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According to Genesis 6, god was pretty peeved cos angels (nephilim) were having intercourse with human women and giant offspring (sons of god) arose from these comings together.

Noah had no such genealogy and was selected to survive while god rubbed out the dodgy characters.

All well and good,

So now we get to Jesus - according to New Testament, an angel (Gabriel we are told) was instrumental in causing Jesus to be born without human seed - so what material difference is there between that son of god and the pre-flood sons of god who were destroyed?

Just asking

Jesus wasn't born of a virgin. That is a myth, but all religions have myth and that, in and of itself is not evil, I contend. It is all the bubbling up of the collective deep consciousness of the human race. Jung called them archetypes. They've served a purpose in the unfolding of human consciousness. Even Paul's inventions, if they really are inventions, are part of the unfolding of human consciousness which I think is a sacred process deserving of a better caricature than that of "evil 666". Such black and white dualistic thinking is nonsense. It is always a matter of pointing fingers at the next guy without realizing the you and he are one.

Why is it that we must make the "other guy" with those "other ideas" inherently evil or bad or mistaken or blind or stupid or somehow less than myself? I do it too. Today at work I was grumbling in my own mind about a particular person who just rubs me the wrong way. What did I do? I was making that person somehow inherently "bad" to justify my feelings against them. But in fact that person shares in the same ocean of consciousness, the same substratum that I do. We are one.

All religions are just the same. On the surface they are like proud grand waves rolling along making their own noise and foam and having their own form and character. At times these waves are in conflict with each other and yet some move along similar channels. These waves are seeming separate selves, but in reality they are nothing but the ocean itself.

Thanks Jedi. Those are some interesting points to note in the myth making.

The "666" evil, as I read the story, has it's inception in the story of Solomon and his wisdom for money making on the backs of Israelite slaves. Something that the storied bible God frowned upon. Slavery of other people was ok, but when people like Solomon enslaved their own kindred, that was a condemning factor and fit for punishment.

Does anyone know the worth today of 666 talents of gold?

CH, do try to get the story straight. The angel that visited Mary was merely a messenger of God who told her that "the thing" she would bear was of the Holy Spirit. This can easily indicate Gods approval of the child she would produce, as Mary was evidently a daughter of Israel. So what was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit. Just as all the sons of Jacob were sons of the Hebrew God. What set Jesus apart from his brethren Jews? He would be likened to a prophet who would save Israel from offenses as per the tradition of prophets who cried[protested] against Israel, and who were later called priests and rabbi's.

My opinion is that both terms of conceived and resurrection are misinterpreted by Christians. Conceived should have had the meaning of an ideal for the word of God to go forth and in the mouth of a messenger. Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, received her message from the Lord the same way that Mary received hers, from an angel. Jesus was no more important than John as a messenger of the word. Both were killed by the Jews as all the prophets before them. Rome got the blame for the death of Jesus due to the method of execution and Caesar's alliance with Jewish leaders such as Herod, but it was Herod, the Jewish appointed tetrearch that officially carried out the wishes of anti-Christ Jews who condemned Jesus in judgement of blasphemy or sedition. Maybe it was both in meaning.

Does Genesis say that God was peeved because "the sons of God came down to the daughters of men and chose whomsoever they liked" and began producing offspring with those daughters of men, men of renown?

"There were giants in the earth in those days, when the sons of God came down to the daughters of men.." So what happened, really? Maybe the sons of God went slumming? Naa, these daughters were of kings in the earth, men of renown. They were not spoken of as evil, but the insinuation is that were wealthy and known throughout the land. If they were giants, they probably had a glandular problem, a left-over from their ancient predecessors in dinosaur days. Especially if, like David said, they had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. I wonder if they had 72 teeth in their mouth?

