Category Archives: Evolution

April 6, 2014 · 12:00

Seth Number Three?

Bouguereau-The_First_Mourning-1888

The First Mourning by Bouguereau (1888)

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth (Genesis 5:3)

Where did Cain get his wife? Another question along the same line is, “From where did the people come that Cain feared after killing Abel?” (Genesis 4:14). Questions like this have spawned much conjecture in the origins debate and have led many to the misguided conclusion that other “hominids” existed prior to God’s special creation of Adam and Eve. Cain, they conclude, feared these “people” and he probably selected a wife from among them.

For better or worse, the Bible does not provide us with all of the detail we would like for filling the gaps in these historical narratives. But the Author does not concern Himself with the minor details in order to focus our attention on the greater plan, i.e., that God created everything including mankind in a “very good” state; God desired a close personal relationship with His special creation, man; man disobeyed God and severed that intimate relationship; God has continually strived to reconcile man to Himself and provided the way of salvation; and God will one day restore His creation to its original perfection. So the extraneous, irrelevant minutia is omitted in order to develop the greater story. That being said, we are left with many unimportant unanswered questions that can lead us astray, if we are careless in the way we handle God’s Word.

The above are at least two such questions. Genesis 4 begins shortly after the Fall and informs us that “Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD” (Genesis 4:1). The Hebrew construction indicates that Eve actually believed that she had given birth to the Savior. Literally it reads “I have gotten a man, the LORD.” She believed God’s promise that “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; [He] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15, emphasis added). She later realized her error and when her second son was born, she named him Abel (Genesis 4:2) which means emptiness or vanity because her desire was not realized with the firstborn. Now, between verse 1 and verse 2 some time has elapsed, but we do not know how much time. We can surmise that Abel was the second male child born: “And she again bare his brother Abel” (emphasis added). Verse 2 tells us that “Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” Here again, within the same verse, a long span of time has elapsed, and we are left to wonder. How old were these boys? Were they in their early teens or were they fully grown men between 30 and 40 years old? We are not told. And what about other siblings? Were they the only children of Adam and Eve? The details elude us. The intent of this narrative is to highlight the advancement of sin in this new world. Cain committed the first act of murder in killing Abel, his brother. This narrative also illuminates the downward spiral of sin. This final act of murder began with disobedience (Cain offered a sample of his harvest as a sacrifice to God, (Genesis 4:3) rather than a blood sacrifice), then he became jealous of his brother because God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and rejected his (Genesis 4:4), and finally his jealousy worked itself into a raging anger that ended in murder (Genesis 4:5). This is the focus of this narrative, and how old they were or how many other siblings there were is totally irrelevant to the story.

Obviously, Cain did not get away with the murder. Again the purpose of the narrative serves to give us insight into the nature of God and the nature of man. Notice that it is God who seeks man rather than the other way around. “And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?” (Genesis 4:9a). Why does God pose the question? Does God not know what has transpired? God is omniscient. Of course He knows. In fact, God attempted to intervene before the heinous act. “And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him” (Genesis 4:6-7, emphasis added). Cain failed to follow the prescribed method of sacrifice that God instituted in the Garden (Genesis 3:21). Only the shedding of innocent blood can cover man’s sin, but Cain tried to do it his way, and the sin lying at his door was rebellion against God. In His line of questioning, God was giving Cain the opportunity to confess his sin as ask forgiveness, but instead, he hardened his heart: “And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9b). Even then God gave him a third opportunity: “And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). Failing to confess and repent of his sin, God sentenced Cain to banishment from his home and family (Genesis 4:14).

However, it seems that the thing Cain most feared was retribution by others. “Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me” (Genesis 4:14, emphasis added). Who did Cain have to fear? So far, the only people named in the Bible are Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel. Who else was around that might take vengeance on Cain? Then there is the matter of Cain’s wife: “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch” (Genesis 4:17, emphasis added).

So, where did Cain get his wife? The Bible does not say. Apparently the Author thought we were sufficiently intelligent enough to figure that one out on our own, as long as we stick with the Bible. The Genesis account of creation tells us that man was created on the sixth day. Man was also created apart from the animals, who God created merely by His spoken command. Man, on the other hand, was “created” (Hebrew bârâ’ used only as applicable to God’s creative acts) in the “image of God” (Genesis 1:27). Furthermore, God “sculpted” (Hebrew yâtsar, which means to mold into a form as a potter forms clay) a special body for man. So man is truly unique among God’s creation. In addition to that, all of God’s creation is to reproduce “after its kind” (Genesis 1:11-12, 21, 25-26). So, Cain’s wife had to be of the same “kind” as he. That would preclude him having a wife of some lesser “evolved” hominid, which, if such a thing existed, would not have been created in the image of God. That leaves only one option. Cain’s wife was his sister.

