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Narrative Experience and Intergenerational Aggression in Genesis 6:1-9 The Onyx Review: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal © 2020 Center for Writing and Speaking 2020, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 01–23 Agnes Scott College Narrative Experience and Intergenerational Aggression in Genesis 6:1-9 Taylor Drake Agnes Scott College Abstract: The aMbiguity of Genesis 6:1-4, from the potentiality that angels took human wives, to the NephiliM, to the uncertain connection between the sin of Gen. 6:2 and the Deluge, the complexities of this little paragraph have stumbled scholars for centuries. What is lost in these narrower exegetical debates, however, is a concern for the resultant narrative changes and how said changes ripple throughout the story and into the rest of the PriMeval History (Gen. 1-11). Although the question of whether the “sons of God” (benei ‘elohim) are despot princes, angels, or (iM)pious Men May seeM to only affect the opening segment, I instead propose that the entire Flood story, from the Marriages of “sons of God” to HaM’s betrayal of his father Noah, is an ouroboros of not only sexual sin, but intergenerational aggression which begins with Miscegenation and ends with an incestuous slight. While this symbolic reading could arguably hold true of any Meaning of the benei ‘elohim, the precise details render wholly different narrative experiences with separate structural, theMatic, and to a lesser degree pedological goals, all with varying levels of success. UltiMately, the More popular reading of the “sons of God” as deviant angels results in a More satisfying cascade down the cosMological hierarchy, a chiasMus of rebellion that reveals itself in its transition from macro to micro levels of interaction. The Onyx Review T. Drake / Narrative Experience and Intergenerational Aggression in Genesis 6:1-9 hen people began to and walked backward and covered the W multiply on the face of nakedness of their father; their faces the ground, and daughters were born to were turned away, and they did not see them, 2the sons of God saw that they were their father’s nakedness. 24When Noah fair; and they took wives for themselves awoke from his wine and knew what his of all that they chose. 3Then the Lord said, youngest son had done to him, 25he said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals “Cursed be Canaan; lowest of forever, for they are flesh; their days slaves shall he be to his brothers.” (New shall be one hundred twenty years.” 4The Revised Standard Version, Gen. 6:1-4, Nephilim were on the earth in those 9:20-25) days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of “The critical question [of the humans, who bore children to them. Deluge Myth] is,” as Alan Dundes once These were the heroes that were of old, wrote, “or ought to be, why are flood warriors of renown. Myths told at all?” (78) Unfortunately, it is rather difficult for biblical readers to … 20Noah, a man of the soil, was begin parsing that question when the the first to plant a vineyard. 21He drank opening four verses of Genesis 6 are some of the wine and became drunk, and alMost as complicated as God’s he lay uncovered in his tent. 22And Ham, destruction is total. The aMbiguity of the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness Genesis 6:1-4, from the potential that of his father, and told his two brothers angels could have taken human wives, to outside. 23Then Shem and Japheth took a the NephiliM who somehow survived the garment, laid it on both their shoulders, The Onyx Review T. Drake / Narrative Experience and Intergenerational Aggression in Genesis 6:1-9 Flood to reappear in Numbers and propose that the entire Flood story, from Deuteronomy, to the uncertain the sons of Gods’ Marriages with human connection between the sin of Gen. 6:2 women to HaM’s betrayal of his father and the Deluge, the complexities of this Noah, is an ouroboros of not only sexual little paragraph have stumbled scholars sin, but intergenerational aggression for centuries. One concern, however, that which begins with Miscegenation and is lost in these narrower exegetical ends with an incestuous slight. Within the debates is the resultant narrative changes PriMeval History, children’s rebellions that ripple throughout the story and are acted out through sexuality and even beyond into the rest of the PriMeval violence, from the overt Murder of Abel History (Gen. 1-11). While reading the to the covert indiscretion against Noah. “sons of God” (benei ‘elohim) as human While this symbolic reading could apply Men May aMeliorate ethical concerns to any Meaning of the benei ‘elohim, the over God punishing humans for a sin that precise details render wholly different angels instigated, as well as fall More in narrative experiences with separate line with later