The Biblical Archaeology site posted an article titled The Nephilim and the Sons of God by John Drummond who quotes Gen 6 thusly:
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”
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.
He notes:
…the “sons of God” (Hebrew Benai-Elohim) succumbed to their passions for the “daughters of Men” and had children with them. These offspring were known as the Nephilim (literally, “the fallen ones”), and they were the “mighty ones of old” and “men of renown.”
Though centuries of rabbinical and church tradition would say otherwise…
That’s odd since generically stating it that way is not the issue of contention since that’s a standard reading. The issue would be the identity of the sons of God.
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.
It he implies that at issue is whether Nephilim were their offspring well, that’s a secondary issue and not much debated—historically speaking.
John Drummond notes
…the audience to whom the text was intended would have understood the ‘sons of God’ to be the members of the divine assembly mentioned throughout the literature of the ancient Near East, including the Bible (see Job 6:1; Job 38:7; Psalm 29:1; Psalm 82).
Indeed, 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.
He adds, “In the texts of the cultures that surrounded Israel, like the Canaanite literature found at Ugarit, the ‘sons of God’ similarly appear as divine beings in the service to the king of the gods, El, and his queen, Asherah.”
We get a taste of this in the Bible itself since Daniel 3:25 records Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar stating that he saw someone looking, “like a son of God”: bar ‘ĕlâ—with bar being the Aramaic for ben/bene son/s and ‘ĕlâ being the Aramaic form of El/Eloa/Elohim, etc.
He went on to note:
The legacy of the Nephilim did not end with the flood, however, as the biblical texts go on to attribute them as the ancestors of some of the Israelites’ most feared enemies (Numbers 13:33).
It’s odd to refer to plural, “biblical texts” and then only appeal to one yet, he can only appeal to one since there’s only one to which one can appeal—there aren’t plural post-flood texts.
Also, Nephilim can only be said to have been, “the Israelites’ most feared enemies” when we read Num chaps 13-14, not merely one single verse, and realize that they weren’t real enemies, they were made up. That verse is part of an, “evil report” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
V. 33 reads, “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”—yet, note that the LXX version lacks any reference to Anakim.
So, when they merely asserted they that they saw post-flood Nephilim and that they were very, very, very tall: that was just a tall-tale.
There’s literally zero reliable indication of post-flood Nephilim and that would imply that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
Thus, “The legacy of the Nephilim” as real-life living beings did, in fact, end with the flood. Yet, the legacy as the stuff of myth and legend didn’t since weaving tall-tales about them has been in vogue for millennia—and has become a very lucrative modern day cottage industry as pop-Nephilologists make a living by selling un-biblical tall-tales to Christians.
John Drummond went on to write:
Another feared group that was legendary by the time the Israelites settled the land was the Rephaim, who were known to be powerful giants (Deuteronomy 2:11, 20, 3:11; Joshua 12:4, 13:12).
That they were, “giants” only begs these questions: what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Drummond’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
Biblically contextually, “Rephaim, who were known to be powerful giants” means, “Rephaim, who were known to be powerful Rephaim.”
He notes:
It’s unknown if the Israelites originally equated the Rephaim with the Nephilim, but it is clear that by the Intertestimental period (the fourth–first centuries B.C.E.) the Nephilim were thought to be the monstrous giant offspring of fallen angels and humans, as described in the pseudographical Book of Enoch and Jubilees, as well as others found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
If, and that’s a bit IF, “the Israelites originally equated the Rephaim with the Nephilim” it would have had to be by implying that God failed, etc., then accepting the evil report as true (which they did at the time—sans Josuah and Caleb), then extrapolating that if the clan of the Rephaim tribe, the Anakim, were somehow (impossibly) related to Nephilim then (somehow) by extension all Rephaim must be (somehow, impossibly) related to them.
So, it’d be asserted assumption piled atop asserted assumption, etc.—at piled high levels of abstraction.
