God Among Many Gods
When I first learned that one of the most common names for God was a plurality, I began to question the way I thought about much of what I had been taught about the Bible. And by “plurality,” I don’t mean the triune manifestations of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (in other words: the Trinity). I am referring to the Old Testament name Elohim——who is said to have bequeathed the bene-haElohim—, the Sons of God—who then had intercourse with human women and gave birth to the hybridic race of Nephilim.
More than 2,500 times in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word used in reference to the name of God is Elohim. Interestingly enough, the word is not a mere name alone, but it is also a descriptor, in that it details physical attributes of the Hebrew God, also known as Yahweh [Jehovah]. The word Elohim, itself, denotes plurality, specifically “more than two.” But it is also most commonly used in the Hebrew texts only in conjunction with a singular verb or adjective, which can sometimes indicate a singular, individual God with a plurality of vast and many powers, depending on the context of the passage wherein it is found. There is also the argument that Elohim is a statement of the Hashalush HaKadosh, or the Trinity, despite the fact that there is no indicated number limiting the plurality of Elohim to “three.” Anti-Trinitarians would tell you that the term Elohim suggests only the multiplicity of power and majesty, as opposed to suggesting the word indicates a plurality of beings or multiplicity of entities individually combined into a collective, singular God. The word Elohim is also used as a collective plural reference to the many denounced false gods and idols throughout the Old Testament.
The literal translation of the word Elohim is “God of Many Gods,” more simply: “God of Gods.” But to render this as a wholly polytheistic term would fly in the face of how Judaism’s staunchest scholars would interpret the word. No higher authority on the Hebrew language can be found than the great Hebrew scholar Wilhelm Gesenius. He wrote that the plural nature of Elohim was for the purpose of intensification, and was related to the plural of majesty and used for amplification. Gesenius states that “the language has entirely rejected the idea of numerical plurality in Elohim (whenever it denotes one God) and is proved especially by its being almost invariably joined with a singular attribute.”1
“That the language has entirely rejected the idea of
numerical plurality in (whenever it denotes one God), is proved especially by its being almost invariably
joined with a singular attribute (cf. § 132 h), e.g.
710, &c. Hence may have been
used originally not only as a numerical but also as an
abstract plural (corresponding to the Latin numen, and
our Godhead), and, like other abstracts of the same kind, have been transferred to a concrete single god
(even of the heathen).”2
In other words, although it is very tempting to extrapolate from the word Elohim a definition that renders it literally as “God of Many Gods,” it is more likely than not that in the Old Testament, a Jewish book of faith, it would be wholly inconsistent with the Jewish religion to present their God as anything but a singular, individual, monotheistic deity. To render the word Elohim as signifying that the Jews held to a polytheistic expression of God, would simply fly in the face of their entire monotheistic belief system.
Though certainly debated, the name Elohim (most probably) has to do with the first God-encounter that humans experienced,3 at least within the Hebraic Jewish mindset. Those initial experiences produced awe or fear for the multiple powers of nature, as is reflected in the Old Testament where the word Elohim is used for God Himself. But it is also used for the complete plurality of so-called idolatrous gods, the wooden and stone images that people worshipped in their homes and village localities. Elohim is even used to mean “angels” and “judges.”
In the final analysis, the name Elohim has something to do with powers: The Powers That Be; The Many Powered; Power and Majesty. In the traditional Jewish view, Elohim is the Name of God as the Creator and Judge of the universe. In Exodus 3:6, the plural name of Elohim is modified by its singular personal pronouns, said to be spoken by God in the first person:
“The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to those, ‘You
want to know my name? I am called according to my
actions. When I judge the creatures I am Elohim, and
when I have mercy with My world, I am named YHWH
(Jehovah)….’”
(Exodus 3:6)
Yet, the Hebrew word Elohim does, without question, signify a plurality. Deciding whether or not that plurality indicates “more than one God” versus “many powers and amplified majesty” is where the debate starts and ends. When one usage of the word is said to mean a singular God with a vast array of powers, and another translation of the word indicates a plurality and/or vast array of idols and “false gods,” you see the inherent conflict and subsequent confusion. However, as we talked about earlier, it is all about context and the usage of the word as it is modified by the surrounding verbs and adjectives.
“In the beginning, God (“Elohim”—plural) created
(“bara”—singular) the heavens and the earth.”
