Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and if you have been following along lately, you know I have been going down some extremely deep rabbit trails about purification and now about fire in particular, and I still have a whole lot more to say about those things, but I decided that this would be a really good opportunity to take a little bit of a break and get back to the text of Genesis itself. So we're gonna get back into Genesis six today.
[00:00:45] But here's what's really funny. I thought that I was taking a break from the idea of purification and purity and all of that, but really where I'm landing in the chapter in Genesis six, I realized that, well, our topic is still connecting into purity. I just thought that was funny. It was not my intention to do that, but here we are nonetheless. So today we're primarily going to be talking about Genesis six verse nine, and the generations of Noah and why Noah is pure in his generations.
[00:01:21] We're gonna be talking about corruption and we're gonna be jumping well beyond Genesis again today because these themes really do track through the rest of Scripture as well. What does this word mean, corruption, first of all, that's one thing we'll talk about today.
[00:01:40] We're gonna also talk about the sons of God, once again. We're gonna get into some really interesting ideas, not super deeply in this episode, but I will introduce them to you as something that will probably crop up again later in further episodes.
[00:01:59] Let me just go ahead and start reading our section here in Genesis six. We're gonna be looking at chapter six, verses nine through 13, which says, quote, " These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man without defect in his generations. Noah walked with God. And Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japeth.
[00:02:26] "And the earth was corrupted before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth was filled with violence because of them. Now look, I am going to destroy them along with the earth." End quote.
[00:02:52] Today, our focus is on these words, generations and corruption. Now, there's actually two words here where we have in English, "generations." The first of them in verse nine, where it says, these are the generations of Noah. Well, I've talked about that word before. This is the word toledoth. And a toledoth in Genesis introduces a new section of Scripture.
[00:03:19] We're gonna note that this is after the Sons of God incident and after Yahweh is grieved and after God decides to do the flood. But Noah found favor in God's eyes. And then right after that, we begin what we might call the Noah Cycle, the Chronicles of Noah.
[00:03:41] So that's what the first word here means. The previous toledoth is in Genesis five verse one, the generations of Adam. This is where Duane Garrett's third threat of the Genesis introduction or the primeval history sits. Now, if you haven't listened to my episode on the ancestor epics, you might wanna go check that out after you've listened to this episode because Duane Garrett has a really interesting way of sectioning off the book of Genesis in different categories than we're used to.
[00:04:17] In short, what Garrett is saying is that Genesis follows the structure of an ancestor epic cycle. In the ancient world, this was a kind of a text. There would always be three separate threats and then a resolution. And then Genesis is further broken up into different pieces. So the first part of Genesis, Genesis one through 11, what we otherwise call the primeval history. Here we have three threats and a resolution.
[00:04:50] But before the threats, we also have an introduction. Okay, so the introduction to the primeval history is chapter one to Genesis two, verse three. Then we have the first threat introduced. That threat is within the realm of Eden. This goes from Genesis two, verse four to Genesis three, verse 24.
[00:05:14] Then we have the second threat. The second threat involves murder. This goes from Genesis four verse one through the end of Genesis four, verse 26.
[00:05:27] The third threat is the flood, and this section goes from Genesis five one to Genesis 9 29. It is the whole flood narrative, but it includes all of chapter five as well. So the toledoth of the generations of Adam begins the third threat, which is the flood. So all of that leads up to the flood narrative, and that's going to matter to a few different types of interpretations that I'll probably get to today.
[00:05:58] But the end of the primeval history is what we call the resolution. This is the nations and the tower of Chapters 10 through 11. Now, you might wonder how that's a resolution to anything, because it still seems to be a problem, but the resolution ends in the end of the primeval history, which leads into the story of Abraham and a new cycle altogether.
[00:06:23] I'm sure we will be bringing this structure of Genesis up further in the future. But it's really interesting to me that the third threat's scope extends from Genesis five one to the end of the flood.
[00:06:39] Actually, let me go ahead and get into one of the interpretations here, because this corresponds to Sandra Richter's idea of what and who the sons of God are. Namely that Genesis six, one through four is part of the end of the toledoth of the generations of Adam, which makes sense because that's really what it is as part of Genesis. It functions as the end of one of these kinds of sections, right?
[00:07:08] Now, that doesn't mean that it doesn't also introduce new things and introduce a new section in a different way. Because there's very layered ways that you can separate out the story and the text of Genesis.
[00:07:24] But at any rate, Genesis six, one through four is definitely part of those generations of Adam.
[00:07:31] And so for Richter, the sons of God are not Sethites, they're not kings or rulers, and they're not supernatural beings. The term sons of God in her interpretation is calling back to all of those first generations of men since Adam, because Adam is called a son of God.
[00:07:55] Now, I know that a lot of us listening here are going to agree with the supernatural view and not any kind of a human view.
[00:08:04] I personally agree. I still take the supernatural view myself, but I think there's something to be said for what she's saying here. Either way, for the purposes of Genesis and the flood, it ends with the same focus, which is human violence. We can't take anything away from that or remove that from the text.
[00:08:27] Now, personally, I do get the outrage that I hear from people with the claims like removing the supernatural and things like that. I hear you. I get it. And I agree that not seeing the supernatural context is missing something here, but at the same time, sometimes our focus on the supernatural really does remove the human element.
[00:08:52] At least it does for some people. Like there's a reason that so many people think that Dr. Heiser was saying that the flood came on account of the watchers and not on account of the humans.
[00:09:07] But first of all, he didn't actually say that. And second of all, even as he didn't say that, I do see all kinds of people who run with that idea after hearing Dr. Heiser talk, and it's wrong. While supernatural beings have a role to play regarding sin because of their temptation and their influence over people, it leads away from Yahweh and his righteousness and his justice.
[00:09:35] But no one should be saying that humans don't have the responsibility of their desires, which are the real root of sin, just as the Book of James describes.
[00:09:46] Now granted, Sandra Richter's primeval Sons of God interpretation, we might say, it doesn't do a great job explaining all of the pieces in the way that we want to see them described.
[00:10:00] Like why are they distinct from the daughters of men, and how are those unions resulting in the Nephilim? Now, those aren't insurmountable hurdles necessarily, but even so, my contention is that the importance of the nephilim is not that they're tall, it's not that they're hybrid, whatever that means. The major point is that the nephilim are violent and they are leading to the wickedness and the destruction and the violence that is perpetuated through humanity.
[00:10:35] The nephilim are described as men, mighty warriors. Their presence goes along with the violence. Like if we're thinking primarily DNA and hybrid genetics, we're just losing the whole plot.
[00:10:50] I know I make some people mad when I say that, but it's why I say that focusing overly much on the supernatural influence without acknowledging the seat of men's desire, is likewise a really big problem. The boogeyman of genetics and race is something I will always speak against unapologetically. I know there are those out there who think that it's acceptable because, oh, well the nephilim aren't really human. They're not created by God, so they say, so it's okay to go down those paths.
[00:11:27] But look, even if part of the purpose of the flood is to wipe out the nephilim, it doesn't say that nearly as clearly as it should if genocide of a whole race of beings was in fact the point. The spotlight is on humanity, and even there, genocide is not the picture.
[00:11:51] As with all of God's judgments that we see in Scripture, there is a remnant delivered through. The conquest is not a genocide. The flood isn't a genocide. If DNA were the point, then the text does an abysmal job pointing that out when you look at it carefully.
[00:12:10] So anyway, I just think that part of Richter's explanation of who the sons of God are does fit within this toledoth that we have of the generations of Adam. And we have a new one that begins with Noah.
[00:12:25] But what about this second word here that we have in Genesis six that is translated in our English Bibles as generations. I was reading the Lexham English Bible. It says that "Noah was a righteous man without defect in his generations. Noah walked with God."
[00:12:46] In the ESV, this verse says that, "These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God."
[00:12:59] So we have these two different ideas, blameless in his generation versus without defect in his generations.
[00:13:08] Well, I've already indicated that the word "generations" that shows up at the beginning of the verse, and this word generation, they're two different words. So the toledoth is kind of the cycle of the story of Noah. This is what follows with Noah. The whole story is wrapped up in the toledoth there.
[00:13:28] But the blameless or the without defect in his generations. What is that all about? Well, we have a couple of different interpretive options throughout history for this. The first thing we should be thinking about, in my opinion, this has something to do with cultic purity, kind of like how an animal that was going to be used in a sacrifice was going to be blameless or without defect.
[00:13:57] It's going to be a pure animal. It can't have broken limbs, it can't have a missing eye, it can't be sick. It's got to be a whole perfect lamb. At least perfect in the cultic sense, and I think it's calling back to this idea here, but again, what does that mean for Noah? In fact, it's not just animals that are described in this same way as we'll talk about later on.
[00:14:24] Another common idea for the interpretation for this is that Noah had pure DNA. Of course, I was just saying how it's really losing the plot to go down the DNA rabbit hole. But nonetheless, this is a very common interpretation, at least in some circles these days.
[00:14:45] Another idea here that we have is that this refers to the genealogical line that comes from Noah, not really talking about DNA, but referencing his sons.
[00:14:57] Another idea is that it's referencing his ancestors, again, not necessarily in a DNA type way, but that he comes from a line of ancestors who were also righteous.
[00:15:10] A final idea is that it references the current age of Noah. He is without defect in comparison to the other people around him of his same generation, as if Noah was like Gen X or something.
[00:15:26] Now, what I will point out right now is that it has a parallel, right? We have it in between these two ideas of Noah being a righteous man and Noah walking with God. So first of all, I would say that it probably has something to do with this kind of sandwich of ideas here, because there's these three different statements that are being made about Noah. He's righteous, he's without defect in his generations, or he's blameless, or he's pure, and he also walks with God.
[00:16:00] It doesn't really seem to be about his line of descendants after him. Because the sons seem to be secondary to what's going on here. Although I think that they're probably a contrast to the wicked sons of God in some way, but that's a really low subtext.
[00:16:20] I think that what we have in Genesis six nine is a statement of who Noah is before God.
[00:16:28] This section could have been ordered differently. The toledoth could have had a heading, and then the mention of the sons, and then the character description of Noah. But it doesn't do that. Instead, it gives us the heading, and then Noah's character, and then the sons.
[00:16:49] So this seems to foreground how Noah lived before generating his offspring, which is a really interesting idea. And much, much later in history E who is not an early interpreter at all, but he had the idea that Noah was a virgin for 500 years before having his sons. Basically what Ephraim is doing is adding his current virtues as part of Noah's purity and faithfulness.
[00:17:22] That's kind of a normal thing. We tend to do that kind of thing, don't we? Virginity in the time of Ephraim the Syrian was a really major virtue. And so when they're reading the story of Noah and he's without blame and all of this, and he doesn't have children until he's 500, well they're going to loop that into the description of who Noah is.
[00:17:46] But back to the foregrounding idea here. Noah lived a faithful life. He is participating in a salvific role, and only then does it mention his line. So that's why I think that seeing the word generation here, the second word here that we have, we're gonna miss the boat again when we think of it in terms of genetics, when we even think of it in terms of ancestral line either before or after Noah.
