Month: December 2024

Cecelia Dowdy describes herself as a, “Contemporary and Historical Christian Romance Author…Christian Fiction Author” and posted some info regarding Nephilim which piqued my interest as a research-based author.

One of her article regards, The Nephilim In Christian Fiction, which is a subject on which I have touched upon on occasion.
She refers to Nephilim as, “these creatures” and notes that she has done, “research” on them. She notes, “I’m not a huge reader of speculative fiction….I’m more of a romance, women’s fiction, and suspense reader.”

She notes that she, “just assumed the Nephilim looked more like humans…Double rows of teeth, six digits on each hand and foot…humanistic face.” Well, sure, they looked more like humans since both of their parents looked like humans so, why wouldn’t they? Angels look just like human males and human women look like human women by definition. There’s literally zero indication they had double rows of teeth—that’s just a modern pop-Nephilology mere assertion—and there’s literally zero indication they had extra digit: that’s only stated about one single person in the whole Bible and he was a Repha, not a Nephil.

That article was more like a post via which to make her readers aware of Mike Duran’s article Why Christian Fiction Writers Love the Nephilim (his bio notes, “attended Catholic school before veering off on my own spiritual quest, one that’s left me bruised but wiser. I’ve chronicled my conversion to Christianity…ordained and planted a church,” etc.).

He notes, “Christian speculative writers seem to have a love affair with the Nephilim” and, among others, references L.A. Marzulli, Brian Godowa and Thomas Horn: many more pop-Nephilologists could be added.
He has a theory as to why, “Nephilim are still a hot commodity among Christian fiction writers” which he begins via a, “primer” from an article I reviewed and posted as Northwest Creation Network answers Who Were the Nephilim. One of the problems with that article are statements such as, “Nephilim were…described as giants” which begs the question of to what giants refers.
Mike Duran notes, “The reason why the Nephilim have become such a useful tool for Christian fiction writers is that it allows us to speculate and still remain (somewhat) biblical…it is not uncommon to see Christian reviewers using theology as a template for their fiction…Christian fiction writers can remain somewhat tethered to the Bible.”

My main point on this issue, which Duran missed, is that it’s virtually inevitable that pop-Nephilologists who assert that they’re teaching biblical Nephilology eventually produce works of fiction because what they’re doing under the guise of biblical Nephilology is really selling un-biblical tall-tales to Christians for a living so there’s no line to cross into straight up admitting writing fiction.

For backing of that assertion, see my books—two among by dozen, or so, research based Nephilology books:

Nephilim and Giants as per Pop-Researchers: A Comprehensive Consideration of the claims of I.D.E. Thomas, Chuck Missler, Dante Fortson, Derek Gilbert, Brian Godawa, Patrick Heron, Thomas Horn, Ken Johnson, L.A. Marzulli, Josh Peck, CK Quarterman, Steve Quayle, Rob Skiba, Gary Wayne, Jim Wilhelmsen, et al.

And:

Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales

Interestingly, to that article, Doug Van Dorn posted the comment, “Too bad you didn’t look into NON-fiction before you wrote this, my book for example–Giants: Sons of the Gods. I spent more than a couple years studying this topic, building a bibliography of scholoarly sources, and writing a biblical-theology (non-fiction) of the Nephilim. I encourage anyone who thinks this is a topic of pure speculation or of little to no importance in the biblical story to go and read some of the reviews…”

Hilariously, someone replied, “I, of course, assume Mr. Duran will be getting a cut from any sales resulting from a click through his page, right? It is the Christian thing to do.”

Well, it’s rather incoherent to, “Too bad,” an article about, “Fiction Writers” for not mentioning, “NON-fiction.” As for Dorn’s supposed, “biblical-theology (non-fiction)” well, he too teaches un-biblical Nephilology, see my articles:

My review of Zachary Garris’ review of Douglas Van Dorn’s book “Giants Sons of the Gods”

And:

Review of Paul “Dr. Reluctant” Henebury’s review of Douglas Van Dorn’s book “Giants: Sons of the Gods”

Now, back to Cecelia Dowdy with her article Giants On The Earth – Who Were The Nephilim? wherein she wrote, “Some translations use the word Nephilim instead of giant. Who were these gigantic people?” but we must first know what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s her usage? Do those two usages agree?

She makes reference to, “the little bit of research that I was able to do” which seems to be why she appears to imply that the usage of giants has something to do with some level of height above the subjective average. And such is the case because she noted, “I’ve always thought the Nephilim were the offspring from fallen angels. Why? I guess because they were so huge, much larger than regular humans.”

Well, giant and huge are equally vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage terms so what makes her even appeal to such? Well, because, “I also read that the Nephilim pop up again in the book of Numbers, so I’ve provided that scripture, too. So, it’s possible that the Sons of God appeared again and did the same thing again with human women? The Nephilim mentioned in Genesis were killed during the flood, so the scriptures can’t be talking about the same group of giants?”

I’m afraid that, “I also read” means after an internet search and reading who knows what results rather than reading the Bible—context and all.
Yet, she did hit upon a huge topic which is post-flood Nephilim. Well, sadly, she left that hanging and moved onto, “try to imagine how large these people were…were they twice the size of regular humans, maybe three times larger than the average human? The ones in Numbers state that the regular people were like grasshoppers compared to these giant people! Grasshoppers??…I’m just sitting here, trying to imagine what they would have looked like, giants stomping upon the earth, doing all sorts of wicked things to people. Frightening thoughts…”

Well, she tackled the issue as an author of fiction and was pleased enough to imagine about it and doing so, she missed the narrative context of Num 13:33 which is that it mere records an evil report by unreliable guys whom God rebuked. Post-flood Nephilim are literally impossible since God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.

The dirty little secret is that since we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim then their height is a non-issue and that alone debunks 99% of un-biblical pop-Nephilology—the modern branch of which is just un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales.

To that article, someone commented, “Wow, I must have missed this part of the Bible. Or maybe my Bible teacher at parochial school interpreted this passage in a more boring way. GIANTS! in the BIBLE!! WOW!!” Do you see how it works? Employ the vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage term giants, misread it, misunderstand it, misinterpret it, misapply it, and get people all excited about well, about what? About a word-concept fallacy.

Let’s answer those key questions:

What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?

It merely renders (doesn’t even translate) “Nephilim” in 2 verses or “Repha/im” in 98% of all others and so never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.

What’s her usage?

Something about subjectively unusual height.

Do those two usages agree?

No.

Cecelia Dowdy’s reply included, “The creatures were evil, and, this was one reason why God saw fit to have a flood cover the earth and kill all living creatures with the exception of those inhabitants of Noah’s Ark” but sadly, she still left the issue of post-flood Nephilim hanging.
Someone else’s comment noted, “their extreme size” which is exclusively based on that one single sentence from an evil report by guys whom God rebuked—see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.

To this, Cecelia Dowdy’s reply included, “I do believe the Giants/Nephilim are products of fallen angels mating with human women” but biblically contextually, “Giants/Nephilim” means, “Nephilim/Nephilim.”
Another comment noted, “…Goliath was big like Andre the Giant of WWE fame) but after you triggered this thought I surfed the web for more facts, and found fossil remains for people believed to be up to 20′ tall and over 1000# weight were not that rare! Way to go! Great Blog, and good example of what draws in readers!”

Just in case: Goliath was a Repha, not a Nephil—not could he have been since, again, Nephilim didn’t make it past the flood in any way, shape, or form. Yet, it’s quite correct that he was (somewhat), “like Andre the Giant” since Andre was 7.4ft. Now, the Masoretic text has Goliath at just shy of 10 ft. Yet, the earlier LXX and the earlier Dead Sea Scrolls and the earlier Flavius Josephus all have him at just shy of 7 ft. (compared to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days) so that’s the preponderance of the earliest data.

As for, “surfed the web for more” so called, “facts” well, we’ve no idea whence that person came across, “20′ tall.”

Another person noted, “it is possible that the Nephilim were dinosaurs. I can imagine ancient people finding these huge bones and thinking they were giant people or even thinking they were ‘gods from Mount Olympus’, thus providing the ideas that started Greek mythology.”

Well, why would they be dinos when, again, both sides of their parentage looked like regular humans and there’s zero reliable indication they were any taller than the parochial average? Yet, there’s something to be said about, “finding these huge bones” but in the reverse: they would find bones of whales, pachyderm, dinos, etc., and make up tall-tales about, “giant people”—see, “Appendix: Review of Adrienna Mayor’s The First Fossil Hunters” in my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology.

The same comment continued, “Whether or not they were dinosaurs, it does make sense that they were not big enough for Noah’s Ark” which seems to be a typo meaning were too big to fit in Noah’s Ark, “Getting rid of giants would be a big favor to mankind, and God could have choosen the flood to get rid of these creatures…fallen angels went to hell, and probably did not have the DNA to mate with humans. Another possiblity for the Nephilim is Neanderthals…No one knows…whether the Nephilim were just dinosaurs. We may never know until heaven.”
We’ve already see that we don’t have to wait until then and add to that, that Angels were incarcerated in Tartarus (see the Greek for 2 Peter 2), not, “hell” and that Nephilim were not Neanderthals since it seems that all, if not a lot, of modern humans have Neanderthal genetics but if Nephilim genetics made it past the flood then, again, God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.

Cecelia Dowdy’s reply refers to, “I did some further research and that these giant people (Nephilim/Raphaites/etc. – they were known by various names) were actually very tall people. The giants/Nephilim pop up again later on in scripture and one of them was the last in a line of kings and the Bible describes the bed this giant slept on.”

The term, “Nephilim/Raphaites/etc.” is even worse than, “Giants/Nephilim” since that can pass off as a rendering followed by the actual word. Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim/Raphaites were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them. Rephaim were aka Zuzim or Zamzummim but there’s no aka for Nephilim in the Bible. As for, “The giants/Nephilim” and, “the bed this giant slept on” that refers to Og, King of Bashan, but he was a Repha, not a Nephil, of course, and we’re told that about him every time he’s mentioned: in English it’s hidden behind the word, “giant.” But what about his, “bed”? Well, assuming to know anything about his height, which isn’t told to us, based on that, “bed” is based on various assumptions: bottom line is that the bed was a ritual object, not something on which he slept—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?

Another comment noted, “Nephilim seems to be related to one of two ancient Hebrew words, one meaning extraordinary and the other meaning fallen. So, the word doesn’t indicate anything about height.” Indeed, the term, “doesn’t indicate anything about height”—I’m unsure whence that person got, “extraordinary.”

That same person noted, “Angels cannot breed. Check out the New Testament teachings when Jesus was asked about widows in heaven. He said angels are sexless. So, I believe nephilim weren’t the offspring of angels and men. Sons of God, therefore, must indicate the Sethite line. Since these ‘nephilim’ were destroyed by flood, the word must be generic, not specific.”

The claim that, “Angels cannot breed” is just an assertion despite appearances of support.

Firstly, one can only make that positive affirmation after rejecting the Angel view of Gen 6 and Jude and 2 Peter 2 which combined refer to a sin of Angels, place that sin to pre-flood days and correlate it to sexual sin which occurred after the Angels, “left their first estate,” after which they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible.

The original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, was the “Angel view” as I proved in 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.

Secondly, there’s no record of Jesus ever saying, “angels are sexless”: recall what I noted above regarding looking like human males.

Thirdly, this means that the conclusions are fallacious and that sons of God, “must indicate the Sethite line” is a mere assertion that’s artificially inserted. Indeed, “these ‘nephilim’ were destroyed by flood” but that ergo, “the word must be generic, not specific” is a non-sequitur.
This person also wrote, “The size of these individuals is never suggested to be 2-3 times of average people. Goliath seems to have been around 9 feet tall” which we have already reviewed and that, “The accounts of giantism in the Bible are frequently left unexamined” is a non-issue since there’s no indication of giantism to examine.

Cecelia Dowdy replied, in part, by noting, “I don’t think that angels in heaven can breed, BUT, I’m led to believe that FALLEN ANGELS MAY be able to breed” and did so indeed. What happened is that, purposefully or not, the commentator manipulated Jesus’ words (note they weren’t quoted). Jesus’ statement was very detailed, very nuanced, He employed qualifying terms, “the angels of God in heaven.” So, not all generically Angels at all times in all places but the loyal ones, “of God” and “in heaven” which is why those who did marry are considered sinners since they, “left their first estate,” as Jude put it, in order to do so.

In her article Have You Ever Seen An Angel? she noted, “From what I can recall from reading my Bible, angels are usually big, wingless, male-looking beings. Can you imagine, being alone in a room and then you see an angel? Honestly? I think I’d have a heart attack, or, think that I’m dreaming!”

No indication whatsoever that, “angels are usually big” (as vaguely generic as that subjective term is).

Indeed, “wingless, male-looking.”

As for, “being alone in a room and then you see an angel?” such is why there are some three instances in the Bible where the first thing Angels say is fear not since that was the scenario: someone thought they were alone when someone else is suddenly there! So, that was a very insightful insight by her.

In her article It Takes Two Men To Carry One Cluster Of Grapes?, Numbers 13:23-25 is quoted, the key aspect of which is that the men who reconnoitered the land of Canaan, “cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes; they carried it between two of them on a pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs.”

Somehow, pop-Nephilologists do much what Cecelia Dowdy does which is to connect that with, “Giants/Nephilim” and she makes the same basic error that they do, “Can you imagine how huge those grapes were?” yes, regular size: why? There’s no statement about grapes being larger than average, the statement is that the cluster was bountiful—and if the grapes were extra-large, why weren’t the pomegranates?

Yet, after asserting that, she eventually wrote, “It’s possible that the grapes were the same size as the ones that we see today, but the clusters were bigger – so big that 2 people had to carry them!”

