Is it possible for angels t rape women?

[Magentic]

Gen 6
Your thoughts?

 

[Yitzchak]

Gen 6
Your thoughts?

I think that there is a reason why these sorts of legends were not included in scripture. People reading and talking about those sorts of things have a strong tendency to use their imagination in ways that takes people down a dark path. I think that this verse applies to these types of questions.

Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
Eph 5:12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

Fallen angels do have some power on earth as is evidenced in scripture by the stories of demonic possession but that power is not unlimited. We can feel secure in The Lord's protection.

 

[He put me back together]

There are angels in Gen 6?

 

[Alex.C]

I think its more detailed in the book of Enoch although I have not properly read the book. Ive order some teaching on the Nephilim Agenda which might help me understand the topic more. It is an interseting concept that Angels could mate with physical women and create some sort of physical hybrid. According to some the spiritual repercussions are still very real today.

 

[Yitzchak]

There are angels in Gen 6?

The Phrase " sons of G-d " used in Job Chapter one in which satan is identified as one of the sons of G-d is where the idea of angels being the sons of G-d comes from. They are sons of G-d in the sense that they do not have parents but were created directly by G-d.

Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

 

[BereanTodd]

I've never hard of any theories of rape from Gen 6. Now the passage is a hotly debated piece of scripture and there are generally 2 main understandings of it:

1. The 'sons of God' refer to angels, who obviously had sex with women here creating this nephilim offspring. Positives for this view are that elsewhere in the OT where this same phrase 'sons of God' is used it refers to angels. This is the oldest and majority teaching of the historic church. There are other passages, such as Jude, that lend an angelic understanding to it as well. The negatives are that we are told that angels are neither male nore female and are not physical. They are not God and thus can not manifest physical bodies either.

2. The 'sons of God' refer to the godly line of Seth, and the daughters of men refer to the sinful line of Cain. The trouble in this passage then comes from the chosen line, the godly followers, cavorting, comingling and intermarrying with godless, pagan peoples and that led to the problems. This tends to be the majority opinion among modern evangelicals.

There is another option altogether, which is not anywhere near as prevalent as one or two, but which one of my seminary profesors believes and I have come to believe as the best option. It is basically a combination of the two major common beliefs.

In other words the 'Sons of God' does refer to the godly line of Seth and the daughters of man the line of Cain. However there was demonic influence and possibly even possession also involved in this case. The benefit of this belief is not that we are trying to sit a fence, but that it deals with the problem of demons/angels not being physical beings, not being male or female and not procreating (all teachings of Scripture) while also maintaining demonic activity, fault, and responsibility on some level which is important in light of some of the passages such as Jude.

 

[Mathetes the kerux]

Subscribing

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Sounds like alien abductions

 

[Faulty]

I don't see where there were rapes taking place in Gen 6. Verse 2 states they took the women as their wives as they chose. That seems to imply force, but could simply by force as given by position, such as a ruler, rather than a physical force against their will.

Verse 4 states they 'came in to' these women taken as their wives, and bore children. The original hebrew word for 'came in to' doesn't seem to imply something violent or forced to me. So, I'm thinking there was no rape here.

Also, since the children of these union are called " mighty men who were of old, the men of renown" and usually a child of an evil and a righteous parent don't create these types of people, the giants, as a norm, I can't buy the whole Seth/ Cain hypothesis. Just seems like an excuse to me.

 

[BereanTodd]

Also, since the children of these union are called " mighty men who were of old, the men of renown" and usually a child of an evil and a righteous parent don't create these types of people, the giants, as a norm, I can't buy the whole Seth/ Cain hypothesis. Just seems like an excuse to me.

Well, you dont buy the Seth/Cain hypothesis because of that, but you do buy the demonic? Which would imply even more evil? Or is your position something else, becuse those two I mentioned would include what is proposed by 99.9% of commentators not just today but throughout history.

 

[Faulty]

Well, you dont buy the Seth/Cain hypothesis because of that, but you do buy the demonic? Which would imply even more evil? Or is your position something else, becuse those two I mentioned would include what is proposed by 99.9% of commentators not just today but throughout history.

The 'sons of God' terminology implies a creature directly created by God, which would make them most likely angels.

I tend to believe these are those who James mentions are imprisioned for leaving their rightful place.

 

[merryheart]

The angels who fell, and took human women creating a race of giants are in the books of enoch, the jubilees, and the book of noah... Jesus quoted from the books of enoch.