As for, “by…fourth–first centuries B.C.E.”—wait, “B.C.E.” wow, I can’t believe Biblical Archeology would allow the usage of that anti-Christian term which was manufactured to take attention away from B.C.: before Christ and swapped it with a generic secular term Before Common Era. And the most ridiculous thing is that B.C.E. and B.C. is distinguished from C.E. which is really A.D. on the same day: Jesus’ birth (give or take a few years).
Ok, focusing again: “by…fourth–first centuries B.C…” we get into an era of wild speculation, historical fiction, pseudo-prophecy, folklore, etc., etc., etc.—see my article How Nephilim Absconded from the Tanakh and Invaded Folkloric Territory.
As for, “Book of Enoch and Jubilees, as well as others found among the Dead Sea Scrolls” which would be The Book of Giants (whatever that means), see my book on Enoch and The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts.
John Drummond added:
The authors of the Greek Septuagint even chose to use the word gigantes in their translation of Genesis 6, a word that also invokes the monstrous Titans—the legendary giants that were destroyed by the gods in Greek myth. And like the Titans of old, the legend of the Nephilim only continues to grow in modern times.
That’s a bit of a stretch: gigantes means earth-born.
That it was, “in their translation of Genesis 6” is myopic since they did likewise at any appearance of the term gibborim and Repha/im as well: and rendering three very different words with just one word was a terrible idea.
Thus, it’s doubly myopic to asset, “a word that also invokes the monstrous Titans—the legendary giants” since:
1) gibborim is merely the male plural for might/mighty and the gibborim in the Bible include Angels, Nephilim, some of David’s soldiers, Gideon, Boaz, etc., to include God Himself (Isaiah 9: El Gibbor).
Thus, it’s not exclusively “monstrous Titans—the legendary giants” since, for example, Boaz was mighty, in terms of wealth and authority, but not monstrous nor a giant.
2) even if the translators/renderers of the LXX (from centuries after the Hebrew Torah) meant to correlate Nephilim with Titans we still wouldn’t know how so: perhaps it was that they imagined that both were very tall but perhaps it was because both were hybrids, or that both were tyrannical, or some combination thereof—and note that there were more than one generation of Titans which differed radically such as some having a hundred arms, the lower bodies of serpents, etc.
That’s about it for the aspects of the article that touch upon my study of Nephilology.
Now, just in case, I will answer the three questions I posted:
What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
It merely renders (doesn’t even translate) “Nephilim” in 2 verses or “Repha/im” in 98% of all others and so never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.
What’s his usage?
Apparently, something about subjectively unusual height.
Do those two usages agree?
No.
Now, let’s dig into some of the comments posted to the article.
A certain DC noted something that seems to go back to the, “is not the issue of contention” but a secondary one that I noted upfront, “Gen 6:1-8 and how the scripture says GIANTS existed before and after the Sons of God. That these sons were named MIGHTY MEN not giants.”
The Gen 6 affair narrative’s contextual focus is the sons of God and daughters of men: their attraction, their marriage, and their offspring. Thus, it would violate that narrative’s contextual focus to artificially insert a mere passing reference to some unrelated Nephilim guys who just happened to be around at the time, are mentioned for no apparent reason, and about whom nothing more is said in relation to the narrative’s contextual focus.
DC also asked, “Question is where here does it say the Lord destroyed the giants or mighty men?” it says that when it says that only Noah, his wife, their sons, and their sons wives were spared—it’s implied therein and in the four other times we’re told who survived: Genesis 7:7, 23; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; and 2 Peter 2:5.
Now, we get a (bad) taste of why using the usus loquendi, flaccid designator, giants is useless since strictly English readers end up merely imagining to what it refers and then chase a modern English word around an ancient Hebrew Bible.
Example, DC wrote:
My friend said we have to believe that God sent them for a purpose to kill the giants. It doesn’t say what happened to either.
