When Gods Roamed the Earth:

Thematic Parallels to Genesis 6:1-4 from the Ancient Near East

A Term Paper

Presented to Professor Lance Hawley

Harding School of Theology

Memphis, Tennessee

As a Requirement in

Course 5040

Pentateuch

By

Ross D. Kellis

April 27, 2015

1

Introduction

Ancient man remembers a king named Gilgamesh (ca. 2800-2500

B.C.E) who was a 17-foot giant and bore 750 pounds when fully

armed. They say his mother was a goddess and his father was a

demon.1 The memory of giants and heroes is also retained in

scripture in Genesis 6:1-4, a text that is part of the general

explanation given for the biblical flood in Gen. 6:1-8. These

first four verses are continuously debated because they state

that divine beings (of some sort) appeared on earth and mated

with women. Apparently these sexual encounters produced offspring

called "Nephilim" (meaning fallen ones)2 who were the renowned

heroes of the ancient world (6:4). These heroic Nephilim live

after the flood (6:4b) which the Pentateuch confirms elsewhere,

1 See below pages 6-8 for the discussion on Gilgamesh.

2 See, H. Seebass, "ללללל," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, eds., G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heiz-Josef Fabry, trans. David E. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 9:497: "Its meaning derives from the primary meaning of qal: an entity who necessary property is to fall, a causality." "The nounseems to embody the notion, so characteristic of ancient Israel, that something gigantic, something exalted, must necessarily fall."

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calling them the "Anakim" and describing them as giants (Num.

13:33). Deuteronomy also refers the class of Nephilim but calls

them "Rephaim" (2:11, 20; 3:11, 13) and also describes them as

giants (3:11).3

The blame for the flood is placed in part on the Nephilim

because they are the fruit of a total cosmic breakdown. In the

primeval history of Genesis 1-11, the creation of the Nephilim is

an event where the boundaries of heaven and earth are violated.

Women are taken into sexual relationships with heavenly beings,

prompting God to intercede: "My Spirit shall not abide in man

forever, for he is flesh" (6:3). However, the Nephilim story is

not the only time in the Biblical narrative when heavenly and

earthly lines are transgressed. In the beginning, man is tempted

to be like God in the garden (3:5). God speaks disparagingly of

man's divine aspirations saying, "The man has become like one of

us" (3:22); thus, God acts to prevent man's divine aspirations by

guarding the Tree of Life (3:24). The Tower of Babel could be

understood as a similar example of this same kind of

3 All Bible quotations come from the English Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

3

transgression (11:1-9). Now unified, man threatens to cross the

boundary to heaven by building a tower. Just as mankind's sexual

union with heavenly creatures has amazing results in the Nephilim

heroes (6:4), so also this new union demonstrates shocking

potential: "And nothing that they propose to do will be

impossible for them" (11:7).

The above interpretation of Gen. 6:1-4, that heavenly beings

produced human offspring is, however, greatly debated. Most of

the debate regarding Gen. 6:1-4 is over the identity of the "sons

of God" (benê-ha elohîm) mentioned in verses 2 and 4. Some

interpreters think the sons of God in this text refer to

supernatural beings, but some argue that the sons of God are

merely humans. The early Jewish and Christian writers considered

the sons of God to be angels who mated with human beings to

produce heroic giants. However, from Augustine onward, Christians

have also explained the sons of God as the human line of Seth,4 a

view that has contemporary advocates.5 Meredith Kline is a 4 For a history of interpretation see, Frank Jabini, "Sons of GodMarrying Daughters of Man," Conspectus 14 (September 2012): 83-104.

5 Lyle Eslinger, "A Contextual Identification of the Bene Ha'elohim and Benoth Ha'adam in Genesis 6:1-4," JSOT 13 (1979):

4

contemporary scholar who argues for the human view, but that the

sons of God are the antediluvian kings.6 Alternatively, most

other modern scholars favor the supernatural interpretation; this

interpretation holds the sons of God more generally as divine

beings or pagan gods, without specifying angels particularly.7

In the published discussions of the ideas in Genesis 6:1-4,

there has, as of yet, been no comprehensive overview of Ancient

Near Eastern (hereafter ANE) thematic parallels to this Biblical

text. A comprehensive survey of these primary sources is needed

to give contemporary readers the context to understand and accept

the meaning of the enigmatic verses regarding the sons of God and

the Nephilim. Using sources contemporary to ancient Israel, this

65-73. The sethite interpretation is the evangelical favorite; see, Willem A. VanGemeren, "The Sons of God in Genesis 6:1-4: An Example of Evangelical Demythologization?" Westminster Theological Journal 43, no. 2 (Spring 1981): 320-348.

