PS...the above reason is also why it is SO important NOT to receive the coming Mark of the Beast which will be something inside our body that has the ability not only to track us, but to make us one in seed with the Beast.
Very interesting, Carmel333. I haven't heard such details before (post #20). It sounds plausible; can you reference a book or article that further articulates your points? Safe in the Refuge of the Immaculate Heart!
Thank you, Whatever. Fr. Kirby lays out a challenging premise (in the above clip) leading up to the Flood. The righteous line of Seth intermarried with the unrighteous line of Cain leading to the polluting of the entire human race. Thus came the Flood. In the same way today, generally speaking, we Catholics have done a similar thing by not heeding St. Paul's warning: 2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Be'lial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Catholics generally (In this I judge no one personally) have abandoned the principle of seeking out only faithful Catholics when considering a spouse. Have we forgotten the Church still requires written permission to marry a non-Catholic? From there we have moved to marrying non-believing and/or non-practicing Catholics, then to simply living together, and now accepting same-sex marriages. In today's degenerate society, Paul's warning above falls on deaf and ignorant ears. Thus the Barque of Peter is abandoned, sin is rapidly multiplying, and mankind finds itself once more in a pre-Flood condition. Lord have Mercy!
Fr. Kirby's Bible Study is excellent. In Lesson 7 (see post no. 22 on this thread) he explains the origin of the belief that the Nephilim were the result of fallen angels mating with human women. It comes from the Jewish apocryphal 1st Book of Enoch. Many of the first Christians would have been familiar with the Books of Enoch but the theory about the origins of the Nephilim is not Biblical and may be no more than an old legend, The belief was that those cross-breeds were washed away in the flood but somehow resurfaced until the last of them (Goliath) was killed by David. There was a belief that Golgotha where Jesus was crucified got its name from being the place where David placed Goliath's head. The Church tells us that there is figurative language used in some books of the Old Testament, I'm glad that we aren't required to believe that angels mated with humans. Angels are spirits and spirits don't possess the seed required to produce offspring with humans. I can't imagine how they could even reproduce their own kind, otherwise wouldn't Satan have his demons continuously reproducing? Catholic teaching doesn't rule out evolution. We are only required to believe that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve who were made in God's image and likeness. The Bible tells us that God breathed life into Adam's nostrils. There could have been a humanoid species on earth with one of them evolving to the stage where God breathed life (spiritual life) into him, giving us the first human made in God's image and likeness, and the rest of that semi-human species could have been wiped out in the flood.
I think the point being of all of this is not whether we chose to believe that fallen angels or "sons of God" mated with the daughters of man, which is very clear in the old testament, but more of what Satan believes about the end of his reign on earth and what steps he can do to stop it. No matter what one believes about the Bible and it's discourse on the origin of creatures, there is NO denying that the demons have been working non stop to mess up our human bodies, modify our bodies, and in this age of technology, creating a "better, more bionic human body" which basically says that God's design for us is not good enough or somehow lacking. There is also no denying that the Church since the beginning has told us to keep our mortal bodies pure, that our mortal bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, etc.. Protestants have long ago thrown out the importance of our human bodies in salvation, and unless we come to realize why purity of our bodies and (now that we know about it) our DNA is important to our salvation, we may be lost. It sounds rather harsh of Jesus that a Mark of the Beast put upon or in us would cause us to go to hell, not considering what good or holy love we may have been dedicated to in our lives, UNLESS there is something very important about our bodies with salvation. Therefore also making the Eucharist also extremely important to the health of our human bodies.
I think that it does matter because God and only God can create. Man, made in God's image and likeness, can procreate, per God's instruction to go forth and multiply. Believing that angels can reproduce among their own kind or cross breed with man is to give them a power they don't have. They can influence and lead us astray but never without our submitting to them our God given free will. Humans are God's children - sons and daughters made in His image and likeness. Fr. Kirby told us that the Book of Enoch is important to some strands of Jewish spirituality. It's not necessary for our salvation. If it were necessary for our salvation, the Church would have included it in the Canon of Scripture. The truth is that we don't know everything about the early days of creation. Speculation about every last detail is just that - speculation. The Bible tells us what we need to know for our salvation. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and will be immortal after the general judgement. That fact alone obliges us to not misuse or abuse our bodies. Satan or his demons can't mess up our DNA but he can tempt us to do so, leading us to believe that we can be our own god. God gave us a Church to guide us through difficult times, removing any need for us to rely on our own interpretation of Scripture to figure out what God is telling us. That's the approach that led Protestants to where they're at. We don't know what will be the mark of the beast but we will know it when the time comes. God will let us know through His Church.
I agree with you, but as you recall the question was asking the reasons why God Chose the Jews. The HEBREWS seemed to believe that the bloodline must remain pure until the Messiah came because of the book of Genesis. As far as after Jesus was born us Christians are told to keep our mortal bodies pure by Jesus and the Church. How the Antichrist comes into being as he will be "the devil incarnate' so with assuming a real body, is a mystery and the Church of course cannot speculate until it happens. But I do believe it is time for Christians of today to wake up and pay attention to what is being done with our mortal bodies by scientists...
PS the video bible study above is a very good alternate theory on the "sons of God" however the Church has no official teaching on this issue, so that Father Kirby is also speculating. But from the beginning the term in the passage of Genesis "Sons of God" and throughout the whole Old Testament were considered the Angels. Would you be willing to read the book I read above? I would LOVE someone else to discuss it with as it pretty much blew me away! I had to keep checking the scripture passages to make sure that the references were correct! For some reason scientists have been trying to hide the existence of a race of giants since about 1950s, and this book is meticulous in proving it! Most people just skip over the references in the Bible to some of these races, but I really enjoyed the book and fact checking things for myself. It is not a conspiracy or any such thing, just someone putting a lot of work into this to get us thinking about what is going with us not being satisfied with our bodies, and where the origin of it comes from.
Catholic Answers can be very handy. Here's the answer to the question of why God chose the Jews: https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-odd-of-god-to-choose-the-jews As to the Hebrew belief, that some of them chose to attribute to demons the ability to cross breed with humans doesn't explain how spirits can create the seed to impregnate human women. The Apocryphal Book of Henoch (Enoch) contained some other strange beliefs: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01602a.htm The Anti-Christ won't be "the Devil Incarnate" because Satan is spirit and cannot create for himself human seed. Scripture tells us that the "Man of Sin" will be a man, just as Judas was a man. If you don't care for Fr. Kirby's speculation, maybe you will find Scott Hahn more convincing. He says that the word which can be translated as "giants" or "fallen ones" can also be translated as "tyrants". https://www.catholic.com/qa/explaining-the-nephilim-of-genesis I'll take their speculation over that of a Lutheran Minister any day of the week. (I'm assuming this is the Dennis Lindsay whose book you are recommending: https://www.bushnell.edu/staff/dennis-lindsay/). I'll give Dr. Lindsay's book a miss but it would be interesting to hear his explanation of where demons acquired the seed to impregnate humans, if he has given an explanation.
I actually assumed the author WAS Catholic when I bought it from Spirit Daily, and was not until later that I discovered he was not. However the subject matter is not really theology or doctrine, more about delving into all of the biblical references to the subject of giants, and of our modern and long time fascination with Super Heroes, biologics merging technology with humans, merging human and animal DNA, cloning and the like. I have much respect for Scott Hahn, but he does not delve much on this subject at all. Anne Catherine Emmerich also delves into this theory and the "sacred package of Adams bones" carried by Noah and passed on which was supposedly needed for the Messiah to come. Have read all of her visions along with much Scott Hahn myself over the years. Obviously you are not interested in it, so lets just move on.
