Month: December 2025

Undergoing consideration is Chapter Twelve: Angelology: Doctrine of Angels, Demons, and Satan from R.P. Nettelhorst’s book Does God Have a Long Nose?—he is a Professor of Bible at the Southern Baptist Quartz Hill Community Church.

Interesting, he beings the chapter by quoting Billy Graham to the affect that, “When I decided to preach a sermon on angels, I found practically nothing in my library” and what interested me about his take on these subjects is that I have written the following relevant books:

What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology

What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology

What Does the Bible Say About Demons? A Styled Demonology

What Does the Bible Say About the Devil Satan? A Styled Satanology

What Does the Bible Say About Various Paranormal Entities? A Styled Paranormology

What Does the Bible Say About Heaven and Hell? A Styled A Styled Superumology and Infernology

The Paranormal in Early Jewish and Christian Commentaries: Over a Millennia’s Worth of Comments on Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Satan, the Devil, Demons, the Serpent and the Dragon

He rightly notes, “the Bible gives us very limited information about angels,” et al.: this means that we are to take what precious little we are told very carefully and that if we must speculate, we must do so very close to the vest, as it were.

He notes:

The Hebrew word for angel is mala’ak; in meaning it is equivalent to the Greek word, angelos from which the English word is obviously derived. However, in both Hebrew and Greek, the term simply means “messenger” and was used for both God’s messengers as well as those of a king or ruler on Earth…

Three other terms are found in the Old Testament for angel. Seraphim (singular Seraph) simply means “flame”. It only shows up twice, both times in Isaiah, and both times in one chapter: Isaiah 6:2 and 6.

The second term is considerably more common, and is transliterated into English as “Cherub”; it is these angels that are described as particularly unusual to look at; Ezekiel 1:4-28 contains the most detailed description we have of them. Whether this is their normal appearance, it’s hard to say.

They reappear in Revelation in virtually the same form. They appear most frequently, though, as a decoration used in the temple…

The third term that is generally thought to refer to angels is found in only a handful of places. It is usually – though not always – translated as “the sons of God”.

The chapter is supposed to be about Angels, Demons, and Satan so that Seraphim and Cherubim do not belong therein since it is not a case of, “Three other terms…for angel” since, by definition, Seraphim and Cherubim are not Angels, they are Seraphim and Cherubim. Thus, that was a category error since these three differ in at least three ways: different job titles, different job functions, and different morphologies.

The sons of God issue is where that which I term the Gen 6 affair comes into play as Prof R.P. Nettelhorst wrote:

How to understand the term is a topic of great controversy, especially in Genesis 6:1-4, where the reader is told that the sons of God had sex with the daughters of men:

When men began to increase in number on the Earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

Then Yahweh said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

The Nephilim were on the Earth in those days – and also afterward – when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

He elucidates:

Three possible explanations for this incident have been proposed:

Theory One

1. The sons of God are the sons of Seth.

2. The daughters of men are the descendants of Cain.

3. The sin in view is the marriage of the holy to the unholy (see Deut. 7:1-6; Gen. 34:9; Josh. 23:12; 1 Kings 11:2; Ezra 9:14; and 2 Cor. 6:14-18).

4. The lines of evidence given to support this position are as follows: a) the concept of a holy line seems to have been established with the distinction made between the genealogy of Seth and that of Cain; and b) the sin of marriage of the holy to the unholy becomes a common theme throughout the Pentateuch.

5. But, there are some serious problems with this theory of two human lines:

a) the term “sons of God” cannot be demonstrated to mean “the line of Seth”, or a holy line of people, any place else in the Bible.

b) There is no evidence that the lines of Cain and Seth remained totally separate. The theory also fails to account for the many other children Adam and Eve had besides Seth and Cain (Gen. 5:4).

c) It cannot be demonstrated that God had begun working through only one line at this early period of history.

d) The term for “men” used in this passage is general, with no demonstrated special meaning. There would have to be some evidence elsewhere in the Bible in order to legitimately narrow its meaning here to “Cain” or “the unredeemed”.

e) Finally, and most damning, is the underlying false theological presupposition, that a line of people could be wholly wicked, with no possibility of redemption. This smacks of both racism and salvation by works – neither of which is a biblical concept.

I am unsure if it matters, but I am unsure why the Sethite view is Theory One since it is a late-comer—and based on myth and prejudice.

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.

I qualified as myth and prejudice since there is no indication that the sons (note the all-encompassing plural) of Seth were holy and descendants of Cain were unholy.

Thus, while this view merely asserts such lines, there is no actual indication that biblically, “the concept of a holy line seems to have been established with the distinction made between the genealogy of Seth and that of Cain.”

Next up is:

Theory Two

1. The “sons of God” are dynastic rulers.

2. The “daughters of men” are commoners.

3. The sin in view is polygamy.

4. The evidence for this view is that magistrates or rulers

are often referred to as gods or the offspring of gods in the Ancient Near East (Note Ex. 21:6; 22:8-9; and Psalm 82:1, 6).

5. The problem with this second theory is twofold: one, kingship has not been expressed in any way in this passage or in the preceding, and two, Scripture does not consider kings to be the actual sons of a deity, nor does Scripture accept such designations as legitimate. One of the striking differences between the kings of Israel and the neighboring kings of other lands was that Israel’s rulers didn’t claim divinity.

While this is a very, very early theory, it was not popularized early on, but did not catch on, and suffer from that which was pointed out.

Lastly, (of the three that the Prof covers) is:

Theory Three

1. The “sons of God” are fallen angels.

2. The “daughters of men” are mortal women.

3. The sin in view is the marriage between supernatural and natural.

4. The evidence for this view is: a) “sons of God”, in all other Old Testament passages, means “angels” (see Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Psalm 29:1; 89:7; Daniel 3:25); b) Jude 6-7, 1 Peter 3:19- 20, and 2 Peter 2:4-6 seem to refer to the incident as an interaction between fallen angels and people.

Notice that Jude 7 reports that “in a similar way” to what happened before the flood, the people of Sodom perverted themselves (they also desired sex with angels: Genesis 19:5); and finally c) Jesus in Matthew 22:30 says that angels do not marry; he doesn’t say they are incapable of sex; furthermore he is discussing the righteous angels, not the unrighteous demons (besides, the point of Christ’s argument is that people will not marry in heaven – he is not intent on discussing the sexual habits of the angels).

5. The problems with this third theory are, one, that it gives a somewhat mythological tone to the story, and two, that there had not been a previous mention of angels in the narrative.

Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that sons of God can refer to non-human beings (which the LXX has as Angeloi: plural of Angelos) since they, at the very least, witnessed the creation of the Earth.

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.

So, if they are not referring to the Gen 6 affair, we have no idea to what sin they are referring.