But the pop-Nephilology fantasy is, “this is where the Giants were living, too. I’ll bet those grapes were as big or bigger than the apples that we eat today!” for some odd and unknown and unelucidated reasons—actually, pop-Nephilologists make up neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales about how fallen Angels (who weren’t even there at the time since they were incarcerated) or Nephilim (who weren’t even there at the time since they had been dead and gone since the flood) where genetically manipulating humans and animals and fruits/veggies which is something for which, of course, there’s literally zero indication.

She then writes, “The people that Moses’s spies saw when gathering the grapes, the Giants/Nephilim, were descendants of a man named Anak. Anak was a Raphaite. The Anakites or Rephaim were Giants that are mentioned in the Old Testament several times. It appears that they finally died off because there is a scripture” and then quotes a text about Og.

This was worse than the last time she mentioned this since, “The” 12, “people that Moses’s spies saw when gathering the grapes” didn’t say a single word about, “Giants/Nephilim” but the 10 unreliable and God rebuked ones did in an evil report.

There’s zero reliable indication (and only one single non-LXX sentence’s worth of a false report) that they, “were descendants of a man named Anak” since indeed, “Anak was a Raphaite” and not a Nephil.

We know the issues with asserting, “The Anakites or Rephaim were Giants” again, is that it means, “The Anakites or Rephaim were Rephaim.”

She then noted, “If you are interested, here are all of the scripture references of the Anakites, Nephilim, and Raphaim. Look them up if you want” and that list begins with, “Genesis 6:1-4” which doesn’t state a single word about Anakim/Anakites in particular nor Rephaim/Raphaim in general—since they didn’t even exist until centuries later.
When she asserts, “Moses’s spies were told to get rid of the different people living in the land of Canaan, which included these Giants!” she doesn’t seem to realize that means Rephaim but of course, not Nephilim. At this point, she notes, “I got most of this research from Wikipedia, so, use at your own risk! I did look up all of the scriptures” so why did she merely assert that Anakim/Anakites/Rephaim/Raphaim were in Gen 6?

She then goes back to imagination with, “Can you imagine living in a land with these gigantic people with gigantic clusters of grapes?” I wouldn’t bother expending brain cells on un-biblical sci-fi tall-tales.

Overall, I’m empathetic how a fiction writer would only do surface level research and then imaginatively speculate—that’s great fiction fodder. But it alarms me, as a research-based author who is familiar with over two millennia’s worth of relevant data and has written some dozen Nephilology books, when surface level research is put forth as being mostly factual.

See my various books here.

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If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help out.

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…this place is long notorious for weird happenings… —Miss Barbara Judd

See my various books here.

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A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby.

If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help out.

Here is my donate/paypal page.

You can comment here and/or on my Twitter/X page, on my Facebook page, or any of my other social network sites all which are available here.

The Chick Tracts Official YouTube Channel posted a video titled Sons of God or Angels? – Genesis 6 the premise of which is the receipt of an email asking:

I watched your video on the giants of Genesis 6, and for a long time I agreed with you. But this note in my study Bible seems to prove the common teaching. Thanks!

The speaker on the vid, a certain David W. Daniels, noted:

And this is the page he showed me:

At Genesis 6:2 it says, “The identity of these ‘sons of God’ has been a matter of much discussion, but the obvious meaning is that they were angelic beings.”

Then he says, “This was the uniform interpretation of the ancient Jews, who translated the phrase as ‘angels of God’ in their Septuagint translation of the Old Testament.”

Next, he says, “The apocryphal books of Enoch elaborate this interpretation…”

So, I have four questions: 1. Is the obvious meaning that they were “angelic beings”?

2. Was this the uniform interpretation of the ancient Jews?

3. Did they translate “sons of God” as “angels of God” in the Septuagint?

And 4. What about the apocryphal books and this part of the story of Genesis 6?

He decided to begin his traipse through history with, “Origen from about 230-250 AD…Genesis 6:2 in Origen’s Hexapla…in Latin it says the sons of God are “Sethites,” and the daughters of man are ‘Cainites.’” He then notes, “Origen didn’t write that, because it’s in Latin, but note that it’s not a new teaching, either” so, wait, why appeal to Origen only to not quote him? Stand by.

He then moves on to, “Aquila, 120-130 [AD]” then, “Symmachus, 175-200” and then, “Theodotion. Again, 175-200 [AD]” who all say, “‘sons’/‘huioi” well, okay, of course they would, why wouldn’t they? Well, he is arguing that the uniform interpretation was sons of God and not Angels of God but that is just question begging since we still need to know who the sons of God were: that’s what’s at question.

David W. Daniels then notes:

Then there is a Latin note. It says, ‘another example,’ ‘alia exemplum,’ is ‘hoi angeloi,’ ‘the angels.’ But those words are Latin, not Greek, so they were not written by Origen.

Let’s look at the footnote for this in my copy of Origen’s Hexapla…it says that ‘Angels of God’ is in the margin of the Syrian Hexapla, 600s AD.

And it’s in ‘certain copies,’ according to Cyril of Alexandria in the 400s AD.

And Procopius wrote that apostates wrote these words, he was around 400s-500s AD.

So, the Septuagint doesn’t say ‘angels of God.’

Correct, the LXX says sons of God (υἱοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ) just as does the Hebrew as he continued:

And look: even the Hebrew, according to Origen…says “b’nei ha Elohim,” “sons of God.”

But wait! Alexandrinus says “angels of God”!

And that’s apparently because the manuscript Alexandrinus, “erases everything that’s there, so you can’t recognize it, and then writes on top of it” as Daniels put it, “And that’s where you got the ‘angeloi.’”

As noted above, his surface level question begging conclusion is, “It was most likely [emphasis added for emphasis: since he’s guessing] what almost every other text everywhere in Greek, and Hebrew, says: ‘sons of God.’ So, ‘sons’ looks like the ‘uniform interpretation,’ not ‘angels.’”

He then speak on, “what they [1 Enoch and Jasher] say caused the flood” but that’s irrelevant to me since 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch. Also, Jasher is just a modern-day hoaxed fraud, see my book, The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts.

David W. Daniels notes, “Enoch does say, ‘angels’ and makes up a detailed fantasy”: just a technical note, it doesn’t employ the term Angel but rather, Watcher which is just a Second Temple Era aka for Angels.

He also noted, “But Jasher, supposedly just as ancient, merely says the people were corrupt, made idols, and their judges grabbed men’s daughters and married them. No mention of Nephilim or angels.” The fact that it ops for a non-Angel view is one of many reasons to know it’s not legit: not the lost text mentioned in the Bible.

He then asserts, “It was not the uniform interpretation of ancient Jews that the sons of God were angels” but expecting one single, “uniform” view is an unreasonable expectation. What is a fact is that nothing comes even close to being as uniform as the Angel view since the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, was the “Angel view” as I proved in 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.

David W. Daniels also asserted, “The Septuagint did NOT translate ‘sons of God’ as ‘angels of God’” well, not in Gen 6. Yet, Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that “sons of God” can refer to non-human beings since they, at the very least, witnessed the creation of the Earth: and the LXX does have them as, Angeloi/ἄγγελοί: plural of Angelos.

Ultimately, his bottom-line conclusion is, “I’m just gonna stick with what I know…I know I can trust my King James Bible.” Also, “I don’t need outside, uninspired revelation, to look for simple patterns in God’s words” which is why he needs to, at least, look for the patters followed by Jude and 2 Peter 2 since they, combined, refer to a sin of Angels, place that sin to pre-flood days and correlate it to sexual sin which occurred after the Angels, “left their first estate,” after which they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible.

So, if the Gen 6 affair isn’t that sin, we don’t know what the sin was. And such is part of why some invent a primordial gap since they reject the Angel view but don’t know where to put that sin.

See my various books here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby.

If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help out.

Here is my donate/paypal page.

You can comment here and/or on my Twitter/X page, on my Facebook page, or any of my other social network sites all which are available here.

Northwest Creation Network’s article Who Were the Nephilim? notes that, “Nephilim…are described as giants” which begs the questions: What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Northwest Creation Network’s usage? Do those two usages agree?

It’s noted, “In the Greek Septuagint the word ‘nephilim’ was also translated as ‘gigantes’ (gigantic). This translation is undoubtedly used because the Nephilim later became known as giants to the ancient Hebrews, as illustrated by the manner in which they were referenced when the Israelite spies were sent into Canaan (Numbers 13:33 ).” Technically, Nephilim isn’t translated as such, that’s a mere rendering. Also, gigantes doesn’t mean whatever gigantic means but rather, earth-born. As for, “later” well, that’s a generic term but is, “illustrated” by, “the Israelite spies” and yet, Num 13:33 doesn’t record a statement made by, “the” twelve, “spies” but only by the ten unreliable ones whom God rebuked: it merely records their made up tall-tale of an, “evil report.” And such is affirmed later in the article, “the only specific mention of Nephilim on the earth after the flood is part of the bad report from the spies in Numbers 13:33 , a report that is called ‘bad’ (or ‘evil’) as in an unreliable source.”

We’re told that, “There are at least three schools of thought regarding the Sons of God” and it’s noted that, “they are distinguished from the daughters of men.”
Oddly, it’s noted that, “The older view, held nearly unanimously by ancient writers prior to Augustine of Hippo, is that the Nephilim were a hybrid race between certain fallen angels, called the Benei Ha’Elohim (“Sons of God”) or The Watchers in extra-Biblical traditions, and human women. While there has always been a minority of churchmen who followed this view, it has been promoted recently by popular writers such as Stephen Quayle.”

Indeed, the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, was the “Angel view” as I proved in 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—Augustine’s view was quite nuanced so see my chapter about him. Thus, it’s generic to merely assert, “a minority of churchmen who followed this view” since we know not when is being referenced. As for, Quayle well, he’s a plagiarist and evolutionist who teaches un-biblical Nephilology—and un-biblical Angelology and un-biblical Rephaim-ology, etc., etc., etc.: see my book Nephilim and Giants as per Pop-Researchers: A Comprehensive Consideration of the claims of I.D.E. Thomas, Chuck Missler, Dante Fortson, Derek Gilbert, Brian Godawa, Patrick Heron, Thomas Horn, Ken Johnson, L.A. Marzulli, Josh Peck, CK Quarterman, Steve Quayle, Rob Skiba, Gary Wayne, Jim Wilhelmsen, et al.

We’re then told, “The more recent view which has been the majority position in the church since St. Augustine in the fourth century is that the Sons of God refers to the god-fearing line of Seth; and the daughters of men refers to the daughters of the unbelieving line of Cain.”

One major issue with such as view is that it’s late-dated and based on myth and prejudice since there’s no indication of any such things as an, “god-fearing line of Seth” or, “unbelieving line of Cain.”

The last view considered is that, “others hold that the Sons of God were other created men…Those holding to this position call into question the origin of Cain’s wife or those whom he feared would kill him Genesis 4:14-17 . However, this view falls into conflict with Genesis, which states that Eve is the mother of all the living.”

Well, that view is not traditionally listed as an option—however obscure it may be—but fails on various levels such as that Cain’s wife was clearly a relative since, for example, multiple generations are listed in Gen 4-5: for details, see my short video When Kev Baker asked where Cain got his wife, Ken Ammi replied.

In a subsection titled, “After the Flood” it’s noted, “Many…assume that many of the descriptions of giants in the Bible are references to Nephilim bloodlines” and Henry Morris from his book The Genesis Record:

“There were giants “also after that,” in the days of the Canaanites, and these were likewise known as, among other things, the Nephilim (Numbers 13:33).

Humanly speaking, they were descended from Anak, and so were also known as the Anakim.

These people were, of course, known to Moses and it was probably he who editorially inserted the phrase “and also after that” into Noah’s original record here in Genesis 6:4.

Moses probably also inserted the information that these were the “mighty men of old, men of renown,” men whose exploits of strength and violence had made them famous in song and fable in all nations in the ages following the Flood. To rebellious men of later times, they were revered as great heroes; but in God’s sight they were merely ungodly men of violence and evil.”
Gen 6 doesn’t state anything about, “giants ‘also after that,’ in the days of the Canaanites” but undiscerning English readers tend to uncritically chase the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” around a Hebrew Bible. So, since that’s how some mistakenly take it, that Gen 6’s giants are the very same as in the post-flood Canaan then they think things such as, “these were likewise known as, among other things, the Nephilim” but if that’s the case then why does that term only exclusively solely appear in one single post-flood verse?

As for, “Humanly speaking, they were descended from Anak” after whom Anakim were named well, such is part of the mere assertion by the ten unreliable guys: and note that Anakim aren’t mention in the LXX version for that verse.

As for speculating about, “Moses…probably…editorially inserted the phrase ‘and also after that’” not so since it has nothing to do with post-flood days: it’s not pointing us forward in time but rather, backward. It can’t mean anything about the flood since the flood’s not even mentioned for the very first time until a full 13 verses later. Also, God didn’t fail, He didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc.

Gen 6:4 states, “Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”

The question becomes: when were those days?

Well, Gen 6:1 told us, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.”

The next question becomes: when was afterward?

Since it was after those days then it was simply after, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them…”

Thus, the began doing it then and they continued to do it but that’s all pre-flood.

It’s also speculated, “Moses probably also inserted the information that these were the ‘mighty men of old, men of renown,’ men whose exploits of strength and violence had made them famous in song and fable in all nations in the ages following the Flood.” Yet, that’s also unnecessary since mighty men is the term gibborim and Angels are referred to as such, as are Nephilim, yet so are humans such as Gideon, Boaz, and some of David’s soldiers, and so is God (Isa 9’s El Gibbor).

