the time. Scientists just want to keep them secret.
The oxygen levels were higher, the moon was closer which in turn caused greater gravitational pull. The electromagnetic field was stronger.
Just look up www.dr.dino.com and you will be amazed at what you find... He is a great teacher of truth. (He is the reason I believe in the young earth reality.)
Hope this helped you out some... God Bless...
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@CODYMAC (1356)
• San Diego, California
11 Jul 12
You said, "We have to be careful of what we read unless there is proof of what is being said."
You were not even able to go to the link, so how do you know there is no proof there? The guys name is Kent Hovind. He is called Dr Dino. There are many people who want to deceive people. I am not deceived, because I have done MANY years of research.
I believe in the young earth. I believe that dios roamed earth with man. And so on. I dont just believe things because someone tells me that it is true. I am a truth seeker. I actually go out of my way to find the truth.
If you would have read any of my posts here in myLot, you would see this.
@buenavida (9985)
• Sweden
19 Jun 12
If we compare with the rest of the Bible, we can find more clues about what they were. It seems they were angels who left their position in heaven and materialized to be visible for men and live among human beings.
We remember that faithful angels visited Abraham and could sit with him and eat so the angels must have had a ability to have some human functions.
The rebellious angels in Noah's days did something really wrong as they were not humans and when they got children with the women, the children were not normal humans either. They became giants.
I found this chapter in a book that is written for children but still is interesting for grown ups to read. There is an explanation about the giants. Next chapter talks about what happened with the angels that were their fathers.
http://www.watchtower.org/e/my/article_08.htm
@buenavida (9985)
• Sweden
19 Jun 12
I found an interesting verse in 2Peter 2:4 about these angels:
"God did not spare the angels who sinned, but held them captive in Tartarus with chains of darkness and handed them over to be kept for judgment 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a proclaimer of righteousness, and seven others[c] when he[d] brought a flood on the world of the ungodly" (Lexham English Bible)
So these sons of God who sinned got the deepest abasement, according to how other verses use the word Tartarus. They got this low position, while they are still alive, due to their sin of rebellion against God.
@buenavida (9985)
• Sweden
20 Jun 12
Thanks koopharper for your response. It made me do a bit of research and read in the appendix of an interlinear (Greek/English) translation. It seems that the word tartarus is used to signify the "lowest part" of the abyss. It is used in LXX or Septuaginta translation from Hebrew to Greek, in Job 40:15 and 41:22.
It is obvious that the pagans, in their mythological traditions copied the inspired Scriptures of the Bible.
But Peter could not refer to any pagan mythological place. He just meant that the angels were debased from their earlier position and privileges and were thereafter in mental darkness concerning God's bright purposes.
We don't know exactly what abilities the angels had before the flood.. When the flood came, they could de-materialize and obviously have not been allowed to materialize the same way they did before the big flood.
Anyway, we can study this more and see what we can find, but for me this explanation makes sense. If it is God's will, he will give us more understanding when his time comes..
Thanks for your thought provoking comment!! 
@1hopefulman (45123)
• Canada
26 Jun 12
They were angels that took on human bodies and took many wives. They had children with them, called Nephilim (giants). These half-breeds were huge in size and bullied people. When the flood came they shed their human bodies and returned to the spirit realm. They were denied entrance back to heaven and banished in a spirit realm called Tartarus.
2 Peter 2:4 Young's Literal Translation (YLT) 4 For if God messengers who sinned did not spare, but with chains of thick gloom, having cast [them] down to Tartarus, did deliver [them] to judgment, having been reserved,
Genesis 6:4 American Standard Version (ASV) 4 The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.
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@JohnRok1 (2051)
•
28 Jun 12
This is the oldest interpretation of which we have written evidence, but that doesn't mean it's correct. One consideration is how much easier it would be for a man and a dog to mate and have physical offspring than for an angel and a human being. It is hard to conceive how God, who rightly makes the former impossible, could allow the latter to occur.
@starsailover (7829)
• Mexico
18 Jun 12
Hi Pose: According to the context of this Biblical passage I would say that they were humans, just more offspring of Adam. However this is just curious, the first part of the Genesis doesn't have a historical support. It's just a beautiful story that was used by the first generations of Jews and Christians to have an approach to God's creation.
ALVARO
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@Pose123 (21635)
• Canada
19 Jun 12
Hi starsailover, Thank you for sharing but I really wonder about them being the sons of Adam because of the way it is written. I don't know how much historical support there is for the book of Genesis as a whole, but certainly I would agree that the creation story would be as you say, 'a beautiful story'. I think it's time that Christians begin to check out for themselves, just how much they really have to go on. I am inclined to believe that there was a great flood, as there are many other accounts besides the story of Noah, and from different parts of the earth. Maybe the legend goes back much further than people think. Wouldn't there have been a flood when all the glaciers that once covered the earth began to melt? Blessings.
