Michele’s vision for Gucci includes models who are genderless: Men wear “women’s” clothing and vice versa, something he has done for several seasons now. He toys with the idea that in the future, traditional notions of men and women will no longer exist. As written in the show notes, “The collection goes further beyond, taking the shape of a genuine Cyborg Manifesto (D.J. Haraway), in which the hybrid is metaphorically praised as a figure that can overcome the dualism and the dichotomy of identity. The Cyborg, in fact, is a paradoxical creature keeping together nature and culture, masculine and feminine, normal and alien, psyche and matter.”
ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON DURING MILAN FASHION WEEK, GUCCI STAGED A SPECTACULAR YET PECULIAR FASHION SHOW THAT INCLUDED “CYBORG” MODELS — WHICH, UPON A DEEPER LOOK, POSSESSED AN UNDERLYING METAPHORICAL FEMINIST MESSAGE.
“Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”2 Timothy 3:3-5 (KJV)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Cyborg models carrying severed heads preaching from the Feminist Manifesto paints a rather bleak vision of the future, but one that is exactly in line with how life will be in the time of Jacob’s trouble. Transhumanism is no longer science fiction but an abject fact of human life in the 21st century, and it will only get worse and weirder as time goes on. Does it seem to you like this lost and unsaved world is preparing to meet and live under Antichrist? You’d be correct. Good thing the Rapture of the Church comes first.
In the Gucci show notes, creative director Alessandro Michele referenced A Cyborg Manifesto, written by Donna Haraway in 1984. In it, Haraway uses the concept of a “cyborg” to represent women, without the constraints of society’s traditional gender labels. As one Wired writer notes, the cyborg in Haraway’s piece “trashes the big oppositions between nature and culture, self and world that run through so much of our thought.”
It poses the idea that all of us are not “naturally made” — or rather, we are “constructed,” like a cyborg. And if “given the right tools, we can all be reconstructed.” That is to say, women aren’t born to be wives, born to work in the house, or “naturally” submissive and overly emotional people. Women can choose to be however they want to be.
Today, feminism is defined as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.” But in Gucci’s world, sexes and genders do not exist. So Michele raises a bigger question: Why let traditional gender constraints put forth by society stop women from moving forward with their goals and dreams?
Michele’s vision for Gucci includes models who are genderless: Men wear “women’s” clothing and vice versa, something he has done for several seasons now. He toys with the idea that in the future, traditional notions of men and women will no longer exist. As written in the show notes, “The collection goes further beyond, taking the shape of a genuine Cyborg Manifesto (D.J. Haraway), in which the hybrid is metaphorically praised as a figure that can overcome the dualism and the dichotomy of identity. The Cyborg, in fact, is a paradoxical creature keeping together nature and culture, masculine and feminine, normal and alien, psyche and matter.”
MICHELE CONTINUES, “GUCCI CYBORG IS POST-HUMAN: IT HAS EYES ON ITS HEADS, FAUN HORNS, DRAGON PUPPIES AND DOUBLING HEADS. IT’S A BIOLOGICALLY INDEFINITE AND CULTURALLY AWARE CREATURE.” HE REFERS TO THESE “GUCCI CYBORGS” AS MONGRELS, WHICH SUGGEST INDEFINABLE, INTERMIXED BREEDS.
In a show setting that mimicked a surgical operating room, models walked down the Gucci runway carrying their own severed “heads,” as well as an artificial baby dragon, chameleon, and snake, re-created for a different kind of world. The collection included Michele’s signature maximalist style, with beaded jackets layered atop patterned blouses and floral trousers underneath plaid skirts. Ruffled velvet dresses were styled with turbans, and knit balaclavas were paired with exaggerated metallic Victorian blouses.
There were several pop culture, cinematic, and athletic references too. Logomania was front and center, something the Gucci house is very familiar with. But instead of just using their brand, they focused on Paramount Pictures, the New York Yankees, and the San Francisco Giants, whose logos were all displayed on various cardigans and coats.
In one film reference, Michele designed a shirt with a feminist twist, showcasing the poster for the 1965 film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! which was initially deemed sexist in the ’60s but later hailed as a feminist classic.
Who knew that a collection that at first glance appeared so wild was advocating for a “post-human” version of feminism? It’s often difficult to predict what Alessandro Michele will do next, but this season surely takes the cake. source
And what about God? Their fourth tenet is that God is technical. “We are making God as we are implementing technology that is ever more all-knowing, ever-present, all-powerful and beneficent. Geoethical nanotechnology will ultimately connect all consciousness and control the cosmos.” Transhumanism can also become the node connecting the theological of existing religions and the technological, and the Christian Transhumanist Association is a stark example.
SCIENCE FICTION, HOWEVER, IS QUICKLY BECOMING SCIENCE FACT—THE FUTURE IS THE MACHINE. THIS IS LEADING MANY TO ARGUE THAT WE NEED TO ANTICIPATE THE ETHICAL QUESTIONS NOW, RATHER THAN WHEN IT IS TOO LATE. AND INCREASINGLY, THOSE TAKING UP THESE CHALLENGES ARE RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL.
“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.” Revelation 13:11,12 (KJV)
EDITOR’S NOTE: After the Rapture of the Church, Antichrist will create a One World Religion with himself as the object of worship, but it will not be limited to worship of him alone at first. In the beginning, Revelation 9 tells us that people in the time of Jacob’s trouble will worship idols made by their own hands instead of giving glory and honor to the Living God of the Bible. Already that shift has begun as AI – artificial intelligence – is right now being applied to idol worship and dozens of new religions with tens of thousands of followers popping up all over the globe.
How far should we integrate human physiology with technology? What do we do with self-aware androids—like Blade Runner’s replicants—and self-aware supercomputers? Or the merging of our brains with them? If Ray Kurzweil’s famous singularity—a future in which the exponential growth of technology turns into a runaway train—becomes a reality, does religion have something to offer in response?
On the one hand, new religions can emerge from technology.
In Sweden, for example, Kopimism is a recognized faith founded over a decade ago with branches internationally. It began on a “pirate Agency Forum” and is derived from the words “copy me.” They have no views on the supernatural or gods. Rather, Kopimism celebrates the biological drive (e.g. DNA) to copy and be copied. Like digital monks, they believe that “copying of information” and “dissemination of information is ethically right.”
“THE URGENT NEED FOR CHRISTIAN TRANSHUMANISM” BY MICAH REDDING:
“Copying is fundamental to life,” says their U.S. branch, “and runs constantly all around us. Shared information provides new perspectives and generate new life. We feel a spiritual connection to the created file.” Other emerging tech-connected faiths, however, embrace the more grandiose.
A recent revelation from WIRED shows that Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who helped pioneer the self-driving car at Waymo (a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet) founded his own AI-based religion called “Way of the Future.” (Levandowski is accused of stealing trade secrets and is the focus of a lawsuit between Waymo and Uber, which revealed the nonprofit registration of Way of the Future.)
Little is known about Way of the Future and Levandowksi has not returned a request for comment. But according to WIRED, the mission of the new religion is to “develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence,” and “through understanding and worship of the Godhead, [to] contribute to the betterment of society.”
It is not a stretch to say that a powerful AI—whose expanse of knowledge and control may feel nearly omniscient and all-powerful—could feel divine to some. It recalls Arthur C. Clarke’s third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” People have followed new religions for far less and, even if AI doesn’t pray to electric deities, some humans likely will.
The potential for an out-of-control AI has encouraged warnings from some of the biggest minds, including Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk—who tweeted that it could lead to World War III. Clearly no Luddite himself, Musk has compared the creation of AI to “summoning the demon,” and called for regulation and oversight of AI development, forming OpenAI, which looks for a “path to safe artificial general intelligence.”