It is actually not the case that, “Jesus in Matthew 22:30 says that angels do not marry” so a more direct way to counter that objection is to note that His statement was very detailed, very nuanced, He employed qualifying terms in referring to, “the angels of God in heaven.”

So, not all 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.

As for, “discussing the righteous angels, not the unrighteous demons” well, the Gen 6 affair was about Angels, not demons: the latter did not even exist at the time (see my article Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?) and demons cannot physically mate since, by definition, they are spirits while Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such is not their ontology—see my book Angelology book.

As for, “gives a somewhat mythological tone”: it seems that key question is, “So what of it?” and to note that if it gives a somewhat mythological tone it would be because latter myth played off of the actual historical occurrence. Thus, it would be a case of that myth gives a somewhat historical/biblical tone.

And as for, “there had not been a previous mention of angels in the narrative” that is a non-objection since the very same thing could be said about any given character or event that is first mentioned when they are/it is first mentioned—such as when the serpent (Satan, the Cherub) is first mentioned.

As R.P. Nettelhorst put it, “there is a first time for everything.”

Of the Angel view, he concludes, “I believe, therefore, that theory three has the strongest arguments in its favor, and it seems the most natural reading of the text.”

He then notes:

Named Angels

Only two angels are mentioned by name in the Bible. Michael – whose name means “who is like God?” – is mentioned in Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1, Jude 9, and Revelation 12:7. Gabriel, “soldier of God”, is mentioned in Daniel 8:16; 9:21, Luke 1:19 and 26.

Actually, another is, “the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon” (Rev 9). And another possible one is, “a great star fell from heaven…The name of the star is Wormwood” (Rev 8) assuming that star refers to an Angel since Rev 1 notes, “stars are the angels” when contextually allowable.

As noted, Angels are always described as human males yet, Prof R.P. Nettelhorst notes, “they are predominantly male (there are a couple of references in Zechariah that appear to be feminine: see Zech. 5:5-10 and 6:4-5).”

The relevant portion is really only this, “Then the angel who talked with me came forward and said to me, ‘Lift your eyes…two women coming forward! The wind was in their wings. They had wings like the wings of a stork.’”

Angels are always described as human males which includes not having wings. Ergo, if they are not male and have winds, they are not Angels by definition. That Zech text is a wholly visionary experience so there is no indication that we are to take any of it as literally describing literal three dimensional characters. Conversely, the descriptions of Angels we get are actual literal three dimensional descriptions.

He then goes back to non-Angels which he categorizes as Angels, “angels are frightening, at least sometimes. Ezekiel gives us a description of the Cherubim in Ezekiel 1:4-28…their basic form is that of a human biped (1:5), but they have four faces (1:6) and four wings (1:6). Their feet look something like those of a calf (cloven hooves?) and are shiny, as if they are made of burnished bronze (1:7).”

To this, he appends, “When an angel appears to someone, often one of the first things he has to say is ‘do not be afraid’” but that is a non-sequitur based on a faulty premise. He argued that, “angels are frightening” ergo, “one of the first things he has to say is ‘do not be afraid.’” Yet, again, Cherubim are not Angels and the few times Angels do say do not be afraid the context is that a person was alone and suddenly, someone was there so they are startled—there is no indication that it pertained to the Angels appearance.

He notes, “angels most often take on human form – or have human form” the latter of which is the case. Those who insist that, “angels…take on human form” are first reading of Angels who look just like human males, are then merely assuming that Angels are spirits (typically based on one single poorly translated modern English word) and seeking to combine the two, they insert that angels…take on human form into the Bible which never even hints at any such thing.

Moving on to, “Where Did the Devil Come From?” his first reply is to move the goalpost from the Devil to, “Satan is first mentioned by ‘name’ in Job 1:6-7.” Now, chronologically that assumes that Job’s usage came first so that gets into the issue of when any given text that mentions Satan was written. And it was only a linguistics goalpost move since Rev chaps 12 and 20 do refer to, “the great dragon…that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan.”

He adds, “The only other place that Satan is mentioned in the Old Testament is Zechariah 3:1-2” but, of course, that is only linguistic: the being is mentioned various other places, by any other name/title.

In fact, the Prof notes, “His actual first appearance in the Bible is generally assumed to be at the very beginning, in the form of a serpent, when he convinces Eve to doubt God’s goodness. If this serpent is indeed Satan (there is no explicit biblical indication that it is)…”

Well, Ezek 28 would certainly seem to imply or directly identify the serpent as such since it notes, “You were in Eden, the garden of God…You were an anointed guardian cherub…O guardian cherub”—for insightful details, see my chapter sample The Apocalypse of the Hidden Hand: The Bible’s teaching on the spiritual sovereign behind the human sovereign which along with my Satanology book, touches upon what Prof R.P. Nettelhorst wrote in his, “How Did the Devil Turn Bad?” section.

In section, “What Do Demons Do?” he noted:

Scripturally, one never finds demons taking possession of places, objects, books, or buildings. Instead, they associate themselves exclusively with people, except for one brief instance (Mark 5, Luke 8) when they took over a herd of pigs which promptly committed suicide en masse.

Consequently, I find it hard to take seriously those who claim to find evidence of demon activity based on certain “unwholesome” items in their homes. The only problem with “unwholesome” items is that they are unwholesome. Demons have nothing to do with that fact.

That is technically a bit tricky since while, “Scripturally, one never finds demons taking possession of…objects, books, or buildings” they may be able to be said to be taking possession of places since it certainly seems that they are what we might term territorial.

What it would mean that they are taking possession of places is that they are particularly active in such places. Different Pagan nations had different what I termed spiritual sovereigns.

We are told, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12) and of, “thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” (Col 1) which seem to imply having charge of different regions such, for example, that of the Archangel (about whom Jude noted the, “Archangel Michael”) since Daniel was told, “Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people” (Daniel 12).

And this is the point at which this review ends since it covered the most telling parts.

See my various books here.

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A certain Paul (who’s bio notes, in part, “have been a pastor of two small congregations (in Iowa and Michigan) for a total of 12 ½ years, and a missionary in Honduras and Mexico for a total of 6 years. All of these years were with the Brethren in Christ denomination”) runs the Tough Bible Stuff site on which he posted an article titled Troublesome Topic: HOW SHOULD WE INTERPRET NUMBERS 13:33?

He quotes Num 13:33 thusly:

And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak were from the Nephilim), and we were in our own sight like grasshoppers, so we were in their sight.

At Nephilim he has a footnote which reads, “This word means ‘to bow down’. They bowed down to false gods, and they forced others to bow down to them.” That is rather odd and asks too much of the plural form of napha: fallen/feller/to cause to fall, etc.

