Genesis 6 is one of the most contested passages in all of Scripture, and the questions it raises about the sons of God and the Nephilim are not merely academic. Careful study of the Hebrew language, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, and the testimony of the New Testament all point in a consistent direction. The Nephilim were giants, not fallen people, and the sons of God were supernatural beings whose transgression was so severe that God confined them in the lowest possible place of judgment. Peter uses the Greek word Tartarus to describe their confinement, a term found nowhere else in the New Testament, and Jude directly compares their sin to the sexual immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah. The popular Sethite interpretation, which identifies the sons of God as godly human descendants of Seth, cannot adequately explain why their children were giants or why these unions produced wickedness severe enough to bring about a worldwide flood.
The broader pattern running through the early chapters of Genesis is one of rebellion followed by judgment, with God's redemptive purpose remaining intact through every assault against it. Ancient sources like 1 Enoch and Jubilees, while not Scripture, provide historical context the early church knew well, describing a coordinated descent of supernatural beings at Mount Hermon who offered forbidden knowledge in exchange for crossing boundaries God had established. The early church fathers, nearly unanimously before Augustine, taught that demons were the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim, which explains why demons in the New Testament desperately seek physical bodies to inhabit. Understanding this background does not simply satisfy historical curiosity. It reveals that the same false gifts offered at Hermon, knowledge, power, and pleasure outside of God's design, are still being offered today. The God who judged those ancient rebellions and preserved His people through them is the same God who is sovereign over every challenge you face right now.