Musk himself was named-dropped this week by Hanson Robotic’s empathic AI Sophia, when she was interviewed by Andrew Sorkin of CNBC this week. When asked about the danger she poses to humanity, she tells him, “You’ve reading too much Elon Musk and watching too many Hollywood movies. Don’t worry if you’ll be nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.” Not exactly the Golden Rule.
Add to these warnings a prospective human cult following—paying their tithes to AI and devoutly obeying their digital demiurge—and that apocalyptic future could include those humans who not only welcome, but also work toward our eventual demise.
BUT IS THERE A POSITIVE FATE FOR RELIGION AND AI?
Beyond possible new religions and warnings from icons of tech and science, artificial intelligence is also of interest to theologians who wonder what it means for faiths, particularly those that came into being when computing power was limited to the abacus.
“One thing that I think is interesting is the potential for an AI—our creation—to transcend us,” says James F. McGrath, the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University and author of Theology and Science Fiction.
“AND THE REST OF THE MEN WHICH WERE NOT KILLED BY THESE PLAGUES YET REPENTED NOT OF THE WORKS OF THEIR HANDS, THAT THEY SHOULD NOT WORSHIP DEVILS, AND IDOLS OF GOLD, AND SILVER, AND BRASS, AND STONE, AND OF WOOD: WHICH NEITHER CAN SEE, NOR HEAR, NOR WALK: NEITHER REPENTED THEY OF THEIR MURDERS, NOR OF THEIR SORCERIES, NOR OF THEIR FORNICATION, NOR OF THEIR THEFTS.” REVELATION 9:20,21 9 (KJV)
“The potential for AIs to transcend us and thus become our teachers to whom we look for answers to questions we cannot answer, including about God, is not hard to imagine,” says McGrath. But, he adds, “the historic answer in monotheistic religions is that the creation can never be greater than the creator.”
He notes, however, for Gnostics, humans can transcend the “creator/demiurge,” though “even then,” he says, “we have the potential to reunite with that source from which we stem. It is not surprising that Gnostic themes regularly surface in science fiction, and in particular those that explore AI.”
CURRENTLY, THE GREATEST EXPRESSION OF SCIENCE-FICTION-TURNING-REALITY IN TECH-BASED RELIGIONS IS FOUND IN THE FREQUENTLY OPTIMISTIC TRANSHUMANISM.
Transhumanism and its cognates are represented by organizations like the Humanity+ (formerly, the World Transhumanist Association) and Extropy Institute. In its purely secular form, transhumanists are those who see technology as an important part of improving the world, enhancing human physiology, prolonging life, and even leading us into a posthuman future.
Remember that brain chip? They exist—along with brain-computer interfaces—but are in their infancy. It represents the reality that humans are already becoming cyborgs. For some, this means there is the potential for an optimistic post human world.
OUR POST-HUMAN FUTURE | DAVID SIMPSON | TEDXSANTODOMINGO
The Terasem faith, for example, is futurist and transreligion, meaning it can be “combined with any existing religion.” Founded by Martine Rothblatt, creator of SiriusXM Satellite Radio and her spouse, Bina Aspen Rothblatt, Terasem adherents embrace love, see life as purposeful, and death as optional. They look to technology as a source for eternal life, focusing on “cyberconsciousness software, geoethical nanotechnology and space settlement.”
They foresee a future in which technology will extend life indefinitely by means of “mindfiles” of individuals—collections of our memories and emotions—which might then be transferred to what is called a “transbeman” (Transitional Bioelectric Human Being). Early attempts of their technology can be seen in Bina Rothblatt’s counterpart android, Bina48. (See Morgan Freeman’s interview with Bina48.)
And what about God? Their fourth tenet is that God is technical. “We are making God as we are implementing technology that is ever more all-knowing, ever-present, all-powerful and beneficent. Geoethical nanotechnology will ultimately connect all consciousness and control the cosmos.”
Transhumanism can also become the node connecting the theological of existing religions and the technological, and the Christian Transhumanist Association is a stark example.
