By Vorjack
Marriage in the Bible, Part 5
I let this series trail off before I even got to my favorite marriages in the bible. Let’s take a look at one of the weirdest passage in the text:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterwards—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. (Gen 6:4, NRSV)
Alright, what is this? It doesn’t seem connected to the previous passage, and it’s followed by the flood narrative.
Enoch Ascendant
Pullquote: And now, my son Methuselah, call to me all thy brothers, And gather together to me all the sons of thy mother; For the word calls me…
One traditional way of understanding it is to turn to another work, The Book of Enoch, AKA 1st Enoch. Enoch is really composed of multiple parts that have been stitched together, in larger chunks than the Pentateuch. The part I’m referring to here is sometimes called the Book of the Watchers, and dates to maybe 300 BCE.
The title character in Enoch is the great-grandfather of Noah who gets a cameo in Gen 5:24 as he’s lifted up to heaven. The work is attributed to him, as he supposedly shares visions that he was granted as he ascended to heaven.
The Book of the Watchers reads like an expansion on the Genesis passage about the Nephilim, which is how it was treated by the early Christian church. Of course, it may also be giving us a more complete version of the story that Genesis just hints at, but there’s no way to be sure.
Touched by an Angel
Pullquote: Fear not, Enoch, thou righteous man and scribe of righteousness: approach hither and hear my voice.
Here’s how Enoch starts the same story:
And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: “Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.” (1st Enoch 6:1-2, RH Charles)
So the angels, all apparently male, were smitten by the gorgeous human women. They descended from heaven to woo and marry, but this was apparently against the rules. The next passages describe the angels agreeing to go down in mass – so that no single one gets in trouble – and names off some of the group leaders: “Sêmîazâz, their leader, Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl,“ and so forth.
Enoch makes it clear that the angels were a corrupting influence on humanity:
And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. (1st Enoch 8:1)
So the corrupting angles teach humans to make the tools of war and … cosmetics. Perhaps one of the angels was named Mary Kay.
Not only were the angels giving humans the tools to kill and seduce one another, they were also fathering children that grew to be giants, “Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind.”
Giants on the earth
Pullquote: And all shall be smitten with fear, And the Watchers shall quake, And great fear and trembling shall seize them unto the ends of the earth.
You can probably guess what’s going to happen next, and why the Genesis fragment is paired with the flood story:
Then said the Most High, the Holy and Great One spake, and sent Uriel to the son of Lamech, and said to him: ‘[Go to Noah] and tell him in my name “Hide thyself!” and reveal to him the end that is approaching: that the whole earth will be destroyed, and a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth, and will destroy all that is on it. And now instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for all the generations of the world.’ (1st Enoch 10:1-3)
However, before the flood God sends Enoch to be his prophet to the fallen angels, which is how he enters the story. Obviously this just a formality, as God has already sent Gabriel, Michael and the other loyal angels to seize the fallen ones cavorting with women and cast them into the depths. Still, the fallen angels petition the Lord through Enoch, who rejects it before sending Enoch off on his vision quest.
There’s one last part in Enoch that pertains to the angels. Towards the end of the book, Enoch has a vision about telling the same story in a highly allegorical – and highly disturbing – way:
And again I saw in the vision, and looked towards the heaven, and behold I saw many stars descend and cast themselves down from heaven to that first star, and they became bulls amongst those cattle and pastured with them amongst them. And I looked at them and saw, and behold they all let out their privy members, like horses, and began to cover the cows of the oxen, and they all became pregnant and bare elephants, camels, and asses. (1st Enoch 86:3-4)
That’s … that’s great, Enoch. Maybe it’s time to try some softer drugs.
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NoYourGod: Yerp – nuthin’ saiz “patriotic” like “love it or leave... 
LawnBoy: Gee.. when exactly was this golden age of pureness in politics and the reign of common sense? 
Daniel Florien: So why aren’t you out in Montana with a bomb shelter, stocked food, and tons of ammunition? 
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Nelly: my apologies for using “duplicate” way too many times………..I really wish... 
Ty: Please. A moon hoaxer talking about good science? “I personally do not believe that we can prove that... 
51 Comments
This does clarify some(insane) things. It makes me wonder if that short verse in the bible about zombies walking the earth was similarly fractured from something else…
Once you realize that the bible is a conglomeration of the writings of many different authors, stitched together by various groups of scribes it all makes sense. Not that the bible makes sense. All the contradictions come from the wide range of inputs the Semetic tribes had as they were coalescing into a single identity.
Its true for the New Testament too. The books of Mathew, Mark and Luke all are taken from a single source document, then embelished. Read up on the author ‘Q’ for some really enlightening ideas on the origins of those books.
The books of Mathew, Mark and Luke all are taken from a single source document, then embelished. Read up on the author ‘Q’ for some really enlightening ideas on the origins of those books.