(Genesis 1:1)
Is the word Elohim being used in this context a demonstration of the creative power of God representing the volitional act of a divine collective of many gods engaging in the act of the first creation? Is it a singular entity representing many gods? Or is it the God of Vast and Many Powers doing the creating? You could argue that the act of creation is being done by a singular representation of Elohim, or, if you take it outside the religious mindset of the author of Genesis, you could interpret the language as meaning the creative act performed by a vast host of many gods embodied in the singular Elohim. However, you would have to consider the point-of-view of the author of the Book of Genesis: Moses, so says Jewish tradition (and I believe there is no reason to doubt this fact, as I will demonstrate in the following chapter on Moses and the 18th Dynasty of Egypt). Moses was the great “Law Giver” of the Hebrews, establishing the Ten Commandments, whose very first mandate in the first commandment was, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.” Should the emphasis of this commandment be placed on the person of the singular Elohim who commands that “nothing” should be put before him in the act of worship? Or should the emphasis be on the “other gods,” interpolating that other gods exist, but Jehovah God is the one who is demanding your worship if you are to follow him, alone? Or is it simply metaphoric language?
“Then God (Elohim) said, ‘Let us make mankind in
our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over
the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the
livestock and all the wild animals, and over all
the creatures that move along the ground.’”
(Genesis 1:26)
Is God, in this passage, referring to Himself in the third person, much as would an earthly monarch when speaking of the vast powers he or she holds in sway over his or her subjects? Or is this an example of a plurality of gods speaking as a singular entity?
The examples could go on to a point of trivial exhaustion, as there are more than 2,500 of them throughout the Old Testament. So let us (plural) bring (singular) our (plural) examination (singular) of the word Elohim (plural) to a conclusion, putting it in context with our entire subject matter, the Nephilim:
The source of the word Nephilim is found only in ancient Jewish religious writings, including the Bible’s Old Testament Books of Moses, the apocryphal book Book of Enoch, and a few other scant biblical and non-biblical references. Whether you like it or not, the Judeo-Christian books of faith are teh absolute source point for the word itself. That is not to say that there are not dozens of other ancient cultures (see Chapter 4) that record accounts of the same beings under different labels and names. But for the sake of going t
o the source of the most commonly understood and used word for these beings, the Nephilim are sourced in Jewish scriptures. According to Genesis, it was Elohim who gave birth to or created beings known as the Watchers (according to Enoch), who are called the Sons of God (bene haElohim) in Genesis Chapter 6. It is said that these Sons of God descended to the earth and cohabited with human women, producing offspring called the Nephilim. Bing. Bang. Boom.
But we still have one intermediate step to look at before getting to the Nephilim themselves—namely, their unearthly lineage, the one half of their cross-bred parentage: the bene haElohim, or the Sons of God.
The Sons of God
Now that we have examined the plurality of the name Elohim, and the presentation of the Jewish concept that it meant (more likely than not) a singular God with vast majesty and possessing of many powers, we now need to examine his offspring. They are the characters in the account of the lineage of the Nephilim known as the Sons of God, the bene Elohim or bene-haElohim, the “parents”—or least one half of the parental line.
“1 When human beings began to increase in number on the
earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God
saw that these daughters were beautiful, and they married any
of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not
contend with human beings forever, for they are mortal; their
days will be a hundred and twenty years.” 4 The Nephilim
were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when
the sons of God went to the daughters of the human beings
and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of
renown.”
(Genesis 6:1-4)
These four verses from Genesis Chapter 6 appear in the preamble to the account of Noah’s Flood. Noah’s name appears for the first time in the text in verse 8, where it states that he “found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” The passage goes on to state that Noah (and his family) was the only “righteous” human being left on the earth, and that is why he was chosen to be the builder of the great ark—or barge—which would preserve him, his family, and pairs of animals from the great watery judgment of God’s wrath. (We will examine later the meaning of the word righteous and find out that it meant much more than simple spiritual goodness.)
These four verses comprise a very interesting passage in that it differs in writing style from the rest of the Book of Genesis, having earmarks of having been extracted, edited, and perhaps even plagiarized—at least in part—from other extant contemporary source material. If you’ve ever written a term paper for school, it’s like paraphrasing bits and pieces of material from external sources without quoting that source. After extensive study of this passage, Dr. David Penchansky, chair of the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minn.) stated in a personal conversation with me:
This passage has been edited, either by the writer of
Genesis, or by later scribes. It most certainly does not
match the writing style of the rest of the book, and the
language in which it is written is “choppy,” almost as
if it is reproduced in the text as snippets from other
source material. And the account was, obviously, far
too well-known at the time to be omitted completely.
Who Are the Sons of God?
The term bene haElohim (), or Sons of God is found only four times in the Old Testament: Genesis 6:1-4; Job 1:6 and 2:1; Job 38:7; Psalm 29:1.
