Another tidbit from my Bible Introduction.  Old news for a lot of you, I know.  But it's fun to write this kind of thing up for college students, who have never heard of such a thing! ************************************************************************************************************************* One of the most mysterious and even bizarre stories in Genesis happens right at the beginning of the flood narrative, where we are told that the “sons of God” looked down among the human “daughters,” saw that they were beautiful, and came down and had sex with them leading to the Nephilim.  The word Nephilim means “fallen ones.”  According to Numbers 13:33, the Nephilim were giants.   So what is going on here in Genesis?  Apparently there were angelic beings (the “sons of God”) who lusted after human women, cohabited with them, and their offspring were giants.  It is at that point that God decides to destroy the world.  The situation was too weird even for him. This brief episode has parallels in other ancient mythologies.  It is common in Greek myths, for example, for one of the gods [...]