Undergoing consideration is the Mysterious World website’s article, Giants in the Earth Part I: Giants of the Ancient Near East.
The article begins with titillating references to, “Giants!…giants…giants…giant…” and that’s just in the first article.
This begs the questions:
What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
What’s the Mysterious World author’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
Do those usages agree?
We’re told, “Prominent references in the Bible…make prominent mention of a time in mankind’s distant past wherein giants walked the Earth…The ancient Near East…have stories of abnormally large humans of various sizes. From tribes of unusually tall, strongly built men ranging anywhere from 8-12 feet in height to solitary giants towering several miles high, stories of giants are among the favorites of storytellers worldwide.”
So, by giants what is being referenced are subjectively unusually tall personages ranging from 8-several miles tall: which is why employing the term giants is utterly useless.
In any case, now we know that authors’ usage and now we know that it has utterly nothing to do with the usage in English Bibles wherein it’s merely rendering (not even translating) Nephilim, in two verses, or Repha/im, in 98% of all others—and never even hinting at anything to do with height whatsoever.
The article is 37 pages long when pasted into the Word program at font size 12 so I will be picking out the most notable issues it contains.
One view of whence came giants is, “Giants are the result of interbreeding between humans and fallen angels” which, sans the un-biblical usage of giants and so swapping out Giants for Nephilim was the original, traditional, and majority view amongst the earliest Jewish and Christians commentator alike starring in BC days, 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’re told, “the Book of Enoch relates that angels sent by God to guard the earth were seduced by the beauty of terrestrial women who subsequently gave birth to demoniacal sons 3,000 cubits [approx. 4,500 feet] high”: which is great folklore but poor reality. 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from millennia after the Torah, see the book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.
Also, “Later, ancient historians tell us, Og, the King of Bashan, who lived three thousand years, escaped the Flood by wading only knee-deep beside the Ark,” followed by other tall-tales told about him.
Biblically, we have no physical description of him at all, such come from folklore from millennia later.
He wasn’t born until centuries post-flood and so wasn’t around for God to fail by missing the loophole that he could have just be, “wading only knee-deep beside the Ark” or hanging on to it, as the folklore actually goes.
See my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
At least we’re told, “the Jewish legendary material regarding the huge size of Og and Moses are clearly midrashic in nature” with Midrash being sermonizing homilies from millennia after the Torah.
Yet, we’re told, “the Bible makes no bones about the existence of giants in the ancient world, both in the antediluvian world and afterwards. As Moses said in Genesis 6:4, ‘There were giants [Nephilim] in the earth in those days; and also afterwards.’”
But since we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim and the author’s usage is not the Bible’s usage then this is just a word-concept fallacy.
We’re told of, “Giants in the Time of Adam” and how, “The earliest,” unquoted and uncited, “references to giants occur in the very earliest times in Earth’s history…a ‘pre-Adamic race’…giants known as the ‘pre-Adamites’’ for which there’s no indication. Also, BTW, if they were all giants then none of them were giants.
Then, “Giants in the Time of Adam” which includes, “Significant,” unquoted and uncited, “evidence of the existence of a race before Adam, a ‘pre-Adamic race.”
We’re also told that, “Some” unquoted and uncited personages, “argue that ‘the serpent’ was actually one of the fallen angels, or possibly even one of the pre-Adamic race that the fallen angels are believed to have created, and that “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” was actually symbolic of a strand of DNA, DNA that was unique to this pre-Adamic race.” The serpent was Satan (Rev chaps 12 and 20) and he’s a fallen Cherub, not Angle. As to the DNA thing, such is why I term pop-Nephilology neo-theo-sci-fi-tall-tales.
We’re told, “In order to stop the despoilment of His creation by these rebellious ‘lesser gods’, the fallen angels, YHWH created homo sapiens to supplant and eventually destroy their abhorrent offspring.” There’s no indication, even in apocrypha or pseudepigrapha, that humans destroyed Nephilim: the last of them died in the flood.
We’re then told of, “Giants in the Time of Noah” in which, “Homo artificialis” a sci-fi term for the supposed result of DNA manipulation—which would biblically be the non-pre-Adamite Nephilim who resulted from physical mating, “with its superior size” which is unknown to us, actually, since we’ve no reliable physical description of them.
We’re then told about that, “The arguments regarding the identity of these mysterious ‘sons of God’” of the Genesis 6 affair, as I term it, “generally breaks down into three basic interpretations”:
1) “The ‘sons of God’ are the Sethites (cf. 5:1-3), while the ‘daughters of men’ are from the Cainite line”: this is a late comer of a view that’s based on myth and only causes more problems than it solves.
2) “The ‘sons of God’ are heavenly beings, who mate with earthly women”: we just need to specify Angels with regards to heavenly beings—Job 38:7 is a direct route to that sons of God can refer to non-human beings (which the LXX has as “Angelos”).
