Procrastination man - Part 2

There's no denying it - the start of Genesis 6 is one of the hardest ones in the Bible. It does not flow naturally from its preceding passage, nor to the next few verses. It is very much a standalone piece, which led to some specific analyses of only those four verses (a very worthy example can be found here, thanks Diane for pointing it out).
A first difficulty is the introduction of "sons of God" (as opposed to "daughters of men", v. 2). Is this simply a gender divide, or are we to assume there were two levels of people inhabiting the Fallen world? On top of that come the Nephilim. For some reason, the ESV footnotes this as "giants", and this meaning seems to have taken on for many scholars^[1], though etymologically, the closest notion seems to be that of the Fallen Ones. In other terms, verse 4

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them...

is there to insist further on the point that we are Fallen, that despite God's coming promise, we still live in sin (and quite possibly insists on the sinful nature of sex and pride).
This interpretation is quite possibly a bit obscure, as it hinges on finding the meaning of the word Nephilim, though if that meaning was clear-cut (either the Fallen Ones, or the reasons for the Fall) in the original language, then so would have been the meaning of this passage. In addition, the advertised association with "Giants" makes sense when one sees giants as one's personal demons, to be fought (and then David and Goliath takes on a whole new dimension). Of course, there are other interpretations, including more literal ones (read this or this for a bit of fun), which I personally do not take seriously, inasmuch as Biblical facts are of little relevance in my opinion - the message is more important.
Similarly, I believe that sons of God and daughters of man are indicating both genders of Mankind. In a very sexist way (which maybe was the way at the time of writing - after all, the Bible is man-written and different references are made), it places the Godly part in the male half and the human part in the female half. Or is this a nod back to Genesis 2:21-23? The point which is made in verse 3, that

My Spirit shall not abide in man forever (or contend with)

is a warning of what is to come: the flood, but also a positive indication: that God's Spirit is with us while we live, while we are flesh.

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The rest of the chapter is a bit more straightforward to analyse, and has a few main points:

• God was disappointed in man: he is "sorry" (v. 6, repeated on v. 7)
• He is also a saviour, ages before the New Testament. When He speaks to Noah, it is because "Noah found favour" in His eyes (v. 8). Note the choice of words - Noah did not plea to God, he found something that was already there.
• Possibly most importantly, if man is saved, it is because he followed God's design. This is the point made throughout Gen 6:14-22. Indeed, there is no reason why we would be interested in how many cubits long the Ark was. Verse 22 epitomises this:

Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

In this passage, we are reminded of God's power: both in terms of destruction, but also in terms of salvation.
Sometimes, I think Genesis should be in the NT.

After a chapter which described with quite a lot of strength sin as the many forms it can take on, from sex to murder, chapter 5 appears at first glance much more pointless: it is a genealogy of Adam's descendants to Noah, giving in painful detail the length of their lives. It is that detail which, if taken literally, allows to compute back the age of Creation in a way that fundamentalists have done since the King James Version (and possibly earlier).
But if we stick to the letter of Genesis 5, we get "facts", but not meaning. And I feel there is little point in knowing those particular facts. Some will argue that going into detail like that implies greater reliability (I have heard a similar argument during a sermon about the mention of such an irrelevant detail as a "cushion" in Mark 4:38) though I am not personally convinced by this: it implies that God feels a need to convince us through such means.
So what is the meaning of Genesis 5? The way it fits in with its predecessor is similar to that of Genesis 2: it sums up what was said in the previous chapter(s) under a slightly changed focus: for starters, Seth, not Abel and Cain, is now considered; but we also have the following shift:

Gen 1 - Creation centred; focus on God
Gen 2 - concerned with Creation but specifically with Man, focus still on God
Gen 5 - Focus uniquely on Man, from verse 3 onwards.

The introduction, "This is the book of the generations of Adam." (Gen 5:1) is particularly telling of this shift in focus when compared to "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created" (Gen 2:4). My interpretation of this as a continuation of Genesis 4 is that sin implies a separation from God that we cannot overcome ourselves (and there are quite a few books till it will be overcome!) which is made clear in the impossibility to keep the focus on God when talking of Man.
As a continuation of Genesis 4, Genesis 5 is then mostly concerned with sin. One of the consequences of sin is death (see Gen 3:19), and this death is made clear throughout the generations of Adam. True, there is a lot about life, but giving the actual length of that life means placing the focus on the fact that it has an end. The message could not be clearer: Adam's trespass led to a condition, sin, that his offspring share. Even if we did not trespass, we would still live in sin. More, the life expectancy seems to wane towards the end of the chapter (I would do a graph, but then it would be a tad ridiculous. With the exception of Enoch, and I cannot properly understand Gen 5:24, Lamech is the first one to die before his 800th birthday), indicating that trespasses continue. Which provides a nice transition to chapter 6.

(links to come later)

As some of you will know, I have spent quite a lot of time emailing schools across the country. In order to get all their email addresses, I needed to go through a lot of websites, some of them great, some of them funny. It led to this:

Best school name:

1. Manhood Community College, in West Sussex, is not even a boys' school!
2. Sexey's School, in Somerset.
3. Teddington School, in Richmond. Just 'cos I like the name.

A special mention in this category goes to the Godolphin and Latymer School. Can't get much posher than that!

Best crest: Goes to... Stepney Green Community College in Tower Hamlets.
(Unintentionally) fun school websites:

1. Biddick School. But don't click the link, or you will regret it. Seriously. At least don't do it at work.
2. Sunningdale School has got to have the cutest page ever.

Cool maths things:

1. Oriel College has the cutest little poem about homework and maths
2. Altrincham Grammar School for Boys has a maths joke updated weekly. Much better than . Or are they?
3. Sacred Heart College gives you 101 uses for equations and other cool stuff.
4. Stretford High School lists things maths does

Also, Abbeydale Grange School has the coolest navigation between departments. And finally, this resource is pretty cool too.