I said so is Goliath an offspring of giants after the flood? He said no! He’s a baby giant a deformity. I said did someone carry the gene in Noah’s ark he said no.
If anything, it was part of or one of the purposes for the flood and again, it says that was one of them by implication that Nephilim were part of the corrupt whole.
By, “is Goliath an offspring of giants after the flood?” DC seems to be asking, “is Goliath an offspring of Nephilim after the flood?”—again, everybody stop using that English word and just say what you mean—well, no, that’s impossible, we’re told he was a Repha, not a Nephil, virtually every time he’s mentioned and Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them.
As for, “a baby giant a deformity” why even invent such tall-tale when, after all, The Masoretic text has him at just shy of 10 ft. Yet, the earlier LXX and the earlier Dead Sea Scrolls and the earlier Flavius Josephus all have him at just shy of 7 ft. (compared to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days) so that’s the preponderance of the earliest data.
As for, “someone carry the gene in Noah’s ark” well, that would imply that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
DC then wrote, “It says when Caleb went into the land the Giants still existed that they WERE LOCUSTS next to the giants not the height of Goliath 2-4times.”
This is generic since it wasn’t, “Caleb went into the land” but 12 spies did, Joshua sided with Caleb, and the other 10 were rebuked—to death—by God.
Again, “the Giants still existed” means the Nephilim and DC doesn’t seem familiar with the text to recognize the facts it conveys. DC seems to get, “LOCUSTS” from the LXX version and well, there’s the issue of Goliath’s height—and however DC got specific enough to get, “2-4times” from a generic statement about grasshoppers/locusts.
DC then notes, “I dunno what happened to the giants during the flood if only man and animals were killed” but the latter statement is utterly fallacious and, “Doesn’t say the mighty men or giants so did they die or survive” no, and that would contradicted the Bible five times.
DC then notes, “also CRAZY that THE MIGHTY MEN OF DAVID were called that. Still gotta look into the Hebrew word for mighty men” well, do so and DC will find out how generic it is such that so what if, “THE MIGHTY MEN OF DAVID were called that”—again, so is God.
Then, a certain Dan Rees commented:
…the Bible…follows immediately after the successive listing of the line of Cain and the line of Seth…the godly descendants of Seth forgot their principles in marrying for looks rather than character. This traditional interpretation has the advantage of fitting the context.”
Well, it’s not in the least bit the traditional interpretation: it’s a late-comer of a view based on myth, prejudice, and which only creates more problems than it solves so, more than zero.
Note the generic nature of this particular rendition of that view: the allegedly supposed whole entire godly descendants of Seth weren’t godly since they were such terrible sinners that their sin served as the premise for the flood.
But what did they forget? Apparently, there weren’t any or not enough attractive Sethies women so Sethie males were, “marrying for looks rather than character” but we’re not told what was the merely supposedly bad character of all women from the line of Cain.
Then, a certain DANA noted:
…the sons of god it speaks of are actually the watcher angels and if you really did your research you would have found the explanation of this lies in The Book of Enoch, Book of Watchers, where it picks up right where Genesis 6:4 stops…If you still have doubts read the book of Jude, it confirms these things and also quotes from enochs book.
Compare these, “Jude, it confirms these things and also quotes from enochs book” and Paul confirms some things and also quoted from Greek poets. It’s not that impressive now, is it?
I skipped some not very relevant comments and then we come to bob who replied to one such comment by quoting it and then commented on it:
“The Flood came because of the sin of humans”. While I agree that humanity was irredeemably sinful, what you’ve said cannot be why the Lord ultimately judged the world…
I quoted that because some who deny the Angel view do ague in terms of that, “The Flood came because of the sin of humans” but that’s myopic since the causes were the doings of Angels, Nephilim, and humans.
Likewise myopic is when George Hawke wrote:
In order to understand what words like “sons of god” meant to the Israelites, we should look at how Moses used them elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Moses describes the Israelites as “sons (or children) of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 14:1 & 32:3-6).