3) “The ‘sons of God’ are dynastic rulers who, as oriental despots, established royal harems by force or practiced indiscriminate rape”: this is essentially a historically unknown view.
The author is clearly mixing and matching terminology and data from different times and genre. For example, reference is made to, “one-third of the angels — described symbolically as ‘stars’ in the text” of Rev 12 but that is followed directly by that they, “followed Semjaza, Azazel and a group of other powerful angels into rebellion” which his from 1 Enoch.
Also, we’re then told of, “The ‘intermarriage’ between these fallen angels and the giants” by which I can only imagine reference is being made to Angels mating with (the imaginary) pre-Adamites.
We’re told of then “super-race of the nephilim-gibborim” and that, “To crush the attempt of introducing man into the realms of the divine, God sovereignly and justly judged man to death in the Flood.” FYI: biblically, “nephilim-gibborim” reads as mighty Nephilim. Reference is also made of, “Nephilim giants” which biblically reads as Nephilim Nephilim.
Leroy Birney is quoted thusly, “The word ‘nephilim’ occurs only here [Gen 6:4] and in Numbers 13:33. In Numbers it is used of the Anakim, who were of great stature. The LXX translates ‘giants’ [gigantes]…” (“An Exegetical Study of Genesis 6:1-4,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (Winter 1970), 51).
Num 13:33 is one sentence form an evil report by utterly unreliable guys whom God rebuked. It’s generally understood that the tall-tale they concocted is that Anakim were, in some unelucidated manner, related to Nephilim and that Nephilim were very, very, very tall: that theirs is the only physical description we have of Nephilim is why I noted that we have no reliable physical description.
As for, “Anakim, who were of great stature” well, what we’re told about them is that they were, “tall” (Deut 2) which is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
Now, when we’re next told that, “Nephilim were…gigantic” we can dismiss that as being based on zero reliable data points—and only one unreliable pseudo-data point.
Yet, we’re told that they, “grew to be of a tremendous stature” followed by an appeal to the plagiarist Stephen Quayle (see proof of that in my book Nephilim and Giants As Per Pop-Researchers) who, “explains in his seminal” largely plagiarized, “work, Genesis 6 Giants, The Nephilim that were produced by the angel/mankind marriage were much different from either of their parents.”
Let’s pause here since Angels are always described as looking just like human males and human females look just like human females so why would their offspring look, “much different from either of their parents”?
But perhaps he’s not speaking of their look—although he is since, at the very least, he asserts that they were giants-height-wise, “large beings or giants in the way giants are normally thought of today”—whatever that means.
He went on to say, “This…went against God’s plan…in which each animal and human being was to reproduce ‘after its own kind’. [Genesis 1:24].” Since Angles look just like human males, we were created, “a little lower than they” (Psalm 8:5), and we’re able to produce offspring with them then, by definition, we’re of the same basic kind.
Quayle and/or the person he plagiarized went on to write/quote, “When the Greek Septuagint was created, the Hebrew word Nephilim was translated into Greek as gegenes. This is the same word used in Greek mythology for the ‘Titans’, creatures created through the interbreeding of the Greek gods and human beings.”
Some LXX versions have gigantes, some gigas, some gegenes: the points of which are references to pertaining to Gaia, the Earth false goddess—such as being born of her. But it was not elucidated that there were more than one generation of Titans (with some featuring the lower bodies of serpents and others having 100 arms) and that it was not gods and human beings but the sky false god and the Earth false goddess (although I will grant that mythologies tend to vary).
We’re told, “Quayle appears to promote the idea that the Nephilim were actually formed by combining the DNA of the fallen angels and human women, since angels are spirit and thus do not have DNA, we hold to the thesis that the Nephilim were genetically manufactured beings created from the genetic material of various pre-existing animal species.”
This is none but neo-theo-sci-fi-tall-tales. Quayle actually asserts that Angels came to the pre-creation of humans Earth, possessed animals of all sorts (including bird and sea-dwellers), they underwent Darwinian evolutionary processes, until they became human-looking enough to mate with Adamites—who else?
That’s a perfect example of un-biblical neo-theo-sci-fi—evo—tall-tales.
So as to sound fancy, the author decides, “to fit them into our scientific paradigm, we should officially term the Nephilim as a subclass of homo artificialis: homo artificialis nephilid”—that’s actually a pseudo-scientific paradigm and/or science fiction paradigm.
We’re told, “Thus, the fallen angels did not personally interbreed with the daughters of men, but used their godlike intellect to delve into the secrets of YHWH’s Creation and manipulate it to their own purposes.”