​He proposes options for how to interpret this verse:

OPTION ONE:

I acknowledge that the most natural reading of Numbers 13:33 is that the Anakites came from, i.e. were descended from, the Nephilim, but that is impossible in a literal sense due to the world-wide flood coming between them. Thus, we must look for another solution by considering more options.

It’s myopic to write in terms of, “the most natural reading of Numbers 13:33” since that refers to reading one single, un-contextual, isolated verse.

Sure, “the most natural reading of Numbers 13:33 is that the Anakites came from, i.e. were descended from, the Nephilim” but the key hermeneutical questions are: who said it, why was it said, what was the reaction to it, was it accurate, etc.

Anyone who appeals to Num 13:33 for any reason (including for post-flood Nephilim, for Nephilim’s relationship with Anakim, for something to do with giants) must mention that they’re relying on:

1.       One single unreliable sentence

2.       From strictly non-LXX versions (since that version’s version of that verse doesn’t even mention Anakim)

3.       Of an unreliable “evil report”

4.       By 10 unreliable guys

5.       Whom God rebuked—to death

6.       Who made five mere assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the whole Bible

7.       Who contradicted Moses, Cable, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible

I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.

Thus, “the most natural reading of” of one single (non-LXX) verse is the 100% opposite of the most natural reading of the chapter’s narrative—continuing on into chap 14.

Indeed, “that is impossible in a literal sense due to the world-wide flood coming between them” and note that post-flood-Nephilologists always begin by throwing God and His Word under the bus. They imply that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.

And those who merely assert that Nephilim survived the flood contradict the Bible five times (Genesis 7:7, 23; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; and 2 Peter 2:5).

All of them must invent fantasy tall-tales about just how Nephilim got past the flood, past God?

That is actually the biblical option: centuries post-flood 10 unreliable guys made up a fear-mongering, scare-tactic, “Don’t go in the woods!!!” style of tall-tale and were rebuked—post-flood Nephilologists side with the 10 guys whom God rebuked rather than with the God who rebuked them.

OPTION TWO:

The Nephilim were on the ark. We are told that only 8 people were on the ark. As part of Option Five I will come back to why I am confident that none of those 8 people was a Nephilim.

In fact, “We are told that only 8 people were on the ark” and that they (sans some animals and insects) were the only survivors: five times.

This option implies that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc. by having they who were one of his main targets, as it were, being on a cruise—on a boat that God Himself, mind you, instructed to be built for surviving the flood.

OPTION THREE:

Some think that the flood was only a regional flood and therefore the Nephilim survived. This option denies what the Bible teaches, ignores the findings of Geology, and defies common sense.

The scope of the flood is irrelevant to Nephilology since they either didn’t make it past the flood because it was global or because they lived in the flooded region: either way, they didn’t make it past the flood in any way, shape, or form.

This option implies that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc. by having the flood not flood enough.

OPTION FOUR:

The parenthetical statement was added later and should be discarded. It is not in the LXX. This leads us to believe it was not in the original and was probably added at a later date. Most Evangelicals, including myself, believe the original penning of the books of the Bible was inspired and without error, but a few problems have crept in since then due to human error.

I say a few problems because there are not very many considering the volume of the Bible and how it was written by about 40 different people over a period of time spanning about 1400 years. We should not lightly or quickly discard something from our Bible. It is our responsibility to look carefully at all the evidence and weigh the possible solutions to such problems.

In this case it is only the parenthetical statement that is problematic. The rest of the statements were obviously exaggerations made with the intent of causing fear. The doubting spies, all except Joshua and Caleb, were trying to spread fear among the people so they would all turn around and go back to Egypt.

They saw three giants, listed by name in verse 22, and yet they said that all the people were of “great size” (v 32). We must understand that everything they said was bigger than reality.

It’s the reference to Anakim that’s not in the LXX, not the whole verse: Brenton’s LXX, for example, reads, “And there we saw the giants; and we were before them as locusts, yea even so were we before them.”

Contextual to the issue of Nephilim and Anakim it’s a simple case: the 10 could have asserted anything about anyone, the point is that there’s literally zero indication of their assertion in the LXX or non-LXX versions.

As for, “three giants” key questions are: what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Paul’s usage? Do those two usages agree?

As for, “giants, listed by name in verse 22,” who were, “Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak” that is all we are told about them, not even something as the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage as that they were, “of ‘great size.’” In order to claim that, Paul had to quote v. 32 but that’s part of the unreliable evil report.

The only thing we’re contextually told about Anakim (who were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe) is that they were, on average, “tall” (Deut 2) which is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.

OPTION FIVE:

The parenthetical statement simply means that there was some type of connection between the Anakites and the Nephilim. That connection does not need to be a direct, blood descendancy.

I am convinced that the Nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4 were not a race or family line, but a type of people, i.e. great big bullies. They usually possessed a combination of the following qualities, they were evil, large, ruthless, political geniuses, and great architects and builders. Some possessed most, but not all of those qualities.

Such a definition rules out the possibility that Noah or his wife, or one of his son’s wives, was a Nephilim, and had Nephilim genes. Therefore, the Nephilim did not come on the ark as a separate race of people because they were not a race or tribe. There was no specific DNA set for brutality, or political genius. Remember that the word Nephilim does not mean “giants”, but rather “to bow down”.

However, looking only at the physical aspect, the option for large size was still in the genes of Noah and his family. So there were Nephilim both before and after the flood who were feared for their size and strength which they used to dominate others.

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.

Thus, we can’t even say that Nephilim were, “big” or, “large” even though those terms are vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage.

As for, “Nephilim…were not a race or family line” well, that which I term the Gen 6 affair is very clear about this. The term Nephilim isn’t just applied to anyone at all who was, “great big bullies…evil, large, ruthless, political geniuses, and great architects and builders” since they are only exclusively the result of, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose…the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.”

What, “rules out the possibility that Noah or his wife, or one of his son’s wives, was a Nephilim, and had Nephilim genes” isn’t a misguided subjective opinion but that God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc.: fallacious Nephilology damages theology proper.

​Therefore, the Nephilim did not come on the ark as a separate race of people because they were not a race or tribe. There was no specific DNA set for brutality, or political genius. Remember that the word Nephilim does not mean “giants”, but rather “to bow down”.

However, looking only at the physical aspect, the option for large size was still in the genes of Noah and his family. So there were Nephilim both before and after the flood who were feared for their size and strength which they used to dominate others.

OPTION SIX

The claim has been made that Genesis 6:1-4 describes the Nephilim as the product of angels that had sexual relations with human women. It is then suggested that something similar happened after the flood as well, but it was not recorded in the Bible.

I am convinced that it is wrong to interpret Gen 6:1-4 to mean angels came to earth and produced offspring from human women (see my translation and paraphrase of Gen 6:1-4). I see the idea of it happening second time as untenable

My preference is a combination of Options Four and Five. [Paul’s footnote, “In his book The Unseen Realm, pages 189-191, Michael Heiser fails to mention all the possible options for how to interpret this verse; he only mentions the most ridiculous options and the one he runs with is untenable in my opinion].