We’re told, “Several tribes are encountered in the campaign of the Five Kings in Abraham’s day that some argue might be Nephilim or hybrids of Nephilim” yet, that’s an incoherent category error since as the article follows up by noting, “Genesis 14 and Deuteronomy 2 name these tribes as the Rephaim (‘titans’, children of ‘Rapha’), Zuzim or Zamzummim (‘terrible ones’), Emim, Horites, and Anakim (‘crushing tyrants’).”

I’m unsure whence came the terms titans or crushing tyrants but Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them. Rephaim were like a tribe who were aka Zuzim, Zamzummim and Emim and Anakim were like clans for that tribe—and Horites were an unrelated people group.

Also, as we’re told, “Anakim are directly connected with the Nephilim in the false report of the spies described in (Numbers 13:33 ).” Moreover, “The context of the passages suggest that the other tribes of giants were relatives of the Anakim or other lines of Nephilim, particularly the Rephaim whose giant descendant is described as living in Gath along with the Anakim Goliath and Lahmi…Rephaim are giants (in fact these peoples are generally described as being tall or large) and seem to have been thus matched with the Nephilim based on the English rendering of ‘giants’ in Genesis 6.”

But if, and since, “Anakim are directly connected with the Nephilim” only, “in the false report” then, “The context of the passages suggest” correlations based on falsehoods. We still haven’t been told the usage of, “giants” so we can’t know to what or whom, “tribes of giants” or, “giant descendant” or, “Rephaim are giants” means but we did get hints: “described as being tall or large” and, “Nephilim based on the English rendering of ‘giants.’”

Thus, it seem we can answer the aforementioned key questions thusly:

What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?

It merely renders (doesn’t even translate) “Nephilim” in 2 verses or “Repha/im” in 98% of all others and so never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.

What’s the article’s usage?

Something about subjectively unusual, “tall or large”—with tall and large being just as vague, generic, subjective and multi-usage as giants.

Do those two usages agree?

No.

Thus, Biblically contextually, what we were told really means, “…other tribes of [Rephaim] were relatives of the Anakim” but not, “other lines of Nephilim” and, “Rephaim whose [Rephaim] descendant is described as living in Gath along with the Anakim Goliath and Lahmi…Rephaim are [Rephaim] (in fact these peoples are generally described as being tall or large)” and yes, they’re referred to on average as having been, “tall” (Deut 2) but that’s subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.

As for, “seem to have been thus matched with the Nephilim based on the English rendering of ‘giants’” that’s not only violating the English Bible’s usage again but it’s a word-concept fallacy—especially since the dirty little secret is that since we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim then their height is a non-issue and that alone debunks 99% of un-biblical Nephilology–the modern branch of which is just un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales.

Moreover, I will add accuracy to other statements made in the article such as, “The tribe of the Anakim were descended from a giant [Repha] named Anak, who was a son or grandson of a giant [Repha] named ‘Arba’…This tribe was so tall, that the weak-kneed spies reported, ‘we are like grasshoppers to them.’”

Do you see what happened? We don’t have physical descriptions of Arba nor Anak but the word-concept fallacy of (mis)reading the vague, generic, subjective and multi-usage modern English word leads to merely asserting that they were subjectively generically vaguely tall. Morerover, it was affirmed that Num 13:33 records falsehoods but it’s still appealed to as if it was accurate: firstly, it’s misread as referring to the size of Anakim when it’s about the fantasy size of Nephilim. Secondly, only non-LXX versions are appealed to. Thirdly, tall, large, giants, and like grasshoppers are uselessly vaguely generically subjective terms.

Furthermore, “Scripture describes how the tribes of giants [Rephaim] were fought and destroyed by the tribes of normal men [meaning slightly shorter] who replaced them, including the Israelites. Moses killed Og, king of the Rehpaim who lived on the Golan heights near Mt. Hermon. Og had a bed nine cubits long (13.5 to 15.5 feet, depending on which cubit was used) and was called ‘last of the remnant of the giants [Rephaim].” See how by now the article jumps languages from referring to Rephaim as Rephaim and then (likely unknowingly) referring to Rephaim as giants?

Moreover, “Caleb later retook Hebron and killed the three giants [Anakim]…David and Saul fought a remnant of smaller giants [Rephaim]” but since we weren’t told the height of the former giants then being told that the remnant were smaller is a non-issue argument from silence. It’s noted, “Goliath…was about nine feet tall, and his brother Lahmi ‘whose spear had a shaft like a weaver’s rod’. The last of the Gittite giants [Rephaim] was slain, ‘In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot—twenty-four in all. He also was descended from Rapha.’” There we have it again: jumping from English to Hebrew. Also, it wasn’t noted that the Masoretic text has Goliath at just shy of 10 ft. Yet, the earlier LXX and the earlier Dead Sea Scrolls and the earlier Flavius Josephus all have him at just shy of 7 ft. so, that’s the preponderance of the earliest data.

As for, the spear/shaft: regular guy Benaiah took a spear like a weaver’s beam, just like Goliath’s, from a 7.5 ft. Egyptian and successfully wielded it against him in hand-to-hand combat (2 Sam 23). That Egyptian is actually the tallest person specified in the Bible.

We’re then told, “The last Scriptural reference to the giants” which, recall, as per the article is a mere reference to vaguely subjectively generic tall/large, “may be Isaiah 45:14 , which prophecies that Sabean ‘men of stature’ will become slaves in chains of the redeemed Israelites” and yet, that seems to be a reference to stature as in social standing since no physical description is even hinted at, “Thus saith the LORD, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God.” Note that the context pertains to, “labour…merchandise” etc. so that their impressive social standing means nothing since they, “shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine…in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication…”

A summary is then offered in terms of, “The characteristics of these tribes described in Scripture”:
[1] Their height was two or three times the height of normal men.
[2] They were associated with some kind of unholy intermixing before the Flood.
[3] They were closely associated with the wicked Canaanites after the Flood.
[4] In one case they are described as having polydactyly (extra fingers and toes).
[5] Unlike the Canaanites, there are no examples of Nephilim who became followers of God.
[1] There’s literally zero reliable indication of any such thing.

[2] That’s only the case with Nephilim, there’s zero reliable indication that it pertains to any post-flood, “tribes.”

[3] Very well then, “tribes” were, “were closely associated with the wicked Canaanites after the Flood” but without reference to Nephilim.
[4] It’s not, “In one case” singular, “they are” plural but rather, in one case one single person was referred to as such.

[5] “there are no examples of Nephilim who became followers of God” ever.
We’re then told of, “Apocryphal references” for which you can see my book The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts. It’s noted that, “the Book of Jubilees and Book of Enoch…were both considered canonical by the Ethiopic Church from the time of Christ until today, and the Book of Enoch was quoted in the Biblical Epistle of Jude.”

That 1 Enoch is in the Ethiopian canon doesn’t make that one canon uniquely correct but rather, uniquely incorrect since 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from millennia after the Torah (see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch) in fact, that cannon also contains a text titled, The Life of Adam and Eve which claims that when God created Adam, God commanded the Angels to worship Adam. It also contains 2 Enoch which claims that the reason God created was because God was alone and didn’t find peace within Himself. Yes, Jude quoted Enoch and Paul quoted Greek poets so, what of it?

It’s noted, “Jubilees has the following to say…Jared, for in his days the angels of the Lord descended on the earth” whereas 1 Enoch has that occurring in the days of Jared. Jubilees also has post-flood Nephilim being the result of a recipe that was found for creating them. Yet, the recipe is sons of God mating with daughters of men, not some occult ritual. Yet, even then, they only make it to the time of Noah’s grandsons.
1 Enoch is then quoted to the effect that Nephilim were, “three hundred cubits” which is actually a watered down version of the more traditional reading/translation which is that they were 3,000 ells. In any case, that results in miles tall which is great folklore but poor reality. At least it doesn’t have physical post-flood Nephilim—it has unclean spirits being the spirits of dead Nephilim but that’s just folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah. For a biblical view, please see my article, Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?

We’re also told of, “Controversies” such as that, “Some argue that the Sons of God could not be angels because: Angels are spiritual beings, and therefore not reproductively compatible with human women” yet, humans can be spiritual and humans are compatible with humans. This is actually an issue of swapping spirit for spiritual. The mere assertion would be that Angels are spirit and yet, there’s no indication of that since Angels are described as looking just like human males and performing physical actions and without any indication that such isn’t their ontology. Why would they only be missing THE key features of the male anatomy? See my book, What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.

See my various books here.

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Dasyd Ministry’s Jerry Hennig posted, “Excerpts from the BN & Theme Books” regarding sons of God and giants.

He notes upfront, “SONS OF YAH (GOD)…are simply fallen angels who seduced the daughters of men creating giant human offspring, and perhaps even strange and weird animal crossbreeds.”

At this point, we must keep an eye out of what the usage is of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Hannig’s usage? Do those two usages agree?

It seems that his usage if something vaguely generically about subjectively unusual height (see why the stand-alone word “giants” is useless?) since, for example, when he points out that, “Orthodox Jews say the sons of God are religious nobles” he counters that, “If there were nobles of men marrying daughters why would Yah get so angry about this that He would want to destroy the world over it? How do giants come from such a thing taking place anyways?”

Well, the usage in the English Bibles which employ it is that therein it merely renders (doesn’t even translate) “Nephilim” in 2 verses or “Repha/im” in 98% of all others and so never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.

Thus, his usage does not correspond to the English Bibles’ usage.

FYI: his second statement is more accurate than the first since that view pertains to, “nobles of men” in general and not specifically to, “religious nobles.” Regardless, the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, was the “Angel view” as I proved in 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.

He also argues against the, “theory…that the Godly sons of Seth married the bad daughters of men, who’s offspring were giants. The problem we have here is that Yah said the only righteous people on earth at that time were Noah and his sons. How could Seth’s sons be Godly and yet marry evil daughters of men at the same time? If the problem was “mixed marriages”, then Yah’s wrath should have only come upon Seth’s sons and their wives. What about Seth’s daughters? How did giants come from regular men and women?”

That view, the Sethite view, is a late-comer of a view based on myth, prejudice, and which only creates more problems than it solves (so, more than zero) but some of Hennig’s counters are not cogent:

Yes, that theory assets, “that the Godly sons of Seth” yet, logically, they weren’t really Godly since they were such terrible sinners that their sin served as the premise for the flood so, that’s rather odd.

We’ve seen that by, “who’s offspring were giants…How did giants come from regular men and women?” means were vaguely generically subjectively tall but we’ve no indication of something even that non-specific—stand by for more on this point.

Sure, “the only righteous people on earth at that time” just before the flood, “were Noah and his sons” and by extension their wives, but the Gen 6 affair, as I term it, commenced, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them.”

Jerry Hennig then comments on Nephilim, the supposedly alleged giants by first quoting a version of Gen 6:1-4: 

Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3 Then ADONAI said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when 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”.

He notes and asks, “It’s important to notice in these verses that these Nephilim came into the daughters of men at the time of Noah ‘in those days’, as well as ‘also afterward’. So if the theory of the Almighty bringing the flood was to eradicate these hybrids was true, then what about the afterwards part of the verse.”

Note how he bypasses the key point, the point that identifies the timeline, by only quoting four words from v. 4 and by prepping his readers to think of it in a certain way and he commits a category error:

He stated, “Nephilim came into the daughters of men” just after quoting, “the sons of God came in to the daughters of men.”

He stated that was, “at the time of Noah” but again, he just quoted that it was, “when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose” which was when, “sons of God came in to the daughters of men.”

As for, “‘in those days’” indeed, “those days” was, “when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men” which was, “when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them.

Thus, “also afterward” is simply after, “those days,” “when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men” which was, “when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them.

Thus, they commenced doing it and kept doing it.

Hennig ignores that the verse told him exactly to what days it’s referring and opted to artificially insert, “the flood” into a verse that states nothing of it—in fact, the flood’s not even mentioned for the very first time until a full 13 vss. later.

Thus, the answer to, “if the theory of the Almighty bringing the flood was to eradicate these hybrids was true, then what about the afterwards part of the verse” is a non-issue since it’s anachronistic: he took, “afterwards” to refer to post-flood but it’s not pointing forwards, it’s pointing backwards to the Gen 6:1 timeline—and then forwards from that but it’s still all pre-flood.

Jerry Hennig continues thusly:

Obviously Adonai did not flood the earth only for the purpose of wiping out all the unrighteous people on it. It may have been part of His plan, but certainly not the only part. Num. 13:33 There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” 

They were also called Anakim. Anakim are called the race of giants. This is after the flood, so if all corrupt humans were killed during the flood, where did these Nephilim come from?

I’m unsure what the ergo is for this first line. He seems to imply the, “theory of the Almighty bringing the flood was to eradicate these hybrids” is inaccurate and yet, “not the only part” so there was more to it: it wasn’t a one-stop shop: it was to be rid of all the unrighteous, and Nephilim, and sons of God/fallen Angels, and some animals, etc.

Yet, it seems he can’t go the route of, “to eradicate these hybrids” due to Num. 13:33 but when he quoted that he, for some unknown reason, neglected to mention utterly fundamentally key facts such as that he quoted one, non-LXX, sentence, from an, “evil report,” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked—to mention a few of the problems with that sentence, for more see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.

It seems that he’s telling us that Nephilim, “were also called Anakim” but there’s literally zero reliable indication of that, Anakim were named after Anak, Arba’s son, and were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe, Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them, and as for being a, “race of giants” due to his misusage of that English term he doesn’t realize that when he reads that about them in the Bible the Hebrew is telling him that they’re Rephaim: they only contextually relevant thing we’re told about them is that they were, “tall” which is just as vague generic and subjective as giants and is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.

Indeed, “This is after the flood, so…where did these Nephilim come from?” nowhere, they didn’t make it past the flood in any way, shape, or form since God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.