6 Meredith Kline, "Divine Kingship and Genesis 6:1-4," Westminster Theological Journal 24, no. 2 (May 1962): 187-204.

7 Emil G. Kraeling, "The Significance and Origin of Gen. 6:1-4," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 6, no. 4 (October 1947): 193-208. Also Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 371. Some who accept a supernatural interpretation of the "sons of God" are even convinced that Gen. 6:1-4 is a fragment of a much broader myth that has made its way into an otherwise non-mythological cannon; see, Brevard Childs Myth and Reality in the Old Testament (London: SCM Press, 1962), 57-61.

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paper will argue that there is, in the ANE, a widespread memory

that divine beings visited earth and left offspring in their

wake, who were giants in the land. The background evidence of the

ANE does not solve the debate over Gen. 6:1-4, but it makes the

supernatural interpretations of the sons of God more likely.

When Gods Roamed the Earth

This survey begins with the Sumerian people. Many ANE

sources agree that the gods were sexually promiscuous, including

the Sumerians. For example, the main action of the Sumerian myth,

"Enki and Ninhursag" (2000-1500 B.C.E), is the god Enki

successively impregnating first Ninhursag and then her female

offspring.8 This kind of myth, which describes the birth of the

gods (a theogony), is common in the ANE.

According to Sumerian thought, the promiscuity of the gods

enters the human sphere. The hymn of "Enmerkar and the Lord of

8

S. N. Kramer, "Enki and Ninhursag: a Paradise Myth," in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 8th ed., ed. James B. Pritchard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 39.

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Aratta" (ca. 21st-century B.C.E)9 describes Enmerkar, the priest-

king of Uruk, as the human husband of the goddess, Inanna, "With

whom he united yearly in the rite of sacred marriage."10 A

similar idea is found in the marriage hymn, "The Sacred Marriage

of Iddin-Dagan and Inanna" (1980-1950 B.C.E), where the human

king Iddin-Dagan unites with the goddess Inanna in a common

ritual: "The king goes with (eagerly) lifted head to the holy

loins, goes with (eagerly) lifted head to the loins of Inanna ...

O my holy loins! O my holy Inanna!"11

Sumerian kings considered themselves the offspring of

divine-human relations. In the hymn, "The Birth of Shulgi in the

temple of Nippur" (2094-2047 B.C.E), the god Enlil has procreates

through a human high priestess: "(And) the high-priestess gave

birth to a faithful man, from (the semen) which had been placed

9 Thorkild Jacobsen, "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta," in Context of Scripture, vol. 1, Canonical Compositions From the Biblical World, eds. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger (Boston: Brill Academic Pub, 2003), 1:547-550.10

Quoted from the introduction of this myth by Jacobsen, Ibid., 547.

11 Thorkild Jacobsen, "The Sacred Marriage of Iddin-Dagan and Inanna," in Context of Scripture, 558.

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in her womb. Enlil, the powerful shepherd, caused the young man

to appear, a child most suitable for kingship (and) throne-dais--

it was king Shulgi!"12

"The Eridu Genesis" (ca. 1600 B.C.E) account describes

kingship as descending from heaven: "When the royal scepter was

coming down from heaven, the august crown and the royal throne

being already down from heaven, the (the king) [regularly]

performed to perfection the august divine services and

offices."13 The Sumerian King List begins with the same

affirmation of the divine origin of kinship.

The Sumerian King List claims to be a historical document

that contains the names of Sumerian kings from before the flood

until the time of the dynasty of Isin (ca. 1600 B.C.E). Most of

the kings listed are human kings, but others, like Gilgamesh, are

demigods: "The divine Gilgamesh, his father was a demon, a high

12 Jacob Klein, "The Birth of Shulgi in the temple of Nippur," inContext of Scripture, 553.

13 Thorkild Jacobsen, "The Eridu Genesis," in Context of Scripture, 514. Also the Sumerian King List in, A. Leo Oppenheim, "Babylonian and Assyrian Historical Texts," in Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 265.