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@Graptopetalum (1807)
• Canada
20 Jun 12
Pose, I explained above why it's logically difficult for Christians (and Jews) to dismiss the early chapters of Genesis (or any other "inconvenient" Bible passages).
There are problems with the Big Bang and Evolution (e.g. how did life start in the first place?). There are scientific things which support Genesis such as all humans being descended from mitochondrial Eve and all men from Y chromosome Adam (who lived rather later). This is consistent with both Adam and Eve and Noah's flood as Noah and his sons all had the same Y chromosome (so Noah is basically Y chromosome Adam) while their wives could have had different mitochondria. There was also a comet impact in the Indian Ocean about 3000 BC (about when Noah is supposed to have lived), which caused widespread tsunarmis.
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@Graptopetalum (1807)
• Canada
19 Jun 12
starsailover, I don't think you can just dismiss the first few chapters of Genesis as "just a beautiful story". The dilemma is that these chapters seem contrary to science so we want to say they're "symbolic". Then we just ignore them, rather than trying to work out what they're symbolic of. If you allow this with these chapters, why not the rest of the Bible? Often an X% position makes sense (if God had gone into detail about how he created the universe, the Torah would have been a lot longer and would have either been rejected as too complicated or the Israelites would have used it to build an atom and blown themselves up) but then somebody can easily come along and say, "Why not X+1%?" (let's keep Noah's flood because) or "Why not X-5%?" (let's get rid of the virgin birth) and push the line one way or another. Therefore a 0% or 100% line is easier to defend.
I don't know the answer here but I really think these chapters have to mean something. I expect that some sort of intelligent design theory will ultimately become the "orthodox" method to reconcile these chapters with science.
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@garson (884)
• United States
12 Jul 12
One of the issues with reading the Bible is attempting to understand words and phrases that have been translated and interpreted into many languages across time. This is an example. Many here have commented that they are fallen angels.
I own Life Application Bible that has lots of footnotes for many verses. This is what I read: ... Some scholars believe that this phrase (sons of God) refers to the descendants of Seth who intermarried with Cain's evil descendants. ...
There are many interesting parts of Genesis that can be interpreted in more than one way.
@marcmm (1804)
• Malaysia
28 Jun 12
I made a search about this "sons of God" and I found it very interesting. At first I also a bit confuse about it as well.
Because of this, I've made a research. One of it was that the 'sons of God' is the fallen angel.
But then an article show differently. The 'sons of God' is the Human kings or we can say 'Divine Kings'. Because that time King are above all and they even declare that they are the decendant of God and divine. You can read it here. http://www.davelivingston.com/sonsofgod.htm
@JohnRok1 (2051)
•
19 Jun 12
My earlier comments in this discussion refute the idea that the Sons of God in this context could have been angelic, although it's the oldest recorded interpretation of the passage. As most people here have said, they had to be human.
At the end of Genesis 4 we read that around the time of the birth of Enosh, people began to call upon the Name of the Lord, or identify themselves with His Name. They were thereby Sons of God by profession (meaning that's how they identified themselves). Some of these were serious believers in God and went to their reward justified by their faith, but these genuine believers became fewer, while empty professors, still bearing the title "Sons of God" were in relative abundance.
Morality commenced a nosedive when Lamech took two wives. His example was imitated by others, who didn't stop at two, and in time (probably not a very long time), professors of religion succumbed to the temptation: "The Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and took them wives of all that they chose". Thus, by the time of Noah most men, whether "Sons of God" or not, were multiplying wives, and of course, this would be accompanied by increasing violence. All of which brought judgement on the world.
"What about the giants", you ask (I would, too). Well, godly marriages would be largely incestuous to some degree, and, while incest at that time was not the disaster that it would have been had it been permitted to continue beyond the time of Moses, children of such marriages might not have had the physical or mental prowess of those that were born to genetically more disparate parents. Hence the latter, particularly the more powerful of them, would have been seen as giants.
I prefer this explanation to the widespread, older one that it was principally a blurring of the lines of demarcation between the descendants of the godly line (of Seth and godly brothers) and those of Cain, although many that have propounded this interpretation are my superiors in every way (e.g., Brownlow North, in "Wilt Thou Go With This Man?").
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@Pose123 (21635)
• Canada
24 Jun 12
Hi JohnRok, Thank you for sharing your interesting take on all of this, but it was common for men to have more than one wife even in the time of Jesus. In the old testament too, David was not punished for having more than one wife but for having another man killed so that he could marry his widow. 1 Timothy 3:2 tells us that a bishop should be a good man the husband of one wife. That tells me polygamy was common at the time. Blessings.
@JohnRok1 (2051)
•
20 Jun 12
I think you've missed something, Jewel-leaf. The men who had multiple wives were so sorry for the many men that would have to remain single as a result, that they generously decided, out of the kindness of their hearts, to gently put these other men out of their misery so they wouldn't have to face a single life. Or as the Holy Spirit so uncharitably puts it (O How could He?), "the earth was filled with violence".
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