Nimrod, The Tower of Babel, Demonic Possession, and Genesis 6 | Demonology & Angelology

Is God Mean | Episode 4

What do Nimrod, the Tower of Babel, demonic possession, and Genesis 6 have in common?

Uncovering the “Fallen Angels Overtook Man” view of Genesis 6

So we’ve looked at many variations of the angel view of Genesis 6; the theory that angels mated with human women to create a hybrid offspring. We’ve also explored different variations of The Sethite Theory; that the “sons of God” were only human men. Which interpretation is true? Well, in this section I’m finally going to lay out all the evidence and explain which interpretation I personally believe is the correct one. We’ll also take a look at why this debate may help explain some of God’s seemingly harsh actions in the Old Testament. So which interpretation is correct? Let’s dive in to find out.

Before we can lay this debate to rest, there is one more interpretation that we need to look at. It is a theory that sort of merges the Sethite Theory and the Angel View together. I’ve seen this theory referred to as the “Fallen Angels Overtook Man View.” Now, the popular version of this theory I still don’t believe is the whole truth, but there are some elements from it that we’re going to use when we’re piecing everything together at the end. So let’s take a look at it.

The Fallen Angels Overtook Man View

In Genesis 6:4 it says “The Nephilim were in the earth in those days – and also afterward…” Many people have taken that to mean that the Nephilim were on earth in the days before the flood, and also afterward, but some scholars that have studied that phrase throughout scripture say that a more accurate interpretation would be that the Nephilim were already on the earth before the sons of God mated with the daughters of men, and also after that. Which means that the Nephilim would not be the offspring of the sons of God because they were already there before the Sons of God married women.

In this theory, the Nephilim, which many interpret as “the fallen ones”, were simply the fallen angels that had already rebelled against God. According to this view, the sons of God were the righteous angels who had not yet rebelled, and Genesis 6:1-4 is the story of a second rebellion as another group of righteous angels rebel against God to chase after their lusts. People who believe this theory believe that the Sons of God (the good angels) were seduced by watching the Nephilim (the fallen angels) possess human men and then have sexual relations with human women. Eventually, the righteous angels gave in and also decided to compromise themselves by possessing men to sleep with women. Why would the human men agree to this? Maybe the angels falsely told the men that by allowing this to happen that they would produce eternal offspring. Maybe it was the same old lie that the serpent told Adam and Eve in the Garden; that they would be like God. Maybe the humans, having seen the devastating effects of sin on the earth, were desperate to find a way to reverse the curse of death that Adam and Even had brought on mankind. I don’t know why the men or women willfully tolerated this demon possessed way of life. What we do know is, after this union, this demonically led society fell into such depravity that “…every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” as Genesis 6:5 states.

Is a hybrid race necessary to explain God’s actions in the Old Testament?

This theory has problems too, and we’ll explore those problems in a minute. However, I do think this concept of demon possession, and its effects on society, may have played a much bigger role than we’ve previously considered.

I used to think that a hybrid half angel/half human race was necessary in order to explain some of the most difficult passages in the Old Testament, such as God commanding Joshua to wipe out entire tribes and people groups (At least that’s what I THOUGHT God had told Joshua to do. I’ve come to realize through my studies that’s not really what God said, but we’ll get to that in a future video). Had God actually commanded Joshua to do that, what better way to explain those commands than by an “alien” race threatening to wipe out humanity by corrupting mankind’s bloodlines? In my mind, the hybrid race theory was like the cure all for every difficult passage in the Old Testament. If there really was a hybrid race, It would make perfect sense to command an army to wipe them out before they eradicate humanity and prevent the coming of the Messiah. If Satan’s goal was to corrupt the seed of woman before it had a chance to crush his head, and creating a hybrid race was an option that was actually available to him, then I’m sure he wouldn’t hesitate to attempt it.

