Take Me Home Tonight

Here's a passage that's always bothered me.  Before we proceed, I must make a disclaimer.  The conclusions I'm about to discuss here do not appear in the Bible; they are my conjecture.  However, I don't believe that the Bible contradicts my thoughts either. With this settled, we can continue.

When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

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. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
Genesis 6:1-2, 4

Who are these "sons of God"?  Are they angels, demons?  Who are they and where did they come from.  Have you ever seen the last episode of Battlestar Galactica?  If you didn't, don't bother; it's a depressing mess that asks more questions than it answers.

Let me say one thing first.  These "sons of God" were not demons.  Even if demons could assume human form, which is not documented anywhere in the Bible; there is no reason to believe that they could produce viable sperm and father children.  Search the Bible and you will find that angels only appear in physical form at the direction of God.  So now, the question remains; who were these "sons of God"?  Check out this passage from Luke's genealogy of Jesus; Notice that Adam is referred to as "the son of God."

...Adam, the son of God.
Luke 3:38

An idea that I've been thinking about for a while is the idea that when Adam and Eve were created and placed in the garden of Eden, there may have already been people living on the earth.  This theory began as my attempt to reconcile the Biblical timetable (based on the ages given for the Adam and his descendants) with the existence of Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon and other ancient, proto-humans, known in the anthropology community as Archaic Homo Sapiens.

All of these early humans used tools; they also cooked and hunted.  They formed complex societies and likely even believed in an afterlife, evidenced by the preparations they made for their dead.  These early humans were generally more robust, tougher and stronger than their modern counterparts, AKA us; the descendants of Adam's line.

When animals of two closely related species interbreed, a few strange things occur.  The offspring are usually sterile, but they are quite often larger, stronger or tougher than either parent species.  Consider the mule; which is a hybrid of a horse and a donkey.  Mules inherit traits of both horses and donkeys but are typically able to work longer, walk further and endure harsher conditions than horses or donkeys.  How about another example.  If you have seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite, you might be pleased to find that the Liger is actually a real animal, though they are not bred for luck and/or magic.  This odd hybrid of a lion and a tiger exhibit features and markings reminiscent of both species.  They often grow 10 - 15% larger than tigers, making them the largest cats on earth.  This odd phenomenon is known as hybrid vigor.

Returning to the point, it is possible that the descendants of Adam, who could be thought of as "the Sons of God" could have fathered children with the early humans who lived on earth.  These people could have been larger, stronger and tougher, making them likely candidates to be heroes of old.

Though this scenario is possible, there could be other interpretations of this passage.  I'd like to know what you think; feel free to comment!

Weird Science

On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”

So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar.

The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.
Joshua 10:12-13

Isaiah answered, “This is the LORD’s sign to you that the LORD will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?”

“It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,” said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.”

Then the prophet Isaiah called on the LORD, and the LORD made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.
2 Kings 20:9-11

If you've had access to e-mail and the Internet for any length of time, I am certain you have seen the recurring story of the NASA computers that found the missing day in history.  I'm not going to retell the story to you however; unfortunately, it's just not true.

What I'm interested in today is the story of Galileo.  In 1633, Galileo was imprisoned for daring to say that the earth revolves around the sun.  This view was contrary to the commonly held view of the time, the Earth-centered universe.  That got me thinking, does the Bible really contradict Galileo; does the Bible actually say the earth is the center of the universe?

The two Scriptures I have quoted commonly used by skeptics to "prove" that the Bible is not accurate.  After all, we know that for the length of the day to be extended, it would be the Earth that had to stop moving, not the Sun.  What is apparently forgotten is that the book of Joshua is the book of history, written for its contemporary audience.  If the Bible had said that the Earth had stopped rotating on its axis for about a day, it would have sounded like nonsense to them.

As I have stated before, I believe God gave us our brains for a reason.  To the people of the Bible, the idea of the earth moving was nonsense.  It is only through careful observation of the movements of the planets and the moon that the true nature of the solar system has come to be understood.

The universe is so vast and manner in which it operates are so complex that modern science has barely scratched the surface.  It is amazing for me to realize that God could have designed all of it.

Do you have an opinion on the matter?  Feel free to comment.  I'll close with this Scripture from Job.

He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; He suspends the earth over nothing.
Job 26:7