Hey, Winn here. Welcome to episode 6 of AskDrWinn.

In today’s show, we are working on a question that goes something like this:

Who were “the sons of God” that married daughters of men in Gen 6:1?

Listen along as we try to provide a beginning answer this perplexing question.

The scope of the podcast today is fourfold:

1. We are going to set the story in its broader and then it closer text.


2. We will look at the literary genre of the Genesis 6.1-4 text under discussion.


3. We will look closely at the phrase “sons of God” which is a part of the question proposed for this podcast.


4. We will look at Genesis 1.3 as a misunderstood text.

The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men (6.1-4)

First, let’s set this text in the overall story. As a review, my reading of the Story presented in the Bible has six (6) acts: Creation, Chaos, Covenant, Christ, Church, and Consummation.

The focus of the first creation story (Gen. 1.1-2.4a) was to provide Israel with an understanding of her background that there was only one God to be worshipped and he had created the world in which they lived.

The purpose of the second creation story (2.4b-25) was to answer the question: How did sin enter into the world that God had created? This second story is not a standalone story as was the creation story at 1.1- 2.4a. It has two parts: creation and chaos (separation). Act Two has fourteen (7) scenes and continues to Genesis 11.26 which is the end of the primeval narrative. The importance of this Act is to grasp what went wrong with God’s creation and what its earliest results were. (God’s EPIC Adventure. 97)

Act 2 then was to demonstrate the increase of wickedness that occurred after the fall of man. He had an interest in the hearer/reader knowing that God had created everything good and that nothing evil could be laid at the feet of God. Evil had not come from God but had occurred when humankind decided to disobey God.

The effects of evil started with Adam and Eve, continued with Cain with the murder of his brother and within the line of Cain. Lamech sang a song boasting of how many men he had slain. The story moves from one murder to multiple murders. It is at this point in the story of Genesis 1.1-11.26 that the “sons of God” and “daughters of men” story appears.

To say the least, Genesis 6.1-4 has been and appears to remain a baffling passage of Scripture. Some questions that are often asked include:

• Does this story indicate the reason for the judgment that follows the story, i.e., the flood?


• Who are the sons of God?


• What does it mean for God to say “My spirit shall not contend with man forever…”?


• Who are the Nephilim?


• Are they the same or different from “the mighty men?”


• Were the Nephilim contemporary with the mentioned cohabitation or the product of such cohabitation?

These are the questions that form the scope of this podcast.

Literary Genre

When beginning any inquiry in Scripture, it is helpful to know what kind of literary genre you are reading. Therefore, one of the questions that should always be asked by any reader or any student of Scripture is: What kind of literature did the author choose in the passage under consideration written? This is the most important question that you can ask of Genesis 1.1-11.26.

Most interpretations center around two possible views: Historical and Mythological. However, the normal Christian reaction to using the word “myth” as related to Biblical text is often that of disdain. One should not jump to conclusions that the word myth is all bad until some research is done by the reader/student of Scripture on the concept of myth in the ancient world. Simply, we might ask, “Is Myth bad?”

Myth. Myth is usually defined as “stories about gods which have been narrated in a communal setting as occurrences of permanent significance, and which normally presuppose a given view of the world.” For more information read the following article: “Myth, Mythology,” in Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, 4:33 3 (ISBN: 0310331889), B. Childs, Myth and Reality in the Old Testament; T. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament; G. Stahlin, TDNT, 4:76 2-95; or Myth in Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology the reference in the following footnote.

The main characteristics of Myth that most writers agree on are:

1. The story is set in a narrative form that expresses ideas or events as tales that embody imaginative features.


2. The stories are never generalizations or analyses.


3. They emerge in a communal setting.


4. In their community setting, myths possess the status of believed truth.

For more information read the following article: “Myth, Mythology,” in Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, 4:33 3 (ISBN: 0310331889), B. Childs, Myth and Reality in the Old Testament; T. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament; G. Stahlin, TDNT, 4:76 2-95; or Myth in Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology the reference in the following footnote.

The main characteristics of Myth that most writers agree on are:

1. The story is set in a narrative form that expresses ideas or events as tales that embody imaginative features.


2. The stories are never generalizations or analyses.


3. They emerge in a communal setting.


4. In their community setting, myths possess the status of believed truth.

As a Bible reader/student, you need to decide if this story is “mythological” or “historical” using the above information. Again, remember to try to lay aside your presuppositions as best you can that may often be emotional and try to view the passage as objectively as possible.

Sons of God

There are three different views of the meaning of the phrase “sons of God.”

View #1. The “sons of God” were sons of princes. This is the view of orthodox rabbinical Judaism. This is the starting place for an interpretation which suggests that the key to the identity of the “sons of God” is provided by the sacral kings who are so much in the center of interest in studies concerning the ancient near Eastern life and culture. Kings were often regarded as divine, in one way or another, and they were often called the “sons” of various gods. In Genesis 6.1-4 the phrase “sons of God” is a designation for the antediluvian kings and should be translated “sons of the gods.”

View #2. The “sons of God” were angels. This view is defended in the following way: The language elsewhere in the Old Testament is unquestionably understood as “angels” (Job 1.6, 2.1, 38.6-7; cf. Psalm 29.1, 89.7). The strength of this position is based on its desire to allow the language of the passage to take its full weight.

View #3. The “sons of God” was the line of Cain and the line of Seth. This view presupposes that Seth’s line was the godly line while Cain’s line was the ungodly line. The intermarriage between the lines is seen as a breach of covenant.

The second view (the fallen angels) was a common way for this passage to be explained during the life of Jesus and his disciples. This seems to be the opinion of Jude in his New Testament book. Jude’s references are also dependent on 1 Enoch 6-11. He was certainly familiar with these chapters.

These chapters in 1 Enoch tell of two hundred angels under the leadership of two kingd (Semihazah and Asael), who were filled with lust for the beauty of human women. The two kings descended on Mount Hermon and took human wives. Their children, the giants, ravaged the earth, and the fallen angels taught men forbidden knowledge of all kinds of sin. They were responsible for the destruction of the world by the flood that God sent.

NOTE: It should be said that we should not become dogmatic about the identification of the “sons of God” in this passage. At best, we should consider the options even if they don’t fit into our own current Western worldview.

The stimulus for the behavior of the sons of God in this view was the attractiveness of the daughters of men. Sc