The Anakites were similar to the Nephilim in that they were big bad bullies. The connection that the doubting spies were making between the Anakites and the Nephilim was a real one, although not based on bloodline; both groups were big bad bullies.

There’s literally nothing in Gen 6:1-4 that suggests any such thing and, in fact, the 100% exact opposite is the case.

The Gen 6 affair doesn’t suggest that the flood was much of a waste, God must have missed the, “something similar happened after the flood as well” so that God failed.

In fact, the flood’s not mentioned for the very first time until a v. 17 so some cheat by reading ahead and then loop back to mash it into vss., 1-4, which know nothing of it.

Thus, “see the idea of it happening second time,” is, “untenable” but not due to, “it is wrong to interpret Gen 6:1-4 to mean angels came to earth and produced offspring from human women” which may be Paul’s subjective, “translation and paraphrase” but goes against the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, which 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.

Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that, “sons of God” can refer to non-human beings (which the LXX has as Angeloi: plural of Angelos) since they, at the very least, witnessed the creation of the Earth.

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.

So, if they’re not referring to the Gen 6 affair, we’ve no idea to what sin they’re referring.

Thus, this comes down to, “The Anakites were similar to the Nephilim in that they were big bad bullies” they may have both been bullies and if by big he means something physical then that’s an insta-fail.

But if only non-LXX versions have one unreliable sentence from an unreliable evil report by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked—keep in mind that Paul formulated an entire cosmos, mythos, hermeneutic, worldview, philosophy upon that most untannable theology proper damaging verse—then why, pray tell, weren’t the Bibles​’ many, many, many, many, many big bad bullies correlated with Nephilim in any way, shape or form?

Clearly, Paul merely proposed a rescue device, and all he managed to rescue is one non-LXX versions’ unreliable sentence from an unreliable evil report by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.

That’s a mighty gigantic price to pay for that most diminishing of returns.

 ​

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.

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Someone going by the pseudonym The Wise Wolf posted an article titled Pennywise Isn’t Fiction: Stephen King’s IT Proves What the Bible Says About Fallen Angels and Nephilim.

This was of interest to me since I wrote the relevant books A Worldview Review of Stephen King’s “It”: The Mystical, Mysterious, and Metaphysical in the Novel, Miniseries, and Movies and Did the Nephilim Look Like Clowns?: A Review of Paul Stobbs’ Theory.

The latter pertains to how the article begins (which will not mean much to those who are not stuck in very tight cyber rabbit holes so, stand by for elucidation), “Why your childhood terror of painted faces and red noses wasn’t irrational fear—it was genetic memory recognizing the predators who once ruled us as gods.”

Note the reference to, “childhood terror,” which is followed by referring to a circus scene about which it is noted, “Maybe you laughed. Maybe you screamed. Probably both” and how seeing Ronald McDonald, “I cried until I couldn’t breathe. The nightmares lasted years…clowns terrified me.” So, that is the option with which proponents of the view yet to be elucidated focus upon: myopically, they are emotively subject coulrophobic—fear clowns—which, as we have seen, is not depicted as myopically, emotively subjective personal reactions but rather, styled gnosticism in terms of having an innate special insight into the nature of realities of old, “But what if that visceral, unreasonable fear isn’t unreasonable at all? What if it’s genetic memory, coded into our DNA from the distant past when those painted faces and elongated features didn’t belong to entertainers but to something that hunted us?” and on it goes.

This, or so we are told, has to do with clowns (which is a generic term covering a very vast range of appearances), “portraits of entities that ruled as false gods, practiced blood magic, and devoured humans for sport…a predator wearing entertainment as camouflage.”

This, or so we are told, is that, “the occult origin of clowns and their direct connection to the Nephilim, the giant demon-human hybrids described in Genesis 6.”

The reference to, “giant” begs these key questions—especially since biblically contextually, “Nephilim, the giant” means, “Nephilim, the Nephilim”—what is the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English giants in English Bibles? What is The Wise Wolf’s usage? Do those two usages agree?

As for, “demon-human,” 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. Thus, it is Angel-humans: demon’s did not even exist during that which I term the Gen 6 affair—see my article Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?

Thus far, we have been told that Nephilim are to be correlated to, “red noses…grins stretching wider than mouths should go…dead eyes…white face…blood-red smile…elongated features,” etc.

Yet, cutting to the chase and a main point I made in the contra-Stobbs pro-biblical data book: the dirty little secret is that since we have no reliable physical description of Nephilim then their look (and 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.

Then there are these descriptors, “once ruled us as gods…that hunted us…entities that ruled as false gods, practiced blood magic, and devoured humans for sport…predator,” recall that we were told that their look and these descriptors are, “described in Genesis 6.”

Yet, as for, “giant demon-human hybrids described in Genesis 6” we cannot really know the former until Wolf defines the subjective usage and the latter has to do with confusing Angels with demons.

As for ruled, hunted, etc. that is being read into, “mighty men who were of old, the men of renown” (Gen 6:4b). I am unsure whence comes the, “practiced blood magic” assertion. I can only imagine that, “devoured humans” is based on 1 Enoch which is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.

When it comes to, “secret society rituals”: that would be a case of what people did with the historical record in Gen 6, and the folkloric tall-tales which followed (see my article How Nephilim Absconded from the Tanakh and Invaded Folkloric Territory) in terms of those who formed such societies chasing after that which 1 Enoch has as secrets which fallen Angels/Watchers taught to humanity.

One of the funniest lines in all pseudepigrapha—perhaps the only funny line in all pseudepigrapha—when 1 Enoch’s version of God has Him telling the fallen Angels/Watchers, “You have been in heaven, and though the hidden things had not yet been revealed to you, you know worthless mysteries.”

And it is the same sort of issue with, “modern entertainment” of various media.

Reference is then made to, “White face thick as plaster. Crimson hair. A red nose like a tumor. And that grin, stretching wider than any human mouth should open” in terms of, “[Joseph] Grimaldi in his clown costume” in 1806, “a Freemason named Charles Dibdin designed that getup fresh off the boat from India, where he’d spent months studying rakshasa demon masks in Hindu temples.”

For all of my criticism of Stobbs (self-proclaimed inventor of the, supposedly alleged, Nephilim correlation to clows), and there is a lot of critique—a lot—I have, from the start (which was in my article Is Paul Stobbs right? Did Nephilim Look Like Clowns?) noted that Stobbs should stick to occult cultural anthropology, as it were, pertaining to the correlation of the trickster spirit occultism, secret societies, and entertainment since he seems to do a good enough job with that data. Yet, he needs to drop the Nephilim angle—since there is no such angle—since when it comes to Nephilology he discredits himself (I followed up that article with Anatomy of the making of a modern-day myth: Nephilim looked like clowns).