[00:18:16] Now the sons are named immediately, so I think that does call them into being participants in salvation, or at least objects of covenant promises. They become objects of blessing and cursing in the new world with a new covenant with Noah. Although of course we end up with a mixed legacy in the sons.
[00:18:38] Now a classical Jewish interpretation of the phrase blameless in his generations is that Noah was righteous even in his corrupt generation. That's a really positive way of viewing Noah. There's a second classical Jewish interpretation, and that is in the idea that Noah was really only relatively righteous compared to how wicked everyone was.
[00:19:05] So it's kind a backhanded compliment to Noah instead of being a full on compliment.
[00:19:12] Now, what do we get in most modern commentaries, where do scholars tend to land? It's almost universally about ethics and not genetics.
[00:19:24] I mean, we can compare this with Job one one where Job is blameless, he's upright, he's God-fearing, he's turning from evil. And so blameless in his generation is like blameless in his time, blameless among his contemporaries.
[00:19:41] Whether we choose morality or bloodline, either way, the idea of being blameless or whole is the concept of being complete, unscathed, intact. And again, just because these are concepts that are associated with the word does not mean we should load all of those in here, but we have to keep in mind that we have this parallelism of Noah being righteous, being blameless, and walking with God.
[00:20:10] That is a whole bunch of positiveness regarding Noah. It could have just said that Noah was righteous. It could have just said that Noah walked with God. And yet we have all three of these descriptions here.
[00:20:24] So that's why I really think that we should be viewing this in some form through the cultic sacrificial lens. Not saying that Noah is a sacrifice, but it is calling to that idea.
[00:20:38] And Noah not being a sacrifice inherently means that this is likely an ethical comment on his life. Noah is moral and he has covenantal integrity. Of course, this is before the formal covenant, after the flood, but the idea remains, right? Because if you are righteous, you are in alignment with God and his will. That doesn't mean being perfect. That doesn't mean being sinless because remember, sinlessness and sin are subtext of things. They are not the overarching idea, just as I've been talking about in regards to holiness and things like that.
[00:21:20] The reason I read a larger section of Genesis six here, rather than just this first verse, is that there is a contrast. We have Noah, again, as righteous without defect, walking with God. In verses 11 and 12, let me go ahead and read those again. " And the earth was corrupted before God and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.": End quote.
[00:21:52] Okay, so now we have the context of corruption. So you see the parallel here? We have Noah, who is righteous, without defect, he walks with God. As opposed to the earth that is corrupt, the earth that is filled with violence. And we have several repetitions of this word corrupt.
[00:22:14] So the contrast with the violence of the earth makes the moral and ethical understanding of blameless a far better reading. Again, the cultic sense of being blameless is something larger than morality and being right with God in a sinless kind of a way. So we have Noah being praised for his obedience and his rightness versus the earth that is filled with corruption. Sometimes it's a particular kind of corruption we have going on here, which will kind of get into a little bit more here in a minute.
[00:22:53] Now, what about kind of the idea of a leap to the unblemished animals of Leviticus? Well, again, this word does not always and only refer to animals.
[00:23:05] In Genesis 17 versus one and two, it says, quote, "When Abram was 99 years old, Yahweh appeared to Abram. He said to him, I am El Shaddai. Walk before me and be blameless so that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you exceedingly." End quote.
[00:23:30] Well, not only do we have blameless here associated with Abram, but also walking before God. Now that's interesting, right?
[00:23:40] And then in Deuteronomy chapter 18, verses 13 and 14, it says, quote, " You must be blameless before Yahweh, your God, for these nations that you are about to dispossess listen to interpreters of signs and to diviners, but Yahweh your God has not allowed you to do the same." End quote.
[00:24:04] So again, related to people, these verses show that the semantic center of gravity is covenantal wholeness, which more likely includes ethics in regards to people rather than physical or genealogical traits. To go from unblemished sacrifice to genetic purity is definitely an interpretive leap. And then further to insert modern genetics is a leap even further beyond that.
[00:24:38] And honestly, if someone wants to make that kind of a claim, if someone wants to claim DNA and hybridization in a modern, biological way, I'd say that's a really big claim that has big implications, and I want it to be backed up with science if you're going to use science. I want you to show me how you might decide that there's angelic DNA and how that can even happen.
[00:25:06] If you wanna go with a scientific mechanism here, then please explain it in scientific terms. I'll wait. But no one has that. Nobody does that. Nobody gives that explanation. Most people who claim the genetic line presume the Bible has modern science in mind at all times. Or they're the speculative dot connectors in the realm of the Christian Supernatural Entertainment Complex, where the goal is much more about entertainment than it is about boring old exegesis or contextual studies.
[00:25:43] But at any rate, the context is already moral and generational in situation because of the toledoths. The morality of Noah is highlighted. The genetics discussion isn't stemming from translators, biblical studies, and scholars, and I get that that's not a slam dunk against it. And I'm not trying to commit a genetic fallacy here, but when all of the proponents of this view come from certain sector of the conversation, you probably ought to wonder why that is.
[00:26:17] I mean, we do get echoes of this in ancient interpretations with genetics and the whole genealogical line and things like that. We have first Enoch that gives some hints to that. We have rabbinic context, which definitely takes it that way sometimes. But we need not take second temple Judaism and rabbinic Judaism as the Old Testament context unless we have a reason to do so.
[00:26:46] During the second temple and afterwards, there's clearly a lot of clever interpreters in many ways, which really should give us pause. And I mean, look, people can make up ideas in the past just as well as they can today, so we should really keep in mind that second Temple Judaism has a lot to say about how we should understand the New Testament, but it really doesn't necessarily speak to how we must understand the Old Testament, unless again, we have reasons for thinking that. That is why the Mesopotamian context of the apkallu and all of those ideas really matter in Genesis six originally.
