2 Genesis, Chapt. 6 (Part 1) - all god's chillun' (minus one)
We'll get to the exciting stuff momentarily, but first, a tidbit that has absolutely no relationship to anything else in the chapter. Or, as Monty Python might have put it, “And now for something completely different....”:
6:1 “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,Nowhere else in this entire book is it mentioned that god had a passel of kids! John 3:16 informs us, as we shall later see, that he had only one begotten boy, but there’s not a clue, neither before this chapter, nor anywhere else between those covers, that gives any indication that there’s a clan!
6:2 "That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.”
and,
6:4 “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, and they bare children unto them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of reknown.”
Sounds like this chapter may well have been, “...made up of many disparate stories that have been reoriented, and given a meaning within the context in which they now stand,” i.e., “...the result of a careful and complex joining of several historical traditions, or sources,” in which, “...it is not always possible to distinguish with certainty among the various sources. The fact is that each of these individual traditions incorporates much older material.” And they just arbitrarily - or "carefully and complexly," if you believe the hype - decided to tuck it in here. I'm thinking it might have fit better in the last chapter, what with all the begetting and everything, but I wasn't asked.
Could this have been the kind of thing to which The New American Bible was referring? If so, is this really a book to which we can turn for truth?
At any rate, the gaggle of godlings swooped down to Earth, and not for just a stroll in the garden in the cool of the day, either: “they took them wives of all which they chose.”
But they didn’t copulate right away. It seems (6:4), “There were giants in the earth in those days;” - and everyone knows it isn't easy to copulate when there’s a giant hanging around. “...also, after that...,”- after what!? All of the giants became extinct, or evolved into basketball players? After what?
Whatever happened, after it had happened, apparently the sons of god then felt sufficiently at ease that they “came in unto the daughters of men.” If anyone has given but the most cursory glance at the Bible, they know all too well what "came in unto" means --
New species evolve when some geographical barrier - a mountain range, an ocean, a glacier - divides a population. Animals on one side of the barrier can no longer breed with animals on the other. Each group adapts to its habitat and, over time, their genes change enough to constitute separate species. This idea dates back to Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, published in November, 1859.
A horse and a donkey can interbreed. They’re genetically closely enough related - i.e., neither has evolved far enough from their common ancestor for their DNA to be sufficiently different as to make conception of a viable embryo impossible. The offspring we know as mules.
Lions and tigers can also interbreed, for the same reason - their offspring are known as tiglons.
In both these cases, their offspring, the mule and the tiglon, are sterile from birth.
In the case of the anthropoids, the gorilla, the orangutan, the chimpanzee, and that nearly naked ape, Man, interbreeding is impossible - the four species have simply evolved so far from their common ancestor - a chimp-like little guy we’ve come to call Proconsul (what his friends called him, we have no idea) - that our DNA just isn’t sufficiently compatible, though in all honesty, I must confess I’ve never really tried.
Yet the DNA of all of the little Jehovah Juniors appears to have been compatible with our own: “...and they (the daughters of Men) bare children unto them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of reknown.” It would appear then that the DNA of the sons of god was less evolved from our own, than ours from gorillas, orangs and chimps. Oh my!
I’m surprised that there was no mention as to what the daughters of god were doing. Surely there were some strapping, virile Sons of Men down here who caught their eyes. Maybe daddy just felt his little girls would be better off crocheting by the heavenly fireside.
Here’s a thought - surely those “mighty men which were of old,” those “men of reknown” were not that hard on the eyes of the Daughters of Men, and certainly more closely related, being only half-god as it were. Is it not likely that god-DNA has spread through a large portion of Earth’s population since Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C.E., at nine o’clock in the morning? Unless of course they were sterile --
Just a thought --
Here’s another thought - assuming all god’s chillun’ to be immortal, could they still be down here, hard at work begetting? That could explain Arnold Schwarzenegger - who's your daddy, Arnold?
One final thought on the subject (I promise) - both Zeus/Jupiter and Odin were married, as were many of the gods - why do you suppose old Yahweh remained single for all this time? (Actually, we will later find that he didn't, in which case he just might have committed adultery with little Virgin Mary, but that will have to wait until a bit later --)
Anyway, after a few thousand years of vigorous begetting, the sons of god apparently reported back from their sabbatical with smiles on their faces, that the Daughters of Men were hot little numbers and well worth checking out.
So god did.
Well not in person, he sent little Mary his proxy, the holy spirit, as an early Christmas present - holy spirits don’t get out much.
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
Posted by archaeopteryx at 6/20/2011 1:42 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: religion Christianity Judaism atheism Islam god sons of god giants on the earth King James Bible The New American Bible Charles Darwin Origin of Species holy spirit biblical inerrancy biblical mythology
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: religion Christianity Judaism atheism Islam god sons of god giants on the earth King James Bible The New American Bible Charles Darwin Origin of Species holy spirit biblical inerrancy biblical mythology
So the whole David and Goliath story... was this actually the end of the Giant race, perhaps the earliest documentation of a species extinction?
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Totally off the wall, but I just got a cool name for a rock band --- Jesus and the Giants. I can even envision a guest appearance from god himself singing his only top 10 hit single, "I did it my way."
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RE: "was this actually the end of the Giant race" - or merely a fabrication, as is much of Genesis ?
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