Posts Tagged ‘Flood’

The Nephilim, Lessons from Enoch and Lessons from Noah and the Flood

Posted: August 22, 2012 in Christian
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I know I probably can’t do this justice, but I decided to tackle some subject matter that highly interest me and the patterns that they seem to represent. This subject covers the time between the creation and the Flood of Noah, and deals with some controversial beings called the Nephilim. To those that have no idea what Nephilim are…here’s a link to start with (there are many, many more references that could be cited, but maybe this link will help you start your own in-depth investigation into this eerie subject) http://www.nwcreation.net/nephilim.html

I like patterns. I look for patterns to assist me with understanding and remembering thoughts, items and concepts whether at work or at home. Therefore, I see patterns within the scriptures that I believe were intentionally woven into the fabric of the Holy Word to allow us to tie events and concepts together for our edification, our remembrance and our worship. With that in mind, I wish to begin this topic with some patterns I see represented in the bible. In my mind, I feel that the Nephilim represent Satan and sin, and that Enoch represents the saved children of God and Noah represents the remnant being saved from the judgment of an evil, unrepentant world. So, let’s see if I can tie these thoughts and patterns together.

To start at the beginning of the scriptures, the Holy Spirit tells us in Romans that Adam was a model, or a type for Jesus. Romans 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. (NKJV)

I remember when I first read this I thought, “hold on, how in the world is Adam, who fell, like Christ?”. I owe the clarification of this comment to Chuck Missler who explained it in one of the 40,000 recordings he has made (OK, maybe not 40,000, but he has made a lot of fascinating instructional and inspirational recordings…). He explained it this way; Adam and Eve lived a guileless, perfect existence in a perfect environment, but Eve was deceived by Satan and because of this deception she chooses to defy God. Adam, knowing he would suffer along with her, (God told them they would die) made the conscious decision to stay with her, therefore taking on her sin. This caused their existence to radically change and the curse of death was heaped upon them, as well as the environment in which they lived. Christ chose to become human and to be born in our cursed existence and take upon himself our sin of death, to provide a pathway for us and creation to throw off the curse of death and re-establish the perfect world again in the end, thus reversing the curse that began with Adam and Eve. When explained this way, the connection between Adam and Christ makes perfect sense.

OK, so we know that the scriptures are full of patterns and types for us to look for and digest, so we can understand the meanings of them and apply the meaning to our lives. Let’s look at a few that I feel tie together the Nephilim, Enoch and the Flood.

1st Pattern…The Nephilim. I learned in history class about Greek and Roman gods. It seemed each and every one had superhuman strengths, they were huge imposing creatures that struck fear in the hearts of mere mortals, similar to the superheroes that we read about in comic books or watch on the silver screen. When I was a kid I never would have imagined that the basis of these legends had their root in the history of mankind and was recorded in the Word of God. Genesis, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Joshua, Samuel, Chronicles and Ezekiel1 most have references to these aberrant humans that were the result of the union of fallen angels2 and human females. It is very easy to infer from looking at the Hebrew meaning of the passages that the genetic code of all the offspring and their descendants would have been altered, corrupting the purity (or perfection) of the DNA of the children of the Lord (which would eventually become the Israelites) if they had been allowed to intermingle. I feel this was an early attempt by the original adversary, Satan, to corrupt the DNA code of man and prevent the future birth of the perfect human, Christ. For this reason, the only way to accurately insure that corruption of the line didn’t happen would have been to reformat the Earth, so to speak…hence, Noah.

2nd Pattern…While all this attempt to corrupt the human genomes by Satan though the Nephilim was taking place around the globe, there was a seventh generation descendant of Adam named Enoch that we are told in Genesis 5:22 and again in verse 24 walked with God for three hundred years after the birth of his son, Methuselah at the age of sixty-five. There is a Jewish tradition that Enoch was born on the 6th of Sivan3 which is the Jewish Feast of Weeks, or as we know it, the Day of Pentecost and we are told in Genesis 5:24 that three hundred sixty-five years later the Lord took him, or translated him, and according to Jewish tradition, he was translated also on his birthday (what a present!). The parallel between Enoch and the Church jumps right out at me…both were ‘born’ on Pentecost, Enoch was born amid a world of decay and corruption but found favor with God and followed his commandments and so subsequently God snatched Enoch from the sin and corruption of the world before he destroyed it. We are told in I Thessalonians 14:16 and 17 that the Church will be caught up to be with the Lord, just like Enoch was.