No matter what you decide to believe regarding those books, it is clear that the people of Jesus time certainly believed it! Furthermore, this belief is the reason that women are covered and hidden in ancient cultures, and why their names are usually not mentioned in ancient writings. To this day, middle eastern culture forbids discussing the women in your family with any but the closest friends.

 

[BereanTodd]

The angels who fell, and took human women creating a race of giants are in the books of enoch, the jubilees, and the book of noah... Jesus quoted from the books of enoch.

And Paul quoted pagan poets. That doesn't mean that those poets are Scripture or that everything else that they wrote was true. Again, angels are spiritual beings and do not have creative power to create human bodies from nothing. Only God is the creator.

They also are genderless and not given in marriage which leads to the assumption of asexuality.

 

[Tamara224]

I don't see where there were rapes taking place in Gen 6. Verse 2 states they took the women as their wives as they chose. That seems to imply force, but could simply by force as given by position, such as a ruler, rather than a physical force against their will.

Verse 4 states they 'came in to' these women taken as their wives, and bore children. The original hebrew word for 'came in to' doesn't seem to imply something violent or forced to me. So, I'm thinking there was no rape here.

Also, since the children of these union are called " mighty men who were of old, the men of renown" and usually a child of an evil and a righteous parent don't create these types of people, the giants, as a norm, I can't buy the whole Seth/ Cain hypothesis. Just seems like an excuse to me.

I agree with this. I don't see why rape would come into it. If fallen angels could manifest in physical form, I see no reason why they wouldn't choose a form that is beautiful and desirable. There would be little need to force the women.

Well, you dont buy the Seth/Cain hypothesis because of that, but you do buy the demonic? Which would imply even more evil?

I think the point is that the Seth/Cain hypothesis doesn't account for the physical characteristics of the giants/nephilim.

Cain had the same DNA Seth had. Exactly the same DNA (they had the same parents, remember). Why would his descendants mingling with Seth's descendants create genetic abnormalities? That doesn't make any sense.

Demonic possession doesn't account for genetic anomalies, either. Possession of the body doesn't mutate the genes.

Or is your position something else, becuse those two I mentioned would include what is proposed by 99.9% of commentators not just today but throughout history.

I believe his position is the first (traditional) one. Sons of God = angels.

1. The 'sons of God' refer to angels, who obviously had sex with women here creating this nephilim offspring. Positives for this view are that elsewhere in the OT where this same phrase 'sons of God' is used it refers to angels. This is the oldest and majority teaching of the historic church. There are other passages, such as Jude, that lend an angelic understanding to it as well. The negatives are that we are told that angels are neither male nore female and are not physical. They are not God and thus can not manifest physical bodies either.

I'd much obliged to you if you could provide the references for these claims. Where does Scripture say that angels cannot manifest physical bodies? Where does Scripture say angels are neither male nor female?

I'm thinking of, for example, the angel that wrestled with Jacob, the angels that appeared to Abraham and Sarah, and the angels who visited Lot in Sodom.

What Scripture do you refer to that would lead us to dismiss these examples as not being angels manifesting physically (as apparent human males)?

 

[imperfectchristian]

The best explanation I ever heard was one that I almost never hear mentioned.

That the "sons of God" in Genesis 6 were kings who took a large number of wives.

I'll try to remember to look it up and share the justification/reasoning/evidence for this position later.

 

[Alex.C]

Check out the Nephilm Agenda by Randy Demain. He's written a book and released a dvd on the subject. Basically he has addressed everything in regards to this subject using scripture.

 

[visionary]

YouTube - evidence for giants nephilim rephaim anunaki part 1

 

[Haldog]

Whether they raped or merely 'forced' humans women, the fallen angels took whom they chose. They also suffered a terrible fate for it, see Jude 6.

 

[Yekcidmij]

For Genesis 6, the views that take the sons of God to be angels or humans both have merit to them. On one hand, there are plently of references to 'sons of God' being taken to mean 'divine beings' (Deut 32:8/43, Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7, Psalm 29:1, 89:6). On the other hand, you can find references to humans being sons of God. Both Israel as a whole and her king, with specific references to David and Solomon, are called God's son (Ex 4:22, Deut 32, Hos 11:1, 2 Sam 7:14 [and it's parallels in the Chronicles], Psalm 2, 89:26).

So simply pointing to the phrase doesn't seem to do much other than to show a wide range of possible meanings for Genesis 6. It certainly wouldn't be wise to make an arbitrary conclusion at this point without further reasons.