Jerry Hennig notes, “Nephilim (Strong’s #5303) In Hebrew it means giants” but that only begs the question of what giants means since what he wrote reads thusly without the answer to that question, his usage would have that mean, “Nephilim (Strong’s #5303) In Hebrew it means of vaguely generically subjectively unusual height of some unspecified degree.” See why it’s useless: if you have to define to what you’re referring every time then you might as well not use it but just say to what you’re referring.

Yet, he adds that, “The root word for Nephilim…means: 1) to fall, lie, be cast down, fail or reject” which would make one wonder how such a root ends up referring to vaguely generically subjectively unusual height of some unspecified degree—see my linguistics book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.

He refers to Nephilim as, “mutants” and claims, “Many Greek gods are half man half beasts called Nephilim” but called Nephilim whereabouts, by whom, when, etc.? Why would half man half Angel look like half man half beasts?

Hennig also asserts, “Another word for Nephilim is ‘Rephaim’” for which there’s literally zero indication. He attempts to appeal to Gen. 14:5 which refers to Rephaim which are aka Zuzim (aka Zamzummim) and like Anakim, another of that tribe’s clans were Emim but the text makes no correlation to Nephilim, of course.

He myopically asserts, “Rephaim comes from the Hebrew root rapha which means; spirits, shades” whilst no mentioning that the root has a wide range of meaning and usage to include healing/healer: such as when God is called YHVH Rapha: God the healer (Exodus 15:26)—an apocryphal Angels’ name is Raphael: God’s healer or healing God, etc.

He notes, “They were also…race of giants” but it’s the same issue for Rephaim in general as it was for Anakim in particular: they were, “tall” on average and were strictly English readers might see, “giants” in their English Bibles, the underlying Hebrew is as aforementioned, “Repha/im.”

Oddly, he asserts, “They were also called the Zophim, watchers, descended angels in: Num. 23:14 [‘]So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar’” which doesn’t include even one single word about correlation to Rephaim nor Nephilim nor being whatever, “watchers, descended angels” means: he seems to be employing the Second Temple Era term for Angels/Malakin which is Watchers so it really reads, Angels, descended Angels. Well, what he did is read Strong’s which notes, “Zophim = ‘watchers.”

He concludes, “In other wards there are multiple names for giants in scripture” but he comes to that conclusion before showing us anyone who was more than merely subjectively tall, by misunderstanding the usage of the term giants, and by merely asserting correlation where they is none.

Thus, when he specifies, “They can be called: Nephilim, Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, Zamzummims, or Zophims” here’s the breakdown:

Nephilim: the dirty little secret is that since we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim then their height is a non-issue and that alone debunks 99% of un-biblical Nephilology—the modern branch of which is just un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales.

Rephaim aka Zuzim aka Zamzummims along with Emim (and Anakim): subjectively tall.

Zophims: that’s a place name, not a people group.

So, where are all of the giants?

For some reason, Jerry Hennig asserts, “All of these giant offspring were males which may be true since, “There is no mention in the Bible of any giant women” but then again, the only reliable statement in the Bible about Nephilim—forget giants—calls them by the male plural Hebrew ending, “im” and calls them, “men” but it’s common to refer to males and females as im/men in general. I actually don’t have a hybrid dog in that fight, it was just a thought.

He asserts, “Angels can manifest themselves as people” but there’s literally zero indication of any such thing. Rather, Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such isn’t their ontology—see my book What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.

He asserts, “Gen. 6:1-4…Sons of God…were angels that took Lucifer’s side when he was thrown out of heaven” but he was thrown out due to his Gen 3 sin but Angels sinned during the Gen 6:1 timeline.

For some reason, he loops back to note that, “Some of these Nephilim (giants) were referred to as Rephaim, Emin, Horim, Zemsumim, Arba, (Gen. 14 and 15).” Well, he ought to not have looped back since this made things worse:

Rephaim/“Zemsumim” (slight misspelling for Zamzummim) tribe and Emin clan: again, subjectively tall.

Horim: unrelated to Rephaim and for whom we’ve no physical description.

Arba: a man for whom we’ve no physical description—he was Anak’s father and Anakim were named after Anak so it’s likely that Arba and Anak may have been subjectively unusually tall.

He then makes the mistake of looing back to the evil report—again without the most important factoids—since he wrote, “Remember when Moses sent twelve spies into the land of Canaan, they reported seeing giants and told Moses that these giants couldn’t be defeated.” Not so, he just told us, “twelve spies…they reported” but the text point is that such wasn’t the case. Rather, twelve were sent, Caleb and Joshua remained loyal but the other 10 showed themselves to be disloyal, unreliable, unfaithful, contradictory, embellishers since they are the ones who presented the evil report upon which, for some odd reason, Hennig relies. They contradicted Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole Bible so I will side with Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole Bible.

He wrote, “In Num. 13:33 it says ‘The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of GREAT size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Yet, that’s not, “Num. 13:33” rather, that’s Num. 13:32b-33 and the fact is that we can’t even verify some thing as generic as that, “all the people whom we saw in it are men of GREAT size”—GREAT size is as useless as tall and giants—see my article ???

Jerry Hennig then asserts, “Anak and his seven sons were Nephilim descendants in the land of Canaan” for which, of course, there’s zero indication—unless, that is, you want to claim that one single non-LXX sentence from an evil report by unreliable guys whom God rebuked is a solid enough source for you: all post-flood Nephilology is literally premised on that one single sentence so post-flood Nephilologists must consider guys whom God rebuked to have been infallible, they take them at their word, uncritically pick up that one sentence, run with it, build an all-encompassing theory on it, and care not that by doing so they damaged theology proper since now they have a failed God.

He also loops back to a Greek context in noting, “Nephilim were referred to as Greek Titans (in Hebrew means Satan). They were half human, half godly beings of incredible looks and strength.” I’ve no idea upon what he asserted that Titans means Satan. It’s also myopically generic to assert, “Nephilim were referred to as Greek Titans” since there were more than one generation of Titans and they looked vastly different such as the second generation having the lower bodies of snakes, having 100 arms, etc. He refers to Nephilim, “looks” but, again, we’ve no reliable physical description of them and all indications are that they looked just like regular humans since both sides of their parentage look just like humans: Angels and women.

He generically asserts, “Many believe these giant celestial beings were responsible for building the pyramids, Stonehenge, etc., prior to the great flood.” Well, perhaps but then those structures (which pyramids, BTW?) would date to pre-flood days, by definition, that may be a theory that takes away from human ingenuity—especially at a time when humans were still close enough to the originally created two that they were smarter than we genetically degraded moderners—see my video

He generically asserts, “Many believe demons come from the Nephilim (giants).” Yet, that is just folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah. For a biblical view, please see my article, Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?

For some unknown reason, he then included 261 words about bestiality without telling us why.

He then asserts, “Goliath was one of the descendants of the giant Nephilim.” Yet, there’s zero indication of any such thing—and biblically contextually, “giant Nephilim” means, “Nephilim Nephilim.” Goliath was a Repha, not a Nephil: we’re told that about him virtually every single time he’s mentioned.

Jerry Hennig notes, “He supposedly had six toes and six fingers” but there’s no indication of that: that was one of his sons—the only person in the Bible described as such.

He also assets, “He was over nine feet tall and wore over 125 lbs. of armor, the iron head on his spear weighed 6 lbs. alone.” Yet, for some odd reason, he didn’t inform his readers that the Masoretic text has him at just shy of 10 ft. Yet, the earlier LXX and the earlier Dead Sea Scrolls and the earlier Flavius Josephus all have him at just shy of 7 ft. (compared to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days) so that’s the preponderance of the earliest data.

He had a guy assisting with the equipment. Regular guy Benaiah took a spear like a weaver’s beam, just like Goliath’s, from a 7.5 ft. Egyptian and successfully wielded it against him in hand-to-hand combat (2 Sam 23). Also, you can search for strongman or weightlifting competition vids and see guys who are around 6 ft. lifting 1,000 lbs.

He loops back to noting, “It may have been partially because of the degenerate acts of the humans and human/hybrids on earth that Yahveh brought the great flood, who knows.” Well, God knows and he told us: all were corrupt sans Noah in particular and his immediate and extended family by general implication.

Oddly, he then loops again by mixing two issues, “Some believe that the spirits of all those who died in the flood are the demon spirits used today by Satan. Although this theory seems possible, there is a verse in the Bible saying Adonai never called angels Sons of God. Hebr. 1:5a ‘For to which of the angels did He ever say, Thou Art My Son.” It’s odd that he claims those sons of God were Angels but then seems to argue against himself and make that irrelevant point as a non-sequitur to the folklore about demons.

Just in case, I’ll note that such is tacking Heb 1 out of context since it’s not about Angelology, it’s about Jesus. Ergo, God never called an Angel His son in the self-same manner in which He calls Jesus His Son since Jesus is uniquely authoritative. Or, should we deny that Christians are sons of God because, after all, Jesus is God’s only begotten Son?

He then asserts, “archeologists have found a 47 inch femur bone in the Euphrates river valley, south-east Turkey.” There’s literally zero indication of that. Again, he has failed to inform his readers of the facts of the matter. He included this photo:

???

The man in the photo is the later Joe Taylor and in my video Is the giant (Nephilim) femur bone real? Mt. Blanco Museum’s Joe Taylor explains, you can hear him explain that it’s not a bone, it’s a sculpture he made, he made it based on being told about a newsletter that he never saw which supposedly asserted that such a bone had been found. Thus, there are various degrees of separation between the alleged find no one can verify and a mere sculpture. Thus, when Jerry Hennig asserts, “Joe Taylor has the femur bone at his Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum in Crosbyton, Texas” that’s simply not the case, based on Taylor himself.

He takes a pretty common guess as to the motivation of Satan to have some influence in casting 1/3 of Angels to Earth (Rev 12) since a pop-theory is that, “Satan wanted to genetically modify the DNA of man so that the line of the Messiah would be polluted.” Well, according to such post-flood Nephilology theorists God failed, He had to have post-flood mere humans do the job he couldn’t handle and yet, all was a waste since there are people groups that such theorists would identify as having been post-flood Nephilim, members of which appear in Jesus’ genealogy. Bottom line is that nothing post-flood has anything to do with genetics and God took care of any such problem via the flood—once and for all.

He goes on to note, “The sons of God were corrupting everything in their path so possibly this is one of the reasons Yah had to destroy, flood, the whole world” and yet, this theory negates that by asserting post-flood Nephilim—based on one very problematic sentence.

He then notes, “the Book of Enoch talks about giants supposedly 437 feet tall (300 cubits). Enoch 7:12-13 ‘Whose stature was each three hundred cubits” yet, the text actually refers to 3,000 not 300 and ells not cubits: which is MILES tall. Yet, that matters not since 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah—see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch. Being MILES tall is great folklore but poor reality.

Jerry Hennig notes, “We know giants are real and at the time of Noah, but they were not 437 feet tall, of that you can be sure” but he’s offered no indication that, “We know giants are real and at the time of Noah” as per his misuse of that term.

Reference is made to unnamed, “Ancient writings Ancient Jewish writings of 135AD” regarding Amorites (so, from MILLENNIA after the Amorite’s time) from which the bottom line quote is, “the bodies of Amorites who were buried there” somewhere in Jerusalem, “One of them measured 18 cubits (30 ft) in height.” I tracked down that the quote is from Midrash Tanchuma and midrashim are sermonizing homilies. What we’re biblically contextually told about Amorites is that Amos 2:9 refers to, “the Amorite…whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.” He was clearly just saying they were big and strong and not implying conducting a one-to-one ratio based mathematical calculation. In fact, people who do measure cedars and claim Amorites were that tall never get around to a calculation correlating the strength of oaks—since they’re only interested in tall-tales. Plus, if they take it that incoherently literal then they have to conclude that Amorites had fruits and roots growing right out of their bodies.

One of Hennig’s summaries includes, “The conclusion when all is considered is obvious; the fallen angels came and had intercourse with the daughters of men before and after the Great Flood, creating Giants, Nephilim” with there not only being literally zero indication of that occurring after but there being no reliable reason for even inventing such a tall-tale. Jude and 2 Peter 2 tell us that those sinful Angels were incarcerated and there’s only a one-time sin/fall of Angels in the Bible–plus, God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.

And so what we’ve seen is pretty typical pop-Nephilology which typically will employ inaccurate, watered down, and undefined terminology which makes it easier to assert correlations where there are none and leaves a lot of fundamentally important facts unstated along with misrepresenting the Bible and damaging theology proper.

See my various books here.

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Clare Coffey wrote an article titled Who Wants to Believe in UFOs? for The New Atlantis—“The purpose of The New Atlantis is to offer clarity and guidance at a moment when we seem to be losing confidence in one of the pillars of modern civilization. It is our hope to help us all — as citizens, scientists, policymakers, and human beings — to deal more wisely and more creatively with both the burdens and the blessings of modern science and technology.”

I must say I’m more interested in how Nephilim got looped into this: especially when the article notes, “A duo of New York Times articles in December 2017 is as good as any starting point to mark. One piece discussed Navy pilot encounters with aerial objects that accelerated and maneuvered in ways that should have been impossible. The other detailed a shadowy alien-investigation program inside the Pentagon, headed by Luis Elizondo, supported by Senator Harry Reid, and involving military–industrial complex giant Robert Bigelow.”

Yes, discredited New York Times articles about a guy, Elizondo, who made a living by being professional manipulator as an intelligence agent and who made his entry into the public world of making money for his retirement by merely asserting that he headed a supposed program that was just an, “activity” like a hobby, etc., etc., etc.

Don’t get me wrong, Coffey does on to note, “The articles felt explosive, but weren’t. Or perhaps the opposite: the articles may have been objectively socially explosive in the way they re-positioned UFOs in public discourse, but the emotional catharsis and epistemic breakthrough of an open, public declaration by the powers that be that they’re here was once again postponed.”