We then get some throw away pseudo linguistics, “Quayle points out that the Greek antecedent of the word ‘giants’ is the word gegenes” which, “is also the root of the words ‘genes’, ‘genetics’, ‘geneology’, [sic.] and so forth. Thus, the concept of genetic manipulation was ‘spliced in’ to the ancient conception of giants.”
That is all even though Gen 6 states, “sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives…sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.” Apparently, attraction, marriage, and mating just aren’t sci-fi enough for some.
Also, “Quayle also points out that the giants did not suffer from a hormonal imbalance, commonly known today as ‘gigantism’…according to Quayle, there is definitive proof that genetic manipulation can in fact result in the development of a gigantic version of a particular species” even though, again, we’ve no reliable reason to think that Nephilim were even one inch taller than the subjective average.
To add weight, we’re told, “The,” unquoted and uncited, “rabbinic literature also confirms that the Nephilim were indeed a giant…that had existed before the Flood, and also afterward” yet, any and all such literature is from millennia after the Torah and is peppered with folklore, speculation, assertions, etc.
Robert C. Newman is quoted stating, “Regarding the ‘Nephilim’, the rabbis apparently used Num 13:33, where the term is associated with the Anakim at the time of the Exodus. With this hint and the aid of Deut. 2:10-11, 20-21, they obtained five other names for the Nephilim by which to describe them using etymological word-play” (“The Ancient Exegesis of Genesis 6:2, 4,” Grace Theological Journal 5.1 (1984), 26-27).
Reminder, “where the term is associated” within one single sentence of an evil report by unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
There’s literally zero even as much as a, “hint” in Deut 2 which does not in the least bit contain, “five other names for the Nephilim” since that’s all about Rephaim and doesn’t even mention Nephilim—and that’s the sort of thing being published in a Theological Journal: no wonder pop-Nephilology is a cesspool of misinfo and disinfo.
Newman utterly subjectively tells us that, “Two of these are rather supernatural sounding” and repeats Rabbinic tall-tales, “‘Gibborim: … the marrow of each one’s thigh bone was eighteen cubits long’; ‘Anakim: … their necks reached the globe of the sun’: (ellipses by Newman or the article’s author).
We’re told, “Newman points out, several subclasses of Nephilim appear to have existed before the Flood, and also afterwards. One of those that existed before the Flood were the ‘Gibborim’, the ‘mighty men of old.’”
Note how incoherent it is to assert anything about Gibborim’s bones since that’s just a descriptive term for might/mighty. Yes, many pop-researchers actually think that The Gibborim were a people group but that’s incoherent. It’s a term applied to Nephilim, to Angels, to some of David’s soldiers, to Boaz, to God, etc.
As for Anakim’s, “necks reached the globe of the sun” they went from being taller than 5.0-5.3 ft. to well, I hope they had some extreme SPF sunblock.
Perhaps there were, “subclasses of Nephilim appear to have existed before the Flood” even though we’re no such data. Again, there’s literally only one single unreliable sentence of that such was the case, “also afterwards” of the flood.
But, it was not a Nephilim subclass that were, “‘Gibborim’, the ‘mighty men of old’” but the Nephilim themselves, “The 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 author ends up falling for the incoherent, illogical, and ill-bio-logical assertion I just noted, “The ‘Gibborim’ were…offspring of the Nephilim.”
Directly following that, Newman is quoted for pseudo support again, “In Gen 6:4 nephilim is translated gigantes without textual variation”: so he’s unaware that it might also read as gigas or gegenes.
He also merely assets, “The Greek word, usually rendered ‘giant’, indicates a warrior of large stature and translates gibbor in Gen 10:8, 9.” Again, it only indicates being earth-born, as in born of Gaia.
We’re told, “Nephilim…apparently procreated amongst themselves…resulting in the creation of a subclass of giants known as the gibborim. Not quite as tall as the Nephilim — who were likely giants among giants, dozens, perhaps hundreds of feet tall, if the midrash are to be believed — the Gibborim were probably more the size of Goliath, in the 8-12 feet tall range.”
Perhaps Nephilim procreated amongst themselves but, again, it’s simply erroneous to assert “a subclass of giants known as the gibborim.”
They were, “Not quite as tall as the Nephilim” for whom we’ve no reliable physical description—which is why the assertion is so utterly wide, “dozens, perhaps hundreds of feet tall, if” that is, folklore from millennia after the Torah, “are to be believed.”
It’s myopic to merely assert, “Goliath…8-12 feet” since the preponderance of the earliest data—the LXX, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Flavius Josephus—all have him at just shy of 7 ft.
Having merely invented a people group called Gibborim, we get more sci-fi-tall-tale taxonomy, “we will classify this type of homo artificialis nephili / homo sapiens hybrid as homo artificialis nephilim gibbori, ‘Gibborim’ for short.”
Reference is made to the man whom Stephen Quayle plagiarized, in term of that Charles DeLoach asserted, “fallen angels in evolved human flesh” and he asserted a common trope in that they, “posed the gravest threat to God’s plan for the redemption…to come and redeem the fallen Adamic family had to be born from pure stock” but, again, since as per post-flood Nephilolgists, the flood was much of a waste it was not enough to do the job.
DeLoach continued, “as commentator H.B. Pratt explains, ‘There are, for example, those who suppose here, just as in the case of the wife of Cain, that there were two distinct races of men in the world, the Adamic and the Pre-Adamic — a race perhaps half bestial; the mixture of which two races caused the moral desolations that are mentioned; and that when the Hebrew text says … that ‘Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations’, [it means] that he was of pure stock and uncontaminated” (“Giants and the Flood”, in Giants: A Reference Guide from History, the Bible, and Recorded Legend (Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1995), 105-106).
But why merely assert that Cain’s wife was distinct, pre-Adamic, and half bestial? Multiple generations of Adamites are recorded in Gen 4-5 showing that there were plenty of people around for Cain to marry: other Adamites.
As for, “Noah…of pure stock and uncontaminated” in terms of genetics: that may very well have been the case but it actually refers to his righteousness, as I proved in my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology.
Thus, the tall-tale teller Quayle relied on the tall-tale teller DeLoach who relied on the tall-tale teller Pratt—and so goes the echo-chamber.
We’re told, “DeLoach continues…when these created and evolved peoples copulated, many of the children born to them grew to astonishing sizes. Having bodies that were part animal and part man…gigantic beings” about which I can only say: neo-theo-sci-fi-tall-tales.
It’s amazing how much so many Nephilologists know based on, what, one or two sentences? For example, the Meredith G. Kline specifically specifies, “Nephilim, and their horrid children, the Gibborim, plundered the wealth of others and heaped it up in vast hordes for the purposes of conspicuous consumption, gorging while others starved…Gibborim sought only for temporary pleasures, achieving their goals through merciless murder, plunder and rapine,” etc., etc., etc. (“Divine Kingship and Genesis 6:1-4,” Westminster Theological Journal 24 (1962), 200).
The article’s author chimes in, “Gibborim…were simply giant parasites living off of the work of others…creating vast harems of women…wasting resources, killing off healthy cells, and spreading poisons all over the face of Earth. In the end, using their techniques of murder, plunder, and rapine, homo artificialis systematically subverted and destroyed homo sapiens,” etc., etc., etc.
After almost another 800 words of such fantasy stuff, we’re told that Ronald S. Hendel refers to, “the deluge — the destruction of humanity and the concomitant annihilation of the disorder. The cosmic imbalance is resolved by a great destruction, out of which a new order arises” and yet, again, post-flood Nephilologists go on to imply that God failed and the, “new order” was soon also corrupted (“Of Demigods and the Deluge: Toward an Interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4” Journal of Biblical Literature 106/1 (1987), 23).
The author notes, “In order to destroy the Nephilim and the accursed Gibborim…God sent the Great Flood to wipe the slate clean” but such post-flood Nephilologists seem to suffer from cognitive dissonance since they don’t close the loop, they don’t recognize that they are claiming two utterly contradictory things (even when it’s pointed out to them, believe me) and, when pushed, will just add another tall-tale about how they’re not really implying that God failed but that they’re extremely specific statements, such as the one I just quoted, does not necessitate no post-flood Nephilim
To them, “God sent the Great Flood to wipe the slate clean” but the slate was corrupted and that’s okay, God went to Plan-B.
Yes, “YHWH was forced to destroy all life on Earth…As a result of the Flood, all of the work the fallen angels had done to either corrupt or destroy homo sapiens had been rendered useless…However” here we go, “though the Flood wiped out all of the Nephilim and Gibborim, their progenitors — the fallen angels who cannot die — watched and waited for the time when they could start the next phase of the great genetic war again.”
The author seems unaware that there was only a one-time fall of Angles in the Bible and that Jude and 2 Peter 2 tell us that those Angels were incarcerated. Now, be aware the they don’t specify when they were incarcerated but since the flood was when God was wiping the slate clean then that would have been the logical time.
But the author went with one of the tall-tales about how God must have missed a loophole, “as soon as,” mind you, “the waters receded, the ‘mystery of iniquity’ began once more. Phase three…just after,” mind you, “Noah and his family left the ark.”
We’re told of the event that, “resulted in the cursing of the line of Canaan, one of the sons of Ham, the son of Noah. (Genesis 9:18-27).” As an FYI, as the author notes, “it appears that all agree that the action was sexual in nature” and pertained to Ham and Noah’s wife.
But what that had to do with that, “the fallen angels…could start the next phase” is certainly irrelevant—if, that is, one is just reading the texts for what they say and not seeking tall-tales fodder.