[00:27:31] We also should keep in mind that in second temple Judaism, there were versions of ethnic snobbery going up. You can see it in Jubilees, which is another enochic text and several other places.
[00:27:46] But okay, let's get a big picture view again of this phrase, blameless in his generation. I might put things into three different options. First, the one that I am arguing for is the realm of ethics. Righteousness, covenant loyalty versus the grain of violent, corrupt culture.
[00:28:09] A second option we might have is ethical and lineage kind of combined in one. And this isn't outside the realm of biblical ideas here, especially in the contrast that we often have in various passages about two separate lines, or as Caleb Lewis would say, the two goats motif. We have Cain and Abel. And so ethics can collide with the lineage and the genealogy because of the fact that the head of the family or the head of the tribe, the head of the household, is going to spear the way according to a certain direction.
[00:28:50] Now they would hope that all of the offspring would follow the head of the household in what they're doing. But of course, as we see with Noah and his sons, we do get mixed results in progeny. Nonetheless, ideally the sons are supposed to follow their righteous father, right?
[00:29:10] The third option we have is of course the genetic or DNA reading. We really don't see this in scholarship. Again, its rife in the Christian Supernatural Entertainment Complex as the popular nephilim hunters and prophecy, and all of those kinds of ideas are out there. We should ask ourselves why this is not deep in scholarship, if it's really that obvious.
[00:29:39] Now, let's talk about the blameless in generation plus the Sons of God idea, plus the corruption and violence idea.
[00:29:49] I want you to notice where this section that we're looking at is situated in the text. The three qualities of Noah is kind of smack dab in the middle of the Sons of God incident and the idea of corruption and violence filling the earth.
[00:30:07] We have parallels in verse nine and 10 and 11 and 13. Noah is righteous, blameless, walks with God, and he has sons. Verses 11 through 13, the earth and all flesh are corrupt. The earth is filled with violence. Everything is corrupting in their ways.
[00:30:29] So we have Noah as blameless, versus a world that has corrupted its way into violence.
[00:30:36] And I think what we can see is the sons of God, what they do leads to that violence. Of course we have that directly stated in one Enoch and other second temple literature. The giant offspring devour and oppress. So violence and corruption is a direct consequence of the Sons of God incident.
[00:31:00] Now interestingly, there are also connections to prophetic injunctions against false worship. Now, this is really, really fascinating to me.
[00:31:14] Now I'm gonna back up again for a moment and describe this in terms of the way that Dr. Heiser has talked about it in The Unseen Realm and just his general Deuteronomy 32 worldview.
[00:31:28] According to Dr. Heiser, and generally I am in agreement with him. Okay? But I'm going to suggest a little bit of nuance that we could see as an option. So Dr. Heiser talks about three different falls. We have the fall of Genesis three. And the fall doesn't just involve people. The fall involved spiritual beings as well.
[00:31:51] So Genesis three, we have the serpent in the garden. The serpent falls just as much as the humans do. The second fall happens here in Genesis six. Again, it is both humans as well as spiritual beings. We have the sons of God who fall here, but it's not only the sons of God who are the cause of the flood, it's also people.
[00:32:16] So in both Genesis three as well as Genesis six, it's a both and kind of a thing with the supernatural beings plus humans. Both of them are acting, both of them are responsible. Both of them are falling.
[00:32:31] The third fall is a lot harder for people who are not used to this worldview to see, and that is the fall that happens in Genesis 11. That's of course the Tower of Babel incident. If you have not read The Unseen Realm, or at least the lighter version, Supernatural, then I would point you to the full explanation in those books.
[00:32:55] But one of the major points I want to bring out here is that in each of these three falls that Dr. Heiser talks about, they are separate beings or groups. The serpent is not a member of the Sons of God within the Book of Genesis. Now, the sons of God of Genesis six are also not the sons of God, of Genesis 11 in Dr. Heiser's formulation. They are separate groups of beings. Now, he has reasons for saying that, okay. Because the beings and the situation that happened in Genesis six, we have that described in the New Testament. Obviously, we also have it described heavily in one Enoch.
[00:33:39] And the sons of God who participated in this event are then said to be in chains. This is a unique description that is not applied to the Genesis 11 sons of God who correspond to the gods of the nations.
[00:33:55] Okay, so we have, again, two separate groups of Sons of God. Genesis six, we have the incident with the sons of God and the daughters of men. There's a consequence where they are chained. There's connections with Nephilim, connections with Tartarus.
[00:34:14] So there's a whole logic here, right? But the sons of God, of Genesis 11 correspond to the gods of the nations. This is according to Deuteronomy 32. It's why it's called the Deuteronomy 32 worldview.
[00:34:29] Okay, so for Dr. Heiser, in his work in The Unseen Realm and his general explanation of the divine council, again, these are separate beings. I actually have a whole chart describing this that I should post.
[00:34:45] But anyway, again, separate beings, okay? Now there are other interpretive options that see the Sons of God as not necessarily separate beings, but actually there's a continuity between Genesis six and Genesis 11. Now, part of the reason Dr. Heiser doesn't wanna go there is because he believes that the sons of God, of Genesis 11 were initially loyal. And of course, if they were the same beings as Genesis six, then they weren't loyal. So that kind of ruins that.
[00:35:21] But I'm not fully convinced that there's a reason to go that direction. Dr. Heiser has described it in lectures a number of times. And the way that he describes it is that he doesn't think that God has rebellious beings on his payroll, so to speak.