Not quite. There is no “single” document that was the source for all three of those gospels. There were multiple written and oral traditions that informed all three of the synoptics.
brgulker, I’m not claiming that there is one single document that inspired the New Testament. Im referring to the study by German scholars who determined that large portions of Mathew Mark and Luke all came from one source. When the oldest Greek manuscripts are compared, you can see the passages that were copied verbatim between them. Most of the people behind the ‘Q’ hypothesis show that a large portion of Mark is identical in wording to over 40% of Luke and Matthew.
Those scholars postulate a lost collection of the sayings of Jesus that inspired the writers of the other 3 gospels. Curiously missing from the list of items attributed to ‘Q’ are any witnesses to miracles.
Here’s the funny thing about that story: the Nephilim couldn’t mess around with human women, but it sure was fine and dandy for Gawd himself to go knock up a woman under the cover of “It’s for the salvation of the world!!” God: the original hypocrite.
Aren’t the angels all supposed to be androgynous (not having reproductive organs) anyway? Or did Kevin Smith invent that for Dogma?
Angels have like, seventeen heads and 29 arms and can speak with a cock-I mean, sword in their mouths. I think they’re beyond gender definition.
I thought some categories of angels had extra pairs of wings “to cover their feet,” and some people thing that ‘feet’ is a euphemism for naughty bits. Sorry, no citation- I no longer hang out with people who know this sort of thing.
The only description of angels I can think of in the OT is from ezekiel and if I remember correctly there he has 6 winged angels and all that. On the other hand ezekiel had the best shrooms and apparently wasn’t to shy about using them often.
I’ll confirm that from a Bible as Literature class from college. No citation either at the moment, but I have run across “feet” = “naughty bits” before.
Sure puts a spin on things when Mary of Bethany sits at Jesus’ feet, but to be fair, I think the euphamism has Old Testament rather than New Testament roots.
I thought ‘cover one’s feet’ was a euphemism for answering nature’s call. Taken from the fact that you had to pull your pants down around your ankles to do so.
Isn’t there some time when Noah leaves his tent to ‘cover his feet’ and his kids see him shitting? I may be wrong, and it’s easy to look up, but the Bible, like crucifices and garlic, causes me a great deal of pain.
In the book of Ruth, Naomi instructs Ruth to “uncover [Boaz's] feet” and it’s been a perpetual debate ever since whether it innocently means literally that, or if Naomi’s euphemistically telling Ruth to go have sex with Boaz to get him to marry her.
The apostle Paul believed women should cover their heads while in church, because of horny angels.
1 Corinthians 11:10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
http://www.thebricktestament.com//epistles_of_paul/instructions_for_women/1co11_04.html
Them Christians…. Batshit crazy!
Angels are supposedly far more powerful than humans… yet a head covering keeps them away? Ha. Gotta love magic.
On a more serious note, I hadn’t considered that interpretation for that verse before. I wonder if Paul was thinking of protecting her purity from angels. It makes as much sense as any other interpretation I’ve heard — it doesn’t really seem to make sense to anyone.
My guess is that Paul had a little too much wine that day or a scribe was just having some fun.
“Angels are supposedly far more powerful than humans… yet a head covering keeps them away? Ha. Gotta love magic.”
If hats are like condoms for angels, that just raises all kinds of messed-up questions!
That make the post from a little while ago about snow make much more sense.
All that sexy sexy hair just drives them crazy with lust.
So basically, Angels are just Furry Fetishists.
Ohhhhh, no, no, you did NOT just go there.
PROTIP: Furry fandom is NOT all about sex. But the drama… yeah… the drama really IS that bad.
it doesn’t really seem to make sense to anyone.
I agree. My sense is that there’s an unspoken yet understood reference here that the church in Corinth would have understood, as opposed to Paul and the early Christians all being “batshit crazy.”
Yeah, as Richard Dawkins says the early Christians were attempting to “press the familiar hot buttons of pagan Hellenistic religions” in order to gain converts.
In other words, they were just being posers to some other batshit religion.
Cosmetics- My first thought was “Aha, Egyptian influence,” but upon further investigation it seems that in most of the ancient Middle Eastern and North African cultures, as well as India, painting around the eyes with kohl or some other blend of soot and minerals was thought to be healthy. Who knows, maybe it has some antiseptic properties or keeps away those pesky desert flies.
If I remember correctly, dark paint around the eyes makes the strong light blind less, or something like that.
It was my understanding from reading the bible (This was many years ago) that what seperated and made Humans more special in God’s eye was that Humans are capable of independent thought and that angels aren’t. Just another in a long list of Bible contradictions, for example:(1) If God didn’t create it,then it doesn’t exist for he created everything in the heavens, on earth, and under the earth. (2) That God is so holy that he is incapable of knowing sin, therefore he had to appear to moses in the form of a flaming bush so as not to kill him. So, that leaves me to wonder where did the original sin (Pride) that infected Lucifer come from when Lucifer compared himself equal to God?