This somehow led to, “the point where conditions once again had begun to resemble those that had led to the need for the Great Flood” and, pray tell, “why did YHWH plan to destroy the Canaanites”? We’re told—actually, it’s merely asserted—”Because the fallen angels were once again at work on Earth, using the Canaanites to breed a whole new generation of Nephilim and Gibborim giants” for which, of course, there’s literally zero indication.
God told us many times why He commanded such destruction but never said even one single word about Nephilim—I devoted an entire chapter of my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? to proving this fact.
We were introduced to the name game whereby when post-flood Nephilologists realize they have zero data—or one unreliable sentence and nothing more—then they merely water down and swap names. We already got a taste of this regarding the invention of a Nephilimish people group called Gibborim.
Now we get, “Amor, the father of the ‘Amorites’…though whom the fallen angels had begun recreating the dreaded Nephilim”: thus, now anytime you read about Amorites, you can merely swap in Nephilim and there you have it: utterly artificially manufactured pseudo data.
It’s merely asserted, “For this reason YHWH forbad Abraham to tarry in Canaan” for which there’s zero indication.
Thus, or so the fascinating and exiting sci-fi-tall-tales go, “as soon as…just after” the flood, “The fallen angels were busily at work creating all new armies of wicked giants that they would once again use to try to conquer the world.”
We’re told, “giants…make a significant appearance in the Bible again…Genesis 14…describes a major regional conflict between the king of Elam and five of his vassals” which is contextually irrelevant since none of them were Nephil, of course.
We’re told of a, “group of peoples called the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, and Horim” about whom Victor “Hamilton explains…Rephaim, Zuzim, and Emim are…people of giant stature. (Deut. 2:10-12, 20-23).” (The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 402)).
Yet, the only relevant this Deut 2 tells us is that they were, “tall” subjective to 5.0-5.3 ft.
We’re regaled with (tall) tales of, “Distribution of Palestinian Giants…Rephaim and Gibborim-type giant subclasses…general areas of inhabitation can be derived from Genesis 14 and Deuteronomy 2-3” but what can’t be derived there from is anything to do with Nephilim nor anyone that was more than, “tall.”
We’re assured, “The mysterious Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim and Horim were, in fact, giants” about which the author doesn’t seem to realize that Zuzim and Emim were just an aka for Rephaim—but it sounds more impressive to make the list longer, I suppose.
Playing the name game again, it’s merely asserted, “The Rephaim were the next generation of giants, the ‘new Nephilim’, and were of Amorite descent. Since there’s no actual way to connect Rephaim in to Nephilim, post-flood Nephilologists commit word-concept fallacies for the purpose of getting us to believe that subjectively selected meanings, definitions, usages of a root word is enough to back their assertions.
In this case, “the exact meaning of the term rephaim is not as clear, as the term is used for a variety of purposes, both in the Bible and in related texts” but why let that stop a good tall-tale since, again, one can just pick a meaning that can somehow be mashed into a tall-tale?
I actually wrote the book. I mean I literally wrote the book on the linguistics, titled Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010, and included an entire chapter about them in What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim?
The root word rapha ranges from dead to healing (and more).
The author tells us that Conrad E. L’Heureux, “gives an excellent summary…1) rephaim, meaning the shades of the dead…2) rephaim, referring to a gigantic race…Anaqim [aka Anakim] who, like Rephaim, were thought to be a prehistoric race of gigantic stature…Emim, apparently a special designation for the Rephaim…Zamzummim [aka Zuzim] are the Rephaim” (Rank among the Canaanite Gods: El, Ba’al and the Rephaim (Harvard Semitic Monographs 21) (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979), 111-112).
That, “rephaim, meaning the shades of the dead” is myopic, “rephaim, referring to a gigantic race” is taller than 5.0-5.3 ft. “Anaqim” were a clan of the Rephaim tribe” and so also, taller than 5.0-5.3 ft. and, again, Emim and Zamzummim/Zuzim were just akas for Rephaim.
But, in typical post-flood Nephilology manner, since none of that is sexy enough, appeal is made to Pagan mythology for support—not only appeal but Pagan mythology is actually artificially inserted into Biblical theology.
For example, “In the Ras Shamra texts found in the Canaanite city-state of Ugarit, the Rephaim are described as being simultaneously divine beings, human beings, cultic functionaries of the Amorite god Ba’al, mighty warriors, riders of chariots, and healers, or ‘ones who are healed’”: it slices, it dices, it chops, it blends—here’s how to order!
Basically, it comes down to that in Ugaritic mythology, when a king or hero died they were called king or hero but after they had been dead for a while, they were called the Rephaim and could be ritualistically summoned—see my article Dead Kings and Rephaim The Patrons of the Ugaritic Dynasty.
They use (or abuse) this in order to conclude that Rephaim were the living dead, preferably asserting that they were inhabited by the spirits of dead Nephilim or whatever sci-fi spin any given post-flood Nephilologist puts on it.
You see, in their desperation for appearing to have any data whatsoever, they even turn healing into a bad thing. The author tells us, that, “Concerning the meaning,” the singular only meaning, mind you, “of rapha and how it fits into the concept of underworld deity” since, John Gray, “believes that the basic meaning of rapha is ‘to heal’ or, more likely, to be healed” (“The Rephaim” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 84 (1949), 134).
But what does that have to do with, “the concept of underworld deity” well, the author comes to the rescue with, “However,” mind you, “since it has to do with the dead rephaim, and since these dead rephaim are, along with Ba’al, resurrected at the beginning of each rainy season, I suggest that the Rephaim are not merely healed but, along with Ba’al, resurrected, and the fertility of the land resurrected with them. Thus the basic concept behind the word rephaim is ‘those who have been resurrected.’” And that’s how you admit a meaning but pile sci-fi atop it.
Recall my point about the incorporation of Pagan mythology as the author went to on write, “The rephaim deities of the Ugaritic texts, then, were seen as the resurrected spirits of ancient warrior kings. But resurrected into what? And how does this apply to the Rephaim giants?” the actual answer to which seem to be: not at all.
Yet, that won’t further the tall-tale so, “The Rephaim were seen by the Amorites as both divine and human, as human incarnations of the divine rephaim, just as the Amorite king was considered to be the incarnation of their state god.”
We’re even told, “the Rephaim giants were specifically noted by Moses as being the return of the antediluvian Nephilim, that the Rephaim were in fact the reincarnations of the demonic spirits of the Nephilim giants who had been destroyed in the Flood.” There’s a reason why no quotations or citations accompany that assertion and that is because it is a mere assertion without a single word to back it.
But what do facts matter when you can pile assertion atop assertion into a bottomless pit of assertions and jump to the gigantic conclusion, “Thus, inherent in the very name ‘Rephaim’ was the confirmation that the Rephaim were indeed the return of the Nephilim” and that couldn’t be left as is but had to be plumped up even more with, “the next generation that succeeded the Nephilim breed of giants: homo artificialis rephi.”
“In sum,” we’re told, “Rephaim were a giant, human/divine hybrid race…a ‘master race’ of giant warrior-kings that were worshiped as the reincarnated spirits of the giant antediluvian god-kings, the Nephilim….Gibborim ‘storm troopers’…Gibborim even had specific names: the Zuzim, the Emim, the Horim, and the Avvim.”
Since the author is unaware that, as per Deut 2, Zuzim is just an aka for Rephaim, we’re told, “Zuzim were a Gibborim subclass of the Rephaim” who based on literally nothing, “were probably 8-10 feet tall” which based on literally nothing was, “a few feet shorter than the Rephaim, some of whom probably approached 12 feet in height or more.”
We’re then told, “The Emim were another Gibborim subclass…Horim were yet another Gibborim subclass…Avvim are the final Gibborim subclass…” or so goes the name game based on a people groups that was never a people group: the Gibborim.
Mention is made to, “Rephaim and Gibborim that then existed on Earth. (Gen. 19)” yet, of course, that text states no such thing and likewise with that, “Rephaim developed an all-new group of giant Gibborim stormtroopers — the Anakim.”
Refreshingly, the author is more specific than 90% of post-flood Nephilologists when reference is made to the premise for post-flood Nephilology, “When Israel first approached the land of Canaan, they sent out a group of twelve spies” yet, the author drops the specificity, “they returned in fear of the giants they saw there, particularly the Anakim.”
The author then actually quotes vss. 21-22, 25, 27-33 but still somehow misses the point of the narrative, key portions of which are:
“they went up…they ascended…where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were…they returned…they told…the land…floweth with milk and honey…the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan…
Caleb stilled the people…and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it…
But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.
And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. 33And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
Thus, “they sent out a group of twelve spies” but it was ten of them (since Joshua sided with Caleb) who, “returned in fear”: the ten unreliable ones whom God rebuked.
In short, an original report was presented that was accepted as is, is refers to the strength of the peoples, lists them, and specifies their locations.
The ten first agree that the issue is that multiple people groups living in well fortified cities, were, “stronger than we.”
But then, they, “brought up an evil report” which contradicts (not, “the land…floweth with milk and honey” but, “a land that eateth up the inhabitants”), they embellish it (not, “strong” and “stronger” but, “of a great stature”), and add the Nephilim to the list in the original report—being unable to specify where they live since well, they were just making it up.
In all, they made five assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the entire Bible.
As for Anakim’s relation to Nephilim well, that’s impossible and the Anakim aren’t even mentioned in the LXX version of that verse.
