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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Are the "sons of God" pre-Fall children? | Gen 6:2 | JenkinsDE | 7861 | ||
My question is more in a statement form: A couple of days ago I had this most interesting thoughts while reading Genesis 3:16a "To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you shall bring forth children;" 3:20 "Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living." 6:2 "that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose." 6:4 "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown." The thought that came to me is that, the "sons of God" mentioned in Genesis 6:2, 4 are the children of Adam and Eve that were born prior to the Fall. I believe the reason for this thought is because of how Genesis 3:16 and 3:20 are actually stated. The way I read Genesis 3:16, it implies that birth already preceded that of Cain and Able. For, when God says He will "greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth," to me that is a connotation that there was already pain in childbirth for Eve. Just because there was no mention of children prior to this does not indicate that there were none. Also, in Genesis 3:20, the verb used is "was"-not that she will be. Most versions of the Bible that I've read, save the NIV places the reading at "will be." I don't know if this is literally correct since the NASB is touted as the most literal. If this is the case, then the way that Genesis 6 begins tells me this. Verses 2 and 4 from what I read gives me this feedback. I know "The Nephilim" is mentioned in Genesis 6:4, but I don't know why except to give us a frame of reference of some sort. The highlighted text from verse 6:4 (above) don't have any direct implication with the Nephilim that I can see. I would appreciate all the help that you can give me with this. |
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2 | Are the "sons of God" pre-Fall children? | Gen 6:2 | Elijah | 7862 | ||
The sons spoken of in 6:2 are angles that left there proper dewling place (heaven)and came down to marry the daughters of men | ||||||
3 | Are the "sons of God" pre-Fall children? | Gen 6:2 | Makarios | 7882 | ||
JenkinsDE, I appreciate your 'insight', but I disagree with its conclusions. First of all, you introduced the 'possibility' that Eve could have had children before the Fall, and cited Genesis 3:20 in support of this premise. However, I believe that this premise cannot be considered since there is no natural break or period of time between Genesis 2:25 and 3:1, which begins the fall of mankind. Also, I believe that if there were any children preceding the fall, then they would have surely been mentioned in the text since the author of Genesis was so careful to mention that Adam 'had relations' with his wife in Gen. 4:1, 25 and 5:3-4, and paid painstakingly close attention to the children that were the result of the first human births, which were Cain and Abel. I also believe that if there were any children at the time of the fall, then God would have surely addressed them also in Gen. 3:8-24. If there were children who were born prior to the fall, then we could conclude that these children were not banished from the Garden of Eden as their parents were, thus forever being separated from any fellow human being ever again. This premise creates more problems than it engenders. Also, when the Lord speaks of 'man' in verse 22, He is speaking all inclusively, meaning both the man and his wife (and anyone else for that matter), and ending with judgment upon 'man'. Adam did not even name his wife until they had fallen from grace (v. 20), so this (along with the weight of the above observations) shows that Cain and Abel were indeed the first human births. When God said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth", it cannot be deduced that there was already pain in childbirth for Eve. Nowhere can it be derived from exegesis that it is 'assumed' that Eve had already given birth as a consequence of this verse. If you assume that, then you are reading something into the text that simply is not there, and wasn't meant to be there. There is a great deal of time between the events of Genesis 4 to Genesis 6, as shown by the geneaologies that are presented in 4:17-5:32.. So we can see that just by studying the geneaologies, there is absolutely no mention of a 'line of Adam' that existed before the fall, only Adam's offspring through Cain, Abel, and Seth are presented here. So this is even further evidence against there being any children before the fall. I believe that you are correct in interpreting the 'sons of God' in Genesis 6:2 and 4 as humans, but humans who were from the Godly line of Seth, who was the 'new' seed (5:3), or substitute for the slain Abel in the geneaological line that would eventually lead to Christ (Luke 3:23-38). |
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