The article goes on to provide more history of various key moments in what we may term modern clownery and then notes:

The Bible tells it straight in Genesis 6. The “sons of God” saw human women and took them as wives. The offspring were Nephilim, which translates to “the fallen ones.” Scripture calls them giants, mighty men of renown. God sent the Flood to wipe them out.

Except here’s Numbers 13:33, written after the waters receded: “We saw the Nephilim there.”

They survived. Joshua spent decades fighting giant clans in Canaan. David killed Goliath and his oversized brothers. The Old Testament reads like an extermination campaign that never quite finished the job.

The Book of Enoch fills in what Genesis leaves out. Two hundred fallen angels called Watchers descended to earth. They taught forbidden knowledge: sorcery, warfare, cosmetics, enchantments. The women who mated with them became “sirens,” half-human hybrids. Their children were something else entirely.

The Nephilim weren’t just tall. Their fathers were nachash saraph, “fiery flying serpents,” the term used in Numbers 21:6 and Isaiah 14:29. Not holy angels like Michael. Serpentine fallen beings. Their offspring inherited those traits: serpent-patterned skin, jaws that could unhinge, necks with reptilian frills. Dragon-human hybrids who ruled as kings and built civilizations.

When the Flood destroyed their bodies, their spirits got trapped in what Scripture calls “dry places.” Former rulers reduced to disembodied demons, hungering and thirsting with no way to satisfy those needs. That’s where we are now. The physical bodies mostly gone, destroyed by judgment. But the spirits remain, desperate for the worship and sensation they once enjoyed.

And some of them, the ones who inherited shapeshifting from their angel fathers, might still walk among us looking human.

This is the impressive sounding stuff of which Stobb’s un-biblical fantasy tall-tale folkloric stories are made—yes, even if biblical citations are included—so let us review.

Note the oddity of writing, “translates to ‘the fallen ones.’ Scripture calls them giants”: the root naphal translates to the fallen ones or fall/fallen/feller/to cause to fall, etc. and “Scripture calls them giants” should have read, “Only some modern English versions of scripture calls them giants” and that still begs my key question: what is the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants in English Bibles?

Note the contradiction in that, “God sent the Flood to wipe them out” yet, or so we are told, “here’s Numbers 13:33, written after the waters receded: ‘We saw the Nephilim there.’”
This implies that God failed, He must have missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc.

Now, “here’s Numbers 13:33” is mere a citation, it is pointing us to a location in a text and so it does not tell us who were the, “We” who, “saw.” Merely telling us where to find a statement and only quoting five modern English words fails to interact with narrative and key hermeneutical questions such as: who said it, why was it said, was it accurate, what was the reaction to it, etc.

To be blunt: anyone who ever appeals to Num 13:33 but does not mention the following facts needs to have it pointed out to them that they must mention the following facts.

They need to mention that they are relying on:

1.      One single unreliable sentence

2.      From strictly non-LXX versions (since that version’s version of that verse does not even mention Anakim: which is an issue in pop-Nephilology)

3.      Of an unreliable, “evil report”

4.      By 10 unreliable guys

5.      Whom God rebuked—to death

6.      Who made five mere assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the whole Bible

7.      Who contradicted Moses, Cable, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible

I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.

Stating, “They survived” contradicts the Bible five times (Genesis 7:7, 23; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; and 2 Peter 2:5) and post-flood-Nephilologists must then invent un-biblical fantasy tall-tales about just how Nephilim made it past the flood, past God.

As for, “Joshua spent decades fighting giant clans in Canaan” there is literally zero indication of that: this is where the issue of Anakim comes into play—they were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe and Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there is zero correlation between them.

As for, “David killed Goliath” well, he is referred to as a Repha, not a Nephil, virtually every single time he is mentioned.

As for, “his oversized brothers,” only one of them is referred to as having been, “of great stature” which is just as vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage as giants.

Now, we are told in Deut 2 that, on average, Rephaim, to include Anakim, were, “tall” and that is just as vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage as giants and of great stature. Moreover, we know that is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.

As for, “The Book of Enoch fills in what Genesis leaves out”: it fills in with what?With contradictions of the Bible, based on folklore, without indication that it contains any actually real history from pre-flood days.

Wolf tells us of, “fallen angels called Watchers” but it is actually just a case of that Watchers was just the Second Temple Era (516 BC-70 AD) aka for Angels/Malakim. So, the wild folklore goes, “The women who mated with them became ‘sirens,’ half-human hybrids.”

We are told, “The Nephilim weren’t just tall” so that seems to answer the question of Wolf’s usage: something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average (and yes, that is how useless the common parlance usage of that modern English word is).

Thus, Wolf’s usage does not agree with the English Bibles’ usage since the usage of giants in English Bibles is that 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.

Wolf claims, “Their fathers were nachash saraph, ‘fiery flying serpents,’ the term used in Numbers 21:6 and Isaiah 14:29. Not holy angels like Michael. Serpentine fallen beings.”

I can 99.99999999% guarantee that the pedigree of this assertion is that pop-Nephilologist Gary Wayne (who debated me) teaches this fallacy, Paul Stobbs uncritically picked it up from him (he quotes and otherwise references Wayne many times in his book), and now the Wolf picked it up from Stobbs.

There is no indication that, “Their fathers were nachash saraph” rather, they are described as bene ha Elohim/sons of God. The issue is that Wayne/Stobbs teach that, “Seraphim Angels” fathered Nephilim but there is no indication of that and there is no indication of that since there is no such thing as Seraphim Angels: that is a category error that violates the law of identify since Seraphim are Seraphim and Angels are Angels. They differ from one another (as well as from Cherubim) at least in that they have different job titles, different job functions, and look different from one another.

Neither of those verses is about the Gen 6 affair nor about Angels nor about Seraphim.

Isaiah 14:29 reads, “Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent’s root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent.”

Num 21:6 reads, “Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.”

These are not referring to some sort of mashed up Seraphim-Angel beings but are telling us about serpents that are venomous: the fiery part referring to the burning sensation of their venomous bite and/or how their motion looks like a flame. As for flying, that seems to refer to how some serpents flatten their bodies so as to glide from tree to tree, etc.

There is no indication of, “Serpentine fallen beings”: the only description we have of actual Seraphim do not include any serpentine features but refers to, “six wings…face…feet…flew…one called to another…hand” (Isa 6).

What Wayne/Stobbs/Wolf have done, purposefully or not, is to take the root saraph for fiery/venomous/flame and un-contextually apply it to a pseudo version of Seraphim (see a whole chapter about Seraphim in my book What Does the Bible Say About Various Paranormal Entities? A Styled Paranormology).