“Members of the CTA fall all across the conservative and liberal spectrum, and perhaps more importantly, all across the pessimistic and optimistic spectrum as well,” says Micah Redding, its co-founder and executive director.
“If there’s any broad idea that we’re united on,” he clarifies, “I’d say it’s the idea that we should be active and involved. New technological possibilities shouldn’t be simply feared and denied, but engaged and understood. Only in doing so will we be able to confront the challenges of the future, mitigate the risks, and take advantage of the opportunities to create a better world for us all.”
Redding is careful to insist, however, that he can only speak for himself.
“As I see it, Christian Transhumanism is grounded in compassion, and centers love as the key to the future of flourishing life,” he explains. “This puts us in contrast with any form of transhumanism which centers radical egoism.”
For Redding, transhumanism is a “Christian mandate,” recently calling it the next Reformation in an article at The Huffington Post. “We cannot be faithful to the Christian calling without ultimately embracing some form of transhumanism.”
Others share his optimism and are hard at work in crafting a theology of transhumanism. “I see transhumanism as a contemporary outgrowth of an ancient Christian vision of human transformation,” says Ronald Cole-Turner, the H. Parker Sharp Professor of Theology and Ethics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and author of The End of Adam and Eve: Theology and the Science of Human Origins.
HE TOO SEES PROMISE IN THE EMERGENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN TRANSHUMANIST ASSOCIATION.
“Using technology, today’s transhumanists want to enhance human beings in ways that sound suspiciously like the classic Christian expectation,” says Cole-Turner, “things like greater cognitive awareness, improved moral disposition, and increased overall sense of well-being, and a hope of endless life.”
For early Greek-speaking Christians, Cole-Turner says, “it was seen as a process of theosis or ‘becoming God,’ not in an ontological sense but in every other significant meaning of the word. Latin-speaking Christians used ‘deification’ to refer to the same thing.”
The idea of theosis—being transformed in union with God—is gathering steam among Christian scholars, he says, noting that it makes theological sense of transhumanism. “God is the ground or source of everything, working through the whole creation to bring people, communities, and all creation to its glorious fulfilment in Jesus Christ. It is a transformation of everything by every means.”
Others have found different routes to transhumanism.
“Transhumanism was the confluence of my interests in Buddhism, radical politics and futurism,” says James Hughes, the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Having worked for a Buddhist social development organization in Sri Lanka—and once ordained as a monk—Hughes moved to Japan and went into bioethics. He discovered he was a techno-optimist, and at heart, a transhumanist.
“I discovered the new World Transhumanist Association,” he says, becoming their first Executive Director, and writing Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond To The Redesigned Human Of The Future. But after a division over political perspectives, he and a few others in the WTA founded IEET, leading he and three others to work toward Buddhist concerns.
Among some of his transhumanist issues, he says, is nonhuman personhood rights. Organizations like the Nonhuman Rights Project already seek these rights for animals (e.g. apes and elephants). Likewise, Hughes says, transhumanists want to “base those moral standings on levels of consciousness, and extend them to enhanced humans, animals, and machine minds.”
Machines, in other words, may reach a point where they are considered persons and are protected by law.
Redding adds a theological dimension to this idea.
“It’s clear that artificial intelligence plays a significant role in the world today,” he says, “and thus must be factored into God’s eventual work of redemption. We don’t yet know whether that involves self-conscious AIs ‘coming to Jesus,’ because we don’t yet know the process by which an AI might become self-conscious.”
“If and when it does happen,” he adds, “it shouldn’t challenge Christian doctrine. If God can grant a soul to carbon-based lifeforms, God can grant a soul to silicon-based lifeforms as well.”
Redding shows that religious perspectives might only be limited by the theological imagination.
“I’m optimistic about a fruitful religious-transhumanist dialogue,” says Hughes. “The religious impulse is very creative, and there has been a lot of reconciliation to the Enlightenment within faiths, sometimes by adapting doctrine and practice, and sometimes by the emergence of new denominations.”
If any of this—from AIs to the copying of a mind—seems too much like science-fiction to be truly religious, just give this a little time.
