​Considering the Mystery of Genesis 6 Interpreted by the Church Fathers

The Scriptamemo website is self-described as having the mission of, “Uncovering ancient truths through primary sources, scripture, and historical records.”

G. Paganelli published an article to it titled THE MYSTERY OF GENESIS 6 INTERPRETED BY THE CHURCH FATHERS which notes upfront:

My engagement with the Genesis 6 passage began through reading Dr. Michael Heiser’s exceptional work, The Unseen Realm. In this book, Dr. Heiser presents an in-depth theological and linguistic analysis of the text with remarkable clarity and scholarly precision. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the supernatural worldview reflected in the Bible.

Well, we ought to take that with a grain of Dead Sea salt since Dr. Heiser was credentialed and experienced but not infallible, his Nephilology and demonology were not altogether biblical, and he tended to create more problems than he solved—search online for these articles for examples:

Review of Amy Richter and Michael Heiser on four Enochian Watcher related women in Jesus’ genealogy

Rebuttal to Dr. Michael Heiser’s “All I Want for Christmas is Another Flawed Nephilim Rebuttal”

I also included him in my book, The Scholarly Academic Nephilim and Giants: What do Scholarly Academics Say About Nephilim Giants?

The LXX/Septuagint is quoted, the key portions of which are, “sons of God having seen the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose…giants were upon the earth in those days; and after that when the sons of God were wont to go in to the daughters of men, they bore children to them, those were the giants of old, the men of renown” (Lexham English Septuagint: A New Translation).

The Contemporary Torah (JPS, 2006) is quoted, “divine beings saw how pleasing the human women were and took wives from among those who delighted them…It was then, and later too, that the Nephilim appeared on earth—when divine beings cohabited with the human women, who bore them offspring. Such were the heroes of old, the men of renown.”

New International Version, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose…Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”

King James Version, “sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose…There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

G. Paganelli notes:

According to the testimony of the Church Fathers, the Genesis 6 account reflects…spiritual beings transgressed divine boundaries by engaging in illicit relations with human women—a union explicitly forbidden by God.

Indeed, 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.

Moreover:

This union produced a race of hybrid beings, whose identity remains enigmatic throughout the biblical narrative. Referred to by various names such as the Nephilim, Gibborim, Rephaim, Anakim, these groups appear repeatedly throughout the Pentateuch and are frequently associated with great size, unnatural appearance, and opposition to Israel.

This category error that violates the law of identity will unfortunately act as a line of dominos with this fallen one affecting all which follow.

That, “race of hybrid beings” have nothing whatsoever to do with, “Rephaim, