JBL 106/1 (1987) 13-26

OF DEMIGODS AND THE DELUGE:

TOWARD AN INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 6:1-4
RONALD S. HENDEL
Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275

The interpretation of ancient mythology poses a number of thorny

methodological problems. We are given only a text, or sometimes portions
of a text, often heavily edited by scribal or editorial tradition. The context
of a myth in the oral tradition may have been totally displaced by the
literary composer, and various changes might have completely transformed
elements of the oral tale. Ancient writers tended to conserve more than
innovate, but exceptions are readily called to mind. The Old Babylonian
author of the Gilgamesh epic must be credited with a good deal of literary
creativity, as Jeffrey Tigay has recently emphasized.1 The Yahwist, author
of the oldest stratum of biblical narrative, is also to be credited with
literary creativity and artistry.2 The fact that the Yahwistic myths of
Genesis 2-11 come down to us in a self-conscious literary form has led some
to despair of their interpretation as myths.3 The stories have been overlaid
with literary intention.
The difference between myth in its oral form, as discussed by contemporary anthropologists and folklorists, and myth that has been shaped and
1

J. Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982).
2
I presume here the Yahwistic authorship of the narrative sections of Genesis 2-11, minus
the Priestly sections of the Flood story. For recent controversies in source criticism, see
especially the contributions by R. Rendtorff, R. N. Whybray, J. Van Seters, N. E. Wagner,
G. E. Coats, H. H. Schmid, R. E. Clements, and G. J. Wenham in JSOT 3 (1977) 2-60; see
also W. H. Schmidt, "A Plea for the Yahwist," in Studies in the Period of David and Solomon,
ed. T. Ishida (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1982) 55-73; and F. M. Cross, T h e Epic
Traditions of Early Israel," in The Poet and the Historian: Essays in Literary and Historical
Biblical Criticism, d. R. E. Friedman (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983) 13-39. On the
artistic aspects of the Yahwistic work, see especially R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative
(New York: Basic Books, 1981); J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (Amsterdam: Van
Gorcum, 1975); and M. Fishbane, Text and Texture (New York: Schocken Books, 1979)
17-62.
3
See the remarks of P. Ricoeur, "Structure et hermneutique," and C. Lvi-Strauss,
"Rponses quelques questions," in Esprit (Nov. 1963) 596-653, esp. 611-17 and 631-32.
For a useful definition of "myth," see A. Dundes (in Sacred Narrative: Readings in the
Theory of Myth [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984] 1): "A myth
is a sacred narrative explaining how the world and man came to be in their present form."

13

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Journal of Biblical Literature

transformed by ancient authors is a central problem that must be dealt

with in any attempt at interpretation.4 The written versus the oral, the
Yahwistic work versus traditional mythologythese are the antinomies
within which my discussion of Gen 6:1-4 will progress.
Julius Wellhausen characterized Gen 6:1-4 as a "cracked erratic
boulder" in its context in the early stories of Genesis.5 Hermann Gunkel
preferred to call it "a torso" or "a fragment."6 All are agreed that the story
is strange and incomplete. Most scholars have supposed that the Yahwist
is suppressing material that is even more mythological than the material
retained.7 I find this last point hard to conceive: what could be more
mythological than the sexual mingling of gods and mortals and the birth
of semidivine offspring? Surely if the Yahwist were averse to myth as such
he would simply have omitted Gen 6:1-4. That the Yahwist included it in
the Primeval Cycle of Genesis 2-11 8 indicates that he did not find it objectionable and that it is indeed an authentic Israelite myth. The story is,
however, somewhat disjointed in its Genesis context. The Yahwist retained
the story in his composition, yet declined to present it in a full narrative
form. Why the Yahwist composed the story as he did, where the story came
from, and what happened between the oral and written stages will be the
leading questions of my discussion.
First, the text:
(1) When mankind began to multiply on the face of the earth,
and daughters were born to them,

4
For recent work on the relationship between the biblical text and oral tradition see
especially R. C. Culley, "Oral Tradition and the OT: Some Recent Discussion," Semeia 5
(1976) 1-33, and references; idem, Studies in the Structure of Hebrew
Narrative
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 1-68; Cross, "Epic Traditions," 13-39; and H. N. Wallace,
The Eden Narrative (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985), esp. chap. 2: "The Yahwistic Source
and Its Oral Antecedents."
5
J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (trans. J. S. Black and A.
Menzies; Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1885) 317.
6
H. Gunkel, Genesis bersetzt und erklrt (HKAT; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1901) 59.
7
For example, . S. Childs describes the story as "a foreign particle of pagan mythology"
which the Israelite tradition has radically altered. "Even in the final stage the mutilated and
half-digested particle struggles with independent life against the role to which it has been
assigned within the Hebrew tradition" (Myth and Reality in the Old Testament [London:
SCM, 1960] 54, 57).
8
In this essay I will use the designation "Primeval Cycle" rather than the conventional
terms "Primeval History" or Urgeschichte to refer to the narratives in the early part of
Genesis. The stories of the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, etc., cannot be called history
in any legitimate sense of the word. The stories are properly myths: "sacred narrative[s]
explaining how the world and man came to be in their present form." The stories form a
coherent cycle; hence, I submit that "Primeval Cycle" is more accurate and more appropriate
than the conventional designations. See also Fishbane, Text and Texture, 17.