The author conveniently ignores that it was an evil report that contained a tall-tale and nothing more.
For more details, see my Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
Of, “The Anakim,” for which the ridiculous term, “homo artificialis rephaim anaki” was invented, we’re further told, “Anakim were the next generation of Gibborim giants produced by the Rephaim” even though Gibborim giants were supposedly produced by the Nephilim.
The author goes back to lacking specificity in asserting, “in their later report to Moses they mentioned only the Anakim giants” somehow also missing that, “in their later,” evil, “report to Moses they mentioned…the Anakim giants,” in non-LXX versions, and Nephilim.
Next, we’re back to, “Rabbinical tradition,” from millennia after the Torah, which, “has a fair amount to say about the sons of Anak” as per the Anakim entry in The Jewish Encyclopedia, “According to rabbinical tradition (Gen. R. xxvi.), the Anakim are of the same Titanic race as the Rephaim, Nefilim, Gibborim, Zamzummim, and Emim” which is incoherent.
Also, “The name (as though containing the element ‘anak = neck) is explained in the Midrash (Gen. R. xxvi.) as indicating that they wore ‘neck-chains heaped upon neck-chains,’”—I pity the fool!!!
Moreover, “they seized the solar disk…they squeezed their heads into the sun” whatever that means.
The author notes, “The word ‘anak means ‘neck’ or ‘necklace’ in Hebrew, and there appears to have been a tradition of the Anakim being a long-necked race, that wore many necklaces, possibly stacked one upon the other. Perhaps what we are intended to understand was that the Anakim, like the ‘Long Neck’ Karen peoples of Myanmar and Thailand, stacked brass rings around their necks in order to stretch out their necks in an effort to enhance their height and appearance.”
Well, merely stacking rings does not magically cause more vertebra to grow. Rather, it causes the shoulder girdle to lower. The Karen peoples are not taller due to this and are actually shorter on average that the average North American.
The author thinks, “That would also explain the alternate meanings that the rabbis were exploring, including ‘to press, force’, as if they were forcing their heads upwards, and the idea that they ‘squeezed their heads into the sun’, in the sense of ‘squeezing’ their heads upward using the brass rings.”
Also, “This type of purposeful manipulation of the body in order to create frightening and disturbing effects, including neck…malformation” indeed, which may make their appearance frightening and disturbing but would make them terrible warriors: it would be so much easier to break their necks with a single punch.
Somehow, the author directly jumps into asserting, “extensive piercing, body painting, tattooing and similarly bizarre methods of body modification, appears to have been typical of the Anakim, and of the Nephilim generally.”
DeLoach is appealed to again, and you can see why Quayle plagiarized him since he just told incoherent and generic tall-tales as well, “Moses, in Numbers 13:33, affirms that they descended from the Nephilim” when actually, “Moses, in Numbers 13:33, affirms” the such an assertion was from an evil report. In Deut 1 when Moses relates that event, he mentions Anakim but not Nephilim. Why would he, and the original report, utterly ignore the most awe inspiring beings on the planet? Well, because he was practical and was concerned about the real dangers on the ground and not some tall-tale.
It is only after many, many, many paragraphs that the author decided to specify, “When the spies returned from exploring Canaan, all of the spies save Joshua and Caleb brought terrifying reports of the sons of Anak” and yet, ignore the Nephilim again.
Also, “Joshua and Caleb, the only two who had faith that YHWH could easily defeat the giants despite their great size” even though neither ever referenced their height: regardless of to whom their refers.
We’re told, “Sihon was a famous Rephaim giant…Amorites had, by that time, been genetically modified and interbred into yet another Gibborim class of giant that, like the Anakim, was used by the Rephaim as stormtroopers…Amorites themselves had been completely converted into Gibborim-type homo sapiens / homo artificialis hybrid giants through interbreeding with the Rephaim…Amorite Gibborim….”
DeLoach is quoted stating, “Sihon is not described in scripture as a giant, as Og was” yet, they are both only described as giants when that term is correctly used which is that they were described as Rephaim. Yet, as per the author’s and DeLoach’s misuse of that term, Og is never described as a giant: the only physical description we have of him is from over-the-top folkloric tall-tales from millennia after the Torah.
Now, since the Babylonian Talmud (from 300-500 AD, mind you), “list both kings [Sihon and Og] as grandsons of Shemjazai [aka, Semjaza], a fallen angel (Niddah 61a) who evidently was of the Nephilim.” I’m unsure how a fantasy being who fathered Nephilim could be, “of the Nephilim” he fathered. I said fantasy being since Shemjazai/Semjaza is just a character from the Bible contradicting 1 Enoch which his folklore from millennia after the Torah: see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.