[00:35:38] Personally, I don't think that's a problem because God is sovereign and we see God use rebellious beings in his judgements all the time. So if the divorce of the nations and the separation of nations into the allotment of the sons of God in Genesis 11 and Deuteronomy 32, if that is a judgment upon people, then I see zero problem at all with that judgment being where they are assigned under rebellious beings because they're rebellious themselves, and so that is God giving them over to that.
[00:36:16] That also helps explain the worship angle that we have that's going on very clearly in the Tower of Babel, right? If people are not worshiping false deities before Genesis 11, then why are they building a temple? Why are they building a ziggurat? That just really just doesn't make any sense if there's no connection to worship there.
[00:36:40] So it seems to me that the people are already worshiping the gods in Genesis 11, but part of the problem with that is that then where do we have the beginnings of false worship? Well, one option is with Cain. We have the sin crouching at the door, and I think that's probably a legitimate option. But another option here is Genesis six.
[00:37:06] Do we have the context of idolatry and worship in Genesis six? I think according to Dr. Heiser, we really don't formally have it, and yet what we have in first Enoch with the apkallu narrative that it parallels as well, there is worship that goes on there. The cutting of roots and the other kinds of explanations that we have with the reason for the flood and the reason that people got so violent and increased in depravity, all of those things are connected in pagan worship.
[00:37:43] But this is not really the line of thought that Dr. Heiser was bringing out simply because he really saw a very clear dividing line between Genesis six and Genesis 11, and he thought that worship actually begins after Genesis 11, which the more I think about that the less that makes sense to me.
[00:38:04] Now, let's back up again here in Genesis six and look at this context of violence and the concept of corruption as well.
[00:38:12] The word corrupt here can also be translated as things like ruin or destroy. We have the word three times. The earth was corrupt in God's sight. It was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way. Again, the range of meaning here is ruin, spoil, destroy, or corrupt morally.
[00:38:33] This is the same root for God's judgment in verse 13. Not the same word exactly, but the same root. Where God says, I'm going to destroy them with the earth. Divine destruction might also signal giving them over here, they filled the earth with destruction, and so God is going to destroy them with the earth.
[00:38:56] Now, this word hamas or violence is also very broad. It does not just mean physical violence. It can also mean social injustice. It can mean oppression, and it can obviously mean bloodshed.
[00:39:11] Okay, so now the Sons of God with the daughters of men, that's a kind of divine boundary crossing, right? I would rather call it that than call it a fall, exactly. A divine boundary crossing is something that is intentionally done in rebellion, whereas the word fall is more like, they fell from grace. Oh, how did that happen? Right? I think that divine boundary crossing gives a little bit more intentionality to it.
[00:39:42] The human condition of pervasive evil is one of the problems we have, and Noah is the anti type to that corruption, but also these ideas directly connect into worship in the prophets in particular, and I don't think the prophets are making things up or creating this idea out of whole cloth. Cosmic rebellion contributes to and symbolizes world corruption.
[00:40:11] Israel is not immune. And it leads to unfaithfulness and corruption and violence when one does not worship Yahweh, when they're not practicing righteousness, when they're worshiping other beings, then that leads down the path of violence and corruption. Those things are in parallel.
[00:40:32] So here's the structure I want you to look at in regards to the flood, but also in regards to the prophets. The string of this progression is really obvious in the prophets. It's less obvious in the flood narrative unless we have the context of idolatry and worship in particular.
[00:40:54] Okay, so there's four different steps to this progression. The first step is in idolatry and false worship. Idolatry and false worship leads to corruption.
[00:41:07] Now, this also makes sense because of how the image of God is not lost, but it is corrupted. If we're following God, we become conformed to the image of God. If we're following other deities, we don't lose the image of God, but we start having that image corrupted.
[00:41:28] Okay, so we have idolatry and worship. We have corruption, and that leads directly to violence. And of course, all of that leads to judgment.
[00:41:39] Idolatry, to corruption, to violence, to judgment.
[00:41:44] Genesis six forms a prototype of this pattern. Hamas or violence is not natural disasters. It is human violence and wrongdoing. It is relational, so it can be physical brutality or bloodshed or warfare. It can also be economic exploitation. It can be false witness and it can be oppression. This violence is said to fill a land. We have it in Genesis six 11, in Ezekiel eight 17, and in Habakkuk two, verse 17.
[00:42:22] This violence is not just one incident of behavior. It is systemic. It is society wide, and it is connected directly to injustice. The opposite of righteousness. Of course, Noah is righteous. Then we have the word corruption again, which is about ruining, spoiling, corrupting, destroying.
[00:42:46] Let's actually look at some of this prophetic literature, shall we? Ezekiel eight, verse 17 says, quote, "And he said to me, have you seen, son of man? Was it too small a thing for the house of Judah to do the detestable things that they did here? For they filled up the land with violence and they provoked me to anger again. And look, they are putting the branch to their nose." End quote.
[00:43:14] If you read Ezekiel eight and nine, it is about temple abominations, and that leads directly to a land filled with violence. It's like the people are infected, and this infection of false worship leads to violence directly.
[00:43:32] Idolatry leads to ethical corruption.
[00:43:35] Ezekiel 22 is a courtroom liturgy. We have princes like wolves, shedding blood and engaging in dishonest gain. Priests do violence to the law. They profane the holy, they ignore clean and unclean distinctions. The prophets are whitewashing crimes with lying visions, and the people at large oppress the poor and needy. They do extortion from sojourners. And So we have the whole system implicated here, the temple cult, the court, the palace, the people, the prophets, everybody is being affected here.
[00:44:16] Amos two, starting in verse four says, quote, " Thus says Yahweh, for three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they have rejected the law of Yahweh and have not kept his rules. And their lies have led them astray after which their ancestors walked. So I will send a fire against Judah and it will devour the citadel fortress of Jerusalem." End quote.
[00:44:45] Note this terminology of walking and being led astray. That is part of the corruption idea. There's a clear two sins pattern where we have idolatry and injustice.
[00:44:59] This is also, by the way, why Psalm 82 is about injustice and do not worship explicitly. When people worship the gods, they do not give justice from those gods.
[00:45:14] Those two things are hand in hand. They trample the poor. They sell the righteous for silver. They pervert justice in the courts. They have shrines at Bethel and Gigal is humming with sacrifice and music in bad ways. Right?
[00:45:32] Idolatrous worship is exposed and judged precisely at the point where it sustains economic violence and injustice.
[00:45:41] So it's not just this fuzzy thing about, oh, God wants all of the worship instead of those other guys over there. No, there are real ethical concerns here.
[00:45:51] Of course we have the book of Hosea with its really intricate metaphors and signs of adultery and idolatry and social decay. So this is not just a judgment for big cultic sins, but everyday social sins like cheating, exploiting, ignoring the poor. Those are symptoms of idolatry. They don't just happen on their own.
[00:46:17] And so let's go back to the flood narrative, the nephilim and the mighty men, those lead to corruption, not just physical violence, but injustice. And if all of these threads and themes can be seen as a whole through Scripture, it's also about worship.
[00:46:37] So functionally, even if not particularly, the sons of God are at least functionally the same in Genesis six and 11 and Deuteronomy 32 and everywhere else.
[00:46:53] I'll get into that here a little bit more in a second. I want to read a few more passages from the prophets to really bring this out.
[00:47:02] Habakkuk one, verses three and four says, quote, "Why do you cause me to see evil while you look at trouble? Destruction and violence happen before me. Contention and strife arise. Therefore, the law is paralyzed and justice does not go forth perpetually. For the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore, justice goes forth perverted." End quote.
[00:47:30] Hosea nine, nine, quote, "They deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibea. He will remember their sin. He will punish their sins." End quote.
[00:47:43] Jeremiah 13, verse nine, quote, " Thus says, Yahweh, so I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people who refuse to listen to my words, who go in the stubbornness of their hearts and have gone after other gods to serve them and to bow and worship to them. Let them be like this loin cloth, which is not good for anything." End quote.
[00:48:09] Daniel nine verse 26. " And after the 60 and two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and he shall have nothing, and the people of the coming leader will destroy the city and the sanctuary at its end will be with the flood. And onto the end, there shall be war. These desolations are determined." End quote.
[00:48:32] So in all of this, we have the earth reaping what is sewn or the earth as part of the judgment as well. Violence is destruction, and that destruction demands destruction in return. Again, idolatry is not just evil because it's idolatry and it's not great worship, but it leads to these things. Wrong worship is a disordered value of humans and it leads to disordered treatment of humans. We see this into the New Testament with Romans one and relational breakdowns and injustice and violence and all kinds of corruption.
[00:49:12] Again, what I think is going on is we have the primeval history. The primeval history is something that sets up the rest of the text and it leads into it. I don't think it's just its own little story. I think the whole point, and the way they would read it is that Israel is recapitulating the pattern.
[00:49:33] Again, corruption by idolatry leads to hamas, social and ethical and physical violence. The land fills with the violence. The temple is the hub of abominations. God's judgment comes and it's a flood- like de creation. There's always a righteous remnant, and eventually that's the Messiah. That righteous remnant carries the line forward. Obviously, that's not biological when we get to the Messiah, so I'm not sure why it has to be explicitly biological in the Old Testament either.
[00:50:09] And of course we have in second Peter, the world stored up for fire connected to the days of Noah. That's a template. We tend to kinda focus on the days of Noah and the supernatural implications. And that's all fine and good because that's part of what we should be seeing here. But again, note the theme of idolatry and violence.
[00:50:32] Let me go ahead and read just a little bit here from Second Peter two, quote, "But there were also false prophets amongst the people, as there will be false teachers among you also who will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, thus bringing on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentious ways because of whom the way of truth will be reviled. And in greediness they will exploit you with false words whose condemnation from long ago was not idle and their destruction is not asleep.
[00:51:11] "For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but held them captive in Tartarus with chains of darkness and handed them over to be kept for judgment. And did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a proclaimer of righteousness and seven others when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly and condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes, having appointed them as an example for those who are going to be ungodly. And rescued righteous Lot, worn down by the way of life of lawless persons in licentiousness. For that righteous man as he lived among them day after day, was tormenting his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he was seeing and hearing.
[00:51:58] " Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to reserve the unrighteous to be punished at the day of judgment. to. And especially those who go after the flesh in defiling lust and who despise authority. Bold and arrogant, they do not tremble in awe as they blaspheme majestic beings. Whereas angels who are greater in strength and power do not bring against them a demeaning judgment. But these persons like irrational animals, born only with natural instincts for capture and killing, blaspheming about things they do not understand, in their destruction will also be destroyed, being harmed as the wages of unrighteousness, considering reviling in the daytime a pleasure. They are stains and blemishes, carousing in their deceitful pleasures when they feast together with you. Having eyes full of desire for an adultress and unceasing from sin. Enticing unstable persons and having hearts trained for greediness. Accursed children! " End quote.
[00:53:00] Okay, you guys get the picture here. We tend to zoom in on the little passages and the little bits of detail, which sometimes that's fine. We have to do that. But I want you to note just how many parallels we have in this chapter with the themes that I've been talking about here.
[00:53:18] Now, what more do I have to really seat this idea of Genesis six connected to idolatry?
[00:53:25] It is not just me saying this, first of all. There are scholars out there who are making these connections.