Thus, there is below zero indication that Nephilim, “inherited those traits” especially since Seraphim and Angels have no traits such as, “serpent-patterned skin, jaws that could unhinge, necks with reptilian frills” whom Wolf also calls, “Dragon-human hybrids.”

This is the stuff of which un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi pop-Nephilology tall-tales are made.

As for, “the Flood destroyed their bodies, their spirits…reduced to disembodied demons,” that is just folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah.

As per my Demons Ex Machina article, yes, “spirits…disembodied demons” are, “hungering and thirsting…desperate for the worship and sensation they once enjoyed” but it is not that, “The physical bodies mostly gone, destroyed by judgment” since those demons are the disembodied spirits of Angels who are physically incarcerated in what 2 Peter 2 has as, “Tartarus.”

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) that is how and why Angels and demons are the same beings yet, also differ.

As for, “shapeshifting from their angel fathers” well, there is literally zero indication that Angels, or Seraphim shapeshift so that is a non-issue.

The, “might still walk among us looking human” assertion is very, very dangerous since historically, many people have been serial and mass murdered due to claims that they were not fully human—or, not human at all. Such dangerously irresponsible fantasy tall-tales are so common amongst pop-Nephilologists that I filled a chapter titled, “Nephil Kampf” with examples in 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.

Wolf then notes, “Pennywise was a shapeshifting, demonic clown from outer space that came to Earth to eat children.” Well, it is more complicated than that since the novel It is quite Gnostic. It has it that what is termed Another or Other is a styled unknown god, a deus absconditus, a theos agnosticos, the Gnostic god who is unknown and created what is described as a turtle and a spider but those are just term that humans can understand (hence, “It”), that is not what they are ontologically.

The spider entity eventually comes to Earth, eventually realizes that human blood is oh so much tastier when it is infused with the chemical byproducts of utter fear, and so takes whatever form it discerns will scare a person most: one of those forms is Pennywise, the Dancing Clown—this is touched upon when Wolf circles back to It.
That statement is followed up by Wolf directly with, “Fallen angels could shapeshift and came to Earth to rule and eat children” but those two mere assertions are just that: there is literally zero (reliable) indication of it.

Wolf then circles back to, “What They Actually Looked Like”:
Every culture that met the Nephilim described identical features. Deathly pale skin. Wild red hair. Glowing eyes that bulged from skulls. Six fingers, six toes. Elongated heads. And jaws that opened too wide.

That serpent jaw came from daddy. The nachash saraph passed down skin covered in psychedelic patterns like scales. Mouths that could dislocate to devour prey. Neck frills like certain lizards wear, which became the ruffled collars on Elizabethan nobles and clowns.

The red nose deserves attention. Rosacea is a genetic condition hitting pale-skinned people hardest. The Irish call it “the curse of the Celts.” Advanced rosacea causes rhinophyma: a large, bulbous, bright red nose. It’s not from drinking. It’s genetic.

The Nephilim, pale as death, would’ve developed this in extreme forms. That clown nose isn’t whimsy. It’s a birth defect preserved in costume.

Note that the statement, “Every culture that met the Nephilim described identical features” is premised on the mere hidden assumption that we can discern who is describing Nephilim and then building an argument on that mere assumption.

Yet, myopically subjectively picking out certain features make it easy to seek such descriptions and eisegetically conclude a non-sequitur that, “Every culture that met the Nephilim described identical” cherry-picked, “features.” Again, we have no reliable physical description of them and Wayne/Stobbs/Wolf get, “Six fingers, six toes” from one single description of one single man who was a Repha, not a Nephil (2 Sam 21:20).

Wolf clearly paraphrased this segment from Stobbs and two wrongs do not make a right (nor do three, if we include Gary Wayne whence Stobbs got it).

Having in place an utter fantasy assertion about how Nephilim looked, such pop-researchers myopically subjectively seek anything they can force-fit into their theory such as, “Medusa…wild red hair, pale skin, massive grin with tongue out, bulging eyes…Medusa was textbook Nephilim hybrid.”

Wolf adds, “Anak, Og of Bashan, Goliath’s brothers…They’re the ancient Nephilim” yet, they were Rephaim in general or Anakim of the Rephaim in particular.

Premised on assertions, fallacies, watering down categories, using vague terminology, and myopia, Wolf can only then conclude, “Same entities. Different names. Identical descriptions.”

And based on that (faulty) premise, Wolf goes on to write of, “The Aztec calendar shows a god with tongue sticking out, identical to Greek Gorgons and Chinese demons.” See how it works? One myopically chosen depiction of Medusa features, “tongue out” and, “tongue out” has something to do with, “textbook Nephilim” ergo, “Aztec calendar…god with tongue sticking out” equals Nephilim hybrid and yes, that is how flimsy such tall-tales are: they take solid data points but connect them via subjective worldview-philosophies such as pop-Nephilology.

Wolf goes on to write of, “giant legends. Nevada’s Lovelock Cave held red-haired giant remains.” Native American tales of White, red-haired, giants seem to be cultural memories of interacting with Viking—told via oral tradition for centuries: see my article Lovelock Cave Giants: lost or found?

Wolf then notes, “There’s one explanation: global pre-Flood civilization. The Nephilim ruled everywhere.” Indeed, but it is exclusively, “pre-Flood.” Wolf goes on to write, “Post-Flood survivors on every continent remembered” and surely they did: similarities amongst the most ancient cultures seem to be due to that pre-Tower of Babel, humanity lived in relative proximity and had a commonly held basic history which post-Tower of Babel, with time and telling (and re-re-re-re-telling), came to change in this or that point and came to be called myth and legend.

Wolf goes on to claim, “David Bowie spent his career looking like a Nephilim. Ziggy Stardust, androgynous alien, psychedelic patterns” but, again, there is no indication that Nephilim looked like androgynous alien with psychedelic patterns.

Wolf then circles back to: actually, pause to note that such a style of writing is very common to pop-Nephilologists, they will touch upon a subject, move away from it, come to back it, move away, come back, etc., etc., etc.

Wolf tells us:

They Never Left
Numbers 13:33 places Nephilim after the Flood. Joshua and David fought them for generations. Scripture never says they were eliminated. Just driven underground.

Fallacious Nephilology damages theology proper and Wolf concludes, “Numbers 13:33 places Nephilim after the Flood” ergo, “They Never Left” so what does that say about God and His Word?

As for, “Scripture never says they were eliminated” it is simple: they lived pre-flood, we are told five times who survived the flood but Nephilim are not on any of those lists, and there is literally zero indication of any sort of return of the Nephilim (which is just a pop-Nephilology fantasy) ergo, scripture has many ways of telling us they were eliminated.