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priest of Kullab--ruled 126 years."14 Obviously, the Sumerian

peoples imagined that their ancestors were intimately connected

to the gods.

The Akkadian "Atrahasis" (18th-century B.C.E) is an epic

moving from creation to flood, similar to Genesis 1-11. The

creation of man in this myth undergirds the worldview whereby

divine and human genus mix. Man himself is made of a mixture of

a slain god and clay: "Let one god be slaughtered ... Let Nintu

mix clay with his flesh and blood. Let that same god and man be

thoroughly mixed in the clay." 15 The epic begins with an

ambiguous statement that likewise associates man with the gods:

"When gods were man, they did forced labor, they bore

drudgery."16 Some of the gods (called "the Igigi-gods") were in

charge of the hard labor of creation and preceded humans who were

subsequently created to relieve the Igigi-gods of their labor.

The Akkadian speaking peoples, therefore, also appear to have

14 Ibid., 266.

15 Benjamin Foster, "Atrahasis," in Context of Scripture, 451.

16 Ibid., 450.

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imagined a real time when gods roamed the earth before man was

created.

The Akkadian speaking peoples claimed that these gods

established some of their cities before the flood. The myth of

"Etana" (ca. 23rd-century B.C.E) shows this idea: "[The great

gods, the Igigi] designed a city, [The Igigi] laid its

foundation. [The Anunnaki] designed the city of Kish, [The

Anunnaki] laid its foundation, The Igigi made its brickwork

firm."17 In the "Myth of Enlil and Ninlil," (2500-2000 B.C.E),

the gods Enlil, Ninlil, and Ninshebargunu were said to once

inhabit the city of Nippur.18

The Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2100 B.C.E) is preserved on tablets

in both Akkadian and Sumerian.19 This epic attests to all of the

themes traced in this paper. Gilgamesh, who post-dated the flood

according to the Sumerian King List, is inscribed in this epic as17 Stephanie Dalley, "Etana," in Context of Scripture, 453.

18 Henri Frankfort et al., The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East, Oriental Institute Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 152f.

19 Andrew George, trans., The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian, Penguin Classics (London: Penguin Books, 2003), xiii-xvi.

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a demigod: "Gilgamesh was his name from the day he was born, two-

thirds of him god and one third human."20 This god-man, whose

armor weighed in at 10 talents (750 lbs.), is described as a

giant: "A triple cubit was his foot (4.5ft), half a rod his leg

(8.25ft). Six cubits was his stride" (9ft).21 He is portrayed in

battle as wearing the horned cap of divinity.22

Gilgamesh ruled in Uruk where the gods once stood, a city

which boasted that its foundations where laid by the apkallu or

"Seven Sages."23 These apkallu represent another form of the idea

that the gods once frequented earthly habitations. These

creatures are better understood in reference to later Assyrian

sources: they are the divine and semi-divine half-fish creatures

sent by the gods to teach the arts and cultic rites of

civilization.24 According to some sources, like the Uruk Sage 20 George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 2. Concerning the two-thirds ratio, see the last paragraph of this section on page 15.

21 George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 3, 20.

22 See figure 6 (early first millennium B.C.E), in George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 45.

23 Ibid.

24 See Erica Reiner, "The Etiological Myth of the 'Seven Sages,'"Orientalia 30, no. 1 (1961): 1-11. The Akkadian primary sources

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List, they served as counselors to the antediluvian kings.25 Uruk

was not alone on the list of divine dwellings, but the city

Shurupakk is also given this honor in the Gilgamesh epic: "This

city was old-- the gods once were in it--when the great gods

decided to send down the Deluge."26 The glory of divine-Gilgamesh

in Uruk was that he re-established the antediluvian order: "[He]

restored the cult-centers destroyed by the Deluge, and set in

place for the people the rites of the cosmos."27

Gilgamesh was a semi-divine hero and giant who set Uruk

aright by reestablishing the divine ways of the pre-flood past.

