The watchers and genetic diversity
Feedback from Rob M. US
Answer by Dr. Robert Carter CMI-US
http://creation.com/watchers-genetic-diversity
The Bible is the very word of God, so where else would we turn for answers to these questions? Wisdom first comes in the form of biblical literacy. Additional wisdom can be gleaned from the pursuit of science. Applying both of these sources of wisdom leads one to reject the idea that there are descendants of the nephilim on earth today. You are a child of Adam, a descendant of Noah, and a normal human being, created in the image of God and with the capacity to respond to His loving offer of salvation. Let nobody tell you otherwise.
First of all, I fully agree with the last sentences:
You are a child of Adam, a descendant of Noah, and a normal human being, created in the image of God and with the capacity to respond to His loving offer of salvation. Let nobody tell you otherwise.
At least depending on how broadly you define normal. Normality as in total freedom from Nephelim genes, is, unlike claims from Jewish and Chuck Missler sources, not an ontological prerequisite for salvation. The Catholic Church does baptise children who have clearly Down's Syndrom who are clearly not normal, and does so in the hope, obviously, that they can be saved.
The Book of Henoch which some count as "clearly extra-Biblical" but which St Augustine was not sure of and which Ethiopian Church has in its canon (despite St Augustine's cautionary recommendations) does not say that no children, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren and so on ever of the Watchers (Irin being a word used in Daniel for Angels but having this meaning) could ever at any time be saved. It says that the immediate children of them would in fact not be saved.
Baruch, which we Catholics do count very definitely as Canonical (and Haydock comment uses Baruch 6 to refute some Calvinist doctrine) says that none of the giants of old found wisdom. Meaning - in good logic - there could be another generation later one in which some had such.
So, if any descendant of Nephelim were alive today, he would not be doomed to damnation, any more than the clearly existant descendants of Canaan (say Lebanese, possible admixture further away, like of Anatolian Hittites have anything in common with those in Land of Canaan or like Scandinavians and British Isles with admixtures from Phoenician traders) are doomed to slavery because his grandfather cursed him. He may be the prototype of slaves, but not the ancestor of all, and more importantly not the ancestor of only such. And the children of the Watchers may be prototypes of later damned giants, but not the ancestor of all such and - if my guess is right - not ancestor of only such.
Next in line is what Dr Carter says about where to get wisdom:
Wisdom first comes in the form of biblical literacy. Additional wisdom can be gleaned from the pursuit of science.
This sounds a bit as if "natural science" is ok as a pursuit for additional gleaning of wisdom, but certain other things, like popular medieval legend are not. I actually think, as far as the part of wisdom concerned with "information", that pre-Christian, overtly pagan legends are ok, as long as you weed out the pagan erroneous theology first (and of course put it second place after Holy Bible, even in not directly theological issues, not first place before it). So also the Middle Age Christians thought about the matter.*
Why I mention popular legend, you see, Christendom is pretty clear on the fact that St Christopher was a giant, and indeed that he served Satan before he served Christ. This means that somehow giants have come into existence after the flood as well. Which we already know from the two Goliath's among the Anakim. And from the case of Nimrod, if gebôr means giant in his case.
One answer is "second incursions". If Book of Henoch is historically true, then this would be close to unthinkable in terms of a second batch of angels or even individual ones falling the same way. At least Rob Skiba argued that the punishment of the two hundred Watchers was so awful that not one dared to do such a thing since.
One second answer, given by Rob Skiba, is some genetic taint came abord the Ark. Not in Noah's or his wife's person, nor in the person of the daughter in law who was married to Shem, but in one or two of the other daughters in law. Note that this cannot mean that they were excluded from salvation or no true human people. The Arc is the image of the Church, which is called "arc of salvation".
One third answer is that having Watchers for genetic origin is not one prerequisite for being a giant.
St Thomas Aquinas following St Augustine rejects angelic view of Genesis 6. He does however give a scenario in which fallen angels, in and of themselves pure spirits, with no possibility to reproduce themselves, actually sneak and steal genetic material and commit the kind of rapes which pagan myth commemorates as Zeus impregnating Leda and what not. With, obviously, the cells they need for that stolen through acting previously as succubae.
