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Angels and Sex
One reason many people fail or refuse to consider the possibility that angels interbred with human women before the Great Flood is that they assume angels are not sexual beings. Part of this comes from contemporary as well as medieval art which paints angels as being female in nature. As we'll see later in this book, the exact opposite is the case: All angels are referred to as being males in the Bible (with one small exception which will also be noted). Angels are called sons of God because they are male.
But does this mean they are capable of actually having intercourse with human women?
In Matthew, Jesus is quoted as saying that angels don't marry:
Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.16
This verse has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Some cults in the US and elsewhere have used it to justify group sex; they claim that this verse indicates that the angels don't marry but do have sex so a variety of partners or even homosexual relationships are justified. (Given the fact that God declared homosexual behavior punishable by a death by stoning soundly refutes this supposition.)
At the other extreme are those that maintain that this verse indicates that the angels are sexless. These people also often maintain that human beings will be sexless following their resurrection.
However, Jesus didn't really say anything to support either of these ideas. All he said was that none of the angels married or were given in marriage, and that human beings would be in the same state following their resurrection.
Since the sons of God were angels, and those who rebelled against God and took women as their wives had offspring, it is obvious that angels can have sex. Therefore, it can't be assumed that they are always sexless or--at least--that they can not transform themselves into beings that can breed with Earth women.
Some have suggested that Jesus was saying that the angels do not marry among themselves because they are all males. However, this makes the idea that human beings will be like the angels after the resurrection an odd circumstance unless one is willing to assume that women will be resurrected as men--something the scriptures never even
hint of. In fact, Paul goes to great length explaining that each person will be resurrected with their own body, transformed and incorruptible, but still recognizable."17
The explanation that makes the most sense is that since celestial beings are deathless, there is no need for procreation. Thus, there is no need for a marriage and children. Following the resurrection, the same will be true of mankind.
Researcher and author Charles DeLoach made another proposal for the method angels used to take on a physical form and mate with human women. In doing so, he may also have come up with a way to explain the disparity between the fossil record and recorded history back to the time of Adam and Eve. (It should be noted at this point that some people believe this disparity is caused by inaccurate dating methods. These methods have been built around the assumption that the Earth is millions of years old and the dating techniques "calibrated" accordingly. Thus, fossils and rocks are dated to be millions of years old when--just as easily--they might be dated as being thousands of years old had other methods of calibration been adopted.)
DeLoach suggests that the fallen angels may have possessed the bodies of animals, just as demons appear to be able to possess human beings. In doing this, the angels then experimented in interbreeding and crossbreeding the animals, slowly "evolving" them into more and more human forms. DeLoach speculates that these experiments could have culminated in beings that could then mate with humans.18
This suggestion is intriguing in that Satan first makes his appearance in the form of a serpent. This may also explain the apparent destruction of the Earth and its reforming during the Genesis account (more on this later). Furthermore, one might also speculate that the monstrous "serpents" we know today as dinosaurs might actually be the result, not of evolution or the creation of God, but rather the horrible alterations of a Holy creation by the fallen angels.
There are a few other clues as to what happened in this corrupted marriage of angels and women. In the New Testament book of Jude, we find another reference to these fallen angels:
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, 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. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.19
This passage gives several key bits of information. First, these angels willingly chose to leave "their first estate" (most likely heaven). Additionally, we learn that the sin of these angels was "in like manner" to that of Sodom and Gomorrah; they gave themselves over to fornication and going after "strange flesh" and who "defile the flesh." This suggests that the sin involved is one of having a trans-species sexual relationship. Since many believe that part of Sodom and Gomorrah's sin was having sex with animals (a sin which God would later make a capital offense under Mosaic law), this also hints that the sin of the angels is in having sex with another species--human beings. This ties in perfectly with the Genesis account of the sons of God marrying the daughters of men.
It is also interesting to note that the Greek word idion which is translated as "their own" in this passage means a private, personal, or unique possession.20 This suggests that the angels had a personal residence in heaven, created specifically for them. While they may visit Earth doing God's will, their place is in Heaven, just as man's place is on Earth, even after the Second Coming of Christ Jesus when mankind will live on a new and perfect Earth.21 These angels not only mingled their persons with human women but also placed themselves where they did not belong.
Another hint of the relationship between angels and women is given by Paul in his letter to Corinth. Here the apostle tells women that they should cover their heads as a sign of subjection to their husbands--and also "because of the angels."22 Paul apparently believed that a woman's uncovered head was tempting to angels as well as men. Not surprisingly, Jewish tradition maintains that it was the beauty of women's long hair that attracted and tempted the angels to sin in the Genesis 6 account.