The other question is: Whom did Cain have to fear? It stands to reason that if Cain had a wife, Abel could have had a wife and perhaps even children. Since we are not given a timeframe for this event, we cannot know if the boys were in their thirties or older. Perhaps both boys were old enough by now to have grown children. If that were the case, Cain would have feared retribution from Abel’s sons. Or he could have feared retribution from his other siblings. The Bible tells us that Adam “begat sons and daughters” (Genesis 5:4), but the number and the time between births remains a puzzle. We know that Adam was 130 when Seth was born (Genesis 5:3). “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew” (Genesis 4:25). Seth’s name means substituted (Strong’s definition) or compensation (Young’s definition). Seth is the third person named as a son of Adam, but it does not necessarily follow that he was the third born. It simply means that he was the third son of Adam who is identified in Scripture. (I will explain later.) Also, judging by the significance of his name and Adam’s age at his birth, it is reasonable that Cain and Abel were approaching that age, i.e., between 120 and 129 years old. Keep in mind that Adam was not “born;” he was created fully grown, so while chronologically he was 130, physically he was probably around 160. If this is the case, there was enough time involved for many more people to be on earth coming from Adam and Eve and approximately four generations (provided a generation equals 30 years). I am no mathematician, but I came up with what I consider to be a rather conservative figure for the possible number people on earth at the time of Seth’s birth:

Pop at Seths Birth

A young biologist friend of mine came up with a table similar to mine, but he took into account the maturation process of Adam and Eve’s offspring before they were of age to reproduce. Gee! Why didn’t I think of that! His table is too long to reproduce here, but his figures were even more conservative than mine. He calculated the possible population at the time of Seth’s birth at only 9,289. Even at this much lower count, one understands why Cain feared for his life; there were others out there who might want to take vengeance for Abel’s murder.

By now it should be evident that Seth was not Adam and Eve’s third son. His name simply means that he was the replacement for Abel. His name is significant also because it starts to point the way to our Savior, Jesus Christ. From Seth’s line came Enoch who “walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). From Seth’s line came Noah “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5); a man who “found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8). Through Noah, and then through his son Shem, extended the line that would eventually lead to Jesus (Luke 3:38). Herein lies the reason Seth’s name is recorded while other sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are excluded. Seth was not the third son, but he was the son that points us to Christ.

Comments Off on Seth Number Three?

Filed under Apologetics, Christianity, Creation, Death, Evangelism, Evolution, Gospel, Religion, Salvation, Theology

March 30, 2014 · 15:40

Noah

Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. (Genesis 6:14)

Thanks to a host of well-meaning Christian movie critics, I find my enthusiasm for seeing the movie “Noah” severely waning. Thanks for all the spoilers! It goes without saying that any Bible movie coming out of Hollywood will fall woefully short on accuracy. Face it; these people are script writers that deal in fantasy, not theologians or Bible scholars who are intimate with the Word of God. Not to mention that God chose not to provide us with every detail that took place within this 121-year period of history. The Flood account takes up only four short chapters in the Bible. There is not enough material there to make a 2-hour and 18-minute movie, so Hollywood has to fill in the blanks according to their own imaginations – that being Director and Co-writer, Darren Aronofsky, an atheist, and staring actor, Russell Crowe who is no friend of Christians.

I would hope that thoughtful Christians would take that into consideration. It’s a movie. It is designed to entertain and to make money for the producers and for the theaters on the sale of popcorn and soda. Certainly Christians (or anyone else for that matter) should not take it as a serious portrayal of a biblical narrative. That said, it does get some things right. The Ark is of the correct biblical dimensions. The Flood is global. The Flood is God’s judgment for man’s sin. The Flood is not just the result of rain, but also resulted from the bursting of the “fountains of the deep.” Of course, the movie gets more things wrong than it gets things right. One glaring problem that I found from viewing movie trailers is that the Ark is of a crude construction. It looks like a huge log cabin that could hardly withstand the tsunami-like waves associated with the Great Flood. This image of the Ark stems from evolutionary thinking that assumes ancient man was technologically inept, but that is hardly the picture the Bible presents of pre-flood man: “Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ … Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron” (Genesis 4:21-22). Not long after Noah and his family came out of the Ark, the Tower of Babel was built (Genesis 11), and after the division of languages, the Egyptians started building their pyramids. It seems implausible to me that Noah would have built anything less than a sturdy, seaworthy vessel, and besides, he had 120 years to work on it. The spoilers also point out that the movie Ark has several doors, while the biblical Ark has only one (Genesis 6:16).