[00:53:31] And even within Dr. Heiser's three rebellions, which again, I'm not dismantling any of that really. You have the same pattern of outcome. There's a heavenly and human boundary crossing. There's a distortion or a corruption. There's violence, and there's judgment and de creation.
[00:53:52] Dr. Heiser distinguishes the sons of God in Genesis six with the Deuteronomy 32 sons of God. And this doesn't necessarily erode or change any of that, but if we turn to integrate these two ideas, then it kind of smooths out the pattern.
[00:54:10] There's not a really clear exegetical reason to say that we can't have these as being the same. Yes, there's the sons of God who are chained, but we have judgment of the other sons of God as well. They are said to be condemned to dying like men in but we know that hasn't happened fully and completely.
[00:54:33] If Genesis six is more or less the origin of idolatry and an indication of a counter cult to the proper cult, then it functions as a kind of polemic.
[00:54:45] And I don't think we have to disassociate that with the potential beginning of idolatry and false worship with Cain as a potential option, at least. But with Cain, he's an individual. And here we have the formulation of full counter cults, right? Like they're formalized and there's something going on here that is direct worship, at least potentially.
[00:55:12] And it's not like this idea does not go along with one Enoch as well as the apkallu narrative because both of those stories also have a lot of connection to worship. And that was one thing that I could never quite wrap my head around when Dr. Heiser talked about it. Those ideas are directly related to pagan worship. So why isn't Genesis six primarily about the creation of worship and leading into violence, right.
[00:55:41] Again, this whole episode is not really centered on this idea in particular, so I'll probably bring this up again and flesh that out a little bit more, especially after I get into some of the literature I found this week.
[00:55:55] But I think that it really helps to connect this into a seamless narrative in Genesis one through 11 versus just being three separate isolated incidents that really have nothing to do with one another. That makes less sense to me. Also, for all of you Lord of Spirits listeners out there, this is going to really play into the things that they talk about there as well, so future interesting conversations to be had there.
[00:56:26] But here we also have the connection between the nephilim and the mighty men, the men of the name and what's going on with the Tower of Babel. It really resonates and connects the two here directly.
[00:56:42] And even in the Mesopotamian context of Genesis six, people are going to be thinking of men of the name being associated with fame, authority, and cultic worship. It's not really separated from those ideas. They wouldn't be thinking as if, oh, this has nothing to do with that other thing over there.
[00:57:05] So taken together, it really looks like the ideology behind hero cults and divine kingship really has some roots in the Nephilim thing going on here. Connections with monumental projects, with city founder cults, with names that last forever theology kind of ideas, right?
[00:57:27] Again, it's really easy to look at this from kind of a way that we tend to read a story today where we have isolated incidents in history and sure they're connected because one leads to the other, but they don't have to be overly connected.
[00:57:45] Now, I'm not going to the full on connection of saying that they have to be the exact same beings, right? We have no reason to believe or think that the taxonomy and the conceptual realities of their world, they were thinking exactly that particular ,right. Like to say that these sons of God of Genesis six are the exact ones that are allotted to the nations in Deuteronomy 32, and we only have 70 of them, and things like that.
[00:58:17] That is a little bit too modern, scientific, precise in thinking, and I don't think that's the way that ancient people were exactly thinking about this. Their conceptions of history were a little bit more malleable than ours are. That understandably makes us uncomfortable, but it is the reality of the situation nonetheless.
[00:58:41] We also have really strong connections with hero cults and dead nephilim and the Rephaim, and you know, all the dead warrior heroes and worship of the dead and necromancy.
[00:58:56] I think if we separate out Genesis six from Genesis 11 and Deuteronomy 32, we're really not going to see those connections very clearly. Again, we don't have to go full on fundamentalist and say that they are the same, but there's echoes and there's patterns, and there's things that they are going to have called up in their minds, called up from previous texts into later texts.
[00:59:24] And this also goes directly into our second temple development of the ideas of the watchers and cultic practices. Again, these are idolatry- adjacent things that they're doing. Sorcery, enchantments, root cutting, astrology, metalworking, cosmetics, all of those show up in first Enoch. All of those are tied to violence, like weapons, seduction, ornamentation, probably cultic prostitution, and also occult knowledge and proto magic maybe, or maybe just straight up magic.
[01:00:03] Although I think that there's a really strong reason to say that what we have in the primeval history is all proto to what happens later because it does function as an introduction, right? It's long ago in the past. This isn't written down in the form of eyewitness accounts, but it provides the basis and the explanation for what the people later are currently experiencing.
[01:00:32] Again, I think I see why and how Dr. Heiser really deemphasizes and doesn't have a cultic framework in Genesis six, and I think there's also reasons for that because within the context, just of Genesis one through 11, we have a progression of happenings. We also have a progression of happenings from Genesis one through 11 through the rest of Genesis and through the Torah.
[01:00:59] The earlier things that go on are not exactly the same as the later practices. So what's happening in Genesis six might not be formal idolatry, where they're creating carved idols and things like that. Might be some form of other worship that is more direct because maybe the gods of the nations were able to influence and interact with people in more direct ways.
[01:01:27] Remember, we're talking within the context of how the people of the Bible would be thinking of this. This isn't necessarily the historical, scientific way to look at it. But again, there's a progression. We have differences also in the way that God relates to people in Genesis versus the rest of Scripture.
[01:01:48] So if God is interacting with people differently in Genesis, then it could very well be that the other gods of the nations would be interacting with people in different ways themselves. So direct worship versus mediated worship in idolatry, and for all we know, maybe that's part of the chains that the sons of God were hampered with in Genesis six.
[01:02:13] Maybe they could no longer directly interact with people in the same way as before.