Hendel: Of Demigods and the Deluge

15

(2)

then the Sons of God saw that the daughters of men were
beautiful, and they took wives of them, from any whom
they chose.9
(3) And Yah weh said: "My spirit will not be strong10 in man
forever, for indeed he is but flesh. His lifetime will be 120
years."
(4) The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also
afterwards, when the Sons of God mated with the daughters of men and they bore children for them: these were
the warriors of old, the men of renown.
The first issue that I will pursue is in many ways the most difficult:
Where did the story come from? Scholars are divided in their responses.
Some take the story to be an etiology of the Nephilim,11 who are to be

9
Note the syntax of the introductory sentence: temporal clause (wayh kt. ..) followed
by a parenthetical statement (bnt. . .) leading to the initial narrative sequence
(wayyir'u...). This syntactic structure is typical of the introductions to cosmological stories
in Israelite and in Mesopotamian literature; see W. F. Albright, "Contributions to Biblical
Archaeology and Philology," JBL 43 (1924) 364-65; G. Castellino, "Les Origines de la
civilisation selon les textes bibliques et les textes cuneiformes," in Volume du Congrs:
Strasbourg, 1956 (VTSup 4; Leiden: Brill, 1957) 125-28; E. A. Speiser, Genesis (AB; Garden
City, NY: Doubleday, 1964) 12, 19.
10
I propose reading the unique verbal form yadn as a stative qal imperfect from the geminate
root y/dnn ("to be strong"). K. Vllers first suggested this reading based on the Akkadian verb
dannu ("Zur Erklrung des JIT Gen 6,3," ZA 14 [1889] 349-56). The case is now clearer than
it was in Vollers's day. The root \ldnn appears twice in the Ugaritic texts, though, as with all
Ugaritic etymologies, caution is warranted (CTA 12.2.59; 16.1.30). More important, and thus far
overlooked, is the occurrence of the root \ldnn in the Israelite placename Dannh. Dannh is
mentioned in Josh 15:49 as a town in the neighborhood of Debir in the Judean hill country.
Although the site of Dannh has not been identified, it is clear from recent archaeological surveys
that the Judean hill country was largely unpopulated in the Canaanite period (B. Mazar, "The
Early Israelite Settlement in the Hill Country," BASOR 241 [1981] 75-85.) The likelihood is,
therefore, that Dannh was originally an Israelite settlement and that the name Dannh was a
good Hebrew name. The meaning of the word is "stronghold" or "fortress," cognate with the
Akkadian dannatu. The root *Jdnn occurs in Hebrew in a place-name and, I propose, in the verb
ydn in Gen 6:3.1 might add that there is no difficulty in reading the form yadn as stative, since
other similar geminate forms are attested in Hebrew with stative meanings, e.g. t'z (Ps 89:14),
also meaning "to be strong."
11
E. G. Kraeling, "The Significance and Origin of Gen 6:1-4," JNES 6 (1947) 193-208;
B. S. Childs, Myth and Reality, 49-57; O. Loretz, Schpfimg und Mythos (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1968) 31-48; G. von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (trans. J. H. Marks;
Philadelphia: Westminster 1968) 113-16; U. Cassuto, "The Episode of the Sons of God and
the Daughters of Men," in Biblical and Oriental Studies I (trans. I. Abrahams; Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1973) 17-28; H. Gese, "Der bewachte Lebensbaum und die Heroen," in Wort
und Geschichte (ed. H. Gese and H. P. Rger; AOAT 18; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1973)
83-85; R. Bartelmus, Heroentum in Israel und seiner Umwelt (Zurich: Theologischer
Verlag, 1979).