However, the more I study Old Testament ethics the less I believe the existence of a hybrid half angel/half human race is necessary to explain God’s actions in the Old Testament. I’m not denying that it’s a real possibility. I’m just saying that I don’t think it is necessary to explain Old Testament ethics. In fact, sometimes the idea of there being a hybrid race would actually make things a bit harder to explain. For instance, I’ll explain in a future video that when Joshua was attacking some of these Nephilim and Raphaim tribes that not all of them were actually wiped out. Take the Gibeonites for instance. Gibeon was a Canaanite city, and they were one of the peoples that the Israelites had been forbidden to make peace with (Deut. 20:16–18). They were Hivites (Joshua 11:19) and survivors of the Amorites (2 Samuel 21:2), and Amos 2:9-10 and Numbers 13:29-32 tell us that the Amorites were one of the clans that had giants. So Israel was not to make peace with them, but the Gibeonites tricked the Israelites into making peace with them (Joshua 9). When the Isrealites first discovered they had been tricked, they forced the Gibeonites to live as prisoners of war and slaves to the Israealites, but we’re left to assume that the Gibeonites were eventually fully assimilated into Israel as we see them helping the Israelites rebuild the walls of Jerusalem after their exile (Nehemiah 3:7). And not only that, God even has David atone for Saul’s attempted annihilation of the Gibeonites in 2 Samuel 21.

If the Gibeonites were truly contaminated with hybrid blood, then how could they be allowed to assimilate with Israel. I guess it’s possible that they just never intermarried, but still that would mean that the Nephilim bloodline was never truly wiped out as it continued to live on through the Gibeonites. If that were true, it would mean that bloodline is still being passed down and spreading throughout mankind today, but we see no evidence or warnings of this throughout the rest of the Bible. Actually, the Bible implies that the Raphaim were wiped out by David’s men, and throughout the Bible we are told that God desires that ALL men be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), and Jesus told the disciples to go and preach the gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15). We’re never warned of people groups that are inherently beyond salvation, nor are we ever instructed on particular nations or people groups that we should continue to avoid marrying like they had to in the Old Testament. In fact, the New Testament makes it clear that we are all one in Christ (Ephesians 2:11-22). So either God redeemed the line of Gibeonites for making a covenant with Israel, or they were never a biological threat to begin with, and I personally believe that it was more likely the latter. Also, the Gibeonites were not the only Canaanite peoples to survive Israel’s conquest of Canaan. However, I’m not implying that there was never a hybrid race. I’m just suggesting that the Canaanites don’t seem to be a part of that race.

Superhuman abilities of the demon possessed

So if these Canaanite peoples in the Old Testament were not a hybrid species then who were they? To answer that I want to investigate the idea of demon possession a little further. Let’s start by taking a look at a demon possessed man Jesus encounters.

“They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him.” Mark 5:1-4 NIV

It’s very interesting to note that when this man became demon possessed that he had supernatural strength. He was uncontrollable. Chains couldn’t hold him. Irons couldn’t hold him. No one was strong enough to subdue him, and this isn’t the only instance in the Bible of demon possession giving a person superhuman strength. Let’s look at Acts 19:13-16:

“Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.”

In this instance, one demon possessed man was strong enough to overpower seven men, strip them naked, and beat them. This again reveals a supernatural strength that was achieved when possessed by a demon, and superhuman strength isn’t the only ability that was bestowed on those suffering from demon possession. Acts 16 tells of a slave girl who was possessed by a spirit that enabled her to predict the future. When the demon left her, so did the ability.

“Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.” Acts 16:16-19

So we’ve seen evidence that demon possession can give a person superhuman strength and abilities. Revelations 16:14 references demonic spirits that perform signs, and this may have been some of what we read about in Exodus 7 and 8 when Pharaoh’s sorcerers poorly imitated some of Moses’ and Aaron’s miracles; such as turning a staff into a snake, turning water into blood, and causing frogs to multiply. I’m not sure if Pharaoh’s magicians were just performing illusions, or if they were really operating through demonic power, but either way the Bible does make it clear that those suffering from demonic possession were capable of supernatural things.

The demigods of ancient folklore

The reason I point this out is because many in the ancient world believed that the leaders and kings of their ancient empires were “half gods”. Or to be more literal, it was a common belief that these kings were a hybrid race being half human and half celestial being. People believed that because these rulers were half angelic that they possessed supernatural abilities and strength. They related these leaders to the mighty men (phrase in Hebrew being Gibborim} of renown mentioned in Genesis 6:4 that were the offspring of the Sons of God and the Daughters of man. Nimrod from Genesis 10 could be an example of this (as supported in extra-biblical texts), also Gilgamesh, and the Egyptians believed Pharaohs to be gods on earth.