Well, we know by now that he’s just ignoring all usages of that term.
Brianroy made a very typical argument from the perspective of what I term Gigorexia Nervosa which I define as an obsession with seeing giants and making them up where they’re nowhere to be seen:
Og of Bashan’s bed was that being 9 twenty-one inch cubits long and 4 twenty-one inch cubits wide. In other words 189″ long = 17′ 4″ and 84″ wide = 7’. If we make an allowance of at least one foot at the head and at the feet, Og was about 15 feet tall, the tallest human that we know of to have ever walked the Earth.
However, Scripture calls Og the remnant of the giants; and this means that others at least equal to, and almost undoubtedly many even taller than he, preceded him.
So when we read Genesis 6, we are to understand that by GIANTS, we are talking generally about statures of 15 feet or more in height, who when they walked, shook the earth beneath their feet.
When looked at, Moses himself can be showed to have been attributed a height of 8’11”…
We’ve no physical description of Og which is why desperate appeals are made to his, “bed.” Yet, merely assuming we can know anything about his personal height based on his bed is actually based on various mere assumptions and we’ve come to find that the bed wasn’t something on which he slept but was a ritual object-see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
As for, “Scripture calls Og the remnant of the giants” that means, “remnant of the Rephaim.”
Thus, it’s utterly incoherent to conclude, “Genesis 6…15 feet or more in height” much less, “shook the earth beneath their feet” and of course, there’s literally zero indication of, “Moses…8’11”” but such is how un-biblical tall-tales go.
Jon K. J. Bartz asserted:
If you read the text in Scripture, reference is made to the sons of God being there (earth) before and after the flood. Interesting that some of our current earth population having Neanderthal genes and Dr. Oz made reference to “Our reptilian ancestors”. So much to learn and so little time to do it!
Alrighty then! As for, “sons of God being there (earth) before and after the flood” well, there’s no such statement in the entire Bible but that is one of the most popular pop-Nephilology tall-tales.
1) Jude and 2 Peter 2 tell us that those sons of God/Angels were incarcerated. Now, they don’t tell us when but since the flood was when God was cleaning house, as it were, then it would have been during the flood or before it.
2) post-flood sons of God doing it all over again is just a form of implying that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
3) what such people do it to read, “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” and merely imagine that a text that doesn’t say anything about the flood says something about the flood—in fact, the flood’s not even mentioned for the very first time until a full 13 verse later.
If you re-read it, you’ll see that it tells you to what days it refers: “those days” were when the sons and daughters first married, mated, and birthed (with the commencing timeline being given in v. 1) and so “afterward” meant just that, after they first did so (they kept doing so) yet, that is still all pre-flood.
As for, “current earth population having Neanderthal genes”: I’ve no idea what that has to do with anything, much less, “Our reptilian ancestors.”
Lloyd Stewart provided a breath of fresh (accurate) air with:
It’s true that the Nephilim are mentioned at Numbers 13:33, but the speakers quoted there in Numbers were the faithless Israelite spies, telling tall tales designed scare the Israelites away from entering the Promised land.
Now, Lloyd went on to write, “men of extraordinary size, called the sons of Anak (probably meaning ‘Long-Necked [that is, of tall stature]’), were only unusually tall men, for the Nephilim, the offspring of angels and women (Ge 6:4), perished in the Flood” (brackets in original).
Extraordinary is just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as giants. Deut 2 notes that Anakim were, “tall” and tall is just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as extraordinary and giants.
Thus, they were, “unusually tall” compared to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
Indeed, “Nephilim…perished in the Flood” never to return.
Dr Martin Allen Cragg commented as myopically as we saw above so I will quote it thusly, “according to” only some, “scripture Sons of God is a description applied to mortal believers” if we ignore the other scriptures which have a different usage.
Just as with another comment we saw, this one is generic enough to assert, “This passage records the consequences of believers marrying those who are outside that covenant relationship with God” without bothering to telling us anything useful.
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