...and big skeletons have no eye teeth.
Posted on 09/30/2016 11:36:30 AM PDT by Gamecock
The Biblical text does NOT support this interchangeability that you infer.
Unsupported assumption.
I merely wonder...
...where are the skeletal remains?
...and big skeletons have no eye teeth.
“I am a son of God by faith in Christ, and so were the sons (and daughters) of Seth, when they mimicked his spiritual example. Enoch was one, before the flood, by faith he walked with God, and was translated.”
The term “sons of God” is applied to believers who are born again, obviously. It is ALSO used of angelic beings who can never be born again. While the evidence supporting this passage referring to angels is overwhelming, contextually accurate, and historically consistent, the alternative propositions fall flat. And these beg the question WHY are these alternative explanations being brought forward? It is apparent that the traditional doctrine, held by the Jews of Christ’s day and the apostles, is too sensational for some people to accept. Of course there are some who claim demons were merely a way of describing mental illness before we had science to explain it. Some find the resurrection of Christ too sensational as well. However, those who find the resurrection of Christ to be too sensational to believe, are not “sons of God”.
“Please don’t build a stronghold on this logical fallacy....”
Perhaps you should apply that to your own interpretation. I have laid out Biblical support for why this is the only tenable option being put forward. It is not a matter of trying to merely apply human logic, but to apply spiritual discernment, comparing spiritual things to spiritual. I presented numerous passages showing that this passage does not simply stand by itself, where we are left to apply guesswork to understand what is being said.
Moses was taught in all the learning and wisdom of Egypt. Remember that this includes the occultic, supernatural, mystic knowledge of Jannes and Jambres. He was well aware of the secular and occultic records concerning the antediluvian world. You cannot ignore that the Biblical description of the days of Noah is predated by similar stories by the Sumerians and Egyptians. Those who do not believe the Bible claim Moses plagiarized these stories. Those who believe the Bible recognize that there is some truth to those secular records, but they needed to be corrected. We need a Divine perspective to understand this invisible dimension. We cannot learn it through the occult. God peels back the curtain to let us know what is truly going on behind the scenes. However, ignoring the existence of such extra-biblical records, removes an important context for this Biblical passage’s meaning.
Acts 7:22
And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds.
2 Timothy 3:8
Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith.
What I have presented is not something I got from books other than the Bible. I showed the passages I used to compare and find the meaning. I did not try to make my own ideas fit. However, it has been very enlightening to me to discover that what I found through Bible study was simply the commonly held belief of the Jewish people at the time of Christ and the apostles. It is reassuring to discover that I was not going off on a tangent, inventing my own ideas with no evidence.
“But we see none of these representations of God or his spirit angel minions trying to get in bed with a human female.”
Unless a person chooses not to see them. It is indisputable that the men of Sodom attempted to rape angels. What the angels of Noah’s day did is compared by Jude to the perversions of Sodom.
Jude 5-7
But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
What is so special about these particular angels? (Be sure to compare Peter’s account, as he specifically gives the reason for their imprisonment as the type of sin they committed.) Why does Jude link them with “as” to the perverts of Sodom?
The claims that the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 are merely “sons of Seth” or believers, is an easy way out of something a bit more complex. This position fails to explain...
1) who the Nephilim were,
2) how they got here, and
3) why they were here. And
4) why certain angels from the time of Noah are described by Peter and Jude as being imprisoned, while Satan and his angels clearly are not. And
5) where demons came from. And
6) what it means that “all flesh” had been corrupted except for Noah’s family. And
7) why God commanded to destroy every living person and animal among certain inhabitants of Canaan. And,
8) why Jude compares the actions of these antediluvian, rebel angels with the sexual perversions of Sodom.
Considering all of the Biblical support for what I have proposed (not an idea that I originated), the other propositions are unconvincing. And it seems very dangerous to simply try to rationalize away the supernatural elements of the Biblical record just because these things make some people uncomfortable.
“The Biblical text does NOT support this interchangeability [of Nephilim and giants] that you infer.”
I am not inferring it. I am stating it flat out. The English word “giant” is translated from the Hebrew word “Nephilim.”
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/5303.htm
“Unsupported assumption.”
Argumentative reply. I gave mountains of evidence. Did you read it?
Hat tip.
“where are the skeletal remains?”
First of all, Noah’s flood was cataclysmic. It wasn’t a light rain or the overflowing of a riverbank. So the fossil record and other evidence of what was destroyed probably is fairly difficult to uncover.
But, beyond that, along with dinosaur fossils, there may have been many skeletal remains of giants found in many parts of the world. Try a simple web search for Nephilim fossils.
As I see it, when our spirit leaves, we no longer have the ability to breathe...
I see the shadows...
At least one nine foot skeleton was unearthed on Catalina Island and photographed. L.A. Marzulli has the pix.
Would that be this "Catalina" by any chance? 😂😃😀😆😄
I believe so, Bro!
I don't think the well-acknowledged commentator Adam Clarke had any such reservations or felt he was rationalizing in delivering his estimate on this matter. Here is a selection from him:
===== per Adam Clarke ======
Having traced the line of descent from Adam through Sheth, the seed of God, to Noah, the author proceeds to describe the general spread and growth of moral evil in the race of man, and the determination of the Lord to wipe it away from the face of the earth.