This epic resembles the age described in Gen. 6:1-4 when the gods

visited earth and left offspring in their wake--"These were the

mighty men who were of old, the men of renown" (6:4). Gilgamesh

himself is surely the epitome of the class called Nephilim. Jews

had already made this connection at least by the 2nd Century

speak of some of these Sages, like Adapa; see, Benjamin R. Foster, "The Adapa Story," in Context of Scripture, 449.

25 Alan C. Lenzi, "The Uruk Sage List," Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 8, no. 2 (2008): 137-169.

26 George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 88.

27 Ibid., 2.

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B.C.E.28 But the author of Gen. 6:1-4, while remembering the

glory of demigods, also affirms their mortality: "My Spirit

shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh (vs. 3)." Though

demigods, the ancient heroes remain mortal; they cannot escape

death. This theme of mortality, even for the demigod, is also in

harmony with the Gilgamesh epic, which is ultimately about the

failed attempt of the demigod hero to find eternal life.

Another example of gods having relations with humans is from

the Hittite people in Anatolia. In two versions of the myth,

"The Storm God and the Serpent (Illuyanka)" (2nd Millennium), a

god mates with a human and produces offspring. In one version of

the story, the Storm-god's daughter, Inara, sleeps with the man

Hupasiya. In another version, the Storm-god himself sleeps with a

poor woman, and then her demigod son grows up to battle the

Serpent.29 This later version is in closer harmony with the idea

of Gen. 6:2, specifically, that women had relations with divine

beings.28 The name of Gilgamesh is listed among the giants in the Qumranfragments of the Book of Giants (4Q531 Frag. 1; 4Q530 Col. 2).

29 Gary Beckman,"The Storm God and the Serpent (Illuyanka)," Context of Scripture, 150.

13

Other thematic parallels can be found closer to Israel in

the literature of the Western Semitic peoples. On the "Ugaritic

King List" (12th-century B.C.E), all the kings are listed with

the determinative "ilu," which is translated "god."30 These kings

were probably not conceived of as gods in the full sense, but the

divine determinative could express the same ancient idea of god-

like men who once dwelled on earth. The myth "Dawn and Dusk"

(12th-century B.C.E) explains the origin of two Canaanite

deities. The point of exception in this myth is that while the

father is the high god El, the mothers of these Canaanite gods

are described as female women.31 This theme is more specific to

our Genesis text in that here again, human women are mating with

heavenly beings.

As previously mentioned, the word "Rephaim" is used in

Deuteronomy to refer to the descendants of the Nephilim (Deut.

30 K. Lawson Younger, Jr. "Ugaritic King List," Context of Scripture, 356.

31 Dennis Pardee, "Dawn and Dusk, " Context of Scripture, 280-81. See the introduction on page 274: "We seem to be dealing, therefore, with the motif of divine engenderment well known in classical literature, in this case the impregnation by the god Ilu of two human females, who each give birth to one of the deities who makeup the pair."

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3:11). Oddly enough, this same word is used in Ugaritic sources,

like for instance in the "Patrons of the Ugaritic Dynasty" (ca.

1200 B.C.E), which is a funerary text that summons the dead

Rephaim. The patrons of the Ugaritic dynasty are "the most

ancient Rephaim" now living in the "netherworld," who are still

mighty, and they are being summoned in their death.32 A biblical

parallel to the Ugaritic funerary text is Isaiah 14:9, "Sheol

beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the

shades [Rephaim] to greet you." The exact identity of these

Rephaim among Western Semites is uncertain, but scholars describe

them as "divine in nature."33 This Ugaritic source from a people

bordering Israel seems to speak of the same class of demigod

heroes and even references the same word, Rephaim.

32

Baruch A. Levine, Jean-Michel de Tarragon, and Anne Robertson, "The Patrons of the Ugaritic Dynasty," in Context of Scripture, 358.

33 S. David Sperling "Rephaim,"in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., ed. Fred Skolnik (Farmington Hills, Michigan: Keter Publishing House Ltd., 2007), 17:224. See also Baruch A. Levine and Jean-Michel de Tarragon, "Dead Kings and Rephaim: The Patrons of the Ugaritic Dynasty," Journal of the American Oriental Society 104, no. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1984): 649-659. He argues that the Rephaim are not in the same class as human kings.