16

Journal of Biblical Literature

identified with the epithets "warriors of old" and "men of renown."12 I find
this response to be lacking, primarily because it explains so little. To be
sure, the story does account for the origin of the semidivine heroes of old,
but to stop there is to be left with a tautology: the myth exists because it
explains what it explains. The context and the connections of the myth with
other elements of tradition are left to the side in the etiological interpretation.
Another response is to follow the lead of the pseudepigraphical
writings of the second century B.C.E. (I Enoch 6-11; Jubilees 4-5) and to
derive Gen 6:1-4 from the "rebellion in heaven" pattern.13 The discovery
of the Human Kumarbi cycle has spurred this interpretation.14 The Sons
of God are seen as rebels from heaven, and the sexual mingling with earthly
women is seen as their sin. The problem with this view is twofold. First,
the Sons of God are not depicted as rebels in Gen 6:1-4, neither are they
punished. Second, the sexual mingling with mortal women is not explicitly
condemned. The punishment that occurs in the story is directed at mankind, problematic as that might seem. The connection with the "rebellion
in heaven" myths is thus purely conjectural, and, I would argue, the conjecture is unconvincing.15
Where, then, did Gen 6:1-4 come from? I submit that the story of the
mingling of gods and mortals16 and the procreation of the demigods was
originally connected to the flood narrative and functioned as its motivation. The Yahwist detached the story of the demigods from the myth of
2
The Greek identifies the nplm with the gibbrtm 'er m'lam by translating both
as .
13
Speiser, Genesis, 45-46; P. D. Hanson, "Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel and Euhemeristic
Heroes in I Enoch 6-11,"/BL 96 (1977) 197-212.
14
On the Human Kumarbi cycle, see H. G. Gterbock, Kumarbi: Mythen vom hurritischen Kronos (Zurich: Europaverlag, 1946); idem, "The Hittite Version of the Hurrian
Kumarbi Myths: Oriental Forerunners of Hesiod," AJA 52 (1948) 123-34; see also H. A.
Hoffner, Jr., "Hittite Mythological Texts: A Survey," in Unity and Diversity (d. H. Goedicke
and J. J. M. Roberts; Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975) 138-39.
15
See also the critical remarks of D. L. Petersen, "Genesis 6:1-4, Yahweh and the Organization of the Cosmos,"/SOT 13 (1979) 52-54.
16
The identity of the bn-halohm is clear from their frequent occurrence in biblical
and other West Semitic lore. They are the lesser gods who meet in Yahweh's assembly (Job
1:6; 2:1; Ps 29:1; Ps 89:7 with the older form bn 'lm [compare the Ugaritic bn Urn]). They
were present with Yahweh at the dawn of creation (Job 38:7), and they were shortly
thereafter apportioned among the nations (Deut 32:8, Q: bny 'Ihym). The bn il or bn Urn
occur dozens of times in Ugaritic mythology, with a similar range of functions as their
Israelite counterparts. The chief god of the pantheon, El, is called 'ab bn il, "father of the
sons of El," which indicates that the term bn il originally included the notion of the patrimony of El. The bn 'lm are also mentioned in the Phoenician inscriptions of Arslan Tash
(KAI 27.11) and Karatepe (KAI 26.A.III.19) and in the Ammonite inscription from the
Amman Citadel, line 6 (S. H. Horn, "The Amman Citadel Inscription," BASOR 193 [1969]
2-13).
The sexual mixing of gods and mortals is unattested elsewhere in West Semitic lore.
Neither the Ugaritic text of "The Birth of the Gracious Gods" (CTA 23) nor the passage of

Hendel: Of Demigods and the Deluge

17

the deluge in order to preface the flood with a more purely ethical motive:
Yahweh's anger at the evil behavior of humanity. This would explain why
Gen 6:1-4 directly precedes the flood narrative, and, simultaneously, why
it is unconnected from its context. In order to support my surmise I will
range from the Babylonian motive for the flood story in the myth of
Atrahasis to the mythological motives for the Trojan War in the Greek
tradition. Somewhere between Babylon and Greece, in a peculiar twist of
tradition, the connection between demigods and the deluge was generated,
only to survive in fragments.
The Mesopotamian motive for the deluge is an imbalance in the
cosmos, namely, the overpopulation of humanity on the earth.17 The noise
of mankind disturbs EnliFs sleep, so he decrees destruction for humanity,
first in the form of several plagues and drought and finally in the form of
the flood. The crucial passage in the Atrahasis myth reads:
The land grew extensive, the people multiplied,
The land was bellowing like a bull.
At their uproar the god became angry;
Enlil heard their noise.
He addressed the great gods,
"The noise of mankind has become oppressive to me.
Because of their uproar I am deprived of sleep."18
Like the action in the later Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish, the
chief god is disturbed by the noise of overabundant activity; he decrees
destruction and is finally thwarted by the actions of the wily god Enki/Ea
(Enuma Elish Tab. I.1-77). 19 In the Atrahasis myth, Enki saves Atrahasis
and family, so that life may be preserved. To prevent future overpopulation, the gods take several measures: they create several categories of
Philo of Byblos's Phoenician History referring to the sexual adventures of the mothers of
Hypsouranios and Ousos (PE 1.10.9) can be construed as referring to sexual encounters
between gods and mortal women (pace U. Gassuto, "The Sons of God," 23, inter alia). The
closest one comes to this notion in the Semitic sphere is the description of Gilgamesh in the
Mesopotamian tradition as two-thirds god and one-third human, though his mother, Ninsun,
was a goddess. See Tigay, Gilgamesh Epic, 153-56. Ishtar's advances to Gilgamesh in tab.
VI are perhaps relevant to this theme.
17
See especially W. L. Moran, "Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood," Bib 52
(1971) 51-61; and A. D. Kilmer, "The Mesopotamian Concept of Overpopulation and Its
Solution as Reflected in the Mythology," Or 41 (1972) 160-77. For a rsum of other views,
see R. A. Oden, Jr., "Divine Aspirations in Atrahasis and in Genesis 1-11," ZAW 93 (1981)
197-216, and references (esp. 197 n.4).
18
mtum irtapis nis imttd I mtum ktma l iSabbu (isappu) I ina hubrtsina ilu ittadar I
d
Enlil tteme rigimSin I issaqar ana iti rabutim I iktabta rigjim awluti I ina hubrSina uzamma
Sitta (Atrahasis Tab. 1.353-359; Tab. II.i.2-8; cited from W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard,
Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, with M. Civil, The Sumerian Flood Story
[Oxford: Clarendon, 1969] 66-67, 72-73, cf. 106-107 [lines 1-8]).
19
ANET, 60-61.

