Who Were the Nephilim?

In case you were curious about Genesis 6:1-4. Here are my notes on the matter:

1 When man began to multiply on the land, and when daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of the gods saw that the daughters of man were good and they took wives for themselves from any they chose. 3 Then the LORD said: ‘My spirit shall not remain in man for ever, because he is flesh: his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ 4 The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also afterwards: whenever the sons of the gods went into the daughters of man, they bore them children. They are the warriors from olden times, the famous men. [translation by Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis, WBC]

Nephilim (fallen ones)
Septuagint (LXX) translated it in Greek as gigantes (giants).
The gigantes in Greek mythology were giants who were the product of the union of earth and heaven. They were subsequently defeated and imprisoned in the earth.

the act of falling (nāpal) is often used in the context of punishment for sin.

the sons of God/the sons of the gods (ʾelōhîm) seems to refer to angels (e.g., Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7; esp. Ps 29:1; 89:7 make the latter translation possible)

The alleged descendents of the Nephilim are mentioned in Numbers 13:32-33 as the great men who were in the land of Canaan at the time of the Exodus: 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, ‘The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.’(ESV)

Three views on the Nephilim:

1) “Angel” Interpretation
The Nephilim are understood to be the offspring of fallen angels (demons) who had immoral sexual unions with human women. They are described as mighty men or warriors with heroic reputations. They contributed to the violence on the earth.

The hero of the flood story in the Gilgamesh Epic, Utnapishtim, was the descendant of a union between a god and a human. As a result he had incredible energy, but lacked immortality (the story relates how the gods granted him and his wife immortality in a unique, unrepeatable way).

It seems that these demonic-human unions were intentionally sought in order to obtain eternal life apart from God (see Gen 3:22). This fits well with the limit God then sets on the human lifespan.

The sequence of “saw . . . good . . . took” parallels the terms in the account of the Fall in Genesis 3:6 and suggests that like Eve the sons of the gods were transgressing a boundary set by God. Everything was supposed to reproduce accourding to its kind (Gen 1:11-12, 21, 24-25).

Ezekiel 32:20-28 may be alluding to Genesis 6:1-4. The prophet seems to connect the Nephilim with the those fallen in war or slain by the sword who go down to the pit, the grave, or Sheol: 27 And they do not lie with the mighty, the fallen from among the uncircumcised, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were laid under their heads, and whose iniquities are upon their bones; for the terror of the mighty men was in the land of the living.(ESV)

Ps 82; Jude 6, 14, 15 (cites 1 Enoch); and 2 Peter 2:4-10 also lend support to this view.

However, this seems to contradict Mt 22:30 about people being like the angels in heave who neither marry nor are given in marriage (on the other hand, one can make a distinction and argue that Jesus is speaking about angels in heaven vs. fallen angels).

2) Royal Interpretation
The sons of God are understood to be rulers, princes, or judges who unjustly took the daughters of helpless common people against their will. These kings were guilty of compelling women to join their harems.

The problem with this view is that the text does not explicitly mention rape or coerced unions. The terms can refer to proper marriages. Also, this interpretation does not really explain the extraordinary size and might of the Nephilim.

3) Sethite Interpretation
The “sons of God” were the chosen line of Seth who intermarried with the “daughters of men” from the corrupt line of Cain.

There is little support for taking the “daughters of men” as a negative designation referring to the line of Cain rather than simply a general reference to female human beings. In the passage, “man” also seems to be distinct from “the sons of God.”

Having just listed the descendants of Cain and then Adam through Seth, it is odd that the writer didn’t just say the Sethites were intermarrying with the daughters of Cain.

Again, this interpretation does not explain the extraordinary size and might of the Nephilim.