The video Nephilim Giants AFTER Noah’s Flood? Dr. Michael Heiser has been removed from YouTube but not before I kept track of the following discussion.
Jim noted
Is Dr. Heiser referring to something like the idea of the sexual ritual that produced ‘offspring’ for pagan deities being performed both before and after the flood, (i.e why Og’s bed was significant, and the significance of kings spending the night in a bedroom atop the ziggurat structures in Mesopotamia, etc. )?
Uwe Könnigsstaddt replied
Read his book “The Unseen Realm”
Termi Nation chimed in with
Og’s “bedstead” is the Monolith from 2001 a Space Odyssey . 9:4:1 – 1:4:9
It can be found being hid the building called the Kabba at Mecca, Saudia Arabia.
It is also referred to in the Bible as the Methegammah (Meta Gamma) -2 Samuel 8:1
A certain Read Truth noted
In Galatians Paul talks about some dialogue he had with Peter. That’s enough for me.
However, I don’t see how Og’s bed has anything to do with anything in Mecca. That’s…. Maybe a stretch.. but whatever, I’m intrigued. I’ll look it up.
I, Ken Ammi, noted
That seems to be the current fad. Yet, either way: any concept of post-flood Nephilim implies that God failed.
Read Truth
Ken Ammi, that’s fine if you want to believe it that way, I can’t change your mind for you but 2 Chronicles says:
4And after this there arose war with the Philistines at Gezer. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Sippai, who was one of the descendants of the giants, and the Philistines were subdued. 5And there was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 6And 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. 7And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, struck him down. 8These were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
And that account lends credibility to the account of the spies that were afraid to take the land (and why were they afraid? Obviously something was making them hesitant to go into a lush land full of resources). Just because they had a bad attitude, doesn’t mean they lied about their report. In fact, the very presence of giants in the historical writings of the Bible give full credence to their report.
So go ahead and lump the Chronicles and the books of Kings into the same category as the report in Numbers. Just don’t believe any of it. Or choose to believe it. I can’t choose for you.
Ken Ammi
Friend, I’ve been discussing “post-flood Nephilim” but by appealing to 2 Chronicles your directing me to a text about Rephaim, not Nephilim.
Thus, that does utterly noting to lending “credibility to the account of the spies that were afraid to take the land” but then you inserted the word “giants” so I can no longer follow to what you’re referring.
Indeed, “Just because they had a bad attitude, doesn’t mean they lied about their report” but we know they did lie because the made five assertions about which the whole entire rest of the Bible knows nothing at all.
Thus, if you want to demand post-flood Nephilim, your forced to rely exclusively on guys who contradicted Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the Bible—and you have to misapply texts that never refer to Nephilim.
I have no idea what you mean by “go ahead and lump the Chronicles and the books of Kings into the same category as the report in Numbers.”
Ken Ammi
Friend, you jumped from the specific Hebrew word N”ephilim” to the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage, and undefined English one “giants.”
I’m unaware of any “ritual worship necessary to produce ‘nephilim’” but that in that way they “could simply be reproduced post-flood” still implies that God failed.
Please understand that 1. in English Bibles “giants” doesn’t imply anything about height and 2. it’s used to render two words “Nephilim” and “Rephaim.”
Thus, “David and his men hunted down the last” Rephaim–and they’re utterly unrelated to Nephilim.
Jim
I’m referring to the cultic practice in Mesopotamia which is believed to have taken place in the room atop the temple structure. Other cultures also had (some still have) very similar practices. The ritual union between kings (sometimes already considered a demigod) and priestesses, or other temple personnel thought to be embodiments of the deity at hand, has been used to explain why some Mesopotamian culture heroes could be conceived as 2/3 god, 3/4 god etc., having been the offspring of such ‘mixed’ unions. So I was proposing that these “giants” could also be produced any time this belief system emerged.
Ken Ammi
Indeed, I’m aware of the cultic practice—and appealing to such is the latest fad in pop-Nephilology—yet, my point was, “I’m unaware of any ‘ritual worship necessary to produce ‘nephilim’” but that in that way they ‘could simply be reproduced post-flood’ still implies that God failed.”
So yea, “is believed” good qualifying term, “to have taken place…” and “could also,” another good qualifier.
