Decoding the Days of Noah Continued...

As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of man be (Matthew 24:37). What a strange and cryptic remark. What was it exactly about the Days of Noah that caused Jesus to single it out as the period of history to put under the microscope to properly understand the truly last days leading up to the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord?

Most people do not fully understand the Flood of Noah because they have no grasp of the real problem it was sent to resolve. There was much more to the Flood of Noah than simply a lot of water:  There was a major discontinuity; much greater than simply the sinfulness of man.

Genesis 6: 1 - 2 is a single sentence. It says, "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."

The understanding of this passage hangs on the Hebrew term that has been translated "sons of God," Bene HaElohim. In the Old Testament this term refers exclusively to angels. Many similar terms are used for other things, but this specific term always refers to a direct creation of God, and it alludes to angels whom we find in Job chapters 1, 2, 38 and other places. (We also find it in the New Testament, specifically in Luke 20:36).

Perhaps our most authoritative source is the Greek translation of the Old Testament from the 3rd century B.C., known as the Septuagint. Greek is a very precise language, and the seventy scholars who produced the Septuagint (a fancy word for seventy) help us understand the Hebrew from which it was translated. The Septuagint clearly translates this term as "angels."

Another important phrase is "the daughters of men" (benoth adam). They are the daughters of Adam, not just the daughters of Cain.

Genesis 6:4 says, "There were Nephilim in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." The word "Nephilim" means "the fallen ones." It comes from a verb, "to fall away," "to cast down," or "desert." These were the hybrids that resulted from the mischief between the fallen angels and human women. Another unusual term, "the mighty ones," the HaGibborim, is mentioned here. That was translated into the Greek Septuagint as gigantes, which does not mean "giant" but "earth-born," from the Greek gigas. Although the word is translated into English as "giants"--and they did happen to be very large--it is not true to the original text. This has caused a lot of confusion.

Later, in Genesis 6:9, we read, "These are the generations of Noah:  Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God." The word perfect is a term to mean "without blemish," "sound," "healthful," "without spot," or "unimpaired." It is always used with regard to physical defects. The Scripture is telling us that Noah was distinctive in that his genealogy was not blemished.

As we begin to put this together, it leads us to the strange idea that there were fallen angels that, somehow, began this strange business of generating a hybrid group called "Nephilim." This bizarre view is confirmed in the New Testament in Jude 6 - 7: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Jude made an allusion to these events in Genesis 6 and clearly he was writing about angels who, for whatever reason, went after "strange flesh."

Peter, in his second letter, chapter 2: 4 - 5, also says, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noah…" Peter wrote much the same thing as Jude, but he even tied it specifically to the days of Noah. He also used a term for hell that was only used in the New Testament: tartarus, a term used in Greek literature for "a dark abode of woe" or "a pit of darkness of the unseen world." In Homer's Iliad, it is thought to be as far below Hades as the earth is below heaven.  (Learn the Bible in 24 Hours, Missler, pgs. 26 - 27)


My next couple of entries will postulate exactly why understanding the true events of Noah's Flood is so vitally important, especially in the last days.

Decoding the Days of Noah

I am a passionate student of history. My favorite epochs to study are ancient world history and church history with an emphasis on revival periods.

Now, I fully admit that the idea of inter-dimensional beings (aka "fallen angels," "demons" or "aliens") coming down with a plan to intrude upon and usurp God's created order on earth is very strange. The notion that their plan included the creation of a hybrid offspring with human women is out there. I grant you that. The question is…Did this actually happen, as the Bible seems to say?

As strange as this idea might seem, I know from my study of history that virtually every ancient culture on earth, including Sumer, Assyria, Egypt, the Incas, the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Babylonians, the Persians, Greece, India, Bolivia, South Sea Islands, and the Sioux Indians of the United States have detailed oral and written legends of such events. They all have stories about "star people" or gods of some kind who produced offspring on earth. It is also worth noting that virtually every culture mentioned above has a catastrophic flood legend recorded.

For example, in Greek mythology, the Titans were partly celestial, partly terrestrial. They rebelled against their father Uranus, and after a prolonged contest, they were defeated by Zeus and condemned into Tartarus. Atlas and Hercules were also Nephilim. They presumably were the hybrid offspring of the gods mixing with human women.

So, what does the Bible text (Genesis 6) really have to say in the story of Noah? Many students of the Bible have encountered an interpretation of these passages known as "the lines of Seth" view. This interpretation assumes that "the sons of God" refers to the leadership of the line of Seth and the line of Cain. The "sons of God" are thought to be from the line of Seth, and the "daughters of Adam" are thought to be those from Cain. And, according to this view, the sin involved was their failure to maintain separation…the two were not to mix. This theory started in the 2nd/3rd Century A.D. Celsus and Julian the Apostate used the traditional belief, which we call the sons of God/angel view, to attack Christianity. Julius Africanus (and later, Augustine of Hippo) resorted to the Sethite theory as a more comfortable way of dealing with this.

The problem with the Sethite view is that it violates the text. The phrase, "sons of God," is never used of believers in the Old Testament. Furthermore, Seth was not God and Cain was not Adam. Blurring those distinctions imposes on the text. The idea that they were supposed to stay separate is strange because individual lines don't show up until Genesis 11. Isaac was the first one to be told to remain separate, not Ishmael or any of the others. In any case, in chapter 6, "all flesh are corrupted," which includes the Sethites. If they were supposed to represent the good guys, why did they drown in the flood? The inferred godliness of Seth turns out to be wrong because only Enoch and the eight people in the Ark were spared in the Flood.

The real problem is the Nephilim. When believers and unbelievers marry, they do not yield offspring that are physiologically different. The Scripture indicates that the offspring were distinctive: the HaGibborim, the mighty ones. And what made Noah's genealogy so distinctive was that his family tree was uncontaminated with these strange intrusions.

In summary, the Sethite view violates the text itself. It depends on inferred separation that the text does not support. It infers the godliness of the Sethites, which the text does not support. It infers a Cainite subset of the Adamites, which is reading into the text. The result of this is unnatural offspring, which is unexplained by the Sethite view. The New Testament confirms the angel or inter-dimensional being view.  (Learn the Bible in 24 Hours, Missler, pg. 28)

To be continued...