God created Adam's genome perfect, and he and His wife would have produced (otherwise) perfect human beings, and there was not significant genetic decay present until much later, certainly not significant enough to cause gigantism, yes? Additionally, viruses being part of creation means they were also "very good." Thus, there would not have been any harmful viruses, let alone any harmful genes to transmit via viruses.
Question: Where did the genetic information come from to result in giants being conceived, if the genome was not significantly decayed enough to cause what would presumably be defects?
In other words, could you explain, at least conceptually, how they came about if their "fathers" were mere men.
I really don't claim to know what to make of all you say, there. It's just that, since nothing in Genesis 6, or in the rest of the Bible has led me to think Genesis 6 must be talking about fallen angels, instead of men, I have never felt compelled to seek for extra-Biblical "reasons" to think it must be doing so.
In Genesis 6:4, I read:
"the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them". You wrote,
"...if their 'fathers' were mere men'," putting quotation marks around the noun, 'fathers'. By the quotes, do you mean to signify doubt or denial that the sons of God mentioned in this passage were really
fathers of the children whom the daughters of men
bare to them (the "them" being, presumably, these sons of God)? I mean, it seems to me that the sons of God really
were the
fathers of the children whom the daughters of men bore them.
Question: Why was the phrase "sons of God" used, and not "sons of Adam" or "sons of man," to refer to the beings that impregnated the women giving rise to these giants and men of renown?
I don't know why God chose to use the phrase "sons of God" to refer to the men who married the women whom He chose to refer to using the phrase "daughters of men". It's never been clear to me, though, what is supposed to debar men from being called by God, "sons of God". I know that a handful of passages in the Bible are commonly claimed as "proof" that God calls at least some angels, "sons of God", but I've never considered such claims about those passages to be of any substance. As we all know, God is on record in Luke 3:38 as having referred to at least one man -- viz., Adam -- by the singular phrase, "the son of God". But, I do not recall having read in the Bible that God ever referred to Satan by that phrase; and, I don't recall any claimers of the fallen angels claim about Genesis 6 ever referring to Satan by saying
"Satan, which was the son of God", or to some other fallen angel by saying
"That devil, which was the son of God".
Also, in Genesis 6:4 --
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. |
-- I do not see that the giants in the earth in those days were the personages referred to by the noun,
'children', or the personages referred to by the phrase,
'the same', or the personages referred to by the phrase,
'mighty men which were of old, men of renown'. I do not see that it is being said that whomever or whatever are being referred to by the name, "giants", became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. I'm definitely open to hearing, and trying to understand whatever anyone has to say who favors thinking these giants that were in the earth "in those days" were the children born to the wives of the sons of God in Genesis 6. But, at the very least, it seems kind of strange to me -- seeing as the text says that giants were in the earth "in those days"
before it even mentions the coming in of the sons of God to the daughters of men -- to think that, in the latter part of the very same sentence those same giants/Nephilim are re-introduced as the referents of the noun, 'children'.
In the NIV of the first half of Genesis 6:4, we have:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. |
The NIV seems to be making "those days" to be (at least in part) the same period as that
"when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them". The question is, did the giants' being on the earth precede the daughters of men having children by the sons of God? If so, then it seems pretty clear that whoever or whatever these giants were, they were not the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men; for, how would these giants have already been on the earth prior to being born to the sons of God and the daughters of men, if the former (the giants) were really the children of the latter. And if not, then, at best, it would seem awkward and superfluous to write, as does the NASB --
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of mankind, and they bore children to them. |
-- instead of simply writing
"When the sons of God came in to the daughters of mankind, they bore their children, the Nephilim, to them."
Another way to put what I'm trying to say is that, if the Nephilim were the children of the sons of God and the daughters of men, then the Nephilim would be the referent of the phrase, "their children", and it seems that what we would have in that text would amount to:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of mankind, and they bore [the Nephilim] to them. |
Or, similarly:
The [children born to the sons of God and the daughters of men] were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of mankind, and they bore children to them. |
Which, at best, would seem a bizarre redundancy to me.
Now, again, the common claim is that, in Genesis 6, the sons of God are fallen angels, rather than men. But I find this interesting: according to
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nephilim:
The Hebrew word nefilim is sometimes directly translated as “giants” or taken to mean “the fallen ones” (from the Hebrew naphal, “to fall”), but the identity of the Nephilim is debated by scholars. |
It seems peculiar to me that we are commonly told that the Nephilim were children born to fallen angels, and yet, in Genesis 6, the fallen angels, themselves, are supposedly (according to the common claim) referred to by a (I think) quite
inapt phrase --
"the sons of God" -- a term which, in itself, seems to have not a trace of a suggestion of
fallenness; whereas, only fallen angels' supposed children are supposed to be referred to in that passage by a term having to do with
fallenness. If that's really what's going on in the text, I fail to see the point of such cryptography: referring to fallen angels by a term which, in and of itself seems to have nothing to do with
fallenness, instead of by a perfectly apt term such as
nefilim. To me, that would seem kind of akin to the bizarre practice in Celtic folklore of referring to evil spirits by the term,
"the good people".
And, since we are told that the Nephilim -- the fallen ones -- were born to fallen angels and women, the question arises about them:
In such case, from what, exactly, are these Nephilim supposed to be fallen, and to what? And, when did these supposed children of fallen angels and women fall? And, what was the nature of their fall?
I vaguely remember seeing a video on YouTube pushing the fallen-angels-married-women claim, in which they showed a clip of some guy named Rob Skiba making a show about how important it supposedly is to go along with that claim, and take it seriously. And, in that clip, he brought up Ephesians 6:12, in which Paul writes,
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." And I thought to myself, what, really, is that supposed to have to do with your (Rob Skiba's) dire, sensationalist reporting about how we are to fear and be in some sort of ready, defensive stance against some supposed offspring of fallen angels and women? I mean, these supposed fallen angel/human offspring: are they supposed to be flesh and blood, or not? It seems like, if they're supposed to be flesh and blood, and he's all about trying to warn us that we wrestle against -- or are in danger of wrestling against -- these Nephilim, then he couldn't have more poorly chosen a Bible verse for trying to drive home his point, a verse expressly stating that we do
not wrestle against flesh and blood.
Instead of posting it in this thread, I had thought to use the text of this post to start a fresh thread that would be more specifically a discussion of Genesis 6 and the fallen-angels-married-women claim, so as not to prolongedly diverge this present thread away from its OP subject matters. But then, I thought that this post, by the nature of it, just wouldn't quite make for an OP. If I get around to it, I'll try to start a new thread along those lines, unless someone else does so before I get around to it. It, to me, has some potential for some interesting discussion. I've wrangled with people in comment sections on YouTube on the topic, but, YouTube comments have quite a bit to be desired as a vehicle for sustained discussion.