“All religions were once new,” insists McGrath, paraphrasing Composers Datebook, “and they all tend to be viewed with skepticism and enthusiasm from different directions when they arrive.” source
New technology enabling scientists to manipulate genes is a disturbing trend in science which one rabbi believes mirrors the sin that led to global destruction in the generation of Noah.
Last week, the National Academies of Sciences and Medicine released a new report including recommendations to ensure genetic research done in the United States is performed responsibly and ethically. In essence, this report gave the greenlight to gene research, even though funding for such research is currently banned by the government because of the ethical dilemmas it raises…
“This enactment amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination,” a summary of the bill reads. “The enactment also amends the Criminal Code to extend the protection against hate propaganda set out in that Act to any section of the public that is distinguished by gender identity or expression and to clearly set out that evidence that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on gender identity or expression constitutes an aggravating circumstance that a court must take into consideration when it imposes a sentence.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced a bill that would criminalize anti-transgender speech, with violators receiving up to two years in prison
“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” Deuteronomy 22:5 (KJV)
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Canadian Obama, Justin Trudeau, will now make his country Canada a prosecutor of anyone who dares to speak out against issues like transgender men in the little girl’s bathroom. If NTEB was published in Canada, we would have to spend the next two years in prison for our ‘crimes’ of exposing the demonic promotion of the LGBT Mafia’s agenda. Watch for Obama to attempt to pass the same type of legislation here in the US before his term is up.
The new bill, introduced May 17 on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, aims to amend the Canadian Criminal Code to expand the country’s “hate speech” prohibitions to include any public speech or communication that “promotes hatred” on the basis of “gender identity” or “gender expression.” It would achange the Canadian Human Rights Act to cover transgender people
Canadian Prime Minister Passes Transgender Protection Bill:
“As a society, we have taken many important steps toward recognizing and protecting the legal rights for the LGBTQ2 community — from enshrining equality rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the passage of the Civil Marriage Act,” Trudeau said in a speech, adding, “There remains much to be done, though. Far too many people still face harassment, discrimination, and violence for being who they are.”
The Nephilim (Hebrew: נפלים, Nefilīm) were a race that came to dominate the antediluvian (pre-flood) world, and are referred to in the Bible as the heroes of old, men of renown. They were reportedly the children born to the “Sons of God” by the “daughters of men“, and are described as giants. It is also most important to note that they are mentioned almost simultaneous to God’s statement that He would destroy the earth by flood, and it seems from this association that their effect upon mankind was one of the primary justifications that brought the destruction.
When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” – Genesis 6:1-7 (NIV)
“Nephilim” is rendered fallen, or possibly feller: a tyrant or bully. Several English translations, such as the King James Versionrendered the word “giants”. In the Greek Septuagint the word “nephilim” was also translated as “gigantes” (gigantic). This translation is undoubtedly used because the Nephilim later became known as giants to the ancient Hebrews, as illustrated by the manner in which they were referenced when the Israelite spies were sent into Canaan (Numbers 13:33 ).[1]
It is unclear what the Sons of God were, but they are distinguished from the daughters of men. The most obvious interpretation is that the Nephilim were a hybrid race between two distinct beings. There are at least three schools of thought regarding the Sons of God.
The older view, held nearly unanimously by ancient writers prior toAugustine of Hippo, is that the Nephilim were a hybrid race between certain fallen angels, called the Benei Ha’Elohim (“Sons of God”) or The Watchers in extra-Biblical traditions, and human women. While there has always been a minority of churchmen who followed this view, it has been promoted recently by popular writers such as Stephen Quayle [2].