Now, what is there for a meaning in rejecting angelic view of Genesis 6? Now we get from three a to three b.
How could "sons of God" apply only to Sethite line and "daughters of men" to women of Cainite line? Well, in St Augustine's view the Sethite line was, like later the Hebrews, the chosen people and the community of those regenerate by grace. And the Cainite line was a merely humanly decent society (less and less decent, with heavier and heavier penalties) ... the awful offspring of Nephelim might just possibly have been one punishment for what corresponds to a Christian getting seduced by a witch and making a kind of family outside the Christian community, involved in rites which he knew to be wrong.
But Rob Skiba rejects this view in favour of the angelic view. He takes St Jude (with a pretty clear indication) and St Peter (with a less clear such) as telling in favour of the Book of Henoch version. He also says that St Augustine when arguing against it used words "the angels do not marry" as if they meant "cannot", but that is not what it says.
Very well, Book of Henoch and more imortantly Book of Baruch (the one which broader canons and lists of apocrypha, which may list this Book of Baruch as such would call Baruch 1) do not say either that the children of the Watchers (Book of Henoch), nor that the giants of old (Book of Baruch) "cannot be saved" only that they "will not be" so (Book of Henoch) and "did not find wisdom" (Book of Baruch) "no not one of them".
One point about the question that the answer was meant to answer: if angels can take bodies that are able to breed with human women, then it is not likely that their genetics would be vastly different from human such. And therefore not that a Nephelim line would be genetically detectable as such.
There are many today who are told they are a descendant of the "Watchers", but they, or those telling them such, are not appealing to the Bible for the answer.
I am not sure why anyone would tell someone something like that. I am not aware of any kind of task that especially needs that kind of origin. I could possibly imagine one if writing a fantasy novel about it, but the main task for a Christian with even cognitive certitude of descending from the likeliest candidates post-Flood to any indirect such origin, Goliath, Hercules, or even Nimrod himself, would be to save their souls as Christians without worrying. Precisly as a descendant of Nero should not hope to recuperate Rome and make a brave new world with Christianity "somewhat subdued" (it might begin but would not end there), but rather follow the example of the Czartoryski** family. The descend from Gedimynas*** who killed Catholic monks for preaching the Gospel, these were Franciscans, but they are themselves, generally speaking, Catholics.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Mairie du III
St Severian of Scythopolis
21-II-2014
* Conversely, as I am sure Dr Carter agrees when it comes to Evolutionism, or he would not be replying on behalf of CMI, I consider that parts of Modern Science would be very much tainted with a kind of real and illicit paganism, close to Pythagorean Ten Pairs of Opposites or even to the superstitions of Numa Pompilius or of the Oracle of Delphi.
** Polish nobility. *** Lithuanian Grand Duke who - surrounded by Catholics in the West and Orthodox in the East was willing to get baptised, until one Pagan rebellion dissuaded him and set him even persecuting Christianity in Vilnius, in the Pagan heartland.
Note on my usage of "Medieval Legend"
"In Lycia sancti Christophori Martyris, qui, sub Decio, virgis ferreis attritus, et e flammae aestuantis incendio superna Christi virtute servatus, ad ultimum, sagittarum ictibus confossus, capitis obtruncatione martyrium complevit."
These words, under martyrdom of St James the Greater, for July 25 (each year) are from Roman martyrology which is a Church Document. These are not always totally infallible as to fact (notably both Marseilles and Larnaka claim that St Lazarus the Four Days Dead died there as bishop, I think in both cases also stating he was the first bishop of Samaria, Acts 8 or a few days later on same place). But nevertheless they are presumably usually correct.
Level of correctness of Book of Jasher if not of the Bible.
But above words do neither contain he was a giant nor his carreer of three successive loyalties. But I believe also the legend attached to martyrology, as at least presumably true unless special reasons occur for it being mistaken./HGL
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