15

The Phoenicians, also a Western Semitic people, have a

unique history, which was preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea in

the 4th-century C.E. In his book, Preparation for the Gospel, Eusebius

preserves parts of another work by Philo of Byblos (not the

Hebrew). The Roman Philo of Byblos translated into Greek the work

of an earlier Phoenician historian named Sanchuniathon.

Sanchuniathon was reported to live before "Trojan times" (13th-

century B.C.E),34 but Philo published his book as Phoenician History

in the 1st Century C.E. Philo's Phoenician History has not been taken

seriously in the scholarly community until discoveries at Ugarit

and Bogazkoy demonstrated the accuracy of Philo's work.35 The

late W. F. Albright confirms this sentiment saying, "Doubt about

Sanchuniathon and Philo has been disproved rather completely by

the discovery and decipherment of Ugaritic mythological

34 Eusebius demonstrates the veracity of this claim by quoting the philosopher Porphyry: Eusebius Preparation for the Gospel 1.9.31. 35

Harold W. Attridge and Rober A. Öden Jr., Philo of Byblos, the Phoenician History: Introduction, Critical Text, Translation, Notes, Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 9 (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981), 5: "The most frequently cited evidence reflecting on Philo's source has been the Canaanites and Hittite mythological material discovered in this century."

16

literature, so that we are fully justified in accepting

provisionally all data preserved by him [Philo]."36

Sanchuniathon's history is distinguished in the ANE because

it is a non-mythological history that begins with creation and

explains the historical origin of the gods. Most of the gods,

according to Sanchuniathon, are only ancient heroes who were

divinized post-mortem.37 Thus, Sanchuniathon, much like Genesis,

denies the pantheon but still affirms the idea of ancient heroes.

The Phoenician History, which notably is non-mythological in

genre, also maintains the existence of giants in the ancient

past. Philo records that "Aeon" and "Protogonus" were the first

mortal men. "From Genos, son of Aeon and Protogonus, were

begotten again mortal children, whose names are Light, and Fire,

and Flame. And they begat sons of surpassing size and stature,

whose names were applied to the mountains which they occupied."

Philo translates further, "From these, he says, were begotten

Memrumus and Hypsuranius; and they got their names, he says, from

36

Ibid., 6. 37

Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 1.10.33.

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their mothers, as the women in those days had free intercourse

with any whom they met."38 This short excerpt evidences that the

Phoenician people had historical memory of giants in their

ancient past. These giants, similar to those in Genesis 6:2, were

begotten by women. Eusebius preserves other fragments from other

ancient historians who also record stories about giants from the

time of the founding of Babylon.39

This same Philo of Byblos also wrote his own History of the Jews

(preserved by Eusebius), but in this history, Philo again writes

about the Phoenicians. Philo writes (Eusebius records) concerning

the birth of other semi-divine humans: "Kronos then, whom the

Phoenicians call Elus, who was king of the country and

subsequently, after his decease, was deified as the star Saturn,

had by a nymph of the country, named Anobret, an only begotten

son ... and [later] sacrificed him [on an altar]."40 Human 38 Ibid., 1.10.35.

39 Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 9.17-18. Some scholars contend for the ancient origin of these histories; see, Loren T. Stuckedbruck, "The 'Angels' and 'Giants' of Genesis 6:1-4 in Second and Third Century BCE Jewish Interpretation: Reflections on the Posture of Early Apocalyptic Traditions," Dead Sea Discoveries7, no. 3 (2000): 358-62.

40 Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 1.10.40.

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sacrifices like these were performed, according to Philo, "as a

ransom to the avenging daemons."

One can see that even in the history of Sanchuniathon, which

means to demythologize, there is still belief in preternatural

beings like nymphs and demons, beings that are also said to have

had intimate relations with humans. The above explanation that

sacrifice was in fact offered to demons, not gods, is an idea

also in harmony with Deuteronomy, where Moses gives a similar

explanation to pagan cultic rites: "They sacrificed to demons

that were no gods ... to new gods that had come recently"

(32:17). As demonstrated below, these demons are said (in 1

Enoch) to be the spirits of the dead Nephilim left to dwell on

earth until Judgment Day.

Hopefully one can see the thematic parallels to Gen. 6:1-4

in this short survey of some Western Semitic primary sources.

This survey of ancient parallels now turns from the ANE to

Greece. Greece is not usually considered in discussions of

historical backgrounds to the Pentateuch.41 Works attributed to

41 Van Seters, however, argues the case: John Van Seters, Prologue to History: the Yahwist as Historian in Genesis (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992).