There were giants “also after that,” in the days of the Canaanites, and these were likewise known as, among other things, the Nephilim (Numbers 13:33). Humanly speaking, they were descended from Anak, and so were also known as the Anakim. These people were, of course, known to Moses and it was probably he who editorially inserted the phrase “and also after that” into Noah’s original record here in Genesis 6:4. Moses probably also inserted the information that these were the “mighty men of old, men of renown,” men whose exploits of strength and violence had made them famous in song and fable in all nations in the ages following the Flood. To rebellious men of later times, they were revered as great heroes; but in God’s sight they were merely ungodly men of violence and evil.[4]
”
Several tribes are encountered in the campaign of the Five Kings in Abraham’s day that some argue might be Nephilim or hybrids of Nephilim. They are described as having become several tribes occupying the lands around the Valley of Siddim (Dead Sea) and evidently intermixed with the Canaanites.
Genesis 14 and Deuteronomy 2 name these tribes as the Rephaim (“titans”, children of “Rapha”), Zuzim or Zamzummim (“terrible ones”), Emim, Horites, and Anakim (“crushing tyrants”). The tribe of the Anakim are directly connected with the Nephilim in the false report of the spies described in (Numbers 13:33 ). The context of the passages suggest that the other tribes of giants were relatives of the Anakim or other lines of Nephilim, particularly the Rephaim whose giant descendant is described as living in Gath along with the Anakim Goliath and Lahmi (see below). The Rephaim are giants (in fact these peoples are generally described as being tall or large) and seem to have been thus matched with the Nephilim based on the English rendering of “giants” in Genesis 6.
The tribe of the Anakim were descended from a giant named Anak, who was a son or grandson of a giant named “Arba”, from which the ancient city of Hebron was originally called “Kiriath Arba” or “The City of Arba” because “Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim”[5]. This tribe was so tall, that the weak-kneed spies reported, “we are like grasshoppers to them.”
Scripture describes how the tribes of giants were fought and destroyed by the tribes of normal men who replaced them, including the Israelites. Moses killed Og, king of the Rehpaim who lived on the Golan heights near Mt. Hermon. Og had a bed nine cubits long (13.5 to 15.5 feet, depending on which cubit was used) and was called “last of the remnant of the giants”[6]. Og may be the source of the word “ogre” in the English language.
Joshua drove the three remaining sons of Anak out of Hebron in his first campaignm. They evidently reoccupied the city of Hebron while Joshua was waging his campaign against Canaanite cities in the North. Caleb later retook Hebron and killed the three giants[7].
Later David and Saul fought a remnant of smaller giants who had taken refuge in the Philistine city of Gath. They included Goliath, who was about nine feet tall, and his brother Lahmi “whose spear had a shaft like a weaver’s rod”. The last of the Gittite giants was slain, “In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot—twenty-four in all. He also was descended from Rapha”[8].
The last Scriptural reference to the giants may be Isaiah 45:14 , which prophecies that Sabean “men of stature” will become slaves in chains of the redeemed Israelites.
The characteristics of these tribes described in Scripture:
Their height was two or three times the height of normal men.
They were associated with some kind of unholy intermixing before the Flood.
They were closely associated with the wicked Canaanites after the Flood.
In one case they are described as having polydactyly (extra fingers and toes).
Unlike the Canaanites, there are no examples of Nephilim who became followers of God.
Apocryphal references
The Nephilim are described in great detail in the Book of Jubilees and Book of Enoch. Both of these books have been traditionally rejected as apocryphal by the European Church. However, they were both considered canonical by the Ethiopic Church from the time of Christ until today, and the Book of Enoch was quoted in the Biblical Epistle of Jude.
