A new essay by David A. J. Clines on the Sons of God from Genesis 6. The Significance of the “Sons of God” Episode (Genesis 6:1-4) in the Context of the “Primeval History” (Genesis 1–11).
Most studies of the ‘Sons of God’ pericope (Gen. 6.1-4) have busied themselves with the narrower exegetical problems within the pericope itself as an independent, not to say intrusive, piece of ‘heathen mythology’ or as a partly demythologized ‘foreign particle’ within the biblical text. My purpose here is to examine, via the exegetical problem of the identity of the ‘sons of God’ and via the backward and forward links between the material and its surroundings, the function of the pericope within the larger whole of the ‘Primaeval History’. Without calling into question the consensus of opinion that the material of the piece derives from a pre-Israelite myth, I am concerned here essentially with the ‘final form of the text’.
Thanks to Jim West for the tip.
