DID ANGELS INTERBREED WITH HUMANS AS TAUGHT IN WATCHTOWER PUBLICATIONS?

 

The Hebrew word (“nephilim”) rendered "giants" (KJV) in Genesis 6:4 is an old way of describing large people, who could be big in stature, position, fame, or notoriety. The word nephilim means "violent" or "causing to fall;" they were ancient bullies or violent tyrants. Giants have existed throughout recorded history, even in modern times, and the Bible does not say the giants or nephilim were the result only of the marriages mentioned in Genesis 6. The only other explicit reference to the nephilim is Numbers 13:32-33, in which the spies were clearly exaggerating: if "all the people" were "of a great stature," what accounts for the normal size of Rahab and her family, the Gibeonites, and others that were encountered when the Israelites entered the land later? (Joshua 6:25; 9:3-15) Being as grasshoppers in their own sight did not mean the Israelites were literally the size of insects. (Numbers 13:33)

The term "sons of God" refers to human believers and not angels in Scripture. Job 1:6 & 2:1, passages often used to "prove" otherwise, are obvious references to human believers (sons of God) and days of worship. (Consider Deuteronomy 31:14-15; I Samuel 10:19) Job 38:7, another passage often used to "prove" the sons of God in Genesis 6 were angels, also refers to human believers in a context in which figurative language or symbolic terms are used throughout the chapter. (Also compare Ezra 3:10-12) While angels can take on the appearance of men (Hebrews 13:2), angels and humans are different kinds of being and angels do not marry. (Consider Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 24:37-39; Hebrew 1:13-14) Note that Genesis 6:3 refers to fleshly mankind and not fallen angels or mixed offspring of angels. According to Genesis 6:2 & 4, the children of the sons of God who married the daughters of men became mighty men (Hebrew: gibbor), a term also applied to Nimrod, the Gibeonites, Boaz, David, Saul, Jonathan, and others. (Genesis 10:9; Joshua 10:2; Ruth 2:1; I Samuel 16:18; II Samuel 1:19,25, 27; II Kings 5:1; I Chronicles 4:24; etc.)

Watchtower book "You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth," page 93

For more information:

HOW TO WITNESS TO JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

Help For Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses