Sons of God (B'nai HaElohim,) is a phrase used in Levantine Bronze and Iron Age texts to describe the "divine council" of the major gods. In the Hebrew bible the gods become divine beings subordinate to Yahweh, the one god of Israel.
In the pantheon of 2nd millennium Ugarit the El, the father-god and head of the pantheon, and the 70 "sons of El", make up a "Divine Council" which deliberates over major decisions. In the 1st millennium the El had been demoted and each of the "sons of El" was held to have been given a "nation" as his charge: Chemosh, for example, was the god of Moab. Yahweh, not originally included in the Ugaritic pantheon, was the God of Judah and of Israel. In the Book of Genesis, Yahweh is seen as the single deity, with "sons of elohim" as his assistants.
By the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC further hypotheses were developed to explain this passage in Genesis. One hypothesis was that the sons of God were the descendants of Seth, the pure line of Adam, and the "daughters of men" as the descendants of Cain.
Second Temple Judaism
See also: Second Temple Judaism
In 1 Enoch and Book of Jubilees the Genesis 6 text was developed into a complicated mythology of fallen angels. The 2nd century BC Book of Enoch turns the "sons of God" into fallen angels, referred to as Watchers, who came to earth and had children with human women, resulting in a race of half-angel, half-human beings known as the "Giants" (Nephilim). The view is found in Philo and in Josephus Antiquities 1:73 (or 1:3.1).
However not all Jews accepted the angelic interpretation of Genesis 6. Rabbi Shimeon ben Yochai pronounced a curse on any Jew teaching the Enochite interpretation, and, later Trypho the Jew rejected the interpretation. This was followed by Rashi and Nachmanides. Some commentators on Luke 20:34-36 believe that Jesus was also familiar with the Enochic interpretation, and can be counted with Shimeon ben Yochai, since Jesus rejected that angels could marry and in the same passage equated the "sons of God" with humans.
Jude, Well, after reading all this information that you have posted and I have posted, if people can't figure out which point they believe is true and is more sound and close to biblical turth of God's word, then as River states we will just have to wait until we all get to heaven to find out..
Whose report will you believe, views from every corner of theologians including a Baptist preacher who belived in Calvin's biblical doctrine.
Here is the last to compare...
Biblical Commentary of Genesis Chapter 6, by John Gills... and who is John Gills? John Gill (23 November 1697 � 14 October 1771) was an English Baptist pastor, biblical scholar, and theologian who held to a staunch Calvinistic soteriology. Born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, he attended Kettering Grammar School where he mastered the Latin classics and learned Greek by age 11. He continued self-study in everything from logic to Hebrew, his love for the latter remaining throughout his life.
Genesis Chapter 6:2 - Sons of God
That the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they
were fair�
Or "good" F11, not in a moral but natural sense; goodly to look upon, of a beautiful aspect; and they looked upon, and only regarded their external beauty, and lusted after them: those "sons of God" were not angels either good or bad, as many have thought, since they are incorporeal beings, and cannot be affected with fleshly lusts, or marry and be given in marriage, or generate and be generated; nor the sons of judges, magistrates, and great personages, nor they themselves, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, and so Jarchi and Aben Ezra; but this could be no crime in them, to look upon and take in marriage such persons, though they were the daughters of the meaner sort; and supposing they acted a criminal part in looking at them, and lusting after them, and committing fornication with them, and even in marrying irreligious persons.
Yet this could only be a partial, not an universal corruption, as is after affirmed, though such examples must indeed have great influence upon the populace; but rather this is to be understood of the posterity of Seth, who from the times of Enos, when then began to be called by the name of the Lord, (Genesis 4:25) had the title of the sons of God, in distinction from the children of men; these claimed the privilege of divine adoption, and professed to be born of God, and partakers of his grace, and pretended to worship him according to his will, so far as revealed to them, and to fear and serve and glorify him.
According to the Arabic writers, immediately after the death of Adam the family of Seth was separated from the family of Cain; Seth took his sons and their wives to a high mountain (Hermon), on the top of which Adam was buried, and Cain and all his sons lived in the valley beneath, where Abel was slain; and they on the mountain obtained a name for holiness and purity, and were so near the angels that they could hear their voices and join their hymns with them; and they, their wives and their children, went by the common name of the sons of God: and now these were adjured, by Seth and by succeeding patriarchs, by no means to go down from the mountain and join the Cainites; but notwithstanding in the times of Jared some did go down, it seems; (See Gill on 5:20) and after that others, and at this time it became general; and being taken with the beauty of the daughters of Cain and his posterity, they did as follows: and they took them wives of all that they chose; not by force, as Aben Ezra and Ben Gersom interpret, for the Cainites being more numerous and powerful than they, it can hardly be thought that the one would attempt it, or the other suffer it; but they intermarried with them, which the Cainites might not be averse unto.
They took to them wives as they fancied, which were pleasing to the flesh, without regard to their moral and civil character, and without the advice and consent of their parents, and without consulting God and his will in the matter; or they took women as they pleased, and were to their liking, and committed fornication, to which the Cainites were addicted; for they spent their time in singing and dancing, and in uncleanness, whereby the posterity of Seth or sons of God were allured to come down and join them, and commit fornication with them, as the Arabic writers point out.