18

Journal of Biblical Literature

women who do not bear children; they create demons who snatch away
babies; and, as W. G. Lambert has recently argued on the basis of Gilgamesh
Tab. X.vi.28-32, they institute a fixed mortality for mankind. The restored
text reads: "Enki opened his mouth / and addressed Nintu, the birthgoddess, / '[You,] birth-goddess, creatress of destinies, / [Create death] for the
20
peoples/" Death, barren women, celibate women, and infant mortality
are the solutions for the problem of imbalance that precipitated the flood.
In Greek tradition a different kind of imbalance appears in several of
the mythological motives for the Trojan War. In order to make my com
parison precise, I should emphasize that although the Trojan War is a
military encounter rather than a flood, it functions in a way similar to the
Babylonian deluge: it serves as the great destruction which divides the prior
age from the present age,21 just as does the flood in the Atrahasis myth and
in other Mesopotamian traditions.22
One of the mythological motives for the Trojan War, found in the
Hesiodic tradition, rather than the Homeric, sounds remarkably like Gen
6:1-4, as has been noted in recent studies by Ruth Scodel and David
Neiman.23 The text is from Hesiod's Catalogue of Women, fr. 204 M-W.24
20

W. G. Lambert, "The Theology of Death,'* in Death in Mesopotamia (ed. . Alster;

Mesopotamia 8; Copenhagen: Akademisk, 1980) 54-58. Lambert restores: [at-ti sa-a]s-s-ru
ba-ni-a-at Si-ma-ti I [mu-ta Su-uk-ni] a-na ni-Si (Atrahasis Tab. III.vi.47-48).
21
See R. Scodel, "The Achaean Wall and the Myth of Destruction," Harvard Studies in
Classical Phifology 86 (1982) 33-50.
22
According to Gilgamesh tab. X.27, humans before the flood were "luU-men" that is,
primeval man (Lambert, "Theology of Death," 54-55). On the Mesopotamian tradition that
all knowledge was handed down by the antediluvian sages, the apkallu, see W. G. Lambert,
"Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity," JCS 11 (1957) 8-9; see also W. Hallo, "Antediluvian
Cities,"/CS 23 (1971) 60-66. R. A. Oden, Jr., has pointed out to me an additional similarity:
in later eras, just as the Trojan War becomes the first datable event in Greek history, the flood
becomes the first datable event in much ancient Near Eastern tradition (e.g., Berossos's
Babyloniaca).
23
Scodel, "Achaean Wall," 42; D. Neiman, "Sons of Gods and Daughters of Men," paper
read at the SBL New England Regional Conference, 5 April 1982; see also M. L. West, Early
Greek Philosophy and the Orient (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971) 43 n. 3.
24

-
, '
,
, []
[
Jowrt
[... ].[.. ] [] ,
' [] [] [
]
' [][ ] '
Hesiod fr. 204.95-103 M-W, cited from R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, eds., Fragmenta
Hesiodea (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967) 101-2; see also the translation by H. G. Evelyn-White,
Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homrica (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press) 497. I have adopted the following reconstructions in my translation: lines 100-101,

Hendel: Of Demigods and the Deluge

19

All the gods were divided in spirit through strife, for at that time highthundering Zeus was planning wondrous deeds, to mingle disorder on
the boundless earth, for he already was hastening to annihilate the race
of mortal men, as a pretext to destroy the lives of the demigods, [so that]
the children of the gods [would not mate with wretched] mortals, seeing
[fate] with their own eyes, but that the blessed gods [henceforth], as
before, should have their way of life and their accustomed places apart
from mortal men.
The point of this fragment is to motivate Zeus's decision to bring on
the Trojan War by reference to the unseemly mingling of gods and mortals
and the resulting procreation of the heroic demigods. Zeus decides to send
a war "to destroy the lives of the demigods," so that the gods would desist
from mating with mortals and so that gods and mortals might live separately.25 The imbalance in this case is not a general overpopulation but
rather the procreation of a specific mixed category of beings, the demigods.
Zeus brings on the Trojan War to destroy the heroic demigods, so that the
proper division of realms between gods and humans might be secured.
The theme of the separation of gods and mortals is prominent in
another Hesiodic myth, the story of Prometheus's sacrifice and the subsequent creation of Pandora,26 so it appears that the Greek pedigree of this
theme is secure. The Hesiodic myth of the five ages pursues similar themes
and reflects a common formulaic diction in the description of the separation of the heroic demigods from mortal men.27 The word used of the
demigods, hmitheoi, rare in Hesiod, occurs both in fr. 204 M-W and in
the myth of the five ages. The same word, hmitheoi, occurs only once in
Homer, in a passage that describes the destruction by flood of the Achaean
wall (Iliad 12.17-33, esp. 23). 28 It is interesting that the destruction is to
[ ] and [] [], proposed by U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff in Grie
chische Dichterfragmente I. Epische und elegische Fragmente (Berlin: Weidmann, 1907) 34;
and line 102, [ ], proposed by A. Rzach, ed., Hesiodi Carmina (Stuttgart: Teubner,
1958) 165.
For more on Hesiod fr. 204 M-W, see K. Stiewe, "Die Entstehungszeit der hesiodischen
Frauenkataloge," Philologue 107 (1963) 1-9; J. Schwartz, Pseudo-Hesiodeia (Leiden: Brill,
1960) 418-19; and G. Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic
Greek Poetry (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979) 6, 219-20.
25
See Wilamowitz (Dichterfragmente, 43): "Am liebsten wrde man die eigentliche
Absicht des Zeus darin sehen, da er durch den troischen Krieg dem Verkehre der Gtter
mit den Menschen, insbesondere der Erzeugung von , ein Ende machte.. . ." For the
understanding of (line 101) and (line 102) as "gods," see Schwartz, PseudoHesiodeia, 418 n. 4; and Stiewe, "Frauenkataloge," 6 n. 2 (pace M. L. West, Hesiod: Works
and Days [Oxford: Clarendon, 1978] 193-94).
26
Works and Days 53-105; Theogony 570-616. See J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Thougfit
among the Greeks (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983; translation of Mythe et pense
chez les Grecs [1966]) 3-72; Nagy, Achaeans, 215-20.
27
See West, Hesiod: Works and Days, 193, 195.
28
See Nagy, Achaeans, 160.