It was just another stinking layer of a misinfo and discinfo onion.
In fact, Coffey notes, “Nevertheless, after the 2017 articles, history continued to repeat itself without really rising to the level of either tragedy or farce.”

And I wrote the book Fifty Shades of Gray Aliens so I’ve seen quite enough of such stuff.
Coffey notes:

The TV show Ancient Aliens is both an early sign of the coming shift from the explorer to the esotericist model, and, in the final analysis, a piece of explorer media. Like the esotericists…Ancient Aliens is fascinated by ancient texts and global myth.

But unlike the esotericists, the explanation for everything is, in the end, a spaceship.

Pyramids? Built by spaceships. Strange carvings on a crumbling megalith depicting a descending god? Guy in a spaceship. A flaming wheel appearing to the prophet Ezekiel? Classic misidentified spaceship.
It’s the same in pop-Nephilology—which is un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales: Pyramids? Built by fallen Angels and/or Nephilim. Strange carvings on a crumbling megalith depicting a descending god? fallen Angels and/or Nephilim guys. In fact, spaceships fallen Angels and/or Nephilim getting one over on God since he wanted to be rid of Nephilim but failed since He missed that loophole—or, something.

Coffey notes:
In 2012, former policeman David Paulides started publishing a book series called Missing 411, claiming that unexplained disappearances in National Parks and the North American wilderness shared certain seemingly irrelevant but predictable characteristics (near granite or near water) and should be investigated as the result of some yet unknown phenomenon. His work has been roundly dunked on by data scientists,[endnote, “… which of course makes people with brainworms like mine more sympathetic than they were before”] but it has also been adapted into full-length documentaries.

A few years ago, a TikTok-er went viral offering a condensed version of Paulides’s work, which in the comments quickly got linked to major cave systems and speculation that Teddy Roosevelt created the National Parks in order to control, monitor, and limit contact with the horrible Things living in the caves.[endnote, “The National Parks Service are not, as they seem, a group of wholesome, outdoorsy, Dudley Do-Right civil servants. They are Tolkienesque Park Rangers of the North, they are The Dark Knight in hip waders, mounting a ceaseless and thankless watch to keep us mostly safe from the goblin menace. Frankly, I think that’s great and we should do something similar for postal clerks”]

In the diffuse, multi-site commentary surrounding these viral TikToks, someone, as I recall, suggested that this subterranean menace might be one and the same as the culprits behind an infamous UFO encounter known as the Hopkinsville Goblin incident.

This is the classic esotericist move: someone in the comments section explaining a famous UFO case with reference to a seemingly unrelated kind of alleged fringe phenomenon, filtered through some number of social media popularizers, reaching towards a theory that accounts for both.
Now, to the point of most interest to me as a Systematic Biblical Paranormologist:

Michael Heiser, a devout and orthodox evangelical Biblical scholar…did produce a UFO podcast up until his recent death, but his importance stems not from the hobby podcast but from his regular theological work.

Heiser’s 2015 book The Unseen Realm and subsequent publications were groundbreaking: they provided a simultaneously scholarly, readable, and recognizably Christian framework for acknowledging and interpreting the decidedly weirder parts of the Bible…
It would not surprise me if Heiser’s work were in an indirect way responsible for the rise of one of the most dominant esotericist UFO theories: the one about the Nephilim.

As I’ve oft noted, how anyone could read Heiser and not learn something would be beyond me. Yet, while Heiser was credentialed and experienced but not infallible, his Nephilology wasn’t biblical, and he tended to create more problems than he solved—search online for these articles for examples:

Review of Amy Richter and Michael Heiser on four Enochian Watcher related women in Jesus’ genealogy

Rebuttal to Dr. Michael Heiser’s “All I Want for Christmas is Another Flawed Nephilim Rebuttal”

I also included him in my book The Scholarly Academic Nephilim and Giants: What do Scholarly Academics Say About Nephilim Giants?

Actually, “the rise of one of the most dominant esotericist UFO theories: the one about the Nephilim” began, at least, as far back as the 1970s although Heiser may have given it a recent jolt and also critiqued some, “esotericist UFO theories” such as those of Zecharia Sitchin who he challenged to debate—and had that challenge open for a decade without Sitchin ever accepting.

Here are toms relevant Coffey statements:

Return of the Giants…
The Nephilim show up in Genesis, and, at much greater length, in the (mostly) nonbiblical book of Enoch — the Ethiopian Orthodox are probably the most significant church that does accept Enoch as canonical. In Enoch, we learn about certain sons of God, a rebel faction of God’s mysterious angelic watchers.

Instead of overseeing humans, as the good watchers do, this faction has given humans cosmetics, weaponry, sorcery — in short, initiating them into technological acceleration. In Genesis, the Nephilim — sometimes translated simply as “giants” — are the monstrous result of illicit procreation between these rebel watchers and human women.

They are not, to put it mildly, good actors. It is to destroy the Nephilim giants that God floods the world in the days of Noah.
In the Nephilim theory of UFOs, when we hear accounts of people abducted, taken up to the heavens, shown impossible physical capabilities, subjected to invasive reproductive procedures for unclear ends, given messages for humanity, confused and traumatized, what we are seeing is the watchers, the fathers of the Nephilim, up to their old tricks for a new society.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. (Though the theory is mostly about the watchers, the “sons of God” and fathers of the Nephilim, the term “Nephilim” has come to serve as a popular metonymy for anything relating to this story.)
The reference to, “Giants” begs these questions: What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Coffey’s or Heiser’s or any given users’ usage? Do those two usages agree?

That 1 Enoch aka Ethiopic Enoch is in the Ethiopian canon doesn’t make that one canon uniquely correct but rather, uniquely incorrect since 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from millennia after the Torah (see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch) in fact, that cannon also contains a text titled The Life of Adam and Eve which claims that when God created Adam, God commanded the Angels to worship Adam. It also contains 2 Enoch which claims that the reason God created was because God was alone and didn’t find peace within Himself.

The term. “angelic watchers” is fair enough for common parlance but it’s redundant since Watchers is just a Second Temple Era aka for Angels.

Note the MO of pop-UFOlogy-Nephilologists:

1. “It is to destroy the Nephilim giants that God floods the world in the days of Noah.”
2. God must have failed and missed the UFO loophole so the flood was much of a waste since, “the watchers” are “up to their old tricks.”

Well, of course they’re not since God didn’t fail, Jude and 2 Peter 2 tell us they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible.

Coffey concludes:

It is easy to see why the Nephilim became a popular speculative touchpoint for UFO esotericists.

The theory accounts for the high-handed way in which the UFO phenomenon seems to interact with its human targets, and provides a framework for many of the bizarre recurring motifs in UFO abductee accounts.

It saves the appearance (in the medieval astronomer sense) of UFOs as a trickster phenomenon, shrouded in illusion, “messengers of deception,” in [Jaques] Vallée’s phrase.

Not to mention—okay, mentioning—that the pop-Nephilology cottage industry is lucrative as h, e, double hokey sticks.

Yet, if you established a ministry on Nephilology, you’ll very, very soon run out of material—right after you quote the mere two sentences about them in the Bible—so, you’ll have to appeal to folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah and then vacuum up any and all cryptozoology. As Coffey put it, “It allows esotericists to rescue and revise the technological framework of the explorers, in which modern UFOlogy was born. It offers tantalizing possibilities that can be extended and combined with other stories and theories.”

He also refers to how think, “UFO beliefs are beginning to take on the trappings and form of a new religion…interest or belief in UFOs is purely and simply the search for a substitute for religion in a godless age.”

See my various books here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby.

If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help out.

Here is my donate/paypal page.

You can comment here and/or on my Twitter/X page, on my Facebook page, or any of my other social network sites all which are available here.

James Lasher wrote a post titled Supernatural Connections: Exploring Nephilim and Scripture for the Charisma website which is the website for, “The Magazine About Spirit-Led Living” which also reads, “About Charisma Magazine: To passionate, Spirit-filled Christians, Charisma is the leading charismatic media source that inspires them to radically change their world. Since 1975…”

The post in an introduction to, “Tony Merkel’s recent interview with Charisma” on, “topics ranging from Bigfoot to Nephilim” so as to allow for Merkel (who is unintroduced in the post) to, “challenge conventional thinking” which, I’m saddened to say, in this case means making up un-biblical tall-tales to sell to Christians in a typical pop-Nephilology style.
Due to that pop-post-flood-Nephilologists sell theo-fear-porn, Merkel notes, “There are people who believe that their bloodline comes from Nephilim.” It is asked, “Is there a connection between ancient accounts of the Nephilim and modern-day experiences of the supernatural?” the reply to which is that, “Merkel, and many others who study the matter such as” fellow pop-Nephilologists, “L.A. Marzulli, certainly think so.”

It’s tragic but modern pop-Nephilology is un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales sold to Christians: it’s where the most embarrassingly ridiculous wild conspiracy theories that should die find a new home by being thrown in a blender & are mixed in till they leaven the whole lump.

In this case, people today have bought into so much such stuff that they come to the pop-Nephilologist enduced delusion that they, their friends, their families, perfect strangers, etc., may not be fully human: historically, assertions that some humans aren’t really humans (such as Nazis did to us Jews, evolutionists did to the Aborigines, etc.) led to serial and mass murders. Such is my book Nephilim and Giants as per Pop-Researchers: A Comprehensive Consideration of the claims of I.D.E. Thomas, Chuck Missler, Dante Fortson, Derek Gilbert, Brian Godawa, Patrick Heron, Thomas Horn, Ken Johnson, L.A. Marzulli, Josh Peck, CK Quarterman, Steve Quayle, Rob Skiba, Gary Wayne, Jim Wilhelmsen, et al. includes a chapter titled “Nephil Kampf” since such paranoid and dangerous assertions are rampant within pop-Nephilology.

The bottom line is that any concept of post-flood Nephilim implies that God failed: He meant to be rid of them via the flood but couldn’t get the job done, He must have missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc. See, fallacious Nephilology negatively effects theology proper. Also, post-flood Nephilologists have to just invent un-biblical tall-tales about how they made it past the flood.

This describes 100% of pop-Nephilologists. And those who claim they survived the flood contradict the Bible five times (Genesis 7:7, 23; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; and 2 Peter 2:5).

I’ve written whole books debunking them such as the one just noted and Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales.

I have asked dozens of Marzulli’s fans why he assert that Nephilim were very, very big and asserts he has their skulls but can only ever show us regular sized skulls: 99.9% don’t even attempt a rely.

To get Nephilim past the flood, past God, Marzulli opts of a fantasy tall-tale about another fall of Angels post-flood which again resulted in Nephilim. Yet, there’s only a one-time fall of Angels in the Bible and Jude and 2 Peter 2 tell us that those Angels were incarcerated.

Not surprisingly, Lasher notes, “Merkel’s curiosity about the Nephilim began in 2017 when he encountered the work of Gary Wayne, an author who connects biblical history to accounts of giants and supernatural beings.”

I debated Wayne and have written many articles reviewing his views (as well as having included him in the first book I mentioned). Key questions are: What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Lasher’s or Merkel’s or Wayne’s usage? Do those two usages agree?

Well, after decades of asserting Nephilim were “giants” (by which he means very, very, very big—which isn’t the English Bible’s usage of that term) it just took me asking him one little question, during our debate, to get him to admitting he doesn’t know how big they were, “we don’t know how big Nephilim were…we don’t know how tall that they were” (sic.)—and then, he went on to say he’ll keep asserting they were “giants.” What sense does it make to refer to the height of someone who’s height you don’t know?

It’s noted, “I never was taught about Nephilim in church,” Merkel admits. “I went into Bible College and never heard about it … and it wasn’t until I started looking at Enoch that things started clicking in my head.”

Well, that’s a good reason to attend an expositional church since the pastor will teach on it, by definition, and well, perhaps he should have read the Bible at least once during lo, those many years. But, he didn’t turn to God’s Word rather, he turned to 1 Enoch aka Ethiopic Enoch, to be exact, which is just Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.

Interestingly:

Merkel also explored the possibility of lingering traits of Nephilim ancestry in certain individuals today. Reflecting on DNA and physical anomalies, he shared: “I have a brother and sister who are twins … one looks like a white girl with blonde hair, and her twin brother is darker than me. Could it be that some people have characteristics and traits of their supernatural fathers of long ago, while others don’t? Maybe I lack the proper scientific understanding, but it makes you think.” He connected this to reports of individuals with extra teeth, six toes or even supernatural experiences that could point to ancient origins. [ellipses in original]
I said, “Interestingly” since how could Merkel possibly know about any, “traits of Nephilim” considering that the dirty little secret is that since we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim then their height is a non-issue and that alone debunks 99% of un-biblical Nephilology.

Thus, how could he know of, impossible to exist, “lingering traits of Nephilim ancestry”: he doesn’t and can’t.

Note how utterly maniacal this is such that slight differences in the amount of melanin in the epidermal pigmentation could have some unknown something to do with Nephilim somehow.

Yes, he, “lack[s] the proper scientific understanding
 and, “it makes you think” incoherently paranoid half-thoughts—that are also very dangerous.

Now, regarding, “traits of Nephilim” there’s literally zero indication that any of them had, “extra teeth,” “six toes” is only stated about one single person in the whole Bibel and he was a Repha, not a Nephil (2 Samuel 21:20), and to generically assert that generic whatever is meant by, “supernatural experiences” and jump to the conclusion that it, “could point to ancient origins” is merely asserting that generic whatever is meant by, “supernatural experiences…could point to ancient origins.” But such is the bread and artificial butter of pop-Nephilology: make merely asserted vague statements, only on platforms where one won’t be challenged, and move on—all the way to the bank.
We’re then looped back to 1 Enoch, “though not part of the canonical Bible…Merkel noted that ‘there are parts of Enoch that are actually quoted in the New Testament,’ which he says led him to take its accounts more seriously”: correct, if by, “parts,” plural, he means, “part,” singular: Jude quotes Enoch and Paul quotes Greek poets so, what of it?

