Got Questions? Selected Bible Passages Got Questions? Things You Always Wondered About The Bible Part Three Written By ©Pastor Marty Baker August 14, 2011 ysteries. Sometimes you can explain them, sometimes you can’t. Take, for instance, what happened to me the other day. M For about the last two months, I kept hearing a bizarre noise at the rear of my 2007 Honda Civic as I drove around. And like most car noises it didn’t occur all the time. I looked the car over on more than one occasion and couldn’t isolate any issues, so I just kept driving while listening to this occasional muffled popping, thumping sound. Then one night this week I made an amazing, unexpected discovery while vacuuming the vehicle. As I moved the nozzle of my wet/dry vac around the carpet of the trunk, I noticed one, lone, white Callaway golf ball. Ah, the essence of my mystery and potential car issue. I laughed at myself, promptly removed it, and have enjoyed the cheap fix to my “mechanical” problem since last Wednesday. Yeah, it’s true. Sometimes there are answers to life’s questions, sometimes you are left guessing. This premise certainly applies to the study of Scripture. Sometimes you encounter passages possessing an air of interpretive mystery. You know, they are those texts which leave you asking yourself, “What does this mean?” “Did this really happen?” “Could this have happened?” “Doesn’t this contradict what I’ve read over here?” Many times these moments of interpretive fog are lifted upon closer analysis, study, and prayer. Other times, you encounter a passage so enigmatic you study it your whole lifetime wondering about its precise meaning, and maybe even changing you position on the text in question on more than one occasion as your biblical comprehension grows and flourishes. Today we encounter one of those mysterious, highly problematic passages. It is Genesis 6, verses 1 through 8 and I invite you to turn here in your Bibles. We’ll begin our study this morning by first reading the narrative from Moses: 1 Got Questions? Selected Bible Passages 1Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 5Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. A story like this causes many strange noises inside your interpretive vehicle. Perhaps this is why so many of you asked me to explain it. I find it interesting of all the texts in the Bible to ponder, and a number of you want the mysterious noise of this biblical account isolated and explained. Your questions are listed as follows: Genesis 6 Is A Very Confusing Passage. Who Were The Sons Of God? What Was Their Sin? And Who Are The Nephilim? Are The Nephilim Still Around Today? Is This Passage Tainted By Greek Mythology? The Passage I will tell you up front this is classically one of the most difficult passages to interpret in the entire Old Testament. The statements of Old Testament scholars validate this observation: • “Few texts in the history of interpretation have aroused more curiosity and divergence of opinion than Genesis 6:1-4. It is at once tantalizing and deeply puzzling” (Hard Sayings Of The Bible). • Who were those mysterious sons of God in Genesis 6? Much controversy has surrounded these verses (Willmington’s Guide To The Bible). Ostensibly, I can tell you I could stack the best books and articles written on this portion of Scripture and we’d have fine, reputable, distinguished biblical scholars supporting the various divergent views. Put differently, this passage isn’t like the mystery noise in my car. It’s truly a mystery in many respects, meaning God has given us some understanding as to what occurred here, yet it’s not enough information for any one person to say they definitively know how to completely explain this troublesome passage. I can, and will, tell you what I think based upon my study of it since 1979 when I had to write an exegetical paper on it in college; however, my thinking is not perfect, and I know the weaknesses of my own argument and analysis. I do, on 2 Got Questions? Selected Bible Passages the contrary, think one of views of the passage is more tenable than the others and I will tell you which one and why. Beyond this, I think the counsel of Dr. Allen Ross, one of my former Hebrew professors at Dallas Theological Seminary, is certainly in order: This section’s details have been the subject of endless debates, often leaving the obvious untouched. It must be remembered that it is part of the tÔoòledÔoòtÔ beginning in 5:1. Whatever view one takes of the details, it is clear that these verses show how wicked the human race had become, and that death was its ongoing punishment (Dr. Allen Ross, my former Hebrew professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, writing in the Bible Knowledge Commentary). Or in other words, the good professor cautions us not to get so caught up in the nitty gritty details of a highly complex section of the Word we miss its intended pragmatic spiritual import. The Hebrew word toledoth (tdoßl.AT) means “an account,” or “an account of men and their generations” (The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon: 410). Moses used ten of these trip words to identify the ten main literary sections of Genesis: • Toledoth of the heavens and the earth, 2:4-4:26 • Toledoth of Adam, 5:1-6:8 • Toledoth of Noah, 6:9-9:29 • Toledoth of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, 10:1-11:9 • Toledoth of Shem, 11:10-26 • Toledoth of Terah, 11:27-25:11 • Toledoth of Ishmael, 25:12-18 • Toledoth of Isaac, 25:19-35:29 • Toledoth of Esau, 36:1-8; Esau, 36:9-37:1 • Toledoth of Jacob, 37:2-50:26). Within these particular sections, Moses demonstrates the advance and expanse of sin, which first entered the cosmos when man fell in this historical Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), and God’s negative and positive reaction to it. Or in other words, as God providentially works to usher in the promised “Savior-seed” of Genesis 3:15, a battle rages as sin and Satan attempt to derail and destroy God’s holy purpose; however, as the ten historical passages definitively reveal, God is always at work to preserve the lineage of the seed, the Messiah Jesus, and to give man hope and grace even in the face of dark and chaotic moral disintegration on a personal and a societal level. Enter the toledoth, viz., historical account, of Adam, first introduced in Genesis 5:1 and ending in Genesis 6:8. Moses clearly teaches in this portion how Adam’s sin brought death and destruction to the world at all levels, culminating, of course, in the historical Noahic flood divinely designed to judge the rapid proliferation of sin and sinners, and to preserve the Messianic line by delivering one lone godly family left on the planet: namely, the family of Noah (Genesis 6:9-9:29). God’s warning can’t be missed: Sin will be divinely judged, yet in His righteous judgment, God will always remember mercy and grace. It’s a message our culture and 3 Got Questions? Selected Bible Passages our world need to get reacquainted with as our national greed destroys our economy, as riots engulf London, as blood-thirsty religious warriors destabilize governments, as large groups of hoodlums indiscriminately attack innocent people on the streets of Pittsburgh, and as, well, you fill in the blank. Hence, no matter which view you hold of this problematic passage, the careful interpreter will realize the pivotal nature of verse five of chapter six: 5Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Hebrew for “wickedeness” and “evil,” as used here, are from the same root, ra’ ([r;), a main word for sin denoting action totally unacceptable to God (Theological Wordbook Of The Old Testament, Vol. 2: 855). Frequently in the OT ra’ is juxtaposed with the word “good,” to show how it denotes activity which is the antithesis of holy, godly living (2 Samuel 14:17; 19:35; 1 kings 3:9; Isaiah 7:15). In Noah’s day, man enjoyed ra’ more than anything else. In fact, according to verse 11, wickedness was the order of the day: 11Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.