20

Journal of Biblical Literature

i ccur after the fall of Troy. Scodel has argued that this small destruction
may be a vestige of an older flood tradition which the Trojan War has
largely displaced.29 In support of Scodel's argument, I would note that
Poseidon, the god partly responsible for the flood of the Achaean wall, is
elsewhere in the epic decidedly pro-Achaean (e.g., Iliad 13-14). The contradiction in Poseidon's role in bringing on the destruction by flood of the
Achaean wall when elsewhere in the epic he is pro-Achaean points up the
anomaly of the episode and supports its likely status as a vestige of a variant
pre-Homeric flood tradition.30
In sum, I suggest that the Trojan War functions in a manner similar
to the Semitic flood tradition and may indeed be related by way of oral
tradition to the older Semitic myths.31 One of the mythic motives of the
Trojan War sounds very similar to Gen 6:1-4, although it retains more
context. In the Greek text, the mixing of gods and mortals and the existence
of the mixed-breed demigods are the direct motive for the Trojan War.
Zeus wished to separate gods from mortals and to destroy the demigods,
so he decrees the Trojan War. There are other mythical motives in the
Greek Trojan War tradition, including the abduction of Helen, found in
both the Homeric and Hesiodic traditions32 and in an interesting fragment
of the Cypria which describes Zeus's decision to bring about the Trojan
War as a result of human overpopulation.33 The similarity between this
fragment and the Atrahasis myth has been often noted,34 though its similarity with an Indian myth in the Mahbhrata raises the possibility of IndoEuropean origins.35 In any case, complexity of themes is what we should
expect in a tradition of oral mythology.
29

Scodel, "Achaean Wall."

For another example in the Iliad of a pro-Trojan stance by Poseidon signaling a variant
epic tradition, see Iliad 20.288-339; and Nagy, Achaeans, 268-69.
31
In addition to Scodel's discussion, see T. B. L. Webster, From Mycenae to Homer
(London: Methuen, 1958) 86, 180-81, 291; and G. S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions
in Ancient and Other Cultures (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1970) 116-17.
32
See M. L. West, Immortal Helen (London: University of London, 1975).
33
Cypria fr. 1; T. W. Allen, ed., Homeri Opera V (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912) 118; see
the translation of Evelyn-White, Hesiod, 497. For more on Cypria fr. 1, see esp. F. Jouan,
Euripide et les lgendes des chants cypriens: Des origines de L guerre de Troie l'Iliade
(Paris: Socit d'dition, 1966) 14-54. The tradition contained in Cypria fr. 1 is alluded to
several times by Euripides: Electra 1282-83; Helen 36-41; Orestes 1639-42.
34
Webster, From Mycenae, 86; Kilmer, "Overpopulation," 175-76; G. S. Kirk, "Greek
Mythology: Some New Perspectives," JHS 92 (1972) 79; M. Nagler, Spontaneity and Tradition: A Study in the Oral Art of Homer (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1974) 155; and Scodel, "Achaean Wall," 40-41.
35
Mahbhrata 1.58.35-50; trans, by J. A. B. van Buitenen, The Mahbhrata: 1. The
Book of the Beginning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973) 137-38. See G. Nagy,
"Essai sur Georges Dumzil et l'tude de l'pope grecque," in Cahiers pour un temps...
Georges Dumzil (Paris: Pandora, 1981) 142-43.
30

