NOTES for Gen 6:1-22
The parable of Noah, which many Bible readers understand as an account of the Flood, is mysterious in many ways, although its most interesting mysteries are not immediately apparent. There is, however, one mystery that has attracted commentators' attention for more than one century: who are the "sons of God" mentioned in the parable, who "went in" to the "daughters of men"? Various interpreters sometimes construct highly ingenious theological schemes here, but the answer may be much simpler than it seems.
The passage refers to historical realities connected with the cult of the Great Goddess, whose roots truly reach deep into prehistory. Ritual prostitution was an integral part of this most ancient cult, and the goddess's priestesses usually practiced it in a state of erotic and orgiastic ecstasy. In such a state, they genuinely believed that they were coupling not with human beings, but with spirits that had assumed human form.
This was perfectly clear to readers in the age when the Prologue to the Book of Genesis was written, for the cult of the Great Goddess survived in the Middle East until the region's final Christianization. This is precisely why the prophets called paganism fornication: their definition was both literal and symbolic, since in the cult of the Great Goddess spiritual fornication was accompanied by physical fornication. It is not surprising that this cult became a symbol of all that was worst in pagan religiosity, and the sacred author uses it to describe the spiritual condition in which humanity found itself before the Flood.
Against this background, Noah is depicted as the only righteous man of his generation, one who, as the text says, "walked before God." We can only guess what his "walking" meant and what it was like, for the parable gives no details. What matters, however, is that it was precisely Noah's "walking" before God that kept the world from perishing completely. The author of the Prologue depicts the Flood itself somewhat schematically and even symbolically.
The details mattered so little to him that, as biblical scholars observed long ago, he used two different accounts of the Flood and joined them into one, in such a way that the "seams" separating one version of the account from the other can even be seen in places. These "seams" do not trouble the sacred author, for he is writing a parable about Noah, not an account of the Flood. The parable makes it clear that human beings had a choice in every age. Today historians of religion have abandoned the primitive linear schemes of humanity's religious development that were once popular.
It is now clear that monotheism, once regarded as a historically very late phenomenon, actually reaches just as far back into history as many pagan cults. This means that even in prehistoric times a person could choose whether to worship the One God or prefer someone else. Noah then becomes a collective image, a symbol of all the righteous who have walked before God from the most ancient times to our own day, righteous people who did not know, and perhaps still do not know, the tradition that goes back to Abraham. For God never abandons anyone who seeks Him, regardless of where and when they happen to live.