Robert Wimer categorized his interesting article The Nephilim Were NOT Giants, They Were Abortions! as a “Bible teaching” (September 25, 2021).
He describes it as “an in-depth word study reveals…a horrifying conclusion that affects our present day.”
Referring to the Genesis 6 affair (as I term it) he notes, “the ‘giants’ claim would seem to be clear. Other versions give the Hebrew name ‘Nephilim’…the Bible was not talking about giant offspring of angel/human couplings, but abortions.”
He notes, “we must first understand the ‘sons of God/children of men’ passage…It’s the sons and daughters part that has many confused and has driven people to excluded books (The book of Enoch) of the Bible to explain this passage.”
Indeed, for their love of post-flood Nephilim neo-theo-sci-fi, many (such as the top pop-researchers) appeal to 1 Enoch/Ethiopic Enoch even though it was written millennia after the Torah was written, it contradicts the Bible (a lot, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch), it has Nephilim being miles tall (which is great folklore but poor reality), it has dead Nephilim as unclean spirits, etc.
Robert Wimer notes, “there were two groups of people living on the Earth, the lineage of Cain (sons of God) and the lineage of Seth (daughters of men)….the cursed line of Cain and the sacred line of Seth by the introduction of ‘sons/daughters’ and ‘God/men.’”
However, that Cain’s was a “cursed line” and Seth’s a “sacred line” is actually a myth.
The Sethite view is actually very much of a late comer from a few centuries into AD days: the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jews and Christians alike was the Angel view (see my book On the Genesis 6 Affair’s Sons of God: Angels or Not? A survey of early Jewish and Christian commentaries including notes on giants and the Nephilim).
We may ponder why it was only strictly male Sethites and only strictly female Cainites? I also wonder why marriages between humans was any sort of problem. Well, premised on the myth, one may say that it was because they were unequally yoked so that must mean that God disapproved of such marriages back then (apparently without commanding against it first) but then commanded against it post-flood but did not flood the world over it.
More on this issue to come—stand by.
Robert Wimer notes, “the separation couldn’t be more apparent to the Hebrews at that time” yet, I am unsure how so. Surely, “the separation,” as in not being unequally yoked, “couldn’t be more apparent to the Hebrews at that time” but that is just it, is it not, “at that time” of the writing of that text since by which time there was a commandment against it (even if only in a manner of speaking since, after all, pre-flood there was no such thing as Jews/Hebrews/Israelites who would have been commanded to not marry non-Jews/Hebrews/Israelites).
We then come to subsection, “Could angels breed with humans?”
He writes, “Fallen angels are spirits, and cannot marry, the institution through which God ordained human procreation (Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25, and Luke 20:35-36, with Genesis 1:28).”
“Fallen angels are spirits, and cannot marry, the institution through which God ordained human procreation (Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25, and Luke 20:35-36, with Genesis 1:28).”
Note that the claim that “Fallen angels are spirits” is merely asserted.
The texts he cites also touch upon that, as he puts it (quite rightly), “according to Jesus, holy angels are not given in marriage” which is why those who did are considered sinners, having “left their first estate,” as Jude put it.
Jesus specified that it is the “Angles of God in heaven” who do not marry nor are given in marriage: the loyal ones, the holy ones, do not.
What Robert Wimer wrote is:
“To do so would seemingly require an act of God as their Creator, to allow them or give them the ability to do so, something apparently He did not do by not allowing them to be ‘given in marriage’ prior to their fall (since, according to Jesus, holy angels are not given in marriage [in order to procreate, ostensibly]; therefore it follows that fallen angels, prior to their fall, were likewise restricted from being given in marriage for the purposes of procreation, therefore, ontologically speaking, the ability to procreate would not be added to their nature as spirits, post-fall, except through special divine endowment).”
Yes, “fallen angels, prior to their fall, were likewise restricted from being given in marriage for the purposes of procreation” but it is a non-sequitur to conclude that “the ability to procreate would not be added to their nature as spirits” since, again, it is only an assertion that they are spirits.
We may also understand this issues by arguing that God did not (in His perfect will) want Adam and Eve to partake of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil and yet, it was He who created it and placed it within their grasp.
It is noted, “Noah and his family – the only survivors” thus, “Goliath, the Anakims, Emims, and Rephaims, as giants (Cf. Numbers 13:33), do not appear to be descended from some other especially strange race of human-demon hybrids.”
