Hi again
agua.
Sorry for the delay in responding. My schedule can get kind of hectic, and I wanted to digest what you said instead of making a quick reply when I first saw your post a couple days ago.
Actually, I find a lot of things very interesting in scripture, but I've learned through the years that just because something is interesting, doesn't mean I should set it in stone. Generally, when I find something "interesting", I put it in my back pocket and play with it, kind of like what you're doing above. But I learned not to take that which I play with and put it in a box. Years ago I audited an Old Testament Theology class and we learned some basics and our professor drove it into our heads that proper exegesis had to be done before redaction. In short, poor exegesis always results in poor redaction which produces bad theology. Now then, there are many avenues for exegesis and the drive for exegesis should be to find out how the original readers would have understood what was written. Thus, we use the text as the base for our starting point. We then try to find out the historical significance which helps us to establish the thrust of why what was written was actually written which gives us a view on how the text was originally received. Within the Canon, we can find relative and similar passages where both the textual and historical exegesis are similar. Because they have a common textual basis and historical thrust, we can string these passages together. We call this redaction and from said redaction, a theology begins to emerge.
All of that is to say just because we find the same phrase, doesn't mean those phrases should be redacted.
For instance, we find the phrase 'sons of god" twice in the OT. Once in Genesis 6 and the second time in Job 1 and there are many differences both textual and historical. First, Job was a gentile as were his friends and he had amassed much more wealth and children than Abraham which would be considered a blessing, not to mention he was a very wise gentile as the text notes. Historically, most would put Job as a contemporary with Abraham so the story of Job in one aspect is a discussion on how God functions and what his very nature is and how that nature is portrayed upon the gentiles as well as how suffering guides one to a deeper relationship with God. Most of us like to read just the first couple of chapters in the begging of the book, then we like to read the last few chapters of the book, but we never talk about the middle of the book, and it's the middle where we see the very nature of God being discussed and how that theology reflects upon how we both view and treat others around us. Now that that's all out there, there is one more thing. Most Jews who know this book way better than any gentile view the story of Job as a Mashal. In other words, it's a story with intent. We know a Mashal in terms of as a parable, but a Mashal is much more than a mere parable, and I hope I haven't opened a can of worms by saying what I've said about Job.
My point is, yes, the phrase as translated into english is sons of god, but that's about where the similarities end and if I haven't written enough as of yet, I think it's just bad theology to pair the phrase sons of god in Genesis 6 with that in Job 1. For that matter, it's just bad theology to pair the phrase sons of God in the Old Testament with the same phrase in the New Testament.
Perhaps you might say I've put a stumbling block in front of myself, which is why I can't "see" scripture the way some others may see scripture. Please know that I do understand why some lean toward connecting phrases to come to particular conclusions and I could even say that some topics may work very well using the topical approach by searching for particular words or phrases. But in this case, I would simply say I think there are a lot of issues in linking the phrase sons of god from Genesis 6 to Job 1. If you would like to engage in some good old fashion exegesis, I'd be more than happy to learn right beside you.
Thanks.