Oh, back to Mary. Why would Mary have been concerned about what the angel of the Lord told her? She would bear a son and call his name Jesus and he would lead many to righteousness. The story must be making another point in meaning of "before they came together", for it says that Joseph was in fear of taking unto himself, Mary, his wife. I think this indicates some sort of prohibition of marriage between different tribal names. What tribal name was Mary lineaged? Maybe Levi? What about Joseph? If Mary was cousin to Elizabeth, then maybe Mary had the same lineaged ancestry in Levites, the priestly caste. In the old testament the Benjamites were outcasts and forced to marry within the non-Israeli people called Schemeites. This after the Benjamites had raped and killed a woman belonging to a Levite priest. Her body the priest hacked into 12 parts and sent to every tribe of Israel in witness to the murderous abomination. Then all the tribes had a council meeting and vowed not to allow their daughters to marry any Benjamite, and so not to lose a son of Israel the council decided to allow the Benjamites a way to reproduce themselves through the daughters of Schemites.

Whatever lineage Jesus came through he was evidently not questioned even by the Pharisees. His rank as son of Israel and a Jew was known, but it was his teaching agains the Pharisees, Sadducees and elders that caused his demiss.

btw, the pre-flood giants could not have been destroyed. David collecting their toes as soveniers is proof, plus that they may have even been on the ark of Noah, his sons who had married the "daughters of men". Maybe even Noah was a giant.

So is there any material difference between the angels (nephilim) of Genesis 6 and the conception of Jesus?

My guess is there isn't Coolhermit, that they were both conceived in the fertile minds of humankind.

Sometimes you are a mystery CH.

It's fabulous not to have to read Roselyn's responses - I caught sight of one on someone else's pc yesterday and in it she pronounced the standard Christian party line like any true believer - and moreover in a tone of patronising too. I reckon she's not far from returning to Rome. She doth protest far too much.

One interesting aspect of the nephilim thing is that according to Daniel the iron and clay that represent the world govt. at the time of the end are nephilim hybrids too. Daniel 2:43 from memory.

I haven't a notion of what you're referring to CH. You caught sight of what on whose PC? How do you invade other peoples PC's? Are you with Bush's Homeland scheme of invasion of privacy or something?

btw, Daniel was another invented bible character for the OT story.

The bible is full of "hybrids".

Jesus was not a giant.

He was little and brown and feisty.

Jesus was NOT little and brown and feisty. Have you not looked at all the portraits of Jesus? He has long wavy black hair, no dredlocks or black hat, he has WHITE skin, and wears a red and white robe. Sometimes he's portrayed with a crooked walking stick or holding a baby lamb.(Jews weren't allowed to have dogs and cats as pets. Heresy.) And sometimes he's shown holding up his hand and making a "V" sign for victory with two fingers.

On the cross Jesus is a WHITE naked man, beaten, dead and bloodied. I figure Jesus was about 5'8" and weighed about 155lbs. He was physically fit because he walked alot. Terrain was much to rocky for running and besides jogging shoes had not been invented in those days.

I always wondered where Jesus used the bathroom. Did the Jews build outhouses? What did they use for toilet paper? Or did Jesus smell like a sewer? The Romans used large swabs, rags tied on a stick. Dipped them in water and then swiped once. And the next person to use the letrine would use the same swab. Do you think Jews were allowed to use Roman toilets? I can't even imagine how women in those days would have cleaned the crap off their babies. Water being such a scarce commodity.. The rich Jews such as Herod had large baths. Communal bathing was a popular passtime.

John and Jesus would have taken lots of baths in rivers of Galilee or streams or lakes, so maybe they didn't smell so badly. Smelling bad was a sin as Yahweh like a savory ordor rising into his nostrils. (OT)

Compared to the average size of people at 5'2", Jesus WAS a giant among men. But John the Baptist wouldhave been taller than Jesus due to his diet of locusts and wild honey. Honey and locust contain protein for healthy growth. Spiders also contain protein but Jews could not stomach spiders. Hairy legs they just couldn't swallow.

CH, Nephlim were drug induced phatom stories. Remember that gord and worm story in Jonah's trip to Ninevah? And the one about Samson eating wild honey from the carcass of a dead lion? I don't think if I were Jewish I'd tell that one very much. I mean, if anything goes against Jewish dietary laws it would be eating out of the carcass of a dead animal. Catholics might ought to remember that when Jews start bashing them for eating the flesh of Jesus in a cracker.