I would go even further than that “do not appear to be descended from some other especially strange race of human-demon hybrids” to outright state that they were not in the least bit “descended from some other especially strange race of human-demon hybrids.”
Just to review: Anakim were a subgroup of Rephaim, Emim is just an aka for Rephaim, and Goliath was a Philistine-Anakim-Rephaim. Thus, all of those terms refer to Rephaim and Rephaim were good ol’ fashioned 100% human.
Robert Wimer concludes, “If so, these giants then, though gigantic, are still humans only, somehow descended from Noah and his offspring.”
If by “gigantic” is meant something about subjectively unusual height (which is not the English biblical usage of “giants”) then indeed, the only contextually relevant thing we know is that some Rephaim, such as Anakim, were subjectively “tall” (Deut 2): subjective to the average Jews/Hebrews/Israelites male of those days who was 5.0-5.3 ft.
And yes, Rephaim, just like anyone else, would have “descended from Noah and his offspring” since there was no other post-flood game in town (since the sinful Angels were incarcerated and there is only a one-time sin of Angels in the Bible).
Now, what of the one and only reference to post-flood Nephilim in the Bible?
Robert Wimer put it thusly, “Getting into the ‘grasshoppers’ issue of Numbers 13:33. This passage is where the supporters of the angel/human coupling go to support their theories about hybrids living after the flood as well as living in our present age…We need to do a bit of a breakdown as to where the phrase ‘like grasshoppers’ comes from” and ultimately concludes, “the people of that land were not seeing the Israelites as ‘small’ because they were giants, but we’re seeing them as numerous, being able to devour them and everything that they had. The children of Israel also saw them in like manner.”
That may be so but it is unnecessary since the solution is quite a bit more straight forward: Numbers 13:33 is merely recording an “evil report” wherein five assertions are made about which the whole entire rest of the Bible knows nothing at all which was spoken by ten unfaithful, disloyal, contradictory, embellishing spies whom God rebuked. They just concocted a “Don’t go in the woods!!!” type of fear-mongering scare-tactic tall tale.
But now, what has all of this to do with abortions? He notes, “the semantic range for the Hebrew root ‘nphl’ can indicate a miscarriage, or even an abortion…instead of referring to some form of ‘giants’, relates instead to an antediluvian form of abortion?”
Thus, he has it that Gen 6:4 “would begin something like this: ‘[Abortions] were [in] the earth in those days” and since he discerns a problem, he noted, “One might ask, ‘How would you explain ‘mighty men which were of old, men of renown’ if the word meant abortions?’ The answer: They filled the world with their many abortions.”
Yet, indeed, the text has it that “the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” Thus, the natural reading would be that marriage was followed by sex, sex was followed by having “bore children to them,” who after having been born and grown up became mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
Robert Wimer speculates, “I believe that the men of that day found the pregnancy of their ‘wives’ to be unattractive, so they made ‘potions’, much like the abortion pill, to abort their children.”
It does not surprise me that he states that, after having noted “The book of Enoch” since therein, a sinful Watcher/Angel teaches humanity about abortions.
But, again, the speculation takes us away from the more commonsensical reading of the text and is premised upon “semantic range for the Hebrew root ‘nphl’” which is more generally defined as referring to fall/fallen/to cause to fall, etc.
In conclusion, is pertained to “a horrifying conclusion that affects our present day” in that:
“So, what does this mean for us? Simply put, bringing this all together, means that we’re near the end. Jesus told us as much in this passage: ‘But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.’ ~Matthew 24:37…The ‘days of Noah’ were a time of worldwide judgment. That the people of that day were just going about their business…Looking at the times we’re in now, especially with the passing of legislation in the house (at the time of this article, this is not law) to roll back pro-life laws and to reinforce Roe v Wade, this age could come to an end sooner as popped to later.”
Indeed, “the ‘days of Noah’ were a time of worldwide judgment” and Jesus’ specific emphasis did pertain to “That the people of that day were just going about their business” being unaware or unconcerned about coming judgment.
Jesus said the exact same thing about the days of Lot (Luke 17), “in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
Thus, overall this seems to have been a case of employing some basic errors at the level of premise which then lead to some faulty conclusions.
At least we can agree on the utter evil of abortion.
For more details, see my relevant books.
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