The spoilers point out many other problems with the film. For instance, creation is a result of the big bang. Life emerges out of the waters. The movie implies that Adam and Eve come from apes. Noah seems to care more about animals and the planet than he does about humans including his own family. The sin of mankind is their abuse of the environment and mankind is portrayed as blight upon the earth. The Creator (Who is never referred to as “God”) is impersonal and vindictive. It is implied that God instructs Noah to kill his own granddaughters (born on the Ark, which has no biblical basis), and when he is unable to do so, Noah regards himself as a failure. More could be said concerning the failure of this movie to present a true rendition of the biblical text, however the critics, above all else, decry the film’s purposeful distortion of Scripture. For the low information viewer, the question remains, who was Noah? What was Noah really like?

To answer those questions, one must go to the source, the Bible. Noah is of the godly line of Seth, Adam’s third son named in the Bible (Genesis 4:25). There very well could have been others, but one must remember that one of the purposes of the biblical genealogies is to point to Christ. Noah’s father was Lamech, and his grandfather was Methuselah, whose name means something like “when he dies, judgment.” Methuselah holds the record for longevity; he lived to be 969 years old, and he died the year that the Flood came.

Noah was around 480 years old when God selected him to build the Ark. At that time, “the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:3, emphasis added). So Noah was given 120 years to build the Ark. During that time, he preached to the people trying to get them to repent of their sin. Peter speaking of the people of that time “Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water” (1 Peter 3:20, emphasis added). “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly” (2 Peter 2:4-5, emphasis added). When Noah and his family (Mrs. Noah, Noah’s three sons and his three daughters-in-law) entered the Ark, Noah was 600 years old (Genesis 7:11).

The reason God brought the Flood was not for ecological reasons as the Gaia-worshiping makers of the “Noah” movie suggest. Second Peter 2:5 (above) talks about God not sparing “the angels that sinned,” and then closely follows with a description of Noah as “a preacher of righteousness.” It must be understood that the angels who rebelled against God along with Lucifer (Satan), are excluded from God’s plan of salvation. So Noah’s preaching was not to fallen angels (demons), but rather to humans who had been enticed to sin by these angels. These people would have been eligible for salvation had they repented. But the mention of the angels is interesting. Some scholars believe that these angels in some form or another mated with humans and created a race of super-humans. This is concluded from the first four verses of Genesis 6. “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose … There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:1-2, emphasis added). The Hebrew word for “sons of God” in verses 2 and 4 is bene ĕlôhı̂ym and it is always used when referring to angels in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word translated “giants” here is nephı̂ylim and it means “fallen ones.” Of course, there are those who will say that angels do not have sex and others who will suggest that angels (except for God’s angels) cannot take human form. I will not go to war over that, but whatever took place was sufficient to corrupt mankind to the point that God was willing to destroy His entire creation with the exception of those who made it on the Ark. “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart … The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” (Genesis 6:5-6, 11-12, emphasis added). Imagine the degradation and depravity to which mankind had sunk that the great loving heart of God could be so grieved as to destroy His beautiful creation! This had nothing to do with littering the planet.

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8). In Noah and his family was the human race preserved. Noah was given instruction for building the Ark. It was to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high (Genesis 6:15). Using an 18-inch cubit, that made the Ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. The Ark was the length of one and one-half football fields and of sufficient capacity to hold 522 railroad cattle cars. The Ark was to have three floors (stories or decks, Genesis 6:16) and “rooms” (Hebrew qênim meaning “nests”) for the animals (Genesis 6:14). The Ark also required a ventilation and lighting system which the Bible describes as a “window” (Genesis 6:16). God instructed Noah to bring enough food for his family and for all of the animals (Genesis 6:20) enough to last them for a year (Genesis 7:14). In order to carry out God’s instructions, Noah had to be an engineer, architect/designer, ship builder, zoologist and other duties as assigned. Noah was no dummy!

