Texts in Conversation
In Genesis 6, the Greek Septuagint translation renders Nephilim as giants, and some of its manuscripts call the sons of God angels, showing how it follows a supernatural interpretation of this difficult-to-interpret story.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 6:4
Hebrew Bible
2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humankind were beautiful. Thus they took wives for themselves from any they chose. 3 So the Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain in humankind indefinitely, since they are mortal. They will remain for 120 more years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after this) when the sons of God would sleep with the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. They were the mighty heroes of old, the famous men. 5 But the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made humankind on the earth, and he was highly offended.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Genesis 6:4
Septuagint
2 that the [angels] of God having seen the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose. 3 And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be one hundred and twenty years. 4 Now the giants were upon the earth in those days; and after that when the sons of God used to go in to the daughters of men, they bore children to them, those were the giants of old, the men of renown. 5 And the Lord God, having seen that the wicked actions of men were multiplied upon the earth, and that every one in his heart was intently brooding over evil continually, 6 then God laid it to heart that he had made man upon the earth, and he pondered it deeply.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... To Himbaza, the reason for the change in this verse was not a defense of monotheism but rather its use of the term ‘angels of God’. The problem with this term stems from the interpretation of Genesis 6, Exodus 21:6 and 22:7. In Genesis 6:1-4, a notoriously difficult passage, 'the sons of God' lie with 'the daughters of men' resulting in 'the Nephilim', a race of giants. While the LXX translates this literally, 'the sons of God', the Targums here interpret this as ‘the sons of the great’ ..."
Philip Mark Reid, “A Preliminary Investigation into the Samaritan Pentateuch as an Intralingual Translation” (MA diss., University of the Free State, 2021), 90–01.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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