I’ve literally written dozens and dozens (and dozens) of articles and circa a dozen books about giant and Nephilim related issues. This includes having read what the Bible says about them, what apocryphal and pseudepigraphic text say about them, what Bible commentaries say about them, what dictionaries and encyclopedias say about them, what scholars say, what pop-researchers say, what anonymous cyber posters say, etc., etc., etc., etc.
And yet, people constantly send me links to articles and videos assuming I know not of what I speak, or just so happened to miss the one person who has the insight, just because they’re unused to being asked to back their assertions and so it comes down to that someone else must have the data but well, no one seems to have it.
In this case, I am reviewing one such article to which I was directed which is Did 14-foot giants exist? Did they differ from humans? Author explores these ancient beings by Bruce Fessier for the Palm Springs Desert Sun.
I’m keeping the genre—that it’s an article—in mind when I do still note that we get typically generic statements beginning with, “the early 18th century tale of Jack and a cannibalistic giant called ‘Jack the Giant Killer.’ The origins of that can be traced through oral histories to prehistoric England.”
So, an early 18th c. tall tale based on tall tales from some generic time.
Then, “The 16th century scribe, Raphael Holinshed, wrote in ‘Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland,’ that Britain’s oldest acknowledged name was taken from a prehistoric king named Albion, who ruled a race of giants that dominated the UK for hundreds, possibly thousands of years B.C.”
So, a 16th c. tall tale based on some generic time.
We are told, “The Bible is filled with stories of Middle Eastern giants, including the Nephilim tribe that spawned the Amorites, Emim and Anakim, who the Sumerians called the Annunaki.”
So, another usage of the generic, vague, subjective, multi-usage, and undefined (in the article) English word “giants.”
The Bible is so not filled with stories of giants from anywhere that it only provides us two specified heights of people and unusual height is essentially a non-issue.
Now, there’s zero indication that, “the Nephilim tribe that spawned the Amorites, Emim” and no reliable indication that they spawned Anakim—this latter one is based solely based on one sentence only from non-LXX versions of unfaithful, disloyal, contradictory, embellishers who presented an evil report and were rebuked by God.
Now, listing Nephilim, Amorites, Emim, and Anakim is a sort of popular manner whereby to, purposefully or not, aggrandize the issue. This is because Nephilim are their own category: they exclusively existed pre-flood.
Amorites are their own people group.
Emim and Anakim are just clans/subgroups or the Rephaim tribe/main-group.
But what of all of these being whatever is meant by “giants”?
We’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim.
We’ve no physical description of Amorites.
Of Emim we’re told, “The Emim formerly lived there [“the wilderness of Moab”], a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim. Like the Anakim they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim.”
Thus, Emim were as tall as Anakim so, how tall were Anakim? Well, we’re told they were “tall.” Now, tall is as generic, vague, subjective, multi-usage, and undefined as giants. Moreover, Emim and Anakim were tall subjective to the average Israelite male who in those days was 5.0-5.3 ft.
As far as that Anakim are they “who the Sumerians called the Annunaki” well, I’ve seen that asserted various times but there’s utterly zero support of that and it seems to be exclusively based on that the words look similar—but only when transliterated into English: also, Anakim is just the male plural (im) of Anak which is a man’s name.
We’re then told, “Marco Polo wrote of encountering giants in Zanzibar who were ‘so strong they can carry as many as four ordinary men.’”
So, the actual quote, from circa 1271-1295, refers to strength, not height.
Another reference speaks to points I’ve made, “Mid-20th century journalist Glenn D. Kittler said of the Watusi tribe east of the Congo, ‘Men towering 7 or 8 feet are a common sight.’”
See, “towering” speaks to a comparison to the subjective average.
Now, this was really a PR marketing ad for a book disguised as an article and next notes, “Reputable accounts of giants come from all over the world” say the authors of the book for sale, Hugh Newman and Jim Vieira, but why think any of these have been “Reputable” and then there’s the ongoing issue of the vagaries with employing the term “giants.”
Newman notes that Denisovans, “are known to be very, very tall” but since we’re not told subjective to what then, guess what, it’s yet another generic throw-away statement.
A Q&A with Hugh Newman follows. Now, this photo is displayed, captioned as, “Hugh Newman appears at an exhibition of a 15th century giant sword found in Scotland.”
Now, there are a few things to consider before we jump to an assertion about giants:
- Such long swords were meant to keep one’s opponent well away rather than engaging in close range fighting.
- Such long swords were meant to be used against people on horseback, so as to reach an opponent atop a house.
- Such long swords were made for honorific and decorative purposes—such as, conversely, one can buy very small replicas of the Eifel Tower.
Newman was asked “when did giants roam the earth?”
Sadly, rather than beginning with “What do you mean by giants?,” he replied, “We’re looking at different eras” along with a generic reference to that “giants have been witnessed.”
Yet, we then come to specific since he was asked, “How tall are we talking?” and replied, “Anywhere between 7-foot…up to 18 feet, but we don’t think that’s for real. Probably about 14 foot.”
He was then asked about whether “giants [were] a different species of Homo sapiens” and replied, “Not really, no…”
Hugh Newman was also asked, “So, you’re saying the giants weren’t different from ancient humans, just taller?” and replied, “I believe so, yeah. But we don’t really know because we can’t get access to (many) bones or DNA because of the NAGPRA Act – the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (requiring institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American cultural items to their descendants).”
But what has that regional issue to do with, “all over the world…around the world” which I’m quoting from the article?