We’re told that, “Sihon…resembled Og in stature…(Midrash, Agadah, Hukkat, ed. Buber, p. 130a). These old writings…” but what is old is subjective since Midrashim may be old to us but they are from millennia after the Torah.
The author rightly, if just a bit generically, notes, “The Conquest of Canaan during the time of Moses and Joshua…destroyed Sihon and Og and took the entire area east of the Jordan away from the Anakim and Rephaim…wiping out the remnant of the giant Amorites and Rephaim…”
The author then has a rare moment of clarity, “Og…took on a legendary, at times almost comical character in the many Jewish legends that grew up around him. One story has Og surviving the Flood by hanging on to the ark, swearing servitude to Noah in return for food. The legends also place Og at many pivotal points in Israel’s history…legend tells, ‘Og sat on the city wall, his legs, which were eighteen ells (27 feet) long, reaching down to the ground.’” Yet, the author also concocted legends about Og.
DeLoach is quoted thusly, “An exceptional giant, Og…Josephus” also from millennia after the Torah, “stretched to a colossal height and possessed great strength. ‘Now Og had very few equals, either in largeness of body or handsomeness of his appearance…the vast largeness and handsome appearance of his body.’” Seems like Josephus had a bit of an Og crush.
The author asserts, “Og’s legendary ‘iron bed’ was 13-1/2 feet long and 6 feet wide, making it likely that Og was probably at least twelve feet tall — at least twice as tall (and wide) as the average man” but also admits, “Scholars have debated the subject of what exactly this ‘bed’ was, anything from a simple iron bed to a ceremonial couch to one of the many dolmens in the area, many of which were used as markers for important burial sites.”
Indeed, jumping from asserting to what bed refers to his height is a non-sequitur based on various mere asserted assumptions, see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
The author tells us of various wars which have utterly nothing to do with Nephilim, of course, and then focuses on, “Goliath of Gath, a giant” with whom we’ve already dealt.
We’re then told of one of Goliath’s relative that he, “had six fingers and six toes on each hand and foot.” Pop-Nephilologists assert that such extra digits are a Nephilim trait but biblically, such was only stated about one single person and he was a Repha, not a Nephil: see my book Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales for a whole chapter just on this issue.
The sci-fi is, once again, taken up a giant notch via yet another appeal to DeLoach who referred to, “Benaiah’s killing of two mighty Ariels, or, as the King James Version describes them, ‘two lion-like men’…and his delivering the deathblow to an Egyptian giant. The big Egyptian that Benaiah fought wielded a spear as large as a weaver’s beam, while Benaiah was armed only with a club. But, in the sparring, Benaiah snatched from this giant his own spear and dispatched him with it.”
Thomas Horn is amongst the pop-Nephilologists who take a reference to fierce warriors—lion like—to mean something about human-lion hybrids, see my article Gary Wayne on the Origins of the Giant Lion-Like Men of Moab
Also, many post-flood Nephilologists insist that Goliath must have been at the top of the height ranges given for him due to his armor—they seem to forget that he had a guy assisting with his equipment—and that he wielded a, “spear as large as a weaver’s beam.” Yet, in the case of the 7.5 ft. Egyptian, regular guy Benaiah was able to successfully wield such a spear in hand-to-hand combat.
We’re told that, “Phase 6 of YHWH’s war against the giants,” since He couldn’t get the job done the first five times, pertained to, “genetic warfare, Jesus was born a pure descendant of Adam, untainted through countless generations, through Noah, Abraham, Israel, Judah, David and, finally, Mary” but the author somehow managed to miss that His genealogy also includes some Goyim who were of the peoples who were supposedly Nephilim-Gibborim-Rephaim-Angel-animal-human abominations, as per the tall-tales.
But even Phase 6 wasn’t enough since, “YHWH’s war against the giants is still unfinished. Who knows if somewhere, in secret, another ‘master race’ of giants is being bred for world conquest? Rumours of encounters with ‘aliens’ who come down from heaven, and vast breeding farms of hybrid ‘super soldiers’” this kicks the sci-fi off of the charts.
And it’s incredibly dangerous because it’s claiming there are humans who are actually not human and will have to be dealt with—capiche?!?! This sort of thing caused me to write a chapter titled, “Nephil Kampf” 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.
The author next gets into non sequitur territory of the sort which concludes that large things must have been built for and by large people, “Dolmens, stone circles…weapons, armor, and even forbidden technologies” and, oh yes, “giant skeletons” but of what? Don’t ask, just use the word giant since it’s impressive.
One such site is, “the Gilgal Rephaim stone circle…that mark ancient, buried secrets” so secret that nothing remarkable has ever been found therein.
And the author leaves us with a gigantic pile of assertions, watered down etymology, fallacious correlations and an over all great, and greatly fallacious, neo-theo-sci-ti-tall-tale—which, by the way, Thomas Horn approvingly quoted.
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