It’s noted, “The book describes not only the corruption of humanity but also of animals and plants” for which there’s literally zero indication since it does no such thing—not that it matters since it contains and consists of tall-tales.

For example, it has Nephilim as being MILES tall which is great folklore but poor reality—hey, where’s that Nephilim trait expressed in pseudo-humans today?

Now, any good pop-Nephilology knows that when you establish a ministry based on selling tall-tales about giants/Nephilim you’ll run out of material after reading the mere two sentences in the Bible wherein their mentioned. Thus, as Tony Merkel did, you’ll have to run off into apocrypha and pseudepigrapha (see my book The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts) and then you will have to just appropriate cryptozoology just to keep you going.

It’s admitted, “Merkel himself acknowledged the challenges of sifting through accounts that blend historical, spiritual and mythical elements.”

Example, James Lasher notes, “Merkel discussed paranormal phenomena, such as Sasquatch sightings and encounters with beings like the so-called ‘Catman’” and, guess what:

Connecting these accounts to Scripture, Merkel pointed out that Nephilim are mentioned post-flood in Numbers 13:33, when the spies of Israel, of which Joshua and Caleb were among the number, report seeing giants in Canaan.

This raises the question of how these beings could have survived or reappeared after the flood.

Merkel speculates: “Could they have gone into other realms during the flood? Or could there have been a remnant that survived in a supernatural way?”
Is it just me? Did anyone else miss the, “Connecting…to Scripture” claims of, “Sasquatch…and…‘Catman’”? What would tall hairy ape creatures and feline man have to do with Nephilim? Again, we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim and since both of their parentage looked just like humans—Angels look just like human males and human women look like human women (see my book What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology)—then every indication is that Nephilim would have looked just like humans.

Indeed, “Nephilim are mentioned post-flood in Numbers 13:33” but such is misrepresented so let’s review:

1. Mentioned doesn’t necessarily mean they were there much like I’m now mentioning the first US POTUS Washington but he’s certainly not alive.
2. That’s based on one single sentence.
3. From an, “evil report.”
4. Not by, “the spies” in general, since there were 12, but by the 10 unreliable ones so that the fact is that Joshua and Caleb were not among that number.
5. The ones whom God rebuked.
6. The contradictory, unreliable, embellishers who were unfaithful and disloyal.
7. It’s not just that they, “report seeing giants” but Nephilim, which was impossible since they didn’t make it past the flood in any way, shape, or form.
8. It’s not a case of, “This raises the question of how these beings could have survived or reappeared after the flood” but rather, did they reappear after the flood, the biblical answer to which is of course not since God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc. and THE only indication that they did is a fear-mongering scare-tactic tall-tale that contradicts Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole Bible.
9. “gone into other realms” is just a fantasy speculation about a loophole that God missed but Merkel was clever enough to figure out.
10. “a remnant that survived” contradicts the Bible five times (Genesis 7:7, 23; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; and 2 Peter 2:5).

I could actually keep going, and did so in my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.

I wrote the following in an email to Charisma and also posted it to the video of the interview: to date, I’ve not received any sort of reply to either:
Good day, I pray I find you well,

Contacting you about the article by James Lasher by the subject title: https://mycharisma.com/spiritled-living/supernatural-connections-exploring-nephilim-and-scripture/
Wondering if there’s any fact-checking being done since, for example, Lasher wrote, “[Tony] Merkel pointed out that Nephilim are mentioned post-flood in Numbers 13:33, when the spies of Israel, of which Joshua and Caleb were among the number, report seeing giants in Canaan. This raises the question of how these beings could have survived or reappeared after the flood. Merkel speculates: ‘Could they have gone into other realms during the flood? Or could there have been a remnant that survived in a supernatural way?'”
Yet, it was left at that.
Why didn’t Lasher instantly point out a few utterly fundamentally key issues:1) “Nephilim are mentioned post-flood” doesn’t imply they were alive at the time just like I can mention the first POTUS Washington right now but he’s long gone.
2) “in Numbers 13:33” is cited and misrepresented as being part of a statement by “the spies of Israel, of which Joshua and Caleb were among the number” yet, the narrative (of Num chaps 13-14) make it very clear that v. 33 is part of an “evil report” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked, over against Caleb and Joshua whom he blessed. The 10 just made up a tall-tale.
4) Lasher also jumped languages from the specific ancient Hebrew word, “Nephilim” to the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” which also begs the questions: What’s the usage of the word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Lasher’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
5) Based on a utterly unreliable one-liner we’re then told that the God rebuked deception, “This raises the question of how these beings could have survived or reappeared after the flood” which, of course, it doesn’t since they never did: because God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
6) Yet, “Merkel speculates” about ways God could have failed and loophole He could have missed so that the flood would have been much of a waste?
Do you see how fallacious Nephilology damages theology proper? And now Charisma is responsible for promulgating such unchecked fallacies on the WORLD WIDE web.
Is there a known reason why Lasher didn’t mention these issue nor ask Merkel to correct them?–and I’m not even mentioning other problems with their views.
Thank you for your time and attention,

Ken Ammi

See my various books here.

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Kevin C. (“full time missionary…working toward his MTh at Asia Graduate School of Theology (AGST)…teaches hermeneutics part time at a seminary,” etc.) posted an article titled Why The Nephilim Matter (Academia, 2020) which he begins by noting, “a long standing tradition of interpreting the Nephilim as the half-bread offspring of fallen angels and human beings. This interpretation was made popular in large part by its appearance in some second century BC Jewish writings [“Jubilees 4–5, 1 Enoch 6–11”]. Many today accept this interpretation largely based on faulty post exilic Jewish theology and a single argument over of the term ‘sons of God’ which appears in the book of Job in reference to angels.”

Succinctly, I would put it thusly: Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such is not their ontology. See my book, What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.

Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that, “sons of God” (bene ha Elohim/בְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים) can refer to non-human beings (which the LXX has as “Angeloi” (ἄγγελοί): plural of “Angelos”) since they, at the very least, witnessed the creation of the Earth. Kevin does note, “the term sons of God is used in Job 1 in reference to angels.”

Jude and 2 Peter 2 combined refer to a sin of Angels, place that sin to pre-flood days and correlate it to sexual sin which occurred after the Angels, “left their first estate,” after which they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible.

The original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, was the “Angel view” as I proved in 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.

Kevin follows up with, “Regarding how the angels managed to procreate with humans, why they would want to, and how exactly that would produce a race of gigantic human beings often goes beyond conjecture and far off into the realm of science fiction.”

We have already taken care of, “Regarding how the angels managed to procreate with humans” since it was the good olˈ fashioned way.

As for, “a race of gigantic human beings” well, the key questions are: what is the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word, “giants” in English Bibles? What is Kevin’s usage? Do those two usages agree?—hint: biblically contextually, “a race of gigantic human beings” means, “a race of Nephilim human beings” (with the, “human” portion being his assertion of his view for which he will argue).

When it comes to, “far off into the realm of science fiction” I could not agree more and yet, where speculation has gone tells us nothing about the validity or lack thereof of the original view. For my critique of the realm of sci-fi Nephilology, see my books such as, Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales and Nephilim and Giants as per Pop-Researchers: A Comprehensive Consideration of the claims of I.D.E. Thomas, Chuck Missler, Dante Fortson, Derek Gilbert, Brian Godawa, Patrick Heron, Thomas Horn, Ken Johnson, L.A. Marzulli, Josh Peck, CK Quarterman, Steve Quayle, Rob Skiba, Gary Wayne, Jim Wilhelmsen, et al.

He is of the subjective opinion that, “To believe that the Nephilim were somehow the offspring of angelic and human sexual unions, serves as more of a distraction away from the major themes of Scripture which all center on the person and work of Jesus Christ” for some unstated reason except the assertion that, “Any hermeneutic or exegesis that takes us down such rabbit trails with no gospel application does harm to the church.” Well, that is another subjective assertion and he also only asserted the implication that all hermeneutic or exegesis must contain gospel application. I suppose we could argue that the hermeneutic or exegesis about how much a spoon made for Temple weighed usage can somehow have gospel applications and benefit the church but such is exactly how we end up with wildly imaginative (mis)applications at various levels of abstraction.

He begins elucidating his view by answering, “How does the flow and context of Genesis chapter 5 and the concept of firstborn sons inform our understanding of the account in Genesis 6?”

His reply begins thusly, “It is important to note from the onset that in chapter 5 of Genesis we do not have a complete and exhaustive genealogy of every person born after Adam. Rather it is highlighting the succession of Able though Seth (the appointed replacement of Abel).” Indeed, biblical genealogies are not exponentially mathematical lists but serve a purpose and out of all of Adam and Eve’s children, we are only told specifics about three because there was something notable about them. The way Kevin put it is, “These firstborn sons I will argue are a holy seed. I am using the word holy here in the sense of being set apart” in term of how, “holy seed is used in Ezra 9:3 to refer to the Levites, the priestly class” so that, “our Genesis 5 and 6 texts are thematically connected to the issue in Ezra 9.”

That is such that, “Able’s sacrifice…is according to faith…Abel’s blood speaks even still…continues to teach us (Hebrews 12:24)…Teaching of course being a priestly function (Lev 10:8-11, 2 Chron 15:3, 2 Chron 35:3, Neh 9:13)” yet, he has to admit, “Able is not the first born.”

He seeks to buttress that weak foundation by noting, “the Genesis 5 linage…would make clear to the original audience…at Sinai, that the idea of priesthood is being outlined here…Israelite firstborn sons held a priestly function” yet, there’s no indication that only first born men could be priests—in fact, as one example, “two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:3). And yet, Kevin asserts, “the idea of first born son is to be forever connected to the priesthood after Sinai.”

Then, “Another indication that Genesis 5 is thematically centered on priesthood comes from the words of Lamech (Genesis 5:29)” who’s, “words betray a hope for some kind of intersession, or atonement” since he stated, “called his name Noah, saying, ‘Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands’” (English Standard Version). Kevin considers this, “priestly propitiatory or atoning work.”

He then notes, “None of the sons of Seth have been successful priests who operated in such a way as to reverse the curse and fulfill the Genesis 3:15 promise…the failure of Seth’s line to undo the curse.” He adds, “Enoch’s [the one from the Sethite lineage] being pleasing in God’s site seems to have only been enough to rescue himself and not others.”

Thus, to Kevin, “The failure of these firstborn priestly sons, our holy seed as I am calling them, now becomes the backdrop for Genesis chapter 6.”

His take away is, “Chronologically, verses 1-7 of Genesis 6 are providing the historical narrative for the later half of Genesis 4 through Genesis 5.”

He then answers, “Does the grammatical structure of Genesis 6:2 point to a biblical theological understanding of sons of God as an elect people of God?”

His answer seeks to shows that, “Genesis 6 verse 2 is similar enough to Genesis 3:6 to warrant significant consideration” in terms of, “imagery” such as that, “sons of God” sought something, “seemingly forbidden” such as did Eve, he wrote, “the daughters of men were a forbidden fruit.”

Interestingly, he notes that such, “detail an early recapitulation of the fall of Adam” and footnotes, “Jude 11-16 which speaks of Enoch as a prophet speaking against the sins of false teachers. Specifically those who represent a false and half hearted religion like Cain and those who unite themselves to idolatrous women as in the days of Balaam. It would seem Enoch’s quarrel was in house among those first borns set apart as priests. Enoch’s being singled out in chapter 5 certainly draws a stark contrast between him and the others, all of whom lived and died without commentary.”

It is unfortunate that he bypassed Jude’s (6-7) reference to the sin of Angels and how he correlated it to sexual sin, “the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire.”

Kevin notes, “There is however, a far greater bulk of Scripture which demonstrate that the term sons of God mainly refers to elect humans” which is a non-issue since every language allows for a term or phrase to be used in more then one way, to refer to different things, etc.

Deuteronomy 32:5-8 reads:

They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people?

Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?

Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.

When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.

Kevin references:

Deuteronomy 32:5-8 where the NET [New English Translation] bible makes a note stating that the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scroll translators had different assumptions.

Qumran fragment has “sons of God,” while the LXX reads ἀγγέλων θεοῦ (angelōn theou, “angels of God”), presupposing אֵל נֵיבְּ (béney ’el) or ֵאִלים נֵיבְּ (beney ’elim).

“Sons of God” is undoubtedly the original reading; the MT and LXX have each interpreted it differently.

MT [Masoretic Text] assumes that the expression “sons of God” refers to Israel (cf. Hos. 1:10), while LXX [aka Septuagint] has assumed that the phrase refers to the angelic heavenly assembly.

One issue, that I will not resolve herein, is the question of just when, “When” was. See, if it was, say, when, “To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided” (Genesis 10:25) or, “its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9) then, “refers to Israel” could not be since there was no such thing as Israel back then. So, one would have to find some intra-Israel time wherein to fit that event.

Kevin urges us to reject, “theological assumptions and even worldview which is revealed in pseudepigrapha texts or other extra-biblical writings” since they, “must be seen as deeply flawed” due toa that, “2 Corinthians 3:14 informs us that the minds of these authors were hardened”: “But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.” Thus, that was about the Tanakh, the Old Testament/Covenant and his is also a redutio ad absurdum of a genetic fallacy since, “deeply flawed…hardened” does not mean that 100% of their views were false. See my book, The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts.