[01:02:19] Okay, so backing up again to kind of get a bigger picture view. Is Genesis six already an idolatry text, or at least a false worship text? I would say you can legitimately make that kind of a case, and it is supported by real scholarship. We'll talk about that more later, but we have literary and lexical connections. There's definitely a cultic and royal background to things, which is why sometimes people go the human route with the sons of God.
[01:02:53] So overall, I think that there is a strong argument to be made for the origin of idolatry, or at least some sort of counter cult here, and it doesn't go against the second temple reception of the information.
[01:03:07] Okay, so back to the story of Noah and his being blameless in his generations. I hope you see the need for understanding purification and that in a wider context. And it makes sense that all of that is connected to our worship, connected to the Levitical system of sacrifice, connected to the image of God, even.
[01:03:32] What we do and how we worship either puts us in alignment with God and makes us righteous, or it puts us out of alignment with God and it corrupts us. It leads to violence, and it leads to filth that needs purgation. The purgation fundamentally needs to happen within the heart, with repentance and all of that, because that's where worship truly exists, right?
[01:03:59] But that has real consequences in the world where the land is filled with violence and the people are spit out of the land. It's not that cultic rituals are mechanics, but they are lessons. So yes, they do hold an internal logic, but the logic of ritual truly represents something that they need to know, something they need to experientially live out. And so ritual is an embodied enactment that allows for regular and focused practice.
[01:04:30] So when I say that ritual represents something, it does so not as some ethereal narrative symbol, but as a lived- out practition. And I don't really care how real you think the gods are today, but we must see these realities in the text as to how the ancient person saw it, where false worship leads and why it matters to enter into covenant with God who is holy and requires purification.
[01:05:00] Not as a random requirement, but to rid us of the real consequences of our wickedness. And I think that's what this verse in Genesis six is talking about with Noah. Noah was doing this work of purification. He was righteous, he was blameless, and he walked with God. All of those things are related and they're all saying something very particular and important.
[01:05:26] Purification and purity and being unblemished is an umbrella and there's a lot that it contains, right? It contains the Levitical system itself. It contains blood purification, it contains washing, it contains the idea of fire. It contains things like repentance. Yeah. That exists in the Old Testament, is not just a New Testament thing.
[01:05:51] Like we really emphasize blood, and that's central. It's majorly important. It's a picture of life and death. But again, I think that we're missing the boat. We're missing the plot. If we think it's just about physical death. It's also not just about spiritual death in this unique theological category that we've concocted mostly outside of Scripture, because life means things like justice, righteousness, restoration, healing, relationality, all of those really boots on the ground thing. It's not some ethereal thing that's just floating out there in a spiritual reality.
[01:06:33] And by the way, the idolatry connection does not necessarily necessitate ritual temple prostitution, though obviously that is a category. And my point is that it's not about technique. It might be referencing something like that, but the heart orientation in the worship given is the point. It's not just about the particular ritual, action or magical thing that they did. Even in ancient logic, worship kept deities alive. Our attention does things.
[01:07:10] One of the things I've been talking about is the idea of magic in the ancient pagan world versus Yahweh and proper worship, which is not mechanical, it's not technology. It's not a thing that you input your action and you get an automatic output from God.
[01:07:30] So I've been talking about that magic versus proper ritual and proper interaction with the divine right. But I still think it would be a mistake to presume that the other gods, the sons of God, gods of the nations, the dark powers, however you wanna describe them, even though they seem to be using a kind of mechanistic ritual in the ancient pagan world, would say that they are bound by God not because of some mechanistic logic, but because of the protection, the life and the presence of God.
[01:08:06] And I just wanna say that because we might get the idea here, as I've been talking about ritual magic and things like that, that what I'm saying is that there are logical rules that the sons of God have to follow. That isn't necessarily the case.
[01:08:23] It makes it a little bit complicated though, because if God is sovereign, then what does that mean that he prevents them sometimes, but he doesn't always prevent them? That's a really tough question, but there's a lot of these hard passages in Scripture where God sends out the deceiving spirit or he sends out a spirit that causes sickness.
[01:08:46] But again, in the larger scheme of things, there's a point to those. Because what we see is that the wicked are led to destruction, but God is patient and so God does things or allows things, we might say, to lead to, hopefully, repentance so that not everyone is destroyed. Those who are repentant are then in the realm of the righteous and they are in the realm of covenant with God. So those who repent are then numbered amongst the righteous rather than the wicked.
[01:09:21] Alright, so I know that this was a really lot for this episode. I hope it wasn't too complex. I promise I will go back and talk a lot more about the whole Sons of God and worship thing. I think there's a lot more to bring out there as various options. Again, I'm not trying to dismantle anything in particular.
[01:09:43] I'm just going where the data is leading me. Like Dr. Heiser said, the question is what can the text sustain? What options are actually viable exegetically? And Dr. Heiser's ideas are viable exegetically, but they're not the only explanations. And if we're gonna be good students of the text, then that means we need to study them and be open to all kinds of different ideas of how we can formulate this exegetically, within context, without reading our ideas back into it.
[01:10:21] All right, really appreciate you guys listening and sharing the episodes wherever you can. That is really one of the best ways for my podcast to grow is if you guys share it with other people who will also be interested. We got deep, deep into the weeds today, so I hope you guys enjoyed that.
[01:10:40] I wanna give a big shout out to my Patreon supporters, to my PayPal supporters, and to all of the people who are supporting me at my biblical theology community, On This Rock. As always, I will leave a link to that in the show notes. Feel free to come and join us there. We've got some interesting discussions and it's not just my content there as well. Lots of great people putting stuff out, lots of exciting things that are gonna be happening there in the new year as well. So with that, I will wrap up for this week and I wish you all a blessed week and we will see you later.