The rains came, the crust of the earth broke open allowing superheated, subterranean water to spew into the atmosphere (Genesis 7:11), and the whole earth was covered in water more than 22 feet above the tallest hills/mountains (Genesis 7:20). “And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark” (Genesis 7:21-23, emphasis added). The all-inclusive description of the death wrought by the Flood precludes a small local event as some have suggested.

After 371 days the waters subsided, and Noah was instructed to come out of the Ark (Genesis 8:15-16). Noah released all of the animals, and the first thing he did was to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God (Genesis 8:20-21). God promised never again to destroy the earth with water, and He promised to maintain nature in a stable state (Genesis 8:21); but God was under no delusion that man would remain faithful, “for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (v. 21). To Noah and his family and thereby to us, God reestablished man’s Dominion Mandate: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth … And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.” (Genesis 9:1, 7). He also gave to man the authority to render justice. “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Genesis 9:5-6, emphasis added).

This is the true story of Noah. Now, feel free to go enjoy the false story of Noah, just remember that it is just a movie and not the true account. The real historical account is in the Bible. Read it, and know it before you go see “Noah” the movie.

4 Comments

Filed under Apologetics, Atheism, Book Reviews, Christianity, Creation, Current Events, Death, End Times, Evolution, Geology, Origins, Religion, Salvation, Theology

March 12, 2014 · 12:39

Cosmos Review: Standing Up in the Milky Way – Answers in Genesis

Cosmos Review: Standing Up in the Milky Way – Answers in Genesis.

This article from Answers in Genesis pretty well covers my sentiments on this program. It was clearly obvious to me the blatant attack on religion as “religion bad; science good.” It fails to recognize that the majority of scientists started with a strong belief in a Creator God as they sought to “think God’s thoughts after Him.” It was also painfully obvious to me that most of the “facts” that were presented were based on speculation and “consensus science” and nothing that could be supported by the scientific method. It pains me to think how many people fall for this stuff just because “science” (so called) says.

Comments Off on Cosmos Review: Standing Up in the Milky Way – Answers in Genesis

Filed under Apologetics, Creation, Current Events, Evolution, Origins, Religion, Science

February 23, 2014 · 12:00

Age of the Earth

Genesis 1

“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is …” (Exodus 20:11)

There is no argument that the age of the earth debate between evolutionists and creationists has no resolution because there can be no middle ground for compromise on either side. At issue is the question of origins: did all that exists come about by random chance over billions of years through natural causes, or did an omnipotent, omniscient Creator bring it all into being? It is one or the other, and the one who holds either view holds that view religiously and tenaciously. There is no “give.”

Lamentably, the real battle exists in the Christian camp (among “brothers”) where a variety of opinions persist. Is the earth 4.5 billion years old as the evolutionists claim, or is it only 6,000 years old as the Bible seems to indicate? Most Christians accept that God created all that exists, but beyond that opinions vary as to how God created. That God spoke everything into being as the Bible records is too simplistic an answer for some. There are basically two major divisions in this debate. The first group contends that God created everything in six 24-hour days around 6000 years ago. The second group comes in several flavors, but basically they agree with the evolutionists that God created everything over 13.7 billion years ago and used evolution in one form or another to create life. However, they will contend that man was a “special” creation of God and did not evolve from lower life forms. My intent here is to give a brief defense of the first group. The second group is indefensible in my opinion.

I wish to respond to three questions recently posed to me. (1) Where, exactly, does the Bible say that the earth is only six thousand years old? (2) How do we know that the creation spoken of in the Bible took place in six literal 24-hour days, as opposed to uncounted eons of time? (3) In 2 Peter 3:8, it says “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”  Is this passage pointing to God as being outside of time, or is it the basis for the 6-day/6-thousand years belief?

In answer to the first question, the Bible does not give an age for the earth per se. God did not exactly “date stamp” His creation. Archbishop James Ussher determined that the earth was created in the year 4004 BC by using the genealogies found in Genesis along with other sources.[1] When one begins with the Genesis account of creation (Genesis 1) and counts the generations from Adam to the Flood, one gets about 1656 years. From the Flood to the birth of Abraham was 297 years for a total of about 1953 years.[2] We can round that off to about 2000 years. Then we have about 2000 years to Jesus and from Jesus until now we have another 2000 years for a total of 6000 years – give or take a couple of hundred years.