In order to say that Gen 6 is talking about divine beings mating with human women, you could take the approach of comparing Genesis 6 with similiar stories in the ancient world (ie, the Greeks, Ugaritic writings, Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, etc..). Finding parallels with other writings might be suggestive that Gen 6 is written in a similiar way. Ideas and views would be held in common across cultures. One way to aid in this would be to view Genesis 6 as originating from a seperate source (oral or written) that is no longer available to us. As such the author of this section of text would have meant what so many similiar views in the ancient world did - divine beings came down from the heavens and mated with human women generating legendary offspring.

While this is all interesting, there all a couple of downsides to all of this. One would be that even in other cultures' writings, "son of God" is also used of human beings, so you could use parallels from other writings to suppor the idea that sons of god in Gen 6 are human. Second, we must ask WHY someone would include such a thing in Genesis as a whole as we now know it. Within Genesis as we now have it and know it, does chapter 6 serve the understanding that it's refering to divine beings or to human beings? I suggest that within the literary context of Genesis, chapter 6 functions to serve to give us a reason for bringing the flood and that reason has to do with HUMAN failure, not angelic failure. You could consider a theme that continues to run through Genesis: God chooses someone, that someone fails, God judges them and chooses another: Adam, Cain, Noah. This theme runs up until Abraham when God finally chooses someone who is going to succeed due to a particular covenant God enters into with him. The theme running through Genesis of choice-failure-judgment-rechoosing fits very well with the idea that the line of Seth was chosen by God but failed. So the story in Genesis would run: Adam (chosen, failed, judged), Cain (chosen [firstborn], failed, judged), Seth (chosen, failure, judged), Noah (chosen, failed, judged), and finally to Abraham who was chosen and unlike the others, his descendents would succeed in completing God's plan (which for Abraham was that his descendents would be a blessing to the earth).

Within this literary context, the 'sons of God' in Genesis 6 would mean "chosen ones" (as it did for Israel and the king) and it would be refering to another line of humanity, and/or even kings, that had been chosen and finally failed. The purpose of course would be to lead up to Abraham and God's selection of a people that would succeed in being the human line that doesn't fail. One further point of consideration is that each of the failed human lines in Genesis (Adam, Cain, Seth, and Noah) each seem to break Torah commandments: Adam eats unclean food, Cain murders his brother, the line of Seth intermarries with outsiders (or takes too many wives), and Noah becomes intoxicated and naked. Abraham and his descendents however are given the blessing of being directly given the Torah, which at this point in Genesis looks forward to the highlight of the giving of the Law at Sinai. The effect of the literary context of the first part of the books of Moses is almost like going up a mountain with the peak being the giving of the Law at the top of Sinai. Everything in the text seems to be continuously funneled down to the point of Moses on top of Sinai. The effect of the literary context of Genesis then is to say, 'Israel, this is your God and this is why Israel was chosen'.

So, on one hand the human-sons-of-God interpretation has the literary context in it's favor. On the other hand the angelic-sons-of-God interpretation has source criticism in it's favor. In fact, I think appealing to source critical methods (something most evangelicals will cringe at) is the only way to wind up at an angelic-sons-of-God interpretation of Gen 6, and even then the literary context of Genesis doesn't just go away. If you buy into source criticism, someone has still purposefully arranged the text into the form we have it.

Another thing people like to do is appeal to the Books of Enoch and Jubilees. Unfortunately, these aren't much help since they simply reflect how some Jews of a particular sect (most probably Essenes vice Pharisees or Sadducees) of the mid to late Second Temple period thought of it. Neither Enoch or Jubilees are more ancient than about the time of the revolt of the Maccabees and so neither necessarily reflect how we should actually understand Genesis 6. Both of those books are just some Second Temple Jews trying to understand what Genesis 6 said; neither are giving us information somehow long lost from Genesis.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I don't buy a lot of that stuff about angels mixing with human beings. Angels and demons are spiritual beings. There is no way that a spiritual being can mate with a human female. We don't even know whether angels are male and female. It was the human race that was created male and female. There is no evidence that angels have gender in the way that we would understand it. Angels have revealed themselves as male because that is the only way that humans could relate to them, but the bodies they appeared in were constructed for the purpose and disappeared once they went back into the spiritual realm.

Christ Himself, before His incarnation, appeared in angelic form to Abraham and others. Even though it had the appearance of a human body, it was not an actual human body of flesh and blood.

Incidentally, there are no references in Scripture of angels appearing in female form.