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A possible approach to the origin of the Nephilim in **Genesis 6:1–4** that is consistent with the supernatural understanding of the sons of God in the Israelite worldview is that divine beings came to earth, assumed human flesh, cohabited with human women, and spawned unusual offspring known as Nephilim. Naturally, this view requires seeing the giant clans encountered in the conquest as physical descendants of the Nephilim (**Num 13:32–33**).
Christians still balk at this interpretive option for **Genesis 6:1–4**. The ancient reader would have had no problem with it. But for moderns, it seems impossible that a divine being could assume human flesh and do what this passage describes.
The objection is odd, since this interpretation is less dramatic than the incarnation of Yahweh as Jesus Christ. How is the virgin birth of God as a man more acceptable? What isn’t mind-blowing about Jesus having both a divine and human nature fused together? For that matter, what doesn’t offend the modern scientific mind about God going through a woman’s birth canal and enduring life as a human, having to learn how to talk, walk, eat with a spoon, be potty trained, and go through puberty? All these things are far more shocking than **Genesis 6:1–4**….
The truth is that Christians affirm the incarnation because they have to—it defines Christianity. **Genesis 6:1–4** is set aside as peripheral.
(Heiser, *The Unseen Realm*.)
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