In any case, Hugh Newman make a common sense yet important point which is that, “we had to use the records as the evidence rather than the bones” which is part of what makes this issue, their field of study, ridiculously vague—that and because many authors write vaguely about it.
Another issue is that he refers to, “legends and oral traditions of the Native Americans” as if what they say is not only literally true but it’s infallible—same goes for any people’s tall tales.
Hugh Newman claims, “We have red-haired mummies found in Lovelock Cave in Nevada (discovered in 1911 and corresponding to Paiute oral history about a tribe of giant cannibals)” but “We have” where? Well, “We have” no such thing well, “We have” tall tales, is all we have. Also, see my article, Lovelock Cave Giants: lost or found?
He then tells of, Ross Hamilton who “was in touch with Vine DeLoria Jr.” who “had access to all these elders who shared their stories going far back … 12,000 to 13,000 years ago” (ellipses in original) about generic “giant humans.”
So, Newman said that Hamilton said that DeLoria Jr. said that elders said that “stories going far back … 12,000 to 13,000 years ago” said something about “giant humans.”
Regarding “evidence of giants in Peru,” Hugh Newman notes, “They found these giant long skulls, but they’re not giants” wait, so “They found these giant long skulls, but they’re not giants”?
Well, he elucidated, “They’re standard-sized humans but their skulls are very long. It’s mainly cranial deformation.” This reminded me that LA Marzulli claims that Nephilim were giants and claims to have their skulls but can only ever show us regular sized skulls.
He refers to, “the Watchers…angels…were said to be giants” who fathered, “Nephilim, who were the well-known giants” yet, there’s no such claim about Watcher/Angels and, again no reliable physical description of Nephilim.
Regarding “evidence…of giant human beings” Hugh Newman appeals to “over 7 feet tall” which, again, speaks to the uselessness of the word giants: useless except that employing it leaves enough wiggle room to make very exciting sounding assertions that are the backbone of the whole neo-theo-sci-fi pop-researcher’s cottage industry.
He also relates, “a fossilized bone that was found in South Africa (from) someone who was twice the height of a human being” but a human being of South Africa from an estimated “40,000 years” ago so, what was that average height?
He touches upon something that is very pop to say in certain circles, “why is this important chapter in human history being completely and utterly covered up?” which many people will follows up of by claiming to know what’s hidden away in places they’ve never been or seen or may not even exist.
He also claims, “if you look around the world, there’s always a connection between megalithic construction, mound culture-type sites and the giants” but how so? Well, “That was part of their traditions: building these sites.”
Well, it’s a little bit generic for my taste to all-encompassingly assert that “around the world” all such “traditions” refer to giants (remember to not ask what that means) were the ones “building these sites.”
Well, in my experience, this is really based on a non sequitur that jumps to the conclusion that large things must have been built for and by large people—as well as some tall tales.
Hugh Newman notes, “If you go back to the time of the Bible, and the Anunnaki and the Watchers and the Nephilim, we have stories that recount that they were obsessive megalith builders and stone masons and metallurgists.” I’m not aware of “time of the Bible” stories about Watchers or Nephilim doing any such things.
Going back to “use the records as the evidence rather than the bones,” he notes, “there is evidence actually emerging that this is actually, genuinely a thing. We have 1,500 newspaper accounts in North America of giant bones and skeletons being unearthed.”
In my book Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not! Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales I have a chapter titled “Giant skeleton reports in old newspapers” wherein I included many such reports. Well, there are many issues with such a claim as that newspaper accounts are “evidence…actually, genuinely” since fake-news is not a new phenomena, by their nature newspaper reports are a very momentary bit of data usually without follow-up, and most people can’t tell you if a bone is dinosaur, whale, pachyderm, etc., so it’s due to homologous structures (similar looking morphologies) it’s all too simple to merely assume there are giant human/humanoid bones—if, that is, there were any bone at all.
Back to the issue of to what giant refers, again, Hugh Newman refers to “accounts of 7- to 8-foot giants in the Smithsonian’s own scientific annual reports. The Maryland Academy of Science is talking about 9-foot giants” and “universities in Texas finding 36-inch circumference skulls and so on” but we have to assume he means (and knows) they are human/humanoid.
He soberly notes, “There’s too much data to ignore that this is reality and the people who try to tell us that this is all sensational newspaper stories or exaggerated measurements are completely wrong.”
Now, we humans tend to function in extremes and in this case the extremes are people who try to tell us that the newspaper stories are absolutely, literally, and infallibly completely right and what he noted.
Yet, somewhere in the middle there are those who would say there’s something to such accounts, but we must be skeptical.
Hugh Newman was told and asked, “It seems like giants are always associated with the bad guys. How did that happen? Was it because of Goliath?” Yet, most reliably, Goliath was just shy of 7 ft.
He also refers to “man-eating cannibalistic giants…cannibalism linked to giants…cannabilistic savage giant tribes” which is biblically unknown, FYI.
Hugh Newman was asked, “How do you deal with skeptic people?” and replied that since “They always say, ‘Where are the bones?’” then “We say, ‘The academics took them away.’ I suggest they go and talk to the Smithsonian.” Now, bones are generally always taken away by someone or other for some reason or other. Yet, this speaks to the generically vague assertion that it’s all about the Smithsonian even though 99% of such asserters just say that they heard someone say that someone said that they heard someone say that someone said something about it so, go ask someone who knows someone who heard, etc., etc., etc.—see chapter “Did the Supreme Court prove that the Smithsonian destroyed giant skeletons?” of my Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not! book.
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