I’m just pointing out that there’s no indication of any of that occurring post-flood and also that biblically, we’re told of good ol’ fashioned marriages, not rituals, even if between strange bed fellows.
Ooooooh, here’s something that just occurred to me based on that I think that pre-Tower of Babel commonly known and shared history came to be called myth and legend when humanity dispersed: such Pagan tales of such rituals are based on cultural memories of the Gen 6 affair, they were, in the own and corrupted Pagan ways, the affair (even if not really but only seemingly).
Ron Clark
Rob Skiba: HIs death was a tragedy
R.I.P.
I believe Rob had a change in theology when it comes to this old idea as described, and rightly so.,
There is a nuance or subtle bias implication with the wives ( Hams wife) being a carrier of the Nephilim DNA. With Ham being the supposed progenitor of the black race, then his offspring (all) are alleged to be the carriers of the Nephilim gene. And the narrative among todays evangelicals is that anyone with fallen angel DNA allegedly (mostly black people), can’t be saved; and are evil and likely savages because of the bad angel connection with Ham’s wife.
The connection with is with Nimrod; The son of Cush, the son of Ham and therefore a great-grandson of Noah This mindset for many is justification of behavior, the very least is well below what Jesus taught about, the righteous, attitude and behavior towards your neighbor; the Samaritan?
It’s a bit ridiculous to think that YHWH is so sloppy or careless in his grand effort to save humanity, to save a pure family, that the supposed sneaky black family tricked him and got through.
But the Bible also says: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).
The Torah and Tanakh and the Gospels and epistles in no way implies that only the descendants of two sons of Noe will be saved.
The Just Shall Live by Faith: Habakkuk 2:4
Romans 1:17 – “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”
Galatians 3:11 – “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.”
Hebrews 10:38 – “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him.”
Ken Ammi
Yes, Skiba (RIP) merely asserted as much because he needed to literally just invent a way to get Nephilim past the flood–which implies that God failed, BTW, since He missed that loophole.
A certain In My Opinion_ chimed in with
and how did God fail when He allowed them to come back and do it again? Where does it say that other Watchers, after seeing what happened to the first group, came back and committed the same crime again? There are only two possibilities. Either they came back, but smaller, through Noah’s sons, or they came back and took human women again, which is even less likely as the offspring would once again be gigantic compared to say, Goliath. I suppose there is a third possibility. That some of the fallen ones took some of the nephilim and proteced them during the flood. That also seems unlikely.
Ken Ammi
That begs the question: what makes you think that God allowed them to come back and do it again?
You also beg the question: what makes you think that “other Watchers…came back [it wouldn’t be “back” if it’s a different group] and committed the same crime again?”?
Here’s a third possibility, actually this is the biblical view: the one and only reason to think that there’s ever been any such thing as post-flood Nephilim is one single verse within an “evil report” by guys whom God rebuked.
Thus, there’s zero reason to believe them and zero reason to assert post-flood Nephilim.
In My Opinion_
You mean no reason other than they existed??? “There were giants in the earth in those days, and after….” Goliath and Og of Bashan by name plus all the other reports of actual giants rin the last few centuries. Enmity between the two seeds? You are literally in such deep denial that I don’t know what to say.
Ken Ammi
I’m unsure what you mean, you say “You mean no reason other than they existed???” but we agree they, Nephilim, existed. I noted, “the one and only reason to think that there’s ever been any such thing as POST-FLOOD Nephilim is one single verse within an ‘evil report’ by guys whom God rebuked. Thus, there’s zero reason to believe them and zero reason to assert POST-FLOOD Nephilim.”
You then quote a segment of a verse so I’m unsure why you did so, “There were giants in the earth in those days, and after….”
You then list “Goliath and Og of Bashan” but my context is discussing Nephilim but they were both Rephaim.
Thus, I haven’t been discussing subjectively unusual height—which seems to me what you mean by “giants” (even though “giants” in your English Bible implies nothing about height at all).
Enmity between the two seeds: those how do God’s will vs. those who don’t?
Now, rather than getting worldly on me, just keep sharpening iron with iron but just be sure you consider the context and the terminology.
Doug Michalak
I’m really grateful for Mike Heiser, and for all the work he has done to bring the Watchers narrative forward again into our consciousness. It helps us understand pieces of the Scripture that have been lost to us for centuries because the Jewish leadership wanted to further hide the role of Jesus the Messiah as the cloud rider, the King of the Universe, and the unique Son of the Most High God (I believe it was Origen that said many books were taken out of the Bible by the non-Messianic Jews in their hatred of Jesus). But it’s clear that Mike is intending to keep this knowledge in the realm of academia, and so with some of these questions, he’s really having to dance around the issue to keep the subject at just enough distance to prevent it from becoming too weird. You know, the Book of Jubilees tells us that all the animals spoke one language, and that on the day Adam sinned, God shut the mouths of all creatures except for man. How did these animals speak, when we know the majority of them don’t even possess the material infrastructure to form words? I don’t know. But I’m willing to believe that somehow that was possible. So I do believe the serpent spoke, and that’s why Eve didn’t think it was weird. We assume that because we’re observing a condition in our world now, it must have always been that way. That’s a false assumption. I looked at Greek mythology about the understanding of the ‘Gigas’; the word is certainly translated as giant, but it’s not limited to the definition of a large person. It can also be the equivalent of a ‘superman’. Hercules was depicted as just such a Nephilim—regularly human sized, but with super strength. Perhaps some had super-intelligence. Why don’t we see Nephilim here as big giants—or even monsters like the Titans? I don’t know. Certainly some of them in the past were. But maybe now there are still some, but they are limited in size. Why don’t we see giant turtles, rats, or dragonflies any more, when we have fossilized evidence that they once existed? Creation scientists have many theories about this, including that a different climate allowed for creatures to reach a bigger size. So, let’s not shy away from this stuff. Let’s simply be honest and say that we know what we know, and we don’t know what we don’t know.
Ken Ammi
A few things, if I may, just because Dr. Heiser is credentialed, qualified and experienced—and a cool guy—does not make him infallible. For example, he teaches post-flood Nephilim but the Bible does not.
That “Jubilees tells us that all the animals spoke” primarily means that millennia after the Torah was written, someone made a claim.
Now, “the serpent spoke” but “Eve didn’t think it was weird” because it was not an actual reptile, the word used for snake/serpent is one that shares roots with divination and shining metal and Revelation chaps. 12 and 20 make it crystal clear that Satan, Devil, serpent, and dragon all refer to the same thing, the same being.
Well said, Gigas, or gigantes, is actually not “translated as giant” but is rendered as such and it’s not just the case that “it’s not limited to the definition of a large person” but that since it means “earth-born,” it has nothing to do with unusual height at all—only the modern usage of it has had it imply any such thing.
Since we have no reliable physical description of Nephilim then we cannot know what size they were or even if they were of “super strength”: they became mighty and of renown but we are not told how or why.
Bad Moonshine
I like Mike also. What do you think about the theory that animals spoke spiritually. Meaning that they spoke kinda telepathically as the spirits do. When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost the light that came from them (so they needed clothing), and they also lost connection to the spirit world so they could no longer hear the animals.
Some believe that the Earth`s atmosphere changed drastically after the flood, preventing animals from growing past a certain point.
Doug Michalak @Bad Moonshine
Perhaps! Whatever it was, I believe they could communicate. I agree with you about the climate, too…
Ken Ammi @Bad Moonshine
I’ve no view on any of that speculation.
Djarfur
I mean, The giant inhabitants of Canaan during the conquest and Goliath were most likely Nephilim. A human body can’t function while being as big as they were.
Ken Ammi
A few issues, if I may, friend:
You’re using the vague, generics, subjective, and multi-usage English word “giant” unlike the English Bibles use it: you mean subjectively unusual height but English Bibles are just rendering (not even translating) either “Nephilim” or “Rephaim.”
There’s no indication Goliath was nor even could be a Nephil, and it’s specified that he was a Repha.
The Masoretic has him at just shy of 10 ft. but the earlier LXX and earlier Dead Sea Scrolls and the earlier Josephus have him at just shy of 7 ft.
But you seem to appeal to him due to his height but since we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim then we can’t correlate anyone to them based on height.
Sadly, that’s were the discussion ended.
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