By Victor M Fontane
Translators, theologians, and biblical commentators provide many different theories to explain who the Bible is referring to as “the sons of God,” “the Nephilim,” “the men of renown,” and “the daughters of men,” but archaeology from ancient Mesopotamia adds a whole new layer of biographical perspective of these biblical figures. The passage in question is in Genesis 6:4-5 , and refers to an epoch before the great flood. According to most versions, it tells there were giants upon the land in those days, and after that. It is presumed that “after that” means after the great flood, so whoever these giants were, they were on earth before and after the flood. It goes on to say that those giants were on earth whenever ‘the sons of God’ visited the ‘daughters of men’ and they fathered children for themselves. It also explains that “ those were the giants who were from long ago, the people of renown .” Thinking back to ancient legends and myths, it takes no stretch of the imagination to see characters like Hercules and Perseus, or as is found in the ancient Sumerian myths of Gilgamesh and Dumuzi, and similar characters from nations all over the world, as heroes of old. That is exactly what these ancient characters were, heroes of old and men of renown.
The texts of the Old Testament were preserved through a few different channels. The most commonly available text of the Old Testament today came from groups of Jewish scribes in the 10th century AD called the Masoretes. The Masoretic Text is the one that was used as the source for most modern translations of the Old Testament , although this source text contains many problems and inconsistencies when it comes to early biblical genealogies and the dates given for events and lifespans. The Israelite Samaritan Torah is a parallel source text that potentially date back to the sixth century BC, but unfortunately only contains the first five books of the Old Testament .
The famous Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran, date from between the third and first centuries BC and have been instrumental in confirming the ages of some of the later books of the Old Testament , but because these scrolls are very damaged and are missing large sections, they do not provide a full confirmation of the other texts.
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