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The biblical record of human prehistory moves at a fast clip through the generations following Enoch—his son Metus- helah, who begot Lamech, who begot Noah ("Respite"), get- ting us to the main event—the Deluge. The Deluge was indeed a story of major proportions as newscasters would say nowadays, a global event, a watershed both figuratively and literally in human and divine affairs. But hidden behind the tale of the Deluge is an episode of Divine Encounters of a totally new kind—an episode without which me Deluge tale itself would lose its biblical rationale. The biblical tale of the Deluge, the great Flood, begins in chapter 6 of Genesis with eight enigmatic verses. Their pre- sumed purpose was to explain to future generation how was it—how could it have happened?—that the very Creator of Humankind turned against it, vowing to wipe Man off the face of the Earth. The fifth verse is supposed to offer both explanation and justification: "And Yahweh saw that the wickedness of Man was great on the Earth, and that every imagination of his heart's thoughts was evil." Therefore the of his imagination of his heart's thoughts was evil." Therefore (verse six) "Yahweh repented that He had made Man upon the Earth, and it grieved Him at His heart." But this explanation by the Bible, pointing the accusing finger at humanity, only increases the puzzle of the chapter's first four verses, whose subject is not at all humanity but the deities themselves, and whose focus is the intermarriage AN evil." was 72 THE NEFILIM: SEX AND DEMIGODS imagination (ewes tet