19

Hesiod (ca. 750), however, so closely parallel our text that one

must suggest a common tradition traceable to the ANE.42 In

Hesiod's Works and Days, there is a history of similar theme and

scope to the primeval history in Genesis 1-11. Hesiod explains

the history of man as moving from good to bad in five successive

ages or generations; the last age is that of degenerate man. The

age most continuous to that being discussed in Genesis 6:1-4 is

the second to the last age. Listen to the echoes of Gen. 6:1-4 in

Hesiod: "[The fourth generation] was nobler and more righteous, a

god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods, the race

before our own, throughout the boundless earth."43 Also relevant

is that Hesiod, like Gen. 6:3, blames the sin of man for the

decrease in human life span to 120 years.44

42

Exactly the argument of Güterbock based on discoveries in Turkey: Hans Gustav Güterbock, "The Hittite Version of the Hurrian Kumarbi Myths: Oriental Forerunners of Hesiod," American Journal of Archaeology 52 (1948): 123-34.43 Hugh G. Evelyn-White, trans., Hesiod, The Homeric hymns, and Homerica (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1936), 13-15.

44 Ibid., 11-13. This decrease happens in the silver age.

20

Hesiod's Theogony is a history sung by the muses, which is

chiefly concerned with the birth of the gods, but it also details

the history of the male lines of the world's demigods--"Those

deathless ones who lay with mortal men and bare children like

unto gods."45 Perhaps the most renowned example is the birth of

Achilles: "And the silver-shod goddess Thetis was subject to

Peleus and brought forth lion-hearted Achilles, the destroyer of

men."46 The end of Hesiod's Theogony introduces another of his

works, The Catalogues of Women. Whereas the Theogony catalogues the

human offspring of female goddesses, the Catalogues list the human

offspring of the male gods. For example, among the many accounts

described, Zeus mates with Deucalion, the lone female survivor of

the Greek flood. Deucalion's child is named "Graecus, staunch in

battle."47

The birth of these demigods, as recorded in the Catalogues,

leads to division and strife on earth; this strife causes Zeus to

bring destruction: "Zeus who thunders on high was meditating

45 Ibid., 151.

46 Ibid., 153. 47

Ibid., 156.

21

marvelous deeds ... hastening to make an utter end of the race of

mortal men, declaring that he would destroy the lives of the

demigods, that the children of the gods should not mate with

wretched mortals ... that the blessed gods henceforth even as

aforetime should have their living and their habitations apart

from men."48 Genesis 6:1-4, like the Catalogues, states that God

brings judgment on earth, in part because of the evils brought

about by the demigods. Hesiod's Catalogues, in contrast, serve as

a pre-history to the Trojan War instead of the flood. These

thematic parallels to Hesiod are too suggestive to ignore; surely

Hesiod and Genesis are both speaking from a common ANE memory.

The last primary source surveyed is from the early Jewish

Pseudepigrapha, namely, 1 Enoch (3rd-century B.C.E). Scholars

widely hold that 1 Enoch contains parallels to Mesopotamian

religious thought.49 Some, like David Melvin, further argue that 48

Ibid., 199-201.

49 George W.E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: a Commentary On the Book of 1 Enoch, ed. Klaus Baltzer (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2011), 61. See also, Paul D. Hanson, "Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel, and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6- 11," JBL 96 (1977): 227-29. And as mentioned already, the cultural heroes of the Phoenician History demonstrate further proof of the ANE source of Greek myth: see, Albert Baumgarten, The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos: A Commentary

22

1 Enoch preserves elements of the original tradition upon which

Gen. 6:1-4 is based, and therefore, has a claim to similar

antiquity.50 Melvin writes that Gen. 6:1-4, a familiar kind of

mythic history, includes no instruction motif whereby the gods

teach man the arts of civilization.51 Usually, according to

Melvin, there is an instruction motif connected to stories about

demigods like in the Gilgamesh epic, where Gilgamesh teaches Uruk

the ancient rites of the gods.52 1 Enoch 6:1-2 is virtually the

same story as Gen. 6:1-4, but afterward, it includes the

instruction motif (1 Enoch 7-8) that appears to be missing in

Genesis 6. The argument is that 1 Enoch more completely

represents the tradition upon which Gen. 6:1-4 is based because

it is in better keeping with Mesopotamian tradition, especially

as exemplified in the Gilgamesh epic. Melvin's argument, whether

valid or not, is reported here to encourage the reader to

(Leiden: Brill, 1981), 156-57.50

David P. Melvin, "The Gilgamesh Traditions and the Pre-history of Genesis 6:1-4," Perspectives in Religious Studies 38, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 24.

