The Sons of God, the Nephilim, and the Watchers

Scripture, Prophetic Teaching, and the Testimony of the Flood

In the years I have spent teaching and writing about the Flood of Noah, the rainbow token of the covenant, and the hope that comes through Jesus Christ, one passage has repeatedly drawn questions: Genesis 6:1-4. The brief account of the sons of God, the daughters of men, and the Nephilim has been the subject of endless speculation. Some of that speculation is sincere and careful. Much of it is not. My purpose here is not to chase every theory, but to place the discussion where it belongs: within the plain teaching of Scripture as clarified by the Restoration, and within the living prophetic voice of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I write as one who believes the Bible is the word of God and that the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants are likewise Scripture. I also write as one who has studied the ancient Near Eastern background of these texts with interest. Scholarship can illuminate how later readers understood the biblical account. It cannot correct or diminish what the Lord has revealed through His prophets.

The Work of Amar Annus

In 2010 the Assyriologist Amar Annus published a substantial study titled “On the Origin of Watchers: A Comparative Study of the Antediluvian Wisdom in Mesopotamian and Jewish Traditions.” His thesis is that the Watchers and their giant offspring in the Book of the Watchers (the opening section of 1 Enoch) represent a deliberate Jewish inversion of Mesopotamian traditions about the apkallu, the antediluvian sages associated with the god Ea.

In Mesopotamian sources the apkallu are culture-bringers who transmit writing, crafts, divination, and ritual knowledge from before the Flood. Annus argues that Jewish writers in the Second Temple period took this material and reversed its moral sign. The prestigious sages became rebellious heavenly teachers. Their knowledge of metallurgy, cosmetics, astrology, and spells became forbidden and corrupting. Their offspring became the violent giants linked to the Nephilim of Genesis 6. Positive motifs from the same tradition, particularly the ascent of a seventh antediluvian figure, were transferred to Enoch. Annus notes that some Mesopotamian texts already portray the apkallu with ambivalent or even demonic traits, so the inversion was not invented from nothing.

This is careful comparative work. It helps explain why the Book of the Watchers reads the way it does and why its list of revealed arts looks familiar to anyone who has studied cuneiform catalogues. It does not, however, establish the historical accuracy of the Watchers narrative, nor does it settle the meaning of Genesis 6:1-4. Annus is describing how one later Jewish tradition engaged with Babylonian claims. He is not claiming that the biblical text itself is a rewritten Mesopotamian myth. That distinction matters.

The Non-Canonical Books of Enoch and Jubilees

Much of the modern discussion of angel-human hybrids rests on material that is not found in the canonical books of Scripture. The primary source for the detailed Watchers narrative is 1 Enoch, particularly the Book of the Watchers (chapters 1-36). This text, composed in the Second Temple period, describes two hundred angels who descend to Mount Hermon, take human wives, teach forbidden knowledge, and father giant offspring. The Book of Jubilees, another Second Temple work, contains related traditions about the Watchers and the pre-Flood world.

These books are not part of the biblical canon recognized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, nor were they included in the canon of the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament. While fragments of Enochic material have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and while Jude quotes a portion of 1 Enoch, the Church has never received these books as Scripture. Their detailed account of descending angels, oaths, forbidden arts, and hybrid giants is an expansion that goes well beyond the brief statements in Genesis 6.

The influence of these non-canonical texts on later interpretation is significant. Many who argue for angel-human hybrids draw heavily on the Book of the Watchers to fill in what they see as gaps in Genesis 6. The Watchers narrative supplies the names, the numbers, the location of the descent, the specific teachings, and the nature of the offspring. Without 1 Enoch and related literature, the hybrid interpretation has far less narrative support.

It is important to note what is absent from the canonical books. Neither the Bible nor the Restoration Scriptures contain the Watchers story as it appears in 1 Enoch. Genesis 6:1-4 is brief. It speaks of the sons of God, the daughters of men, and the Nephilim, but it does not describe angels descending, binding themselves by oath, teaching metallurgy and cosmetics, or producing hybrids whose spirits become demons. Moses 8 provides the clarifying Restoration account, identifying the sons of God with Noah and his sons and locating the problem in covenant-breaking marriages. The Book of Mormon and the teachings of latter-day prophets do not introduce or endorse the hybrid narrative.

Jude and 2 Peter refer to angels who sinned and were reserved for judgment. These passages affirm that there was angelic rebellion and that God judges such beings. They do not, however, supply the detailed Enochic story of hybrid offspring as the explanation of Genesis 6, nor do they override the plain teaching of Moses 8. The Joseph Smith Translation does not introduce hybrid material into Jude or 2 Peter. The clarifying restoration of the Genesis account in Moses 8 remains the decisive text. The canonical record remains consistent with the prophetic clarification: the sons of God in the days of Noah were covenant men who hearkened to the Lord, and the corruption that brought the Flood included the failure of their daughters to remain within the covenant.