Second, God created everything in six literal days. The Hebrew word used for “day” is yom, and it almost always means a normal 24-hour day. On those few occasions when it does not mean a literal 24-hour day, context lets us know that, as in the case of “the day of the Lord.” Furthermore, just in case it is not clear enough for us, God further specifies that “the evening and the morning was the first day, second day, third day,” etc., making it clear that God means a literal 24-hour day (Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31). Later, in Exodus 20:11, as God gave the commandment concerning the keeping of the Sabbath, God says, “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” In other words, God is saying, “I gave you the example by creating in six days and resting on the seventh, and I want you to follow My example.”

The third question deals with what a “day” means to God. When we look at 2 Peter 3:8 we need to keep the context in mind. Peter is talking about the Second Coming of Christ, and he is encouraging his readers, in the midst of persecution, not to lose heart in waiting for Christ’s return. In essence he says that God does not mark time the way we do; He is not bound by time as we are. Furthermore, Peter employs simile when he says “one day is with the Lord as [or “like”] a thousand years, and a thousand years as [or “like”] one day.” Notice what he DID NOT say: “one day is with the Lord a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day.” We need to take care when reading the Bible not to read into Scripture what is not there.

There is no scriptural reason not to believe in a young earth, nor is there any scientific reason to not to believe in a young earth; but I will let the scientists at the Institute for Creation Research argue those finer points of science. Trust what God says in His Word – ALL of it! Seriously, who would you rather believe? The words of fallible man or the Word of Infallible God?

3 Comments

Filed under Apologetics, Christianity, Creation, Current Events, Evolution, Gospel, Origins, Religion, Theology

Tagged as , , , , , ,

February 10, 2014 · 00:46

The Exceptions

Fallen Angels

“… and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world …” (Revelation 17:8)

In my last post, “The Book of Life” I talked about the Book of Life that will be opened at the Great White Throne Judgment. Anyone whose name is not found written in the Book of Life is sentenced to an eternity in hell. I also expressed my understanding that everyone who has ever been born has their names written in the Book of Life initially, but whether they remain there depends on how they respond to God’s offer of salvation.

I said this was true with some exceptions, but I did not want to go into the details at that time. The reason I did not elaborate on the “exceptions” is because it might sound a little strange or even weird to some people, and trying to explain it in one or two paragraphs would be next to impossible. In fact, books have been written on the subject, so it would be difficult to explain in just a few words.

Just by way of disclaimer: what I am suggesting in the following paragraphs should not be taken as “gospel.” These are simply my thoughts based on studies that I have done, and are not meant to represent any kind of ecclesiastical dogma. There are many things in God’s Word that are not made clear to us, and to attempt to build a case on a shaky foundation is simply foolish. So, I recommend a healthy dose of skepticism before continuing. You may think I am full of bologna, and that is fine. This is something I “think” is true, but I wouldn’t bet my next paycheck on it. So, read on.

You remember in Genesis 3 that Satan came to Eve in the form of a serpent and tempted her to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She then shared the fruit with Adam who also ate of the fruit so that both sinned by disobeying God’s only commandment – that they should not to eat of that tree. God punished them, as He had warned them, by causing them to die in two ways: (1) they would no longer live forever (when God created man, He intended them to live forever), and (2) they were separated from their Creator. This is what we know as original sin, and all generations since Adam and Eve have inherited original sin. We all have a “sin nature.” That is why the Bible says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, emphasis added). God also cursed the ground from which man was taken so that all of God’s creation suffers because of man’s sin. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22, emphasis added). Adam’s punishment was that work would be hard for him, and Eve’s punishment was that she would have pain in bearing children.

Following that (about 1600 years later), we are told that violence increased in the world. “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart” (Genesis 6:5-6). That was bad enough, but the first verses of Genesis 6 talks about something that is very strange, and has puzzled biblical scholars for ages . It says:

1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose …
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:1-2, 4, emphasis added)
 

The “sons of God” in the Hebrew is bene elohim. This term always refers to angels in the Old Testament. (See Job 1:6; Job 2:1; and Job 38:7.) There are two kinds of angels: Satan’s angels (demons) and God’s angels. (Something to keep in mind is that even the devil is God’s devil. God created him, and he rebelled against God. But the devil (Satan) cannot do anything without God’s permission. This is demonstrated in the first three chapters of Job.) So, these demons “mated” with human females to create a mighty race of men. Now, angels cannot procreate directly, so what probably happened is that these demons possessed human males in order to mate with the human females. This somehow altered the DNA of the children born from these demonic unions so that they created “giants.” The Hebrew word used for “giants” is nephalim, and it literally means “fallen ones.”

