(2) Most scholars now reject this view and interpret "sons of God" as referring to supernatural beings in accordance with the meaning of the expression in the other passages. They hold that
De 14:1, etc., cannot be regarded as supporting the ethical interpretation of the phrase in a historical narrative. The reference to
Jer 32:20, etc., too, is considered irrelevant, the contrast in these passages being between Israel and other nations, not, as here, between men and God. Nor can a narrower signification (daughters of worldly men) be attached to "men" in
Ge 6:2 than to "men" in 6:1, where the reference is to the human race in general. This passage (
Ge 6:1-4), therefore, which is the only one of its kind, is considered to be out of its place and to have been
inserted here by the compiler as an introduction to the story of the Flood (6:5-8). The intention of the original writer, however, was to account for the rise of the giant race of antiquity by the union of demigods with human wives. This interpretation accords with Enoch chapters 6-7, etc., and with
Jude 1:6 f, where the unnatural sin of the men of Sodom who went after "strange flesh" is compared with that of the angels (compare
2Pe 2:4 ff). (See Havernick, Introduction to the Pentateuch; Hengstenberg on the Pentateuch, I, 325; Oehler, Old Testament Theology, I, 196 f; Schultz, Old Testament Theology, I, 114 ff; Commentary on Genesis by Delitzsch, Dillmann, and Driver.)