The giants are sons and daughters of the 'Watchers'... Angels that descended to earth to defile themselves with the daughters of man… see 1 Enoch 1-36 for a great account... you'll need an ethiopic bible, the qumran texts (incomplete) or a collection of the pseudepigrapha (suggest Charlesworth).
Enoch was one man, but many books are attributed to him/written in his name to add authority to the texts. Then again, keep in mind many names in the bible are actually titles, designations, descriptions, or alterations/psuedonyms.
120 years? Figurative. You’d need a long explanation of Hebrew numerology that I can’t (unfortunately) give right now. All the numbers in the bible are representative and have meanings. 7, a complete number, 6 distinctly not complete (hence 666). 40, is a spiritually complete number, hence journeys of 40. There's more to that last one, but I'm drawing a blank. Wait till you get to the bread and fish in the NT: They're not food at all but representative of people, lol!
The two accounts of the ark are redacted together from separate traditions, as with many of the story pairs (doublets, no damn! I forgot the word. My supervisor would spank me right now!) in the bible, to unite groups of people. The flood narratives and variations are extremely common in the ANE, and actually through much of the world.
Cain’s wife: well, the bible in not a linear nor litteral story. It's a historiOGRAPHY, with is the story of history, not an exact account. It's subject to interpretation by the people writing, and rewriting history to serve your needs is not frowned on! The mentality of ANEers was not like ours today. They told stories as parables not as literalistic as we do today… The didn’t have the need for accuracy as we do today in out histories. Rather, they used history and names, etc to support their beliefs, and changing it/inconsistencies were not important, but rather the message. Ugh, this is a long explanation and goes into the whole reasoning behind the bible. I’m sorry for the abrupt answers, but that’s a ll I have time for at work..
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Enoch was one man, but many books are attributed to him/written in his name to add authority to the texts. Then again, keep in mind many names in the bible are actually titles, designations, descriptions, or alterations/psuedonyms.
120 years? Figurative. You’d need a long explanation of Hebrew numerology that I can’t (unfortunately) give right now. All the numbers in the bible are representative and have meanings. 7, a complete number, 6 distinctly not complete (hence 666). 40, is a spiritually complete number, hence journeys of 40. There's more to that last one, but I'm drawing a blank. Wait till you get to the bread and fish in the NT: They're not food at all but representative of people, lol!
The two accounts of the ark are redacted together from separate traditions, as with many of the story pairs (doublets, no damn! I forgot the word. My supervisor would spank me right now!) in the bible, to unite groups of people. The flood narratives and variations are extremely common in the ANE, and actually through much of the world.
Cain’s wife: well, the bible in not a linear nor litteral story. It's a historiOGRAPHY, with is the story of history, not an exact account. It's subject to interpretation by the people writing, and rewriting history to serve your needs is not frowned on! The mentality of ANEers was not like ours today. They told stories as parables not as literalistic as we do today… The didn’t have the need for accuracy as we do today in out histories. Rather, they used history and names, etc to support their beliefs, and changing it/inconsistencies were not important, but rather the message. Ugh, this is a long explanation and goes into the whole reasoning behind the bible. I’m sorry for the abrupt answers, but that’s a ll I have time for at work..