Even today, believers of the Angel view (that the Sons of God in Genesis 6 were angels) look to ancient wonders in the world like the Pyramids and note that even today we couldn’t recreate these structures without our modern day technology. They point out that there must have been a higher intelligence or power helping those civilizations create these wonders. The primitive understanding and technology of that time wouldn’t have been sufficient to build such elaborate and precise structures. Even non-christians have their own theories. Unbelievers often point to solutions like the ones found in the popular tv series “Ancient Aliens” and speculate that aliens could have aided in their construction.

I’d like to present the idea that demon possession and oppression could also account for this increase in knowledge and abilities to perform these unexplainable feats. It could also explain why people were so terrified of the Canaanite peoples or of warriors like Goliath. If they possessed superhuman strength and abilities they could have frightened godless peoples into submission and terrified them. For this reason, I think the theory that the mighty men of renown that Genesis 6:4 mentions could have just been demon possessed men may have some merit. However, I don’t think it stands on its own. I do think there are a couple of problems with the theory that I’d like to quickly look at.

The flaws in the Fallen Angels Overtook Men View of Genesis 6

The biggest problem that I see with the “fallen angels overtook men view” is that the New Testament tells us in Peter and in Jude that the angels who committed the sins presumably mentioned in Genesis 6 were locked in Tartarus (we covered this extensively in a previous section). If these angels were locked away until a time of judgement, then why is this sin still happening today. I would say that rape is often a result of demonic possession or oppression still today. So why are the demons who continue to perpetuate this evil not being locked away in Tartarus as the other angels were? How are they still roaming free? I think the answer is they are two different celestial crimes. There seems to be a difference between what the “Sons of God” did in Genesis 6, vs what the demons are doing in our society now. So what’s the difference?

Angelology and Demonology

There is a theory in angelology and demonology that demons and fallen angels are not the same thing. This idea comes from the idea that after the Fallen angels slept with human women in Genesis 6 and gave birth to the half angelic/half human Gibborim (the mighty men) that these offspring died in the flood along with everyone else not on the Ark. However, what’s different is that because these hybrid creatures were half angel their bodies (their human half) died in the flood, but their spiritual half (that came from their angelic fathers) continued to live on in the earth as demons.

Obviously there is a lot of speculation in this theory. However, if you do truly believe that angels slept with human women and produced offspring with them then you have to ask yourself what happens to those non-human creatures when they die. Do they just get sent to Hell? Do they join their fathers the fallen angels that are serving Satan? Are they trapped on earth until their judgement? We’re not really told so we just have to guess, but a very popular theory is that these disembodied spirits of this hybrid race are what we now know as demons.

This is why they are so desperate to possess humans and gain corporeal property again. They used to have it and they lost it. Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:43:

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.”

So it’s clear that they do not like being without a body. I think that’s why they were willing to even make due with a herd of pigs when Christ commanded them to leave the Gerasene man.

What’s different with fallen angels is that the Scripture seems to imply that angels have their own bodies, and when given permission from God can manifest those bodies in our realm. Throughout this series we’ve looked at many times where angels appeared in physical form as men, and we’ve even noted that according to the book of Hebrews God’s angels are STILL appearing as men today, and we sometimes entertain them unaware. It seems though, that God revoked the right of fallen angels to appear in physical form after Genesis 6. After that chapter we only see the Godly angels appearing in physical form. We read about the fallen angels becoming principalities and powers in high places, and see them referred to as princes over geographical territories (such as the prince of Persia), but we never see them appearing in physical form again after Genesis 6. Also, it seems even the Godly angels can only appear to us when directed to do so by God.

 Pulling it all together

Over the course of this series, we have talked about many theories ideas. In the next video I am going to pull all of them together to explain the full history of angels and demons from Genesis to Revelation, including what I personally believed happen in Genesis 6. Be sure to subscribe. You don’t want to miss it!