New TestaMent stateMents structural, theMatic, and to a lesser degree about angels’ asexuality, is there, pedological goals, all with varying levels perhaps, something else lost in the of success. UltiMately, the More popular transition? reading of the “sons of God” as deviant angels results in a More satisfying Although the question of whether cascade down the cosMological the “sons of God” are despot princes, hierarchy, a chiasMus of rebellion that angels, or (iM)pious Men May seeM to only affect the opening segment, I instead The Onyx Review T. Drake / Narrative Experience and Intergenerational Aggression in Genesis 6:1-9 reveals itself in its transition from Macro eMergence of an etiology of evil spirits” to micro levels of interaction. and thus Gen. 6:1-4 “played an iMportant part in the development of deMonology First, however, an overview of during the [Second TeMple period]” (1). some of the Deluge story’s controversies See for but one exaMple the Pirkei de- is in order. As Carl Friedrich Keil and Rabbi Eliezer, wherein one rabbi states Franz Delitzsch write in their that the angels who fell from their holy comMentary on the Old TestaMent, place in heaven saw the daughters of the “Three different views have been generations of Cain walking about naked, entertained from the very earliest tiMes: with their eyes painted like harlots, and the "sons of God" being regarded as (a) they went astray after theM and took the sons of princes, (b) angels, (c) the wives from aMongst theM, as it is said, Sethites or godly Men” (128). While the “And the sons of ElohiM saw the first view was “the traditional one in daughters of Men that they were fair; and orthodox rabbinical JudaisM [in 1866],” they took theM wives of all that they and still persists to a lesser extent with chose.” (160) arguments that the princes were guilty of various sins from despotisM to polygaMy, That is to say nothing of 1 Enoch 6-16, Keil and Delitzsch quickly disMiss this as which elaborates greatly on the sinful “not warranted” and “unscriptural” (128). angels’ identities, plans, and punishments Undoubtedly, the second reading is and – punishments later confirmed in the has reMained the Most popular—as Epistle of Jude, which both cites 1 Enoch Archie T. Wright notes, the Scripture’s directly and reMinds readers of “the obtuseness “becaMe the basis for the later angels who did not keep their own The Onyx Review T. Drake / Narrative Experience and Intergenerational Aggression in Genesis 6:1-9 position but left their proper dwelling” While this view is not upheld by later (Jude 1:6).1 comMenters such as Keil, Delitzsch, and Thomas Keiser, they nevertheless also Despite its sustained influence, find theMselves unable to believe that however, even rabbis prior to the first angels could hastily throw on some century BCE had begun to question the corporeality and “sexual power” in the angel reading’s legitiMacy. Philo of seconds before the curtains rose (Keil & Alexandria (20-50 BCE), for instance, Delitzsch 134). As Keil and Delitzsch describes “what Moses calls angels [and] write, other philosophers call deMons” as “souls to take a wife) is a standing) השּא ל ק ח flying about in the air” which have descended into human bodies… some of expression throughout the whole of the theM are able to resist the current of Old TestaMent for the Marriage relation human life and fly up again: these are the established by God at the creation…This souls of true philosophers…There are bad is quite sufficient of itself to exclude any angels also, of whom the Many speak as reference to angels. For Christ HiMself bad deMons or souls, and it is they who distinctly states [in Matthew 22:30] that descended to converse with the daughters the angels cannot marry” (131). of men. (Hart 95). More iMportantly, however, reading the “sons of God” as humans with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute 1 Jude 1:14-16, “It was also about these that judgMent on all…” is citing 1 Enoch 1:9. Enoch, in the seventh generation froM AdaM, prophesied, saying, “See, the lord is coming The Onyx Review T. Drake / Narrative Experience and Intergenerational Aggression in Genesis 6:1-9 rectifies a glaring ethical issue within the have wronged mankind” (1 Enoch 10:7, angel interpretation: naMely, why God 15-16, eMphasis mine). decides to punish humans rather than the Some, such as Gordon J. active perpetrators of sin. Victor P. WenhaM, have argued that humanity is HaMilton suggests that the destruction of still at fault because the daughters of Men aniMals in the Flood serves as a agreed to Marry the angels, despite not retroactive exaMple of one group only the lack of explicit consent within suffering for another, but this view is still the text, but said consent historically probleMatized by the fact that angels had Mattering little.
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