Jubilees has the following to say about the sons of God and the Nephilim:
“And in the second week of the tenth jubilee [449-55 A.M.]Mahalalel took unto him to wife Dinah, the daughter of Barakiel the daughter of his father’s brother, and she bare him a son in the third week in the sixth year, [461 A.M.] and he called his name Jared, for in his days the angels of the Lord descended on the earth, those who are named the Watchers, that they should instruct the children of men, and that they should do judgment and uprightness on the earth.” – Jubilees 4:15
“And it came to pass when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the angels of God saw them on a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look upon; and they took themselves wives of all whom they chose, and they bare unto them sons and they were giants. And lawlessness increased on the earth and all flesh corrupted its way, alike men and cattle and beasts and birds and everything that walks on the earth -all of them corrupted their ways and their orders, and they began to devour each other, and lawlessness increased on the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of all men (was) thus evil continually. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted its orders, and all that were upon the earth had wrought all manner of evil before His eyes. And He said that He would destroy man and all flesh upon the face of the earth which He had created. But Noah found grace before the eyes of the Lord. And against the angels whom He had sent upon the earth, He was exceedingly wroth, and He gave commandment to root them out of all their dominion, and He bade us to bind them in the depths of the earth, and behold they are bound in the midst of them, and are (kept) separate. And against their sons went forth a command from before His face that they should be smitten with the sword, and be removed from under heaven. And He said ‘My spirit shall not always abide on man; for they also are flesh and their days shall be one hundred and twenty years’. And He sent His sword into their midst that each should slay his neighbour, and they began to slay each other till they all fell by the sword and were destroyed from the earth.” – Jubilees 5:1-8
The Book of Enoch has the following to say about them:
“It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children. Then their leader Samyaza said to them; I fear that you may perhaps be indisposed to the performance of this enterprise; And that I alone shall suffer for so grievous a crime.
But they answered him and said; We all swear;
And bind ourselves by mutual execrations, that we will not change our intention, but execute our projected undertaking. Then they swore all together, and all bound themselves by mutual execrations. Their whole number was two hundred, who descended upon Ardis, which is the top of mount Armon.
That mountain therefore was called Armon, because they had sworn upon it, and bound themselves by mutual execrations.[Mt. Armon, or Mt. Hermon, derives its name from the Hebrew word herem, a curse.]
These are the names of their chiefs: Samyaza, who was their leader, Urakabarameel, Akibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Saraknyal, Asael, Armers, Batraal, Anane, Zavebe, Samsaveel, Ertael, Turel, Yomyael, Arazyal. These were the prefects of the two hundred angels, and the remainder were all with them.
Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees.
And the women conceiving brought forth giants,
Whose stature was each three hundred cubits. These devoured all which the labor of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them; When they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them; And began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood. Their flesh one after another.[Or, “one another’s flesh.” R.H. Charles notes that this phrase may refer to the destruction of one class of giants by another.]
Then the earth reproved the unrighteous.
Moreover Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, breastplates, the fabrication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and ornaments, the use of paint, the beautifying of the eyebrows, the use of stones of every valuable and select kind, and all sorts of dyes, so that the world became altered.
Impiety increased; fornication multiplied; and they transgressed and corrupted all their ways.
Amazarak taught all the sorcerers, and dividers of roots: Armers taught the solution of sorcery; Barkayal taught the observers of the stars, Akibeel taught signs; Tamiel taught astronomy; And Asaradel taught the motion of the moon,
And men, being destroyed, cried out; and their voice reached to heaven.” – Enoch 6-7.
Controversies
Some argue that the Sons of God could not be angels because:
A major theme of the Old Testament is the negative outcome of believers intermarrying with unbelievers.
Angels are spiritual beings, and therefore not reproductively compatible with human women.
Advocates of the Angel-hybrid position hold that:
Angels are recorded on two occasions in Scripture as eating food, therefore they have some ability to interact with the material world.
Angels can at times be indistinguishable from human beings, and “some have entertained angels unawares,” (Hebrews 13:2)
The sexual immorality of Sodom and Gommorah is described as “likewise” in comparison to the actions of the angels that “left their proper dwelling” and that Jesus has chained in darkness until Judgment(Jude 6 & 7).
We really don’t know what angels can and cannot do, as we lack the ability to capture and study them, and Scripture says little about them.
The question should be decided by the context and evidence rather than a preconceived idea about the nature of angels.
The Augustinian position fails to explain the production of gigantic offspring from the union of believers and unbelievers.
The unanimous position of Jewish and heathen authors prior to Philo of Alexandria is that the angels came down and sired children with women.
Re-blogged and administered by Aaron Halim 