3rd Pattern…The days of Noah were dim days indeed for the Earth. Satan had, successfully it seemed, corrupted the line of man with the Nephilim so the birth of a pure Lord born of the line of David wouldn’t be able to take place. Genesis 6 speaks of this tale of woe where starting with verse two the Holy Spirit tells us that Sons of God (‘ĕlôhı̂ym)4 came down to co-mingle and produce offspring with the daughters of man (‘âdâm)4 and the product of those unions were the Nephilim, or ‘giants’ as the modern translations render them. Primarily because of this corruption of the human race, God decided to destroy life on the Earth. However, Genesis 6:8 is a short but very sweet verse to our ears because it simply says but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (KJV). Because Noah found favor with the Lord and his gene pool was pure (or perfect), The Lord chose to keep Noah, his family and male and female of all flesh safe from destruction as he wiped the impure seed of Satan’s attempt at destruction of the race of man from the face of the Earth. What are the lessons to be learned from Noah? Noah is a model of the remnant of the Children of Israel as we see in Isaiah 11:11, Jeremiah 23:3, Ezekiel 11:17, Micah 2:12 and Romans 9:27 which will be protected and saved from the judgment of the Earth by fire, just as the Flood was a judgment of the Earth by water.

Looking at the history of mankind before the flood, we see that the patterns there are exemplar to the history of mankind after the flood. Perhaps we should really take a close look at the lessons God has laid out for us and dig deep to find the gems and jewels of information hidden beneath the surface of these first chapters of the Book of Genesis.

Jim Bussell

P.S. While researching this I came across some interesting websites pointing to the Book of Enoch. Apparently it was discovered that the Ethiopians weren’t highly influenced by the Early Church leaders thus their bibles retain some characteristics of some of the early canons before the Early Church Fathers did their editing, resulting in the Book of Enoch being included in their scriptures. Supposedly the passages that Jude quotes about Enoch’s prophecies in Jude 14 are found there implying that he was familiar with the text. Also fragments of the Book of Enoch are included in the Dead Sea Scroll remains and, if we can believe the carbon 14 dating, these copies were ascribed around 200 BC. It seems most scholars believe the Book of Enoch was not written by Enoch himself, but it retains a good enough pedigree, that a healthy biblical library maybe should include one as historical reference. The Book of Enoch was translated from the Ethiopian text in 1906. Here is one interesting website: http://exodus2006.com/ENOCH.HTM

1 Genesis 6, Numbers 13, Deuteronomy 3, Joshua 14 & 15, II Samuel 20 and I Chronicles 20

2 fallen angels = sons of God. All of the earliest writings, as well as the Kaballah refer to sons of God as angels. It wasn’t until the 2nd century AD did a reference to sons of Seth appear in the writings of an early church father, Augustine. To consider the sons of God as righteous men, doesn’t really play in my mind as the scriptures tell us that the offspring of this union were giants, or when you look at Strong’s definition (H5303) they were not only giants, but were tyrants, bullies. You may have some children that are badly behaved, but to have aberrant offspring, there has to be something else in play, other than human to human unions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_God

3 http://www.khouse.org/articles/1994/101/

4 from Strong’s Concordance courtesy of E-Sword

 

 

The Flood of Noah…what actually happened?

Posted: August 22, 2012 in Christian
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While studying some of the intricacies of the bible, I ran across some theories regarding the cause of the flood of Noah. Among the theories are a couple of popular prevailing, but opposing, theories regarding the flood. The first one is the water canopy theory1 which says the waters came from above and the second view surrounds something called the hydroplate theory2 which postulates that the waters came from below. I believe both theories are wrong…and right.

I think the bible proves both are wrong. Genesis 7:11 says: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” (NIV). The bible clearly states that both theories took place.

I could end the blog there, but what’s the fun in that? OK, lets step off the ledge and look at what these things are about and why these folks are all nuts…(it is a little lengthy, but if you are a technical geek like me…come along) (if you don’t care about the mumbo-jumbo in the middle, scroll down the the last three paragraphs, if you must…)

Water canopy theory:

Factors Supporting the Canopy Theory1

  • Continuous forty day rain.
  • Rainbows & clouds – not mentioned in the Bible before the flood
  • Fossil plants and animals in polar regions, indicating globally uniform temperatures before the flood.
  • Tremendous decline in human life expectancy following the flood.

More supporting factors from the CreationWiki link:

Before the flood, human lifespans were approximately 10 times our current expectancy. Also, the overall size of organisms, and the productivity of ecosystems, was generally much greater before the flood than after. Various regions of the Earth now perpetually glaciated, such as Antarctica, possess fossil evidence of rich ecosystems, including fossil ferns and amphibians with skulls measuring up to one meter. Productivity in these regions could only be explained by global temperature fluctuations or continental drift.

There are other indicators of an atmospheric change resulting from the flood, such as the sudden appearance of a rainbow following the flood, and the fact that human life expectancy declined to what it is today in just the few generations after Noah. Likewise the first mention of clouds is not until after the deluge, and many believe there was no rain or clouds beforehand. However, from the Bible it is clear there were stars also visible before the flood, therefore any supposed canopy was less dense than the standard cloud cover today.

A few scriptures that seem to support this:

“And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.” – Genesis 1:6-7 (NIV)

“When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,” – Genesis 9:14 (NIV)

OK…what about the Hydroplate Theory?

