Who were the Nephilim of Genesis 6? I have long defaulted to the traditional Protestant interpretation, that they were the product of the lawless blending of the Sethite line with the heathen. Given the analogy of faith, Matthew 22:30 appears to close that door for us rather firmly. The angels “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” And the thought of a mongrel tertium quid between humans and demons just opens a theological Pandora’s box in my mind.
Yet, I am open at least to a variant option. Meredith Kline advanced a unique interpretation of Genesis 6 and the “sons of God.” In the article appended below, Kline argues that these “sons of God” who married the “daughters of men” were princes of the earth (following Psalm 82), and/or heroic, quasi-legendary figures. Maybe even degenerate Sethites drunk on power and glory? In any case, if Kline is on to something, what if these “sons of God” made a Faustian bargain with demonic powers in order to advance their intellectual and physical prowess for even greater domination and glory? Then genetic alteration happens (or a kind of reversal of post-fall physical decline?) along the lines of the Gadarene demoniac, etc. Then these demonically ‘souped-up’ heroes procreate with reckless abandon. And thus you get the Nephilim-giants with demonic sexual influence—something that has been increasingly entertained within evangelicalism in more recent years, such as with Michael Heiser—yet without recourse to the problematic man-demon hybrid theory.
And as always, standard caveats! I am hardly a “Klinian.”
West Port Experiment 