Imagine just how bad things got that God felt He had to destroy them all. “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8) and “Noah was a just man and perfect in all his generations, and Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9, emphasis added). The phrase that Noah was “perfect in all his generations” does not mean that he was sinless. Remember, “all have sinned.” What this means, then, is that his blood line was not contaminated by the satanic unions of the others.

When I say that there are “some exceptions,” this is to what I’m referring. Revelation 17 discusses the apostate church during the Tribulation who the Antichrist will eventually destroy. About those who follow that apostate church it says, “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is” (Revelation 17:8, emphasis added). It is very clear that these were never written in the Book of Life – “from the foundation of the world.” It is as if these were never meant to be born.

One would think that the Global Flood should have taken care of all of the “bad seed.” Well, perhaps not all of them. As we continue the narrative in Genesis 6, God sent the Flood that covered the entire earth for almost a whole year. The Bible tells us that Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives were in the Ark for 371 days, before the earth was once again livable.

Then follows an incident where Noah got drunk, and his son Ham saw him naked (Genesis 9:20-29). Ham, instead of covering his father went and told his brothers, Japheth and Shem. So they went into Noah’s tent backward so as not to see the nakedness of their father and they covered him up. When Noah awoke from his drunk and discovered what Ham had done, he cursed Canaan, Ham’s youngest son. So the question is, why did Noah curse Canaan and not Ham or Ham’s other sons? The answer may be that Ham’s wife may have carried some of the “bad seed” of the Nephalim in her, and it showed up in Canaan. One of the characteristics of Nephalim is that they had six fingers. (Goliath’s father had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot (2 Samuel 21:20).) Canaan was probably born with six fingers and when Noah saw it, he cursed him. So, some of these probably still exist in our world today with or without six fingers, but God knows who they are. These would not qualify to be written in the Book of Life.

Canaan’s descendants settled in the “Land of Canaan” which was given to Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 13:14-18; 15:18-21). Genesis 10:15-20 describes who these people were and where they settled. “And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha” (Genesis 10:19). These are the people that the children of Israel had to face when they entered the Promise Land. As they prepared to enter into the land, 12 spies were sent in to spy out the land and report back what they encountered. The book of Numbers records the bad report returned by 10 out of the 12 spies. “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight” (Numbers 13:33). Again, here the Hebrew word for “giants” is nephalim – the “fallen ones.” In The Henry Morris Study Bible, Dr. Morris makes this note about this verse:

There were also other tribes of giants in the land. “That was also accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims; A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims” [i.e., sons of Anak] (Deuteronomy 2:20, 21). Here, and in a number of other passages, the word for “giants” is Rephaim, evidently a tribe descended from the “Rephaims” associated with the “Zuzims” and the “Emims” of Genesis 14:5. The Emims also were called “a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims” (Deuteronomy 2:10).

All of these references indicate that there had been another irruption of the fallen “sons of God” just as in the days before the Flood. This time the irruption was probably in connection with the events surrounding the rebellion at Babel and the subsequent worldwide dispersion of the occult religious system introduced there. These demon-possessed men and women became the progenitors of tribes characterized by giantism, just as in the antediluvian days. (http://www.icr.org/bible/numbers/13:33/)

So, it is apparent that these nephalim somehow managed to survive the Flood. These who survived were descendants of Canaan, which explains why Noah cursed Canaan and not Ham. Oh, and by the way, Ham begat other sons before Canaan: Cush, Mizraim (Egypt), and Phut. Canaan was the youngest, but evidently, he carried the “bad seed.”

Now, to further complicate things, I am sure you have heard of UFOs and of aliens abducting humans. I believe (and I am not alone in this) that these are demons that are doing the same thing today as they were doing back in Genesis 6. (See my article “Aliens?”) These creatures, that may look very human, were never meant to be born, so their names are not written in the Book of Life.

Unless you are one of the nephalim (and you probably are not, if you are reading this), your name is written in the Book of Life. My question to you would be, is your name permanently written in the Book of Life, or is there a possibility that it could be blotted out? That choice is up to you.

Watch “On the Trail of the Nephalim” on YouTube with L.A. Marzulli.

Comments Off on The Exceptions

Filed under Apologetics, Christianity, Creation, Current Events, End Times, Evangelism, Evolution, Gospel, Heaven, Hell, Origins, Religion, Salvation, Second Coming of Christ, Theology, UFOs

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,