Wolf circles back to, “Most exist as disembodied demons” circles back to, “Watchers could shapeshift. Their offspring inherited it” along with circling back to the dangerous mere assertion, “A shapeshifting Nephilim could pass as human while staying true underneath.”

Wolf even gives us a supposed clue as to how to track down these demonic atrocities mascaraing as human, “Elite bloodlines obsessively intermarry. ‘Blue bloods,’ RH negative types concentrated in ruling families. They’re not just maintaining wealth. They’re maintaining genetics” as if God flooded the Earth, in part, to be rid of Nephilim but missed the genetic loophole that Wolf was clever enough to figure out.

Wolf notes:

Most physical remnant…rule through secret societies maintaining rituals, through possession in entertainment and politics, through symbolism marking territory, through blood preserving genetic markers.

The goal?

Restore pre-Flood conditions. Matthew 24:37 warns: “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.”

New World Order is Old World Order. Nephilim kingdom restored. Open possession normalized. Transhumanism attempting forbidden mixing again.

Jesus’ words, His emphasis, His points, His context, were:

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

But He kept speaking directly with:

Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed (Luke 17).

Thus, this was about examples of being unaware/unconcerned about coming judgment.

The article ends with a heartfelt but ill-conceived gospel presentation to non-existent personages, “if you’re reading this and you know what you are, born into hybrid bloodlines you didn’t choose, you’re part human which means you have a soul…Renounce the false gods, accept Jesus Christ,” etc.

See my various books here.

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Mauro Biglino is, as per his bios, an ancient languages scholar, translator of Masoretic biblical Hebrew, who hold to a literal reinterpretation of the Bible.

His article Giants in the Bible refers to, “figures with gigantic appearances” so that his subjective usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants appears to be something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average (and yes, that is how useless the common parlance usage of that modern English word is).

That, however, does not agree with the usage of that word in English Bibles since that usage is that 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.

He notes, “a theme that runs throughout the Bible, from the Book of Genesis to the Apocrypha, passing through rabbinical commentaries and historians such as Josephus” about which you can see my paper How Nephilim Absconded from the Tanakh and Invaded Folkloric Territory.

Interestingly, he begins his article on his usage of Giants in the Bible by referring to, “Nimrod and the genealogical anomaly…the text defines him as gibbòr, meaning powerful, strong, the same term that in other passages will be used to refer to giants or gibborìm.”

That is, “the same term that in other passages will be used to refer to giants or gibborìm” and, I will add, Nephilim (Gen 6:4), Angels (Psa 103:20), Boaz (Ruth 2:1), some of King David’s soldiers (1 Chron 11:11), even God Himself (Isa 9:6) since, indeed, gibbor is a merely descriptive term and so it is widely applicable.

He then moves on to, “The sons of the Elohim and the Gibborim” in terms of, “Who were these gibborim mentioned in the Bible and whom we find connected to the figures of giants?”

Well, these gibborim were whoever was powerful, strong (typically translated as mighty) so he seems to be asking who were and what connects powerful/strong/mighty to vaguely generic subjectively unusually taller, by some unknown level, above the parochial average.

But from a list of Nephilim, Nimrod, Angels, Boaz, some of King David’s soldiers, and God, to list some examples, we have no indication that any of those were gigantic.

The question is actually: how do Nephilim, Nimrod, Angels, Boaz, some of King David’s soldiers, and God correlate to whoever was gigantic?

Yet, the question is really: how does being powerful/strong/mighty correlate to being gigantic—history is full of examples of powerful/strong/mighty people who we not in the least bit gigantic.

Mauro Biglino quotes that which I term the Gen 6 affair thusly, “‘the sons of Elohim saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took them as wives… and they bore children’…I keep Elohim in the plural because translating it as ‘sons of God’ alters the original meaning of the term. These stories describe unions between the Elohim and Adamite women” (first ellipses in original).

Yet, the Hebrew is bene ha Elohim is sons of Elohim/sons of God so it was not, “Elohim and Adamite” but rather, bene/sons of Elohim/God and Adamites.

He follows directly with, “in Greek myths: the gods united with mortal women, giving birth to half-blood heroes such as Heracles, credited with exceptional stature” but that is abruptly stated since he has not told us about anyone who is gigantic or of exceptional stature—which is just as vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage as giants.

His conclusion is, “Hercules was probably one of these anomalous beings, let’s say one of these giants. The Bible tells us about these giants.” He assures us that, “It mentions them often” and notes, “for example in the two passages where it says that they had six fingers on each limb, 24 fingers in total, according to the biblical author…they had six fingers, these giants had six fingers on each hand, six toes on each foot.”

That is not the case, he turned one single reference to one single person into a plural, “these…they…they…these” and the two passages are just iterations of the same story.

The ESV for 2 Samuel 21:20 reads thusly, “there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was descended from the giants.”

Note that, “great stature” is just as vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage as giants and exceptional stature and that giants in this text is merely rendering Repha: it is describing his tribal affiliation, not his height.

Mauro Biglino then writes of, “Giants and fears in the Land of Canaan”:

The theme of giants returns forcefully in Numbers 13, when Moses sends twelve scouts to observe the land of Canaan, which they intended to conquer by force of arms. Returning from their mission, they report: ” We saw the giants, descendants of Anak, of the race of giants; in our eyes we seemed like locusts, and so we must have seemed to them” (Numbers 13:33).

This is not a numerical comparison (there were only twelve scouts) but a comparison of physical proportions: in front of such imposing beings, the men felt as tiny and powerless as insects.

In the end, these explorers advised Moses’ men not to go against these characters, and because of their warning, which went against the instructions of Yahweh and Moses himself, most of them were killed.

This is a misrepresentation of the narrative since, “there were…twelve scouts” which he combined into v. 33 by asserting, “twelve scouts…their…they report” but he skipped over that there are two reports in the narrative and a bifurcation amongst the scouts.

A report is presented about a good land, fortified cities, and the six strong people groups whom the scouts saw.

Then loyal and faithful Caleb and Joshua encourage that what God commanded ought to be done but the disloyal and unfaithful other 10 discourage, “advised Moses’ men not to go against these characters.”

When their first attempt does not work, they take their scare-tactic, fear-mongering, “Don’t go in the woods!!!” style of tall-tale up quite a few notches by presenting an, “evil report” which consists of five mere assertions that are unsupported by even one single verse in the whole Bible.

Anyone who presents Num 13:33 (especially as a single, stand alone, un-contextual verse) as support for something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average (or in favor of post-flood Nephilim or for Nephilim being related to Anakim) needs to mention that they are relying on:

1.     One single unreliable sentence

2.     From strictly non-LXX versions (since that version’s version of that verse does not even mention Anakim)

3.     Of an unreliable “evil report”

4.     By 10 unreliable guys

5.     Whom God rebuked—to death

6.     Who made five mere assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the whole Bible

7.     Who contradicted Moses, Cable, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible

I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.