Like Semele, mother of Dionysus, burning up because she demanded to see Zeus in all his glory.
It was my understanding from reading the bible (This was many years ago) that what seperated and made Humans more special in God’s eye was that Humans are capable of independent thought and that angels aren’t
The bible doesn’t actually say that, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you did hear that from a Christian at some point.
Much of what Christians believe the Bible doesn’t say. And a lot of what it seems to say that Christians believe is a matter of interpretation.
The fundamentalist/pentecostal circles I ran in commonly taught that angels did not possess free will. This belief/teaching sprung out of the necessity for humans to have free will so that God would have individuals who loved Him freely. If angels already possessed free will to do or not do such then all the suffering humans go through would call God’s morality into question. Or so the argument goes.
I don’t remember having to face the issue of how angels could start a war in heaven without free will.
It follows then that God deliberately created Satan to hate him and to rebel… That Yahweh is a sick fuck!
“nd the beautifying of the eyelids”
Anyone else get a quick image of the the scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies where one of his students wrote “Love You” on her eyelids.
I got a flash of an Archie comic where he painted eyeballs on his eyelids…
Captain Jack Sparrow did that too!
Made me think of this:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-7-2010/peter-orszag-sex-scandal
See 2:45.
I enjoy your articles, but this one caused me to do a bit of research. According to Wikipedia, the only church that accepts the Book of Enoch is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. You might have mentioned that in your article.
Does it really matter? The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is just being more morally honest by accepting that the apocryphia have just as much of a claim to be included in the bible as every other book that’s in it. What the Catholics call the bible is just the edited highlights which fit their beliefs, after all.
That’s your honest understanding of how the canon came into formation?
Not even close, Custador. One has to be very cynical to the point of bias to look at the historical records that we do have and come up with that.
Please feel free to educate me.
the only church that accepts the Book of Enoch is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
True enough, but I don’t see how that’s relevant. I’m not arguing that Enoch is the revealed word of God. I think it’s possible that it gives us the tradition that was later abbreviated in Genesis, but we probably can’t know for sure. Regardless, I think it’s interesting.
Of course, it was used by the early church as a non-canonical work. My understanding is that it’s use in the West didn’t die out until the middle ages.
The relevance is that making fun of Christians in general for something that only one small, remote group actually believes is just as bad as denouncing evolution for something that Michael Behe says.
The relevance is that making fun of Christians …
I’m not making fun of Christians. I have in the past, I will in the future, but now now. Trust me, when I do, you’ll know.
Not quite Robert, because there isnt one piece of the modern bible that isnt discounted by a major denomination today. Christianity’s history is filled with schisms over which documents are canonical, which are literal, which are metaphorical, and which are fabricated, and it started at the very beginning of the faith.
And I wouldn’t call this article ‘making fun of Christians’. Its just another example of how Christianity debunks itself. If you take the sum of all the arguments that Christians use to show how other denominations are false, your’e left with nothing at all.
The History Channel produced a documentary “Banned from the Bible”. In it they explain that sometimes the Gospels reference books that did not make the canon. So that is one reason why books that did not make the canon are still relevant when discussing Christianity.
Travel back to the blistering sands of the Holy Land, into the onion-domed chapels of Eastern Orthodox churches and onto the pages of the Koran. Unearth the trail of chapters that were left out of the ultimate version of the Scriptures. Included in the Koran is “The Life of Adam and Eve,” a detailed account of the creation story written before Jesus was born. The incestuous account of “The Book of Jubilees” was included in the Orthodox Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls. “The Book of Enoch,” an ancient bestseller, relates the story of the man said in Genesis to have walked with God and been assumed directly into heaven. This fascinating collection offers a fresh perspective on the figures at the foundation of faith.
http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=70390
Angels doin’ the dirty with some ladies. Nothing wrong with that. It’d be a whole new type of porn, at least…
Boum chicha wow wooow!
Oh, god. Haibane Renmei hentai!
…wait…
That sounds kinda hot!
More I look into this the more I am convinced that the Old Testament was written by Gary Gygax.
I bet if he knew you said that, he would be rolling in his grave.
HAH! Get it? ‘Rolling’! Man, I crack myself up.
sigh.
Oooh!
Now that was a critical hit!
Or miss?
Actually there’s a rather good graphic novel that’s based on the Nephilim legend.
Sure, it’s filled with angels and fallen angels. Sure, it’s got humans battling and dying while their omnipotent god just stands by. But, it’s exceptionally well-rendered and is basically a fun read. It’s set in WW2 and full of blood, guts and undead Nazis.
It’s called The Light Brigade
I concur. It’s very entertaining and very well drawn.