The Second Temple Climate and the Limits of Mysticism

The Second Temple period was a time of intense religious creativity and diversity. After the Exile, Jewish communities in Babylon and later in the land of Israel were exposed to Mesopotamian learning, including traditions about the apkallu, antediluvian kings, and cosmic order. Some groups developed elaborate apocalyptic and mystical literature. The Enochic tradition is one of the clearest examples. In these circles, the figure of Enoch became a revealer of heavenly secrets, and the Watchers story became a way of explaining the origin of evil, the presence of giants, and the need for the Flood.

Amar Annus and other scholars have shown that this literature engaged Mesopotamian ideas directly, often by inverting them. The apkallu, who brought culture from the Apsû, became the Watchers who brought corruption from heaven. This was not the teaching of the canonical prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the other prophets of the Hebrew Bible never describe angel-human hybrids or a descent of Watchers on Mount Hermon. The canonical books remain silent on the detailed narrative that later flourished in Enoch and Jubilees.

Mysticism and speculative traditions existed among some groups. The Dead Sea Scrolls preserve Enochic material, and some communities clearly valued these texts. Yet the prophets of the Lord did not teach these expansions as doctrine. The Restoration has confirmed the same pattern. Joseph Smith restored the Book of Moses, which clarifies Genesis 6 without adopting the hybrid narrative. Later prophets have consistently taught the covenant reading of the sons of God. Ideas that flourished in the mystical literature of the Second Temple period were never spoken by or supported by God’s prophets, either ancient or modern.

The Clear Teaching of Restoration Scripture

For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the decisive clarification comes not from Second Temple literature but from the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price. Moses 8:13-15 reads:

And Noah and his sons hearkened unto the Lord, and gave heed, and they were called the sons of God. And when these men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, the sons of men saw that those daughters were fair, and they took them wives, even as they chose. And the Lord said unto Noah: The daughters of thy sons have sold themselves; for behold mine anger is kindled against the sons of men, for they will not hearken to my voice.

Here the sons of God are Noah and his sons, men who hearkened to the Lord and held the priesthood. The offense is that the daughters of these covenant sons married the sons of men, those outside the covenant. The Lord Himself identifies the problem as the failure of the sons of men to hearken to His voice and the decision of the daughters to sell themselves by marrying outside the covenant.

This act of the granddaughters of Noah “selling themselves” stands as a significant influence in the great wickedness that filled the earth. Genesis 6:5-6 records that “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” The selling of themselves by the daughters of the sons of God was part of the covenant-breaking that contributed to that grief and to the decision to send the Flood.

President Joseph Fielding Smith taught this plainly: “The correct information regarding these unions is revealed in the inspired interpretation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the Book of Moses.” He rejected the idea that heavenly beings came down and married the daughters of men, calling that notion the result of a lack of proper information. He applied the lesson directly to our own day: daughters and sons of those who hold the priesthood who marry outside the covenant are repeating the same offense that helped bring the Flood.

Church seminary materials have consistently taught the same reading. The sons of God are those who keep their covenants and hearken to the Lord. The sons of men are those who break their covenants. The Nephilim, whose name comes from a root meaning “to fall,” are understood as those who had fallen away from the true religion, mighty men living outside the covenant. This is not a late invention. It is the consistent prophetic and institutional teaching of the Church.

Moses 6:68 further establishes the pattern: the Lord told Adam, “Behold, thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all men become my sons.” Sonship is not an ethnic or angelic category. It is a covenant status entered by faith and obedience. Noah and his sons received that title because they hearkened. Others forfeited it by rejecting the Lord’s voice.

Joseph Smith’s Teachings on Angels and Physical Bodies

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught clearly about the nature of angels and the distinction between beings who possess physical bodies and those who do not. In Doctrine and Covenants 129:1 he declared: “There are two kinds of beings in heaven, namely: Angels, who are resurrected personages, having bodies of flesh and bones.” He further explained that an angel has flesh and bones, while a spirit does not. When a messenger appears, one may ask to shake hands. If the hand is felt, the messenger is a resurrected angel. If nothing is felt, or if the being will not offer a hand, the nature of the messenger is revealed.

Joseph taught that “an angel of God never has wings” and that “an angel has flesh and bones; we see not their glory.” He also stated that “there are no angels who administer to this earth but who belong or have belonged to this earth.” Ministering angels are members of this human family at different stages of their eternal progression. Premortal spirits, disembodied spirits, and resurrected beings all serve under the direction of the Lord, but they do so according to the order of heaven.

These teachings preclude the kind of physical union required for angel-human hybrid offspring. Spirits do not possess bodies of flesh and bones with which to engage in sexual intercourse that produces physical children. The Savior taught that in the resurrection “they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). The plan of salvation is clear. Spirits receive physical bodies through birth into mortality under the covenant of the Father. Embodiment is a sacred privilege granted according to the Lord’s order, not through illicit unions between heavenly and earthly beings.

Doctrinal Issues Created by the Hybrid Theory

The theory that the sons of God were fallen angels who produced hybrid offspring with human women creates serious doctrinal difficulties. It confuses the nature of spirit and body. Premortal spirits do not have physical bodies. Disembodied spirits awaiting the resurrection do not possess the capacity for physical procreation. Resurrected beings, according to the Lord’s own word, neither marry nor are given in marriage outside the covenant order He has established.