Thus, this comes down to that 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked, presented one (non-LXX) unreliable sentence wherein they merely asserted that they saw Nephilim (which was an artificial insertion into the original, reliable, report which had listed whom they saw) and the Israelite congregation believed them.

Mauro Biglino next wrote about, “Polydactyly and Og’s bed” which is a subsection which he begins by circling back to, “curious anatomical details about these frightening beings” note the plural these, “In 2 Samuel 21:20 and 1 Chronicles 20:6, we read, as mentioned above, of giants” note the plural giants, “with six fingers on each hand and foot, twenty-four fingers in all.”

He adds, “In Deuteronomy 3:11, Og, king of Bashan, is mentioned, who was also a giant. The text states that ‘his bed was made of iron… nine cubits long and four cubits wide,’ or about 4.1 × 1.8 meters. Here too, these are very concrete data, not symbols.”

Actually, “Og…was also a” Repha, is what the text is telling us. But what of Biglino’s un-biblical usage of giant with regards to his bed? Note that his bed is appealed to since we do not have a physical description of Og (at least, not until utterly wild folkloric tall-tales from millennia after his time).

And yet, concluding that we can conclude something about his personal size based on the size of his bed is a non-sequitur based on various mere assumptions: indications are that it 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?

Yet, even if he slept on it: he was not a regular guy, he was a king who lived the lifestyles of the rich and (in)famous! If you measured my bed sure, you would get a good estimation of my height but you would also conclude that I am some five times wider than I actually am.

What we are contextually told about Rephaim is that, in general, they were, “tall” (Deut 2) which is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.

He then comes to, “The rabbinic interpretation” which means what (within Rabbinic Judaism) any given Rabbi may have said at any time during a span of millennia.

We are told, “The teacher Abrāhām ibn ‘Ezrā” 1093-1167 AD, “explains that the Nephilim take their name from the Hebrew verb nafal (‘to fall, to descend’), because ‘at the sight of them, the heart fell.’ So they were so real and so frightening that those who saw them felt faint. This is an interesting note” and is a very, very, very late dated note likely merely based on a subjective view of to what fall/descend may refer.

A more typical view is that they are referred to as such since they were in part responsible for one of the falls of humanity—the one that resulted in the flood.

It also seems to have been a polemical point. It is doubtful that if you lived pre-flood, met a Nephil, and asked about it, the reply would be, “I’m a Nephil, of the Nephilim.” Rather, since many Pagan cultures revered their versions of such pre-flood characters, Israelites were pointing out that their heroes were fallen.

Mauro Biglino then writes of, “The Book of Enoch and the sex of angels”:

An apocryphal but central text is the Book of Enoch, canonical for Coptic Christians. In the section called The Watchers, we read that “the angels, sons of heaven, descended upon Mount Hermon, swore together, and took wives from among the daughters of men; they conceived and bore giants” (1 Enoch:6,7).

Some translations specify that they descended “in the days of Yared,” a name derived from the verb yarad, “to descend,” which fossilizes the memory of a “great descent.” These angels, as Tertullian also recalls, had concrete sexual desires: in this regard, women at that time, especially if they had long hair, had to veil themselves for protection. This is not metaphorical language: it is, once again, narrative chronicle.

That 1 Enoch is in the Ethiopian canon does not 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 seems to pinpoint Mount Hermon since a few centuries BC, which is from when 1 Enoch dates, Pagans revered that mount so it was another case of polemics.

As for, “bore giants”: it has Nephilim as being MILES tall which is great folklore but poor reality (I provide calculations in my book since the measurement is done in elles).

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.

We then move on to:

The Jewish historian Giuseppe Flavio [aka Flavius Josephus], in Antiquities of the Jews (1st century AD), recounts that the Israelites conquered Hebron, where there remained “a race of giants who, because of their large stature and different appearance, were a horrible sight.” . He then adds: “Even today, their bones are still on display, unlike anything known.”

Giuseppe Flavio writes for the Romans and does not question the existence of giants. He tells us about bones that were visible in his time, in the same way that the Bible recounts that Og’s bed was still preserved.

From that very, very late dated source (millennia after the Torah) we can only conclude that Flavio retold what had been retold—and tall-tales grow with time and telling (and retelling and re-re-re-re-retelling.

As for, “bones are still on display…Og’s bed was still preserved” those are things he tells us: he does not even say that he personally saw them. Yet, even if he had seen bones: he was not a qualified anatomist and would not have been able to discern the difference between the relatively large bones of whales, dinos, pachyderm, etc.—see, “Appendix: Review of Adrienne Mayor’s The First Fossil Hunters” of my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology.

We are then circled back to etymology:

The term Nephilim: fallen ones, miscarriages, or Orion?

The term Nephilim has also sparked centuries of debate. Some derive it from the Hebrew root n-f-l (“to fall, to descend”), with possible moral or concrete meanings. Others, such as the scholar Heiser, link it to an Aramaic origin: the singular nephila refers to the constellation of Orion. It is no coincidence that the Septuagint translates the term without hesitation as γίγαντες.

Some exegetical strands even speak of “selective abortions”: when the Elohim united with the Adamites, they are said to have given birth mainly to females and aborted males, as if they already knew prenatal analysis techniques. It is a hypothesis that, if given the consideration it deserves, opens up surprising scenarios.

As for Michael Heiser’s view, the J. Edward Wright Endowed Professor of Judaic Studies, who is J. Edward Wright, Ph.D. himself, and who is the Director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona notes, “The term traditionally translated as ‘giants’ in both the Greek Septuagint (γιγαντες) and now in English is נפילים nephilim, a term based on the root נפל npl meaning ‘fall.’ It has nothing to do with size” and specifies that this goes for both Hebrew and Aramaic as “The root npl in Aramaic also means fall and not giants” (private communique, July 2019).

Note that being told, “the Septuagint translates the term without hesitation as γίγαντες” begs the question of what γίγαντες means. Well, gigantes means earth-born as in born of the Greek Earth false goddess Gaia—see my linguistics book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.

Mauro Biglino’s conclusion section notes:

Genesis, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Book of Enoch, rabbinic traditions, and Giuseppe Flavio: different sources, but all converging on one fact, the memory of gigantic beings who lived among men. They are described as powerful, frightening, often enemies of Israel and the armies of Yahweh…This is why I choose to read the Bible literally, without theological filters.

To review his evidence for giants, gigantic appearances, exceptional stature:

Nephilim: no reliable physical description.

Nimrod: no physical description.

Og: no physical description.

One man of subjectively, “great stature” so, taller than 5.0-5.3ft.

So, where are all of the giants?

See my various books here.

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