Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Genesis 6

The "sons of God" marry the "daughters of men", but this does not make the resulting men from these unions divine.  Now this is weird, who are these "sons of God"?  The resulting men are the "Nephilian", the mighty men of old.  This seems to be remnants of an older myth, like perhaps the Enoch story of being taken to walk with God.

Man's wretchedness makes God sorry he created man and decides to blot him out, except for Noah, who is righteous and walked with God.  This parallels the other version of man's wickedness, seeming editing of two traditions into one.  God commands Noah to build an ark and take his family and two of every creature into it.

Asimov underscores that the tale of Cain and Abel may be an account of friction between nomads (Abel) and city dwellers (Cain).  In ancient Hebrew, a cognate of Cain means "smith".   And indeed, one of Cain's descendants, Tabul-Cain, literally means the smith of Tabul.

No new laws, but God seems quite peeved at man's wickedness.  Don't like where this is going.

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