Gen. 6:1-4
There are two stages of evil set forth in Gen_6:1-4 - the one contained in the present four verses, and the other in the following. The former refers to the apostasy of the descendants of Sheth, and the cause and consequences of it. When man began to multiply, the separate families of Cain and Sheth would come into contact. The daughters of the stirring Cainites, distinguished by the graces of nature, the embellishments of art, and the charms of music and song, even though destitute of the loftier qualities of likemindedness with God, would attract attention and prompt to unholy alliances. The phrase “sons of God,” means an order of intelligent beings who “retain the purity of moral character” originally communicated, or subsequently restored, by their Creator. They are called the sons of God, because they have his spirit or disposition. The sons of God mentioned in Job. 38:7, are an order of rational beings existing before the creation of man, and joining in the symphony of the universe, when the earth and all things were called into being. Then all were holy, for all are styled the sons of God. Such, however, are not meant in the present passage. For they were not created as a race, have no distinction of sex, and therefore no sexual desire; they “neither marry nor are given in marriage” Mt. 22:30. It is contrary to the law of nature for different species even on earth to cohabit in a carnal way; much more for those in the body, and those who have not a body of flesh. Moreover, we are here in the region of humanity, and not in the sphere of superhuman spirits; and the historian has not given the slightest intimation of the existence of spiritual beings different from man.
The sons of God, therefore, are those who are on the Lord’s side, who approach him with duly significant offerings, who call upon him by his proper name, and who walk with God in their daily conversation. The figurative use of the word “son” to denote a variety of relations incidental, and moral as well as natural, was not unfamiliar to the early speaker. Thus, Noah is called “the son of five hundred years” Gen. 5:32. Abraham calls Eliezer בן־בותי ben-bēytı̂y, “son of my house” Gen. 15:3. The dying Rachel names her son Ben-oni, “son of my sorrow,” while his father called him Benjamin, “son of thy right hand” Gen. 35:18. An obvious parallel to the moral application is presented in the phrases “the seed of the woman” and “the seed of the serpent.” The word “generations” תולדות tôledot, Gen. 5:1 exhibits a similar freedom and elasticity of meaning, being applied to the whole doings of a rational being, and even to the physical changes of the material world Gen. 2:4. The occasion for the present designation is furnished in the remark of Eve on the birth of Sheth. God hath given me another seed instead of Habel. Her son Sheth she therefore regarded as the son of God. Accordingly, about the birth of his son Enosh, was begun the custom calling upon the name of the Lord, no doubt in the family circle of Adam, with whom Sheth continued to dwell. And Enok, the seventh from Adam in the same line, exhibited the first striking example of a true believer walking with God in all the intercourse of life. These descendants of Sheth, among whom were also Lamek who spoke of the Lord, and Noah who walked with God, are therefore by a natural transition called the sons of God, the godlike in a moral sense, being born of the Spirit, and walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit Psa. 82:6; Hos. 2:1.
Some take “the daughters of man” to be the daughters of the Cainites only. But it is sufficient to understand by this phrase, the daughters of man in general, without any distinction of a moral or spiritual kind, and therefore including both Cainite and Shethite females. “And they took them wives of all whom they chose.” The evil here described is that of promiscuous intermarriage, without regard to spiritual character. The godly took them wives of all; that is, of the ungodly as well as the godly families, without any discrimination. “Whom they chose,” not for the godliness of their lives, but for the goodliness of their looks. Ungodly mothers will not train up children in the way they should go; and husbands who have taken the wrong step of marrying ungodly wives cannot prove to be very exemplary or authoritative fathers. Up to this time they may have been consistent as the sons of God in their outward conduct. But a laxity of choice proves a corresponding laxity of principle. The first inlet of sin prepares the way for the flood-gates of iniquity. It is easy to see that now the degeneracy of the whole race will go on at a rapid pace.
Gen. 6:3
My Spirit -- , in contradistinction to the spirit of disobedience which, by the fall, obtained entrance into the soul of man. “Shall not strive with man forever.” To strive דון dı̂yn is to keep down, rule, judge, or strive with a man by moral force. From this passage we learn that the Lord by his Spirit strives with man up to a certain point. In this little negative sentence streams out the bright light of God’s free and tender mercy to the apostate race of man. He sends his Spirit to irradiate the darkened mind, to expostulate with the conscience, to prompt and strengthen holy resolve, and to bring back the heart, the confidence, the affection to God. He effects the blessed result of repentance toward God in some, who are thus proved to be born of God. But it is a solemn thought that with others he will not strive perpetually. There is a certain point beyond which he will not go, for sufficient reasons known fully to himself, partly to us. Two of these we are to notice for our instruction: First, he will not touch the free agency of his rational creatures. He can put no force on the volitions of men. An involuntary or compulsory faith, hope, love, obedience, is a contradiction in terms*; and anything that could bear the name can have no moral validity whatsoever. Secondly, after giving ample warning, instruction, and invitation, he will, as a just judgment on the unbelieving and the impenitent, withdraw his Spirit and let them alone. The antediluvian world was fast approaching to this point of final perversity and abandonment.
======= end of quote from Clarke ========
Notes:
* = this passage applies as well to the theme of the article about enticing someone to "Pray the sinner's prayer" and rewarding the penitent with an unasuthorized false sense of assurance of salvation, thus promoting forced and likely invalid professions
Furthermore, I have unashamedly spiced up the quote from Clarke with all kins of embellisments to draw the reader's attention to certain phrases, but without altering the meaning of the comment in any other way.
I believe this exposes the fatal flaws in your line of argument.
I am deeply sorry. In Post #117 I misattrbuted the commen to Adam Clarke, when in fact it was Albert Barnes who wrote this summary on Genesis 6:1-4, not Adam Clarke. Please thake note of my error.
You are correct.
Many translations have ‘giant’ others have Nephilim.
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Genesis%206:4
You gave mountains of verses all right.
The jury decides whether it is pertinent or not.
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