The hybrid theory also raises questions about the Atonement and the Fall. If a race of part-angel, part-human beings existed, how would the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ apply to them? The scriptures teach that Christ died for the sins of the world and that all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. They do not describe a special class of hybrid beings requiring a different redemption. The Book of Moses and the teachings of the prophets locate the problem of the antediluvian world in human covenant-breaking and violence, not in a mixing of orders of being.

Further, the theory tends to diminish human agency and responsibility. Genesis 6 and Moses 8 present the wickedness of the world as the result of men and women choosing to reject the Lord’s voice. Noah preached repentance. The people refused to hearken. The Flood came because of that rejection. Introducing hybrid beings shifts the focus from human choice to a supernatural invasion, a shift that is not required by the canonical text and is contradicted by the restored account. The selling of themselves by the granddaughters of Noah is a clear example of that human choice and its consequences.

Finally, the hybrid reading relies primarily on non-canonical sources. Once those sources are set aside, and once the plain teaching of Moses 8 and the consistent voice of latter-day prophets are received, the difficulties disappear. The sons of God were Noah and his sons. The daughters of those sons married outside the covenant. The resulting corruption and violence filled the earth. The Lord sent the Flood. The rainbow stands as the token of His covenant. That reading is clear, scriptural, and prophetic.

Michael Heiser, Chuck Missler, and the Angelic Interpretation

Michael Heiser and Chuck Missler both argued vigorously that the sons of God in Genesis 6 are supernatural beings, members of the divine council or fallen angels, and that the Nephilim are their hybrid offspring. Heiser’s work, particularly in The Unseen Realm, draws on the use of “sons of God” in Job, on Second Temple texts such as 1 Enoch, and on New Testament passages in Jude and 2 Peter. Missler likewise treated the Nephilim as the product of angelic-human unions and connected them to later giant traditions and even to modern claims about UFOs.

I respect the sincerity of both men and their desire to take the supernatural seriously. The Bible does speak of a real unseen realm, of rebellion among spirit beings, and of judgment. Jude and 2 Peter do refer to angels who sinned and were reserved in chains. Those passages are Scripture. What they do not do is override the explicit clarification given in Moses 8, nor do they introduce into the canon the detailed hybrid narrative found in the non-canonical Books of Enoch and Jubilees.

Heiser and Missler are working primarily from the biblical text as they understand it in light of ancient Near Eastern and Second Temple literature. They do not have access to the Restoration clarification that the Lord gave through Joseph Smith. When that clarification is received as Scripture, the identification of the sons of God with Noah and his sons is no longer an open question. The prophetic teaching settles it. Academic arguments about the range of the Hebrew phrase “sons of God” remain interesting, but they cannot set aside what the Lord has revealed, nor can non-canonical expansions supply what the canonical books do not contain.

Annus’s comparative study actually helps here. If the Watchers narrative is a later Jewish inversion of Mesopotamian apkallu traditions, then it is precisely the kind of elaboration that can grow up around a biblical seed without being identical to that seed. Genesis 6:1-4 describes real covenant failure and real violence in the antediluvian world. Later writers developed that into a full story of descending Watchers and hybrid giants. The Book of Moses restores the original meaning: the problem was the breaking of the covenant by those who had been called the sons of God.

Scripture’s Authority and the Hope of the Flood

None of this diminishes the authority or accuracy of Scripture. The Bible remains true. Genesis 6-9 records a real global Flood that judged a world filled with violence and corruption. The Pearl of Great Price does not contradict that record; it restores details that make the moral and covenant nature of the judgment clearer. The Book of Mormon continues to affirm the same pattern of covenant, apostasy, judgment, and mercy.

The rainbow that followed the Flood is still the token of the covenant the Lord made with Noah and with every living creature for perpetual generations. That token points forward to the greater mercy offered in Jesus Christ, who is the Ark that saves all who will come to Him. The same Lord who called Noah and his sons the sons of God continues to call men and women into that covenant relationship today.

When we read Genesis 6 with the help of Moses 8, we see not a story of angelic hybrids drawn from non-canonical sources but a story of covenant sons and daughters who sold themselves by leaving the Lord’s way. The resulting violence and corruption brought the Flood. The same pattern has repeated whenever people reject the covenants the Lord has offered. The same mercy remains available to all who will hearken, as Noah and his sons did.

Academic studies such as Annus’s paper can help us understand how later traditions developed. Teachings from careful students such as Heiser and Missler can remind us that the Bible is not a closed, naturalistic book. But the final word belongs to the Lord and to the prophets He has called. In the restored text of Moses 8 we have that word. It is clear, it is consistent with the rest of Scripture, and it leads us to the same hope that the rainbow token has always proclaimed: the Lord keeps His covenants, He judges righteously, and He saves those who come to Him.

May we be among those who hearken, that we may be called the sons and daughters of God.