The Nephilim that were produced by the angel/mankind marriage were much different from either of their parents. This, too, went against God's plan for the Earth in which each animal and human being was to reproduce "after its own kind."23 This is perhaps the best demonstration that the parents of these creatures were not simply descendants of Cain and Seth. Had they been, they would have produced human offspring, rather than the Nephilim.
The Nephilim were more than simply large beings or giants. When the Greek Septuagint was created, the Hebrew word Nephilim was translated into Greek as gegenes.
This is the same word used in Greek mythology for the "Titans", creatures created through the interbreeding of the Greek gods and human beings. (The English words "genes" and "genetics" are built around the same root word as gegenes; genea means "breed" or "kind".24)
In the past there has been criticism of the theory that human beings could be genetically modified to become giants or superhuman creatures. Science has recently proven otherwise.
In April, 1997 scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore revealed that they had discovered a gene in mice which they called growth/differentiation factor-8 (GDF-8). When mice cells were altered genetically to delete this gene, the creatures that were conceived from these altered eggs grew enormous muscles, becoming "super mice" for all practical purposes.25
The scientists wrote in the science journal Nature:
We disrupted the GDF-8 gene by gene targeting in mice. [Mice lacking the gene] are significantly larger than wild-type animals and show a large and widespread increase in skeletal muscle mass. Individual muscles of mutant animals weigh two to three times more than those of wild-lope animals.
Notice that not only were the animals with the GDF-8 gene stronger, they were two to three times larger. In other words, the super mice were stronger and considerably larger than their natural brothers and sisters having an unaltered genetic makeup.
That's with just one gene altered.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to believe that if such creatures would result with just minor genetic modifications, that the offspring of an angel/human coupling would not be just as--if not more--modified. Because angels are noted for their great physical strength, it isn't unreasonable to think that the offspring of human interbreeding would also have such strength.
This is reflected in the second title given them in the Genesis 6 passage: "mighty men" and "men of renown." In other words, the "lab rats" of the past were human beings, with the "scientists" conducting their genetic research being fallen angels.
While several other Hebrew words translated as "giant" are used in the Bible, the only other place the actual word Nephilim is used outside of the Genesis 6 passage is in Numbers 13: 33:
And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, which come of the Nephilim, and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.26
This passage becomes very important in understanding Satan's plans for attacking mankind in the near future as this passage takes place long after Noah's flood which God sent to wipe out the offspring of the angel/human being interbreeding. That the Nephilim would be present in Canaan at this point in history can mean only one thing: the interbreeding between angels and mankind can and has happened not just once and not just in the distant past before the Great Flood. It wasn't so widespread and didn't threaten the entire human race, but it happened again long after the flood and (as we'll see later) has happened many other times as well.
A careful reading of the first introduction of this word in Genesis also shows that the Nephilim have appeared more than one time in history. The verses don't say that the first account was the only time this occurred. Rather,
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men...27
It is important to notice that there were giants "in those days" and "also after that" time as well. Since the giants could only be coming from the sons of God interbreeding with the daughters of men, and since God wiped out the first instance of this with the Great Flood, this would have to mean that such couplings have occurred more than just once before the flood.
The passage about the giants in Numbers also explains why the word Nephilim is often translated into "giants" in English. The Jewish spies who reported the land was filled with Nephilim take the time to describe the creatures' size in relationship to human beings. The spies tell those who listen that the Jews were like grasshoppers both in the sight of the giants as well as in the sight of the spies.
If one stops to consider the relationship presented here, even given possible exaggeration of the differences in the mind of the spies, it is only logical to assume that the "sons of Anak" were huge, dwarfing the human beings who saw them. This passage also suggests that their strength might have been as great as that of a man compared to that of an insect. Little wonder then that the majority of the Jewish spies suggested that the Promised Land wasn't worth fighting for.
Unfortunately, the nay sayers had the final say. The Jews didn't invade the Promised Land and instead wandered in the wilderness for another 40 years. But when their descendants finally entered what would become Israel, God exacted a judgment on the inhabitants of the land.
Just as God destroyed the Earth with a flood to wipe the Nephilim from the face of the Earth during Noah's time, so he used the flood of invading Jews flowing into the Promised land to wipe out the giants they encountered. Realizing that some of the cities in the Promised Land were filled with Nephilim explains why God ordered some of the cities totally destroyed with the citizens in them to be put under the edge of the sword. God didn't want any of these monsters to once again pollute the human gene pool. God dealt out the same total destruction to these beings as he had with Noah's Flood.
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