Kevin notes, “We must ask whether or not the use of sons of God in Genesis 6:2 fits into a broader theological development of the term Sons of God. In other words is the term sons of God in Genesis 6 introducing a theme or concept that will be developed throughout Scripture or is it merely a linguistic term the original readers would have already been familiar with?”

We could likewise, “ask whether or not the use of son of man in reference to the individual Ezekiel fits into a broader theological development of the term Son of Man. In other words is the term son of man in Ezekiel introducing a theme or concept that will be developed throughout Scripture or is it merely a linguistic term the original readers would have already been familiar with?” I propose that consideration since, of course, in Daniel (7:13-14) Son of Man is not a term for a mere human, such as Ezekiel, but of a Divine Being:

…with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.

And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Kevin’s view is, “the term sons of God in Genesis 6 would be developing the Fatherliness of God” just like the term son of man develops.

His view is that, “in Genesis…the term sons of God” should be viewed, “as referring to human beings.”

Kevin awkwardly argues, “As a biblical theological concept, the Fatherhood of God is almost exclusively used in relation to human beings who are patterned after The Son, Jesus Christ. In fact, what is lost and muted in the angelic view of Genesis 6 is the eternal Fatherhood of God for if God only became Father by creating angelic creatures He is not intrinsically a Father.”

Yet, he could just as easily complain, “As a biblical theological concept, the Fatherhood of God is almost exclusively used in relation to human beings who are patterned after The Son, Jesus Christ. In fact, what is lost and muted in the view that God created humans is the eternal Fatherhood of God for if God only became Father by creating humans He is not intrinsically a Father.”

Likewise for his argument, “Before creation He would have been unable to express love or enjoy fellowship and is thus dependent on creation to experience these things” which is an odd assertion, especially when he followed that with, “as three persons, eternally existing in perfect union, fellowship and love. Lacking nothing and completely satisfied in Himself. The Father, Son and Spirit create not out of need but to give and to share the love, fellowship, and goodness that exist with Himself” and on it goes: indeed, God did not create Angels nor humans (nor anyone/anything else) out of need, due to any sort of lacking, so I am unsure what Kevin’s point was—see my article The Original Trinitarian Metaethical Theory for Objective Morality.

He notes, “In the redemptive historical interpretation I am putting fourth, the sons of God in Genesis 6 are sinful men” but that is a late-comer of a view in terms of popularity: and no, that is not an argumentum ad populum since the reference is to personages ranging from anonymous apocryphal authors to Jude and Peter and from Rabbis to early church fathers, etc., so that they have a rightful say and it is not just a random show of hands.

I suppose we will have to wait to see if we are told anything more about these anonymous, “sinful men”—much less about who the, “daughters of men” were.

Kevin wrote, “The angelic view of Genesis 6 should be rejected because not only does it have no connection to the flow and development of this foundational revelation of who God is but also because it goes beyond having no connection to actually confusing and distracting from it.”

Well, sure, when such is asserted then such is asserted.

Yet, we might as well argue that Cherubim being stationed to guard the way into the Garden of Eden should be rejected, “because not only does it have no connection to the flow and development…” since that is the first mention of them by name/title (Genesis 3:24).

Thus, regardless of the Angel view or human view: the point is that sons of God did something of their own accord, correlated to seeing and taking, and were judged.

Now, it is interesting that he asserted, “sons of God in Genesis 6 are sinful men” only to then write, “in the NT as the Son of God and all whom are united to Him by faith become like Him, sons and daughters of God. Sons of God in the NT can be defined as the eschatological, blessed, adopted, exiled sinners who have been brought into the eternal kingdom of God and made priests forever (Revelation 1:6)” which is not the case with, “sons of God in Genesis 6.”

Thus, he is forced to assert an out, “The promise of sonship in the NT is a promise of restoration and reversal.”

At this point, he, again, is forced to admit, even if vaguely, “It is Genesis 6 which first introduces the term sons of God and while there are occasions like in Job where it takes on an alternative meaning” yet, we recall that the alternative meaning was stated by him as, “the term sons of God is used in Job 1 in reference to angels”—to which we can add, at least, Job chaps 2 and 38.

We next come to Kevin’s answer to, “What is the great sin being committed by the sons of God in taking the daughters of men as wives?”

His reply includes, “The sons of God are beholding that which is seemingly forbidden” about which he generically notes, “We are inferring that the daughters of men are forbidden because of the allusion to Genesis.”

There are no allusion in/to Genesis that the daughters of men are forbidden since it is more of a case of that the sons of God, “sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.”

Yet, Kevin argues, “If the Sons of God in Genesis 6:2 are in fact, as we have argued, first born sons of Adam set apart for a priestly function, then the taking of the daughters of men fits nicely with the sins of the ‘holy seed’ and priests we see elsewhere throughout the historical narrative of God’s word.” Yet, how is that the case if, “the sons of God in Genesis 6 are sinful men”?
He is forced to admit, “The command to Israel as a whole not to take foreign wives comes in Deut 7:1-16, long after the events of Genesis 6…Moses is spoken against because of his foreign wife in Numbers 12:1.16.”

Kevin well noted that, “The issue of course is not one of genetic blood lines,” at least not post-flood.

Another, “long after the events of Genesis 6” text is, “1 Kings 11:1-3 illustrates that what is deemed a ‘foreign’ wife is one that is an outsider to the covenant and not devoted to the worship of Yahweh.”

So who were those wives of, “holy seed” who were, “sinful”? Well, he comes to that, “the term ‘daughters of men’ should be understood as idolatrous women, or non-God fearers.”

Well, if the sons of God were sinful then what would have been the problem with them marrying sinful women? It’s a match made in… well, h, e, double-hokey sticks.

Kevin does add (within a footnote), “there is no commandment recorded forbidding the taking of non-God fearing women…The commandment against foreign wives would come later to Israel. For the Israelites looking back on the Genesis account however we can assume” qualifying term, “that they would pick up on the danger and destruction caused by the practice.”

He then argues, “To insist that the issue taking place in Genesis 6 with the sons of God is one of corrupted DNA and the defiling of the genetic blood line is beyond problematic and presents a version of God where He is greatly concerned with racial purity at the expense of heart purity and righteousness.”

Well, that is a myopic false dichotomy since it can easily be said that, “God…is greatly concerned with racial purity” pre-flood, as well as, “heart purity and righteousness.”

Recall that Kevin referred to the sinful human sons of God as, “holy seed,” he went on to note, “The phrase ‘holy seed’ I have used thus far…comes from Ezra 9:3 where surprisingly It is used seemingly in reference only to the Levites…[who] have repeated the sins of their forefathers. A sin which I am arguing goes all the way back to Genesis 6 in the taking of the daughters of men.” Thus, holy-unholy holy-sinful seed.

He then answers the question, “Didn’t Peter Teach the Angelic View?”

Succinctly stated, “Peter’s argument here…offers little help in understanding much about the events surrounding the flood in Noah’s day.” The, “here” refers to what he specifies as 1 Peter 3:18-22, 4:2 and 5:10 (note that he bypassed chap 2 which mentions the sinful Angels) some key points of which are:

Christ…went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah…Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him…

…live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God…

…after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

Even bypassing chap 2, we get something about, “the spirits in prison” who, “did not obey” during, “the days of Noah” regarding the, “water” of the flood, with reference to, “angels, authorities, and powers” regarding, “human passions.”

Kevin notes, “What we can say is that there is fair argument to support the belief that the spirits in prison is a reference to nonhuman beings or fallen angels. The reason is based on the fact that the term ‘spirits’ is almost always used in the NT with clear reference to non-human beings.”

In case a discerning reader caught it, I had noted, “Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such is not their ontology.” Yet, even Kevin recognizes, “there is fair argument to support the belief that the spirits in prison is a reference to nonhuman beings or fallen angels.”

Yet, we do not outweigh every single physical description of Angels as physical beings by appealing to one single word to the contrary to the effect that they are spirits. This is when we apply what I also already noted, “every language allows for a term or phrase to be used in more then one way, to refer to different things, etc.” Thus, Peter’s reference to seemingly Angels as, “spirits” (πνεῦμα/pneuma) does not change what has been implied about their ontology in every other of the many references to them.

Interestingly, Kevin notes, “1 Corinthians 14:32 where ‘spirits’ is used in reference to the spirits of the” physical human, “prophets. Then also in Hebrews 12:23 with reference to perfected” physical human, “Saints.”

He emphasizes, “it is certainly possible that 1 Peter 3:19 is referring to nonhuman beings or demonic spirits the context of the passage itself allows for ‘spirits’ to fit either angelic or human beings.”

Kevin’s take-away is, “imprisoned spirits…more naturally understood as those humans judged in the flood.”

He notes, “It is also possible that Peter may have had 1 Enoch 1:9, 10:1-10 in mind. If so this only complicates the matter furthur as Jude 14 declares Enoch to be a preacher against false teachers, that is human beings” yet, the only thing Jude notes about Enoch is, “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’”

So, it is a case of Jude preaching against false teachers and appealing to Enoch—who seems to have been paraphrasing Deut 33:2, “The Lord came from Sinai and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran; he came from the ten thousands of holy ones, with flaming fire at his right hand.”

He notes, “In any event, [in] Peter…There is no reference or allusion to the sons of God in Genesis 6, nor to the Nephilim” and yet, as I already noted, he is part of the reason we understand that Angels sinned a sin correlated to sexual sin and he is the one that puts that sin to pre-flood days.

Kevin does get into that section next from which I will quote key portions from chap 2:

God did not spare angels when they sinned…he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah…he brought a flood upon the world…turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes…rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct…

Thus, the chronology is: Angels’ sin, flood, Sodom and Gomorrah.

Kevin wrote, “The ordering of the three accounts suggests a chronology and thus separating the judgment in Noah’s time from an earlier judgment which took place against sinful angels.”

Well, that is a bit too succinct: when did Angels sin? It is a bit unclear but the timeline in Gen 6:1 is whenever it was that, “man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them” which is safe to say was before Noah’s time. Also, Jude and Peter do not tell us the when of when the Angels were incarcerated but the flood, or prior to it, would be safe assumptions since the flood, at the latest, was when God was cleaning house, as it were.

Thus, there may have been a period of years, decades, or centuries between the sin and incarceration of Angels or it may have been hours or days: regardless, that sin dates to pre-flood days.

Now Kevin admits, “The angels being committed to chains and awaiting of judgment we see here in 2 Peter 2:4 do appear to describe the same imprisoned spirits of 1 Peter 3:19-20. It would not be unreasonable to conclude as such.”

And yet, he tends to attempt to get away from things he must admit by appealing to qualifying terms in terms of appealing to perhaps-maybe-possibly such as, in this case, “the 2 Peter 2 passage puts the timing of the judgment of the angelic beings before the time of Noah, possibly at the dawn of creation or prior to Genesis” (emphasis added for emphasis) which, as we just saw, it simply not the case: there is no indication of that.

In fact, he notes, “the prison terminology would be an accurate way to describe both the state of humans in Sheol awaiting judgment, and the condition of fallen angels it cannot be said emphatically that Peter was using such language to describe two separate conditions” and yet, of course he was because he specifies Tartarus.

Now, what is Tartarus? Well, we cannot conclude that it refers to Sheol which is a generic term for the grave where all humans went post-death. In the Bible, Tartarus is a hapax legomenon referring to that it is a word that only appears one time in the entire text of the whole Bible. Thus, we cannot appeal to other biblical usages for elucidation. We are left to assume that Peter was speaking to his Greek audience who would have know that as per Geek mythology, Tartarus is the styled lowest place of the Abyss where the really bad dudes go: such as Titans and fallen gods/Angels.

Kevin concludes, “the Petrine letters do not speak or allude to sons of God or the Nephilim” yet, they place the sin of Angels to pre-flood days which match the Gen 6 affair (as I term it).

We then come to Kevin’s reply to, “Who are the Nephilim really?”—about which I will note that they, “are” present tense, nothing so the question is who were they, past tense.

Here he falls into another false dichotomy, “two important details for interpretation. The first is that the Nephilim are the offspring of the marital and sexual union of the sons of God and daughters of men. Second, these Nephilim were men. And third they were not just any men but mighty warriors and men of (םשֵׁ) name that is reputation.” The horn-splitting third way is that they were offspring of those marital and sexual unions and were men, mighty warriors and men of name/reputation. FYI: biblically, humans, Angels, and Nephilim are all referred to as man/men.

Kevin seeks to buttress his point but actually weakens it since he added, “It should also be noted that the term mighty warrior is used immediately post flood (Genesis 10:8) to describe Nimrod who built the wicked tower of Babel as part of his expanding kingdom.” But this does not prove that Nimrod was a 100% human Nephil (nor was he a half-human half-Angel Nephil since they did not make it past the flood) and just shows that the term gibbor (גִּבּוֹר) is just a descriptive term: it is applied to Angels, Nephilim, humans such as some of David’s soldiers, Gideon, Boaz, and even to God Himself (Isa 9: El Gibbor).

Kevin adds, “the term warrior connotes war. Joshua 10:7, and Judges 11:1 both use the same word ‘warrior’ to describe humans characterized by their military accomplishments.” Sure, yet, gibbor means mighty not specifically, “mighty warrior” and Nephilim are never referred to as warriors (even if they were).

Now, having made various fallacious arguments along the way and now coupling them to a fallacious strictly linguistic argument—Nephilim were gibborim, Nimrod became a gibbor ergo, Nirmod was a Nephil—he can take Nephilim right past the flood since he has allowed himself to refer to anyone who was mighty post-flood as a Nephil—which would make us wonder why there is only one single verse post-flood that employs the term Nephilim.

His example is, “Nimrod who united all the world for the building of an abominable tower to heaven” even though there is no indication Nimrod had anything to do with that tower.

