One of the key issues in Nephilology is the question of whether they made it past the flood.
The only indication that they did so is one single sentence from an, “evil report” spoken by 10 unreliable men whom God rebuked (Num 13:31-33 and on into chap 14). That evil report is ill-logical, ill-bio-logical, and ill-theo-logical. Note that the English Standard Version that I will henceforth be quoting has, “bad” for dibâ/דִּבַּת. Yet, that matters not since the report is not to be considered unreliable due to how it is titled but rather, due to its contents.
Thus, I have embarked upon a research project showing that the report consists of five mere assertions that are unsupported by even one single over verse in the entire Bible. Some assert support but do so only by taking texts out of context to make pretexts for prooftexts: not even texts, actually, but individual verses/sentences or fragments of such.
I have been publishing articles which target each assertion which I enumerate thusly:
1) “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants…”
2) “and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.”
3) “And there we saw the Nephilim…”
4) “(the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim)…”
5) “and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
In short, Num 13 presents 12 men being sent into the land of Cannan to reconnoiter it.
Upon their return to the congregation of Israelites, a report is presented which is accepted as is.
Yet, it would appear that the reported prospect of confronting six, “strong” people groups, living in what is descried as, “cities are fortified and very large” alarm the Israelites.
The six are listed as Anakim, Amalekites, Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, and Canaanites—note the lack of mention of Nephilim.
Yet, “Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, ‘Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.’”
But, “Then the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.’” Note that the objection agrees with the original, as is, report: the issue is strength.
Only at this point are we told, “So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, ‘The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
The 10 unfaithful, disloyal, unreliable men (10 since Joshua sided with Caleb) made up a, “Don’t go in the woods!” style fear-mongering, scare-tactic tall-tale. Yet, the evil report is literally the foundational premise upon which all post-flood and, “giant” Nephilology is based—especially pop-Nephilology which is un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales.
Let us review the six people groups about which the 10 men commented as that they were, “all…of great height”—whatever, “great” means since, of course, that is a vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage term.
Anakim
Deut 2 reads:
We…went in the direction of the wilderness of Moab…(The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim. Like the Anakim they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim…cross the border of Moab at Ar…the territory of the people of Ammon…(It is also counted as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly lived there—but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim—a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; but the Lord destroyed them before the Ammonites [Hebrew has, “them”].
A side note to our contextual focus is that Rephaim were a.k.a. Emim (אֵמִים) and Zamzummim (זַמְזֻמִּים, transliterated as Zuzim, זוּזִים in some versions). Also, Anakim (כָּעֲנָקִים) were what we may term a clan of the Rephaim tribe (“are also counted as”).
So, we have data which informs us that Rephaim, by any other name, which includes Anakim were, “tall.”
That is a flaccid designator, it is a usus loquendi: just as, “great,” it is a vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage term which, in this case, is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
Amalekites
Biblically speaking, the only indication that the Amalekites (לַעֲמָלֵק) were even, “tall” is by extension of the evil report. Thus, we have no reliable indication that they were even, “tall” and/or of, “great height.”
Hittites
Biblically speaking, the only indication that the Hittites (הַחִתִּי) were even, “tall” is by extension of the evil report. Thus, we have no reliable indication that they were even, “tall” and/or of, “great height.”
Jebusites
Biblically speaking, the only indication that the Jebusites (הַיְבוּסִי) were even, “tall” is by extension of the evil report. Thus, we have no reliable indication that they were even, “tall” and/or of, “great height.”
Amorites
Now, this is a unique case since, as pop-Nephilologists will do, when you exclusively quote Amos 2:9, you read that it states, “the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars,” you proceed to suss out the height of the cedars in that region, you conduct a one-to-one ratio based mathematical calculation, and you merely assert that Amorites were circa 40ft. tall.
As I noted to Eric Rolon when he did this, one way to know that no one who does that actually takes themselves seriously is that they ignore the context and do not bother with the rest of the statement which is, “and who was as strong as the oaks” yet, no one has conducted a one-to-one ratio based mathematical calculation correlating the strength of Amorites to oaks (see my book The Great Nephilim Debates: Featuring Gary Wayne, T.J. Steadman, Rob Rowe, and Eric Rolson).
But wait, there is more since the statement also goes on to state, “I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath” but I have yet to encounter anyone who is prepared to assert that Amorites had literal fruits and roots growing right out of their bodies.
So, when God, via Amos, was just telling us that Amorites were big and strong, I am unsure why we should assume that God, via Amos, was implying conducting a one-to-one ratio based mathematical calculation?
The only answer I have found is that pop-Nephilologists (and many scholarly ones) suffer from that which I term Gigorexia Nervosa: the obsessive desire to see giants, and just making them up where they are nowhere to be seen.
Canaanites
Biblically speaking, the only indication that the Canaanites (הַכְּנַעֲנִי) were even, “tall” is by extension of the evil report. Thus, we have no reliable indication that they were even, “tall” and/or of, “great height.”
Thus, biblically speaking, not even something as mundane as subjectively unusual height can be supported of five of the people groups but only for the Anakim.
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