Hendel: Of Demigods and the Deluge

21

Gen 6:1-4 contains no overt references to the destruction of the demi

gods nor to the separation of gods and mortals. In fact, a tradition in Num
13:33 records that the Nephilim were living in the land of Canaan at the
time of the entry of the Israelites. The advance scouts report to Moses:
All the people whom we saw in its midst were people of great size; there
we saw the Nephilim the Anaqim are part of the Nephilimand we
seemed in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed
in their eyes.
Elsewhere it appears that the Nephilim and the Anaqim are called by a
more general term, the Rephaim (Deut 2:11). The Rephaim and the
Anaqim are said to have been wiped out by Joshua (Josh 11:21-22), Moses
(Josh 12:4-6; 13:12), and Caleb (Josh 15:14; Judg 1:20), though some
stragglers remained to be slain by David and his men (2 Sam 21:18-22 =
1 Chr 20:4-8). 3 e According to one tradition, the huge bedstead of the last
of the Rephaim, King Og of Bashan, could still be seen on display in
Rabbah of Ammon (Deut 3:11). 37
There exists a contradiction in the traditions of the Nephilim. Accord
ing to Gen 6:4 the Nephilim "were on the earth in those days," prior to the
flood, and thus ought to have been destroyed by the flood. Yet according
to other traditions they are found in the land of Canaan by the early
Israelites38 and are wiped out under the leadership of a great hero of Israel,
either Moses, Joshua, Caleb, or David. The battle between David and
Goliath (1 Samuel 17) appears to be related to the encounters between
David's men and the last of the Rephaim.39 The function of the NephilimRephaim in all of these traditions is constantthey exist in order to be
wiped out: by the flood, by Moses, by David, and others.40
The function of the Nephilim in Israelite tradition, I submit, is to die. 41
36

See Josh 11:22: "No Anaqim remained in the land of Israel, but some remained in Gaza,
Cath, and Ashdod."
37
For more on Og, see J. R. Bartlett, "Sihon and Og, Kings of the Amontes," VT 20 (1970)
265-71.
38
The Yahwist acknowledges this inconsistency in Gen 6:4, "The Nephilim were on the
earth in those days and also afterwards" I see no reason to deny 4 to the hand of the
Yahwist. For another acknowledgment of the inconsistency of tradition (or, perhaps better,
multiformity of tradition) by the Yahwist, see Gen 26:1.
39
Note that two versions of the tradition of David and Goliath are preserved in the MT;
see P. Kyle McCarter, 1 Samuel (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980) 284-309. In 2 Sam
21:19 a certain Elhanan, one of David's men, kills Goliath of Gath, one of the remaining
rpa. In 1 Samuel 17, the story has become attached to David, the greater hero. This type
of fluidity in an oral narrative tradition is precisely what we should expect.
40
Note that the giant aboriginal inhabitants of Seir, Ammon, and Gaza are also utterly
annihilated, generally by Yahweh (Deut 2:12, 20-23); see also Deut 9:1-3; Amos 2:9.
41
Compare M. Liveranfs remarks on the function of the Amontes in Israelite tradition,
"The Amontes," in Peoples of Old Testament Times (ed. D. J. Wiseman; Oxford: Clarendon,
1973) 126.

22

Journal of Biblical Literature

The same can be said of the function of the Greek heroes.42 An interesting
description of the Nephilim as dead warriors of old is preserved in Ezek
32:27:
They lie43 with the warriors,
The Nephilim of old,44
who descended to Sheol
with their weapons of war.
They placed their swords
beneath their heads
and their shields45
upon their bones,
for the terror of the warriors
was upon the land of the living.
Nephilim literally means "the fallen ones/'46 indicating, apparently, the
ones fallen in death. Similar usages of the verb npal and its derivatives are
found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, as in David's lament over the death
of Saul and Jonathan, 'k napl gibbrm ("how the warriors are fallen,"
2 Sam 1:19, 25, 27), or Jeremiah's warning to the false prophets and priests:
"they will fall among the fallen," lakn yippl bannplm (Jer 6:15;
8:12). It appears relevant to a discussion of the Nephilim that the generic
term Rephaim has a double meaning: (1) the giant aboriginal inhabitants
of Canaan and (2) the shades of the dead.47 The connection between death
and the Nephilim appears to be basic to the several forms of the tradition.
I submit that the Nephilim, the warriors of old in Gen 6:1-4, are
intended to be destroyed by the flood and that the destruction of these
demigods was an authentic motive for the flood in early Israelite oral
42

See W. Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Saaificial Ritual
and Myth (trans. P. Bing; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1983) 35-48,
esp. 39; Nagy, Achaeans, 9-10, 174-209.
43
Omit l' with the Greek and the Syriac.
44
The Greek reads ("the fallen giants of old"),
which obviously refers to o ' ("the giants of old") of Gen 6:4. The Hebrew
text is best read: yiSkb 'et-gibbrim I nplm m'lam. The MT m'arlm is an obvious
mistake, triggered by a confusion between resh and waw. For the reading nplm rather
than MT nplm, see W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2 (trans. J. D. Martin; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 168, 176.
45
Read sinntm instead of MT 'wntm. The mistake of MT was likely triggered by
the cluster of 'ayins and sades in the following two words.
48
It is a qatU passive adjectival formation of the root \lnpl ("to fall").
47
On the difficult problem of the rptim in Ugaritic literature, see M. H. Pope, "The Cult
of the Dead at Ugarit," in Ugarit in Retrospect (d. G. D. Young; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1981) 159-79; C. E. L'Heureux, Rank Among the Canaanite Gods: El, Baal and the
Rephaim (HSM; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979); idem, "The Ugaritic and Biblical
Rephaim," HTR 67 (1974) 265-74; J. C. de Moor, "Rpi'ma-Rephaim," ZAW 88 (1976)
323-45; S. B. Parker, "The Ugaritic Deity Rp'iu," UF 4 (1972) 97-104; see also W. Pitard,
"The Ugaritic Funerary Text RS 34.126," BASOR 232 (1978) 65-75.