51 Ibid.

52 George, The Gilgamesh Epic, 2.

23

consider that 1 Enoch, however old, genuinely reflects ancient

ideas, and therefore, it is another authentic ANE example of the

idea of demigods. Furthermore, 1 Enoch is a viable testimony to

how Gen. 6:1-4 should be interpreted in light of its historical

context.

1 Enoch mentions angels (not "sons of God" as in Gen. 6:2)

as having relations with women: "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'" (1 Enoch 6:1-2). 1 Enoch is

perhaps harmonizing the Mesopotamian idea (of the gods

intermingling with humans) with Hebrew cosmology by calling the

sons of God angels rather than gods. The offspring of these

unions were giants (also called Watchers): "And the women became

pregnant and gave birth to great giants whose heights were three

hundred cubits [450ft]" (1 Enoch 7:2).

Later in the book, God judges these giants and angels

through the intercession of Enoch. Once dead, the spirits of the

24

giants are doomed to roam the earth as evil spirits: "But now the

giants who are born from the (union of) the spirits and the flesh

shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, because their

dwelling shall be upon the earth and inside the earth" (1 Enoch

15:8). These evil spirits shall cause trouble and become the

enemy of man: "And these spirits shall rise up against the

children of men and against the women, because they have

proceeded from them" (1 Enoch 15:11). Fallen angels, in contrast,

take their abode in heavenly realms, not on earth (1 Enoch 15:7,

10).53 According to 1 Enoch the evil spirits will cause havoc on

earth until Judgment Day (1 Enoch 16:1). This cosmology of demons

in 1 Enoch reflects Mesopotamian thought, but one might also

suggest that it reflects Jewish and early Christian thought.

Based on the previous argument of the antiquity of 1 Enoch,

one is also tempted to connect these spirits of the giants to the

Rephaim mentioned in Ugarit sources.54 Perhaps the Canaanites

understood the continuing earthly presence of the spirits of the 53 Cf. Jude 6: "And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day." The chains of hell restrict fallen angels so they cannot be the same as demons, which inhabit earth.54 See page 9 above for the discussion of the Rephaim.

25

departed Rephaim like 1 Enoch portrays the continuing earthly

presence of the spirits of the Nephilim. Perhaps also this origin

story of evil spirits explains why Gilgamesh is remembered as

one-third human and two-thirds god.55 His mother was a goddess

and his father was a demon.56 According to 1 Enoch, demons are

not fully divine but are the spirits of the dead half-human

Nephilim. But moving beyond these suggestions, this discussion

should at least encourage one to take 1 Enoch seriously in

interpreting the identities of the sons of God and Nephilim in

Gen. 6:1-4.

Conclusion

This survey has fulfilled its didactic purpose by providing

the necessary historical and literary context to make Gen. 6:1-4

comprehensible and perhaps even believable to contemporary

readers. The argument made here is that Israel's neighbors, both

near and far, believed that divine beings visited earth and left

55

George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, 2. 56

See the Sumerian King List in, Oppenheim, "Babylonian and Assyrian Historical Texts," in Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 266.

26

demigod offspring in their wake. The evidence for this is from

ancient mythology but also from other more historically based

texts like the Sumerian King List and the Phoenician History.

Confusion over how to interpret Gen. 6:1-4 would be greatly

reduced if this historic and literary context were considered.

The Hebrew text of Gen 6:1-4, in continuity with the world

of the ANE, attests to a time before and after the flood when the

distance between heaven and earth was compromised, when earth

reached a new height in its quest to be like God, and heaven

reached a new low in its deception of man. Thus, in the history

of man and in the cannon of Christian and Jewish Scripture, there

is a distant but viable memory of gods and demigods, of giants

and of heroes who once roamed the earth.

27

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