Les Fils de Dieu et Les Filles des Hommes (Genèse 6:1-8)
Genesis 6: Demons, Degenerates, or Despots?, p. 15. Kober quotes here Meredith G. Kline, “Divine Kingship and Genesis 6:1-4,” Westminster Theological Journal, XXIV, Nov. 1961-May 1962, p. 190.84 “In Egypt the king was called the son of Re (the sun god). The Sumero-Akkadian king was considered the offspring of the goddess and one of the gods, and this identification with the deity goes back to the earliest times according to Engell. In one inscription he is referred to as ‘the king, the son of his god.’ The Hittite king was called ‘son of the weather-god,’ and the title of his mother was Tawannannas (mother-of-the-god). In the northwest Semitic area the king was directly called the son of the god and the god was called the father of the king. The Ras Shamra (Ugaritic) Krt text refers to the god as the king’s father and to king Krt as Krt bn il, the son of el or the son of god. Thus, on the basis of Semitic usage, the term be ne ha elohim, the ‘sons of god’ or the ‘sons of gods,’ very likely refers to dynastic rulers in Genesis 6.” “An Exegetical Study of Genesis 6:1-4,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, XIII, winter 1970, pp. 47-48, as quoted by Kober, p. 19.
85 “In an excellent article presenting this view, Kline writes that this view anciently rose among the Jews that the ‘sons of God’ of Genesis 6 were men of the aristocracy, princes, and nobles, in contrast to the socially inferior ‘daughters of men.’ This interpretation came to expression, for example, in the Aramaic Targums (the Targums of Onkelos rendered the term as ‘sons of nobles’) and in the Greek translation of Symmachus (which reads ‘the sons of the kings or lords’) and it has been followed by many Jewish authorities down to the present.” Kober, pp. 16-17, referring to Kline, p. 194.
86 Kober, p. 16, quoting Birney, p. 49 and Kline, p. 19<>>>
87 For, example, W. H. Griffith Thomas, who holds the Cainite/Sethite view, says:<>>>“Verse 2 speaks of the union of the two lines by inter-marriage. Some writers regard the phrase ‘sons of God’ as referring to the angels, and it is urged that in other passages--e.g. Job i. 6; Ps. xxix. 1; Dan. iii. 25--and, indeed, always elsewhere in Scripture, the phrase invariably means angels.” Genesis: A Devotional Commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1946), p. 65.
88 Is this bondage not that which the demons feared in Mark 5:10 and Luke 8:31?
89 Does the fact that the Nephilim are mentioned after the flood mean that this practice continued after the flood? Some have thought so, emphasizing the phrase ‘and also afterward’ (Genesis 6:4). If so, we would have to say that this practice did not threaten the promise of God at this time. It would intensify the importance of not intermarrying with any of the Canaanites, among whom the Nephilim were to be found.<>>>Personally, I do not think the super-race ever appeared after the flood. The expression Nephilim, as I view it, is not synonymous with this, super race, but descriptive of it. It simply refers to the fact of great physical stature, just as the other expressions (‘mighty men,’ ‘men of renown’) refer to their reputation and military prowess. I do not think that we must find super-human creatures in Numbers 13:33, but only giants. The word Nephilim is thus defined in Numbers by Moses as referring to great physical stature. No technical name is given to the super-race, only descriptions, which could be used elsewhere for other non-angelic creatures.