Hendel: Of Demigods and the Deluge

23

tradition. The parallel Greek tradition for the motive of the Trojan War
may or may not be cognate with Gen 6:1-4.1 suspect that it is, and I would
point to the international era of the Late Bronze Age for the most likely
period of oral diffusion,48 but a historical linkage of the two traditions is
not necessary for my point. Gen 6:1-4 presents a mixing of categories of
gods and mortals and the procreation of a hybrid category of demigods
which it is in the nature of the myth to suppress. Mary Douglas has pointed
out the preoccupation of ancient Israelite thought with the suppression of
anomaly in dietary laws and in the laws of kinship.49 These "purity laws,"
as she calls them, serve to keep "distinct the categories of creation."50 The
same tendency is at work in Gen 6:1-4. The sexual mingling of the Sons
of God and the daughters of men creates an imbalance and a confusion in
the cosmic order. The birth of the demigods threatens the fabric of the
cosmos. The natural response in myth, as exemplified by the Babylonian
flood tradition and the Greek Trojan War tradition, is to suppress the
imbalance by destroying the cause of the imbalance. In the Atrahasis myth,
humanity is destroyed so that its noise might be eliminated; in the Trojan
War tradition, humanity is to be destroyed so that the demigods might be
eliminated. The natural conclusion of Gen 6:1-4, according to the logic of
the myth, is the delugethe destruction of humanity and the concomitant
annihilation of the disorder. The cosmic imbalance is resolved by a great
destruction, out of which a new order arises.
In Gen 6:1-4 the Yahwist has transformed the old myth according to
his plan for the Genesis Primeval Cycle. The myth has been detached from
the flood narrative, though it still precedes it, and a new motive for the flood
has been supplied. The motive for the flood in Gen 6:5-8 is the increase of
mankind's evil on the earth, not the increase of population, nor the mixing
of gods and mortals. That the Yahwist is conscious of these older traditions
is evident in the parallel wording of Gen 6:1, "When mankind began to
multiply on the face of the earth," and Gen 6:5, "for the evil of mankind
multiplied on the earth."51 The parallel wording creates a thematic
48

On the extensive contacts between the Aegean and the Near East in the Late Bronze
Age, see C. W. Blegan, "The Expansion of the Mycenaean Civilization," CAH II/2A,
181-87. For connections in myth and cult, see Webster, From Mycenae to Homer, 64-90;
Kirk, Myth, 205-26; P. Walcot, "The Comparative Study of Ugaritic and Greek Literatures," UF 1 (1969) 111-18; M. L. West, Hesiod: Works and Days and Hesiod: Theogony
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1966) passim; and W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1979).
49
M. Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966) 41-57; idem, Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975) 261-73, 283-318.
50
Douglas, Purity and Danger, 53.
51
Several scholars have suggested that the increase of population referred to in Gen 6:1
is a vestige of the theme in Atrahasis of human overpopulation. See A. Heidel, The

24

Journal of Biblical Literature

counterpoint between the myth of Gen 6:1-4 and the motive for the flood.
The effect of the counterpoint, I suggest, is to highlight the new motive for
the floodthe evil of mankindand to relegate the tradition preserved in
Gen 6:1-4 to the status of an exemplar of the "evil imagination" of humanity, similar to the other stories of the Primeval Cycle. The fact that the
humans are not the initiators of the corrupt activity points up a disparity
between Gen 6:1-4 and the other stories of the Primeval Cycle, but this
seems not to have bothered the Yahwist. Though the story no longer serves
the purpose it once did, it fits well enough into its new context as one of
several illustrations of mankind's evil activity prior to the flood.
The punishment of mankind in Gen 6:3 seems to have been supplied
by the Yahwist in order to orient the story toward human culpability. The
odd intervention of Yahweh to limit the human life-span may, in fact, be
a remnant of an old flood tradition. At the end of the Atrahasis myth,
according to Lambert's restoration, death is decreed as the fate of humanity. Although the limitation of life-span in Gen 6:3 may not carry quite the
same nuance, the Atrahasis myth and the Sumerian King List both suggest
that a lessening of life-span is more appropriate after the flood than before
it.52 The lessening of life-span before the flood may be a reordering of an
older detail. As has often been noticed, the limitation of life-span in Gen
6:3 complements the decree of mortality at the end of the Garden of Eden
story, which creates a linkage of theme within the Primeval Cycle.
The composition of the Primeval Cycle is patterned with a number of
other themes which are carried on in Gen 6:1-4. The mixing of gods and
mortals in Gen 6:1-4 is mirrored by the mixing of divine and human in the
Garden of Eden story, in the desire of the humans to "be as gods, knowing
good and evil" (Gen 3:5, 22), and in the Tower of Babel story, where the
humans desire to build "a tower with its top in heaven" (Gen 11:4).53 The
hint of incest between Eve and Adam may also mirror the sexual mingling
of gods and humans in Gen 6:1-4. In the one case, the sexual partners are

Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949)
225-26; A. R. Millard, "A New Babylonian 'Genesis' Story," TynBul 18 (1967) 11-12; C.
Westermann, Genesis III (BKAT; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1974) 500-501; see also
H. Schwarzbaum, "The Overcrowded Earth," Numen 4 (1957) 59-74. The connection seems
rather forced, however, since an increase of population is to be expected in myths of primeval
humanity. The distinctive features of the Atrahasis myth excess of population and its
accompanying noiseare both absent in the Israelite tradition. For a nuanced view of the
contrast between the Israelite and Mesopotamian traditions, see Moran, "Atrahasis," 61.
52
See Lambert, "Theology of Death," 54-58; T. Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939) 70-77; ANET, 265-66; see also J. J. Finkelstein,
"The Antediluvian Kings: A University of California Tablet,"/CS 17 (1963) 44-51.
53
Note also the similarity in diction between the epithet 'an haSSm ("men of renown,"
lit., "men of name") in Gen 6:4 and the phrase wena'aseh-lan sm ("we will make a name
for ourselves") in Gen 11:4.

Hendel: Of Demigods and the Deluge

25

too closely related; they are of one flesh and bone (Gen 2:23). In the other,
the partners are too distandy related, across the bounds of human and
divine.
The confusion of the roles of the siblings in the Cain and Abel story,
that is, the fratricide, may also be seen as a variation on the themes of the
confusion of categories and the overstepping of bounds.54 In some ways
Cain's murder of his brother is a structural variation on the Garden of Eden
and the Tower of Babel stories. In all three instances, the overstepping of
proper bounds results in curses and in exile.55 Noah's cursing of Canaan
follows a similar structure. The son had seen the nakedness of the father,
thus transgressing their proper relationship, and Canaan as a result is
cursed.56 In Gen 6:1-4 the bounds between divine and human are breached,
and the result is the decree of the limit of life-span. The basic pattern
persists.
I suggest that the Primeval Cycle is characterized by a series of mythological transgressions of boundaries that result in a range of divine responses
which slowly build up the present order of the cosmos.57 To borrow from
the terminology of Claude Lvi-Strauss, the stories proceed in a dialectical
fashion, generating oppositions and resolving them, all the while sketching
a transition from a mythical "nature" to human "culture," from the time
when humans were naked and immortal to the era of clothing, mortality,
hard labor, and nations: the era of the present world. Gen 6:1-4 fits snugly
into this contextthe repetition of mythological transgressions of boundaries and the slow building up of the limitations of the human world.
To conclude, I submit that Gen 6:1-4 is not the "cracked erratic
boulder" of Wellhausen's interpretation, nor is it "isolated in every respect,"
as Martin Noth remarked.59 The story is of a piece with the other narratives
of the Primeval Cycle. It is a mythological fragment, displaced from its

54
See C. Lvi-Strauss's remarks on the function of "overstepping of bounds" in traditional
mythology in Structural Anthropohgy (trans. C. Jacobson; New York: Basic Books, 1963)
223-30. For treatments of this theme in Genesis 2-11, see recently P. D. Miller, Genesis 1-11:
Studies in Structure and Theme (JSOTSup 8; Sheffield: University of Sheffield, 1978) 20-26;
Fishbane, Text and Texture, 32-33; and esp. R. A. Oden, Jr., "Transformations in Near
Eastern Myths: Genesis 1-11 and the Old Babylonian Epic of Atrahasis," Religion 11 (1981)
30-34.
55
For an interesting interpretation of the theme of exile in Genesis 2-11, see P. Ricoeur,
The Symbolism of Evil (trans. E. Buchanan; Boston: Beacon, 1967) 242.
56
On the problem of the interchange between Ham and Ganaan in Gen 9:18-26, see
Westermann, Genesis, 646-48.
57
Compare D. L. Petersen's astute remarks on Gen 6:1-4 as a "myth of organization"
("Genesis 6:1-4," 55-56).
58
M. Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (trans. B. W. Anderson; Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972) 28.

26

Journal of Biblical Literature

original traditional context and integrated by the Yahwist into the structural and thematic framework of the Primeval Cycle. The work of the
Yahwist, I suggest, was conscious and complex; the myths that he used had
resonances all their own.59
59
Versions of this paper were delivered at a biblical colloquium at York University,
Toronto, November 1982, a seminar at Harvard University, October 1983, and the annual
meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, December 1984. Of the many people who
helped in the growth of the paper, I would like to single out J. Hackett and G. Nagy for
special thanks.

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