The hydroplate theory introduced by Dr. Walt Brown of the Center for Scientific Creation. The hydroplate theory states that before the Global flood a massive amount of water was underneath the crust. The pressure on the water caused the plates to break and separate. The escaping water then flooded the whole earth. Because these plates were broken, moved, and affected by water, (Hydro = water) these plates are considered hydroplates.

It is believed that the preflood earth held a mass of water that surrounded the earth underneath the crust. It might have held as much as half of the water in our oceans today. This water was seemingly held in coterminous chambers forming a thin spherical shell. The shell was possibly 10 miles below the earth’s surface. Increasing pressure on the water started stretching the crust. This “stretching” created a microscopic crack which violently grew about 3 miles per second. This crack found the weakest parts of the crust and broke through them. This crack encompassed the globe in about two hours. The water was being pressured by 10 miles of rock and exploded out of the crack. This water was shot almost 20 miles into the atmosphere. This created fierce rains and even extreme hail. Some of the water shot high above the stratosphere creating ice crystals that fell in certain areas. These extreme hails buried, asphyxiated, and instantly froze many animals. This includes the frozen mammoths found today.

These fountains eroded the rock on both sides of the crack creating massive amounts of sediment all over the world. The sediment buried many animals and plants establishing the fossil record. The width was so colossal that the rock beneath was compelled upward by pressure and became the mid-oceanic ridge. Then the hydroplates slid down and away from the inclining mid-Atlantic ridge. Once the gradually advancing plates reached speeds of about 45 miles per hour they would collide, compress and buckle. The plates that buckled downward became ocean trenches and those that buckled upward became mountains. This explains why large mountain ranges are in correlation to their oceanic ridges.

This theory attempts to reduce the following seemingly different phenomena into a single cause: the sudden rupturing of subterranean chambers of water which were once within the Earth’s crust.

  • Sudden destruction of most of the life on Earth;
  • Massive changes in land morphology, including mountain formation;
  • Continental drift;
  • Unusual geologic features, such as salt domes, limestone cliffs, canyons, and others;
  • Mid-oceanic ridges and trenches; 2

Here are my conclusions about these two theories:

The canopy theory helps explain why there were no mention of clouds before the flood (Genesis 9:14 first mention)

The canopy theory helps explain the mystery of tropical types of plants found in far northern and far southern longitudes.

The canopy theory help solve the mystery of the Pterodactyls (Pterosaurs3) and the atmospheric pressures needed for them to just fly…taking off needed even more atmospheric pressure under their wings.

The canopy theory helps explain why there was no rain before the the flood.

The canopy theory helps explain the longevity of life before the flood.

OK…what about the hydroplate theory?

The hydroplate theory may help explain the sudden deaths and sudden quick freezing that fossils appeared to undergo at the time of the creature’s demise.4

The hydroplate theory helps explain the tortuous plate action it appears was required for the formation of mountain ranges and deep canyons under the oceans.

The hydroplate theory helps explain the percentage of salinity of the world’s oceans.

The combination of the hydroplate theory in conjunction with the canopy theory helps explain the apparent sudden erosive condition the seem to have caused many of the earth’s canyon and scarps, such as the Grand Canyon in Arizona and the Scablands in Washington State.

The hydroplate theory in conjunction with the canopy theory help solve many of the arguments against each theory alone. For instance; the volume of water required beneath the earth alone creates problem and the amount of atmospheric pressure and the amount of radiation blockage created by a solo canopy theory causes some concerns. Removing some of the required H2O from each theory, thus creating a balance between each makes each theory much more palatable.

It seems to me that those that are proponents of the canopy theory over any other theory do not have this verse in their bibles…“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” – Genesis 7:11 (NIV)

It also seems to me that those that push the hydroplate theory as the sole explanation of the flood are also missing this verse in their bibles…“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” – Genesis 7:11 (NIV) because it seems to me that God has provided His own theory…that it was waters above the earth (canopy theory fits here…) and waters below the earth (hydroplate theory fits here) that caused the flood.

I sort of think that both these camps of higher thought should get together over coffee and actually agree to read the bible as their basic, primary source of information and then discuss their different theories. If they did that, I believe there would be a new book published and coauthored by all these folks that combine their different theories and heavily lean on God’s theory from Genesis 7:11 that the water came from above and below.

God Bless, Jim

1-22-12
1 http://creationwiki.org/Canopy_theory

2http://creationwiki.org/Hydroplate_theory

3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur

4 I may have some questions about this…I am thinking out loud here…for instance; if the flood created a weird condition that suddenly and catastrophically caused these fossil remains, why are there no fossil remains of humans preserved within the same strata. There were, by many accounts, millions of people that perished in the flood…perhaps it was because the human population of the earth was concentrated between the tropic bands of the earth…then how do we explain the preserved foot prints found along side of dinosaur footprints? I tend to over-think things…as you can see…but, I still have questions…