In the Genesis 6:1–4 passage we are told that the Sons of God looked upon human women (other translations refer to these women as: “the daughters of men/man; men’s daughters; the beautiful women of the human race; and even, ‘these girls’”) and “saw that they were beautiful.” In some translations, the Sons of God “lusted after them,” and then “married any of them they chose,” or in some translations “they took the ones they liked.” The title, Sons of God, has been viewed several ways, and various translations refer to them as “God’s Sons, heavenly beings, and Sons from the Heavens.” It is clear to most biblical scholars that the title, Sons of God refers to angelic beings, and this is supported by other passages throughout the old and new testaments, as well as the apocryphal Book of Enoch, and various other historical texts. It is interesting to note that even Jesus of Nazareth, himself, was called “The Son of God.”
However, different views are taken on the Genesis 6:1-4 passage:
Sons of God simply refers to men, the sons of the nobles who were patrons of the school of the prophets, who married daughters of the common people. This is the view of many Jewish authorities as well as professors from my own theological roots in fundamentalist, conservative Baptist seminary circles, who hold that the Sons of God are only human men, justified by the use of elohim being defined as “judges” in other passages such as Exodus 21:6 and 22:8. But this is simply a means by which certain theologians avoid dealing with the intermingling of spirit beings and human women, an entire notion that falls far too close to an admission that there is more than just humanity inhabiting the universe. This is a perfect example of good scholars using disingenuous scholarship for a means to squeeze the interpretation of certain words into their particular theological point of view.
Sons of God—bene haElohim—is used in this passage to demonstrate the stark contrast to the term daughters of men (). From Elohim to adahm; God to man. When you read Elohim in conjunction with other words in the context, you have to view the Hebrew word for men: adahm (). It simply means “the human race of men.” If, indeed, the Sons of God—the bene haElohim—refers only to mere mortal men of the upper classes, seeking to marry the daughters of the lower classes, the word adahm would not be contrasted with bene haElohim. And when used in the same context with elohim, adahm signifies the human race in contrast to the divine. The bene-haElohim were anything but human beings, and that is in strict unity with the Hebrew language of the passage.
Some theologians hold that the Sons of God are to be understood as the pious, righteous race descended from Seth (Adam and Eve’s third son), and that “daughters of men” is to be interpreted as the “daughters of worldly men.” However, the language simply does not state that, and, again, it is intellectually disingenuous, and a theological stretch to say that it does.
Whoever they were, the text makes it clear that they were bequeathed by the God who was above them; sons by birth, or sons by creative act, their point of origin is clear in all accounts: They came from the heavens and had some claim to being called Sons of God. The following passage from the Book of Enoch introduces them within the framework of the Jewish/Christian tradition—despite their appearance in a book that was banned from the canonical scriptures by the Church—and offers up a startlingly similar account to the Genesis 6:1-4 passage.
“1 It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. 2 And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, “Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.” 3 Then their leader Shamjaza said to them; “I fear that you may perhaps be indisposed to the performance of this enterprise; 4 And that I alone shall suffer for so grievous a crime.” 5 But they answered him and said; “We all swear; 6 And bind ourselves by mutual execrations, that we will not change our intention, but execute our projected undertaking.” 7 Then they swore all together, and all bound themselves by mutual execrations. Their whole number was two hundred, who descended upon Ardis (during the days of Jared), which is the top of mount Armon (Mt. Hermon in present day Israel). 8 That mountain therefore was called Armon, because they had sworn upon it, and bound themselves by mutual execrations. 9 These are the names of their chiefs: Shamyaza, who was their leader, Urakabarameel, Akibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Saraknyal, Azazel, Armers, Batraal, Anane, Zavebe, Samsaveel, Ertael, Turel, Yomyael, Arazyal. These were t
he prefects of the two hundred angels, and the remainder were all with them. 10 Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees. 11 And the women conceiving brought forth giants.”
(1 Enoch 7: 1-11)
Looking west from the slopes of Mount Hermon, Israel.
Copyright Rama Yappy Kawitarka mannaismayaadventure.wordpress.com. Used with permission.
According to Enoch, the Sons of God were created, bequeathed angelic beings who descended (fell down) to the earthly realm, and on the slopes of Mount Hermon made a pact to produce offspring with human women. To ascribe malevolence to these angels would not be wholly accurate, but Enoch’s book does intimate that should they carry out their plan, they were in fear of being held responsible for enacting a “sinful” deed in the eyes of God. Enoch goes on to tell of the attributes they brought down to the human race with them: enchantments, the making of weaponry, meteorology, astrology, astronomy, interpretations of moon phases, herbology, and the signs of the sun, stars, and moon. With these angelic-taught skills, mankind delved to the lowest common denominator by developing the art of warfare and pursued wickedness to the point of stirring up Jehovah’s wrath. And the Sons of God were, indeed, held to blame; Shemjaza, their leader, somehow overlooked, and Azazel held as the main culprit for introducing weapons and warfare to mankind.
The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim Page 4