He then loops to, “admittedly Jude 6 speaks of angels who have forfeited their domain and authority and were thus put in chains” yet, he does not tell us what their sin was—not here nor when referring to Peter’s statements.

Again, there is only a one-time sin of Angels in the Bible so if the Gen 6 affair was not it then we do not know anything about it.

Just in case: some claim a pre-historical, pre-Adamic, pre-Earth’s creation sin of Angels in terms of a war in heaven but there is no indication of any such thing. The only such reference is Rev 12 wherein that war is a post-Jesus’ ascension event (likely after the incarcerated Angels are released, as per symbolism in Rev 9—see my book What Does the Bible Say About Angels? book and or my book What Does the Bible Say About Demons? A Styled Demonoloy).

Kevin’s conclusion is, “The firstborn sons from Seth to Noah embodied the hope for bringing truth and redemption to mankind but by abandoning the faith of Able and choosing to unite themselves to pagan women they thus produced warlords.”

Apparently, there were no attractive post-Ableites and no attractive male Pagans since the bifurcation is strictly males on one side of the equation and strictly females on the other. Well, the Angel view makes sense of this since, again, Angels look like human males.

He then gets into that, “The physical stature of the Nephilim is not mentioned in Genesis. It would seem that the size and stature associated with the Nephilim came later on in time, which fits well with what you would expect from cultures formed by war and conquest. Battle tends to thin the weak out from the herd. The emphasis in the Genesis text is not on the stature of the Nephilim, but their power and reputation. Only centuries later In Numbers 13:32 do we see a description of the Nephilim that mentions their size.”

Indeed, so that brings us back to the issue of, “a race of gigantic human beings” which he could not have based on Gen 6, as he rightly just noted. And for those English readers who merely assume that since their English Bible has, “giants” in Gen 6:4, they can merely imagine to what that refers, tend to imagine some tall-tale, and apply that to the Bible well, remember the questions: what is the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word, “giants” in English Bibles? What is any given person’s usage? Do those two usages agree?

In English Bibles it merely renders (does not even translate) Nephilim in 2 verses or Repha/im in 98% of all others and so never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.

Kevin’s and the average personages’ usage is something un-specifically generic about vaguely being taller than the subjective average: which is as meaningless as it sounds—so, it is a best practice to ignore the term giants and just say what you mean.

So, do the usages agree: no.

Kevin concludes, “Goliath is surely a Nephilim but not because of his height and weight. He is such because he is a mighty man of war with a name” given his unique assertions about what is a Nephil. He added, “Surely no one would genuinely argue that Goliath is the result of some sexual union of human and angel” well, no he was not, in fact, he was a Repha (we are told that virtually every time he is mentioned: Kevn notes, “1 Chron 20:4-8 tells us that Goliath and his brother Lahmi were decedents of men. Namely their forefather Rapha” when comes the name of the tribe, Rephaim) but while the arguments are not genuine, as in cogent, pop-post-flood-Nephilologisist do assert that Goliath was either, “is the result of some sexual union of human and angel” or somehow (impossibly) from that lineage since pop-post-flood-Nephilology is just un-biblical sci-fi tall-tales that are sold to Christians.

He notes, “Even more bizarre would be the suggestion the somehow such a union would produce exceptionally large men of stature” for which there really is no indication—even when exceptionally and large are both vague, generic, and subjective terms.

Angels look like human males and human women look like human woman so given slight variations in height: there is no reason to think that Nephilim were any taller than the subjective average.

Kevin concludes, “The Nephilim are indeed a curse upon the earth but not because of some genetic tampering” but if that was the case then, again, why does the term Nephilim only appear in only one post-flood verse?

Oddly, he did not deal with that verse so I will make some comments about it, just in case and because I denied post-flood Nephilim but affirmed a post-flood reference to them.

Now, a reference is just that: a reference. I can refer to the first POTUS Washington right now but that does not mean that he is alive.

Num 13:33 typically reads, “there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

Num 13:33 is:

1. one sentence
2. typically quoted form a non-LXX version: since the LXX lacks a reference to Anakim in that verse
3. from an evil report
4. stated by unreliable guys
5. whom God rebuked
6. who contradicted Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible

And I could go on (and on and on) and did so in my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.

Nephilim did not make it past the flood in any way, shape, or form—or by any other name or proposed ontology—since God did not fail, did not miss a loophole, the flood was not much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.

Kevin’s overall conclusion includes, “God’s elect priestly class” became corrupt which resulted in, “sending future generations further into pagan darkness” even though we actually do not have any indication that the daughters of men were Pagan idolaters or anything beyond the then run-of-the-mill mix of corrupted people—sans Noah and those in the ark with him.

Thus, overall, we saw Kevin arguing himself in a corner, having to admit he was cornered, having to literally make up ways to seem to himself to have turned away from the corners all whilst making odd arguments that ignored some key points and misrepresented some data points.

See my various books here.

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Clare Coffey wrote an article titled Who Wants to Believe in UFOs? for The New Atlantis—“The purpose of The New Atlantis is to offer clarity and guidance at a moment when we seem to be losing confidence in one of the pillars of modern civilization. It is our hope to help us all — as citizens, scientists, policymakers, and human beings — to deal more wisely and more creatively with both the burdens and the blessings of modern science and technology.”

I must say I’m more interested in how Nephilim got looped into this: especially when the article notes, “A duo of New York Times articles in December 2017 is as good as any starting point to mark. One piece discussed Navy pilot encounters with aerial objects that accelerated and maneuvered in ways that should have been impossible. The other detailed a shadowy alien-investigation program inside the Pentagon, headed by Luis Elizondo, supported by Senator Harry Reid, and involving military–industrial complex giant Robert Bigelow.”

Yes, discredited New York Times articles about a guy, Elizondo, who made a living by being professional manipulator as an intelligence agent and who made his entry into the public world of making money for his retirement by merely asserting that he headed a supposed program that was just an, “activity” like a hobby, etc., etc., etc.

Don’t get me wrong, Coffey does on to note, “The articles felt explosive, but weren’t. Or perhaps the opposite: the articles may have been objectively socially explosive in the way they re-positioned UFOs in public discourse, but the emotional catharsis and epistemic breakthrough of an open, public declaration by the powers that be that they’re here was once again postponed.”

It was just another stinking layer of a misinfo and discinfo onion.
In fact, Coffey notes, “Nevertheless, after the 2017 articles, history continued to repeat itself without really rising to the level of either tragedy or farce.”

And I wrote the book Fifty Shades of Gray Aliens so I’ve seen quite enough of such stuff.
Coffey notes:

The TV show Ancient Aliens is both an early sign of the coming shift from the explorer to the esotericist model, and, in the final analysis, a piece of explorer media. Like the esotericists…Ancient Aliens is fascinated by ancient texts and global myth.

But unlike the esotericists, the explanation for everything is, in the end, a spaceship.

Pyramids? Built by spaceships. Strange carvings on a crumbling megalith depicting a descending god? Guy in a spaceship. A flaming wheel appearing to the prophet Ezekiel? Classic misidentified spaceship.
It’s the same in pop-Nephilology—which is un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales: Pyramids? Built by fallen Angels and/or Nephilim. Strange carvings on a crumbling megalith depicting a descending god? fallen Angels and/or Nephilim guys. In fact, spaceships fallen Angels and/or Nephilim getting one over on God since he wanted to be rid of Nephilim but failed since He missed that loophole—or, something.

Coffey notes:
In 2012, former policeman David Paulides started publishing a book series called Missing 411, claiming that unexplained disappearances in National Parks and the North American wilderness shared certain seemingly irrelevant but predictable characteristics (near granite or near water) and should be investigated as the result of some yet unknown phenomenon. His work has been roundly dunked on by data scientists,[endnote, “… which of course makes people with brainworms like mine more sympathetic than they were before”] but it has also been adapted into full-length documentaries.

A few years ago, a TikTok-er went viral offering a condensed version of Paulides’s work, which in the comments quickly got linked to major cave systems and speculation that Teddy Roosevelt created the National Parks in order to control, monitor, and limit contact with the horrible Things living in the caves.[endnote, “The National Parks Service are not, as they seem, a group of wholesome, outdoorsy, Dudley Do-Right civil servants. They are Tolkienesque Park Rangers of the North, they are The Dark Knight in hip waders, mounting a ceaseless and thankless watch to keep us mostly safe from the goblin menace. Frankly, I think that’s great and we should do something similar for postal clerks”]

In the diffuse, multi-site commentary surrounding these viral TikToks, someone, as I recall, suggested that this subterranean menace might be one and the same as the culprits behind an infamous UFO encounter known as the Hopkinsville Goblin incident.

This is the classic esotericist move: someone in the comments section explaining a famous UFO case with reference to a seemingly unrelated kind of alleged fringe phenomenon, filtered through some number of social media popularizers, reaching towards a theory that accounts for both.
Now, to the point of most interest to me as a Systematic Biblical Paranormologist:

Michael Heiser, a devout and orthodox evangelical Biblical scholar…did produce a UFO podcast up until his recent death, but his importance stems not from the hobby podcast but from his regular theological work.

Heiser’s 2015 book The Unseen Realm and subsequent publications were groundbreaking: they provided a simultaneously scholarly, readable, and recognizably Christian framework for acknowledging and interpreting the decidedly weirder parts of the Bible…
It would not surprise me if Heiser’s work were in an indirect way responsible for the rise of one of the most dominant esotericist UFO theories: the one about the Nephilim.

As I’ve oft noted, how anyone could read Heiser and not learn something would be beyond me. Yet, while Heiser was credentialed and experienced but not infallible, his Nephilology wasn’t biblical, and he tended to create more problems than he solved—search online for these articles for examples:

Review of Amy Richter and Michael Heiser on four Enochian Watcher related women in Jesus’ genealogy

Rebuttal to Dr. Michael Heiser’s “All I Want for Christmas is Another Flawed Nephilim Rebuttal”

I also included him in my book The Scholarly Academic Nephilim and Giants: What do Scholarly Academics Say About Nephilim Giants?

Actually, “the rise of one of the most dominant esotericist UFO theories: the one about the Nephilim” began, at least, as far back as the 1970s although Heiser may have given it a recent jolt and also critiqued some, “esotericist UFO theories” such as those of Zecharia Sitchin who he challenged to debate—and had that challenge open for a decade without Sitchin ever accepting.

Here are toms relevant Coffey statements:

Return of the Giants…
The Nephilim show up in Genesis, and, at much greater length, in the (mostly) nonbiblical book of Enoch — the Ethiopian Orthodox are probably the most significant church that does accept Enoch as canonical. In Enoch, we learn about certain sons of God, a rebel faction of God’s mysterious angelic watchers.

Instead of overseeing humans, as the good watchers do, this faction has given humans cosmetics, weaponry, sorcery — in short, initiating them into technological acceleration. In Genesis, the Nephilim — sometimes translated simply as “giants” — are the monstrous result of illicit procreation between these rebel watchers and human women.

They are not, to put it mildly, good actors. It is to destroy the Nephilim giants that God floods the world in the days of Noah.
In the Nephilim theory of UFOs, when we hear accounts of people abducted, taken up to the heavens, shown impossible physical capabilities, subjected to invasive reproductive procedures for unclear ends, given messages for humanity, confused and traumatized, what we are seeing is the watchers, the fathers of the Nephilim, up to their old tricks for a new society.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. (Though the theory is mostly about the watchers, the “sons of God” and fathers of the Nephilim, the term “Nephilim” has come to serve as a popular metonymy for anything relating to this story.)
The reference to, “Giants” begs these questions: What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Coffey’s or Heiser’s or any given users’ usage? Do those two usages agree?

That 1 Enoch aka Ethiopic Enoch is in the Ethiopian canon doesn’t make that one canon uniquely correct but rather, uniquely incorrect since 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from millennia after the Torah (see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch) in fact, that cannon also contains a text titled The Life of Adam and Eve which claims that when God created Adam, God commanded the Angels to worship Adam. It also contains 2 Enoch which claims that the reason God created was because God was alone and didn’t find peace within Himself.

The term. “angelic watchers” is fair enough for common parlance but it’s redundant since Watchers is just a Second Temple Era aka for Angels.

Note the MO of pop-UFOlogy-Nephilologists:

1. “It is to destroy the Nephilim giants that God floods the world in the days of Noah.”
2. God must have failed and missed the UFO loophole so the flood was much of a waste since, “the watchers” are “up to their old tricks.”

Well, of course they’re not since God didn’t fail, Jude and 2 Peter 2 tell us they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible.

Coffey concludes:

It is easy to see why the Nephilim became a popular speculative touchpoint for UFO esotericists.

The theory accounts for the high-handed way in which the UFO phenomenon seems to interact with its human targets, and provides a framework for many of the bizarre recurring motifs in UFO abductee accounts.

It saves the appearance (in the medieval astronomer sense) of UFOs as a trickster phenomenon, shrouded in illusion, “messengers of deception,” in [Jaques] Vallée’s phrase.

Not to mention—okay, mentioning—that the pop-Nephilology cottage industry is lucrative as h, e, double hokey sticks.

Yet, if you established a ministry on Nephilology, you’ll very, very soon run out of material—right after you quote the mere two sentences about them in the Bible—so, you’ll have to appeal to folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah and then vacuum up any and all cryptozoology. As Coffey put it, “It allows esotericists to rescue and revise the technological framework of the explorers, in which modern UFOlogy was born. It offers tantalizing possibilities that can be extended and combined with other stories and theories.”

He also refers to how think, “UFO beliefs are beginning to take on the trappings and form of a new religion…interest or belief in UFOs is purely and simply the search for a substitute for religion in a godless age.”

See my various books here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby.

If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help out.

Here is my donate/paypal page.

You can comment here and/or on my Twitter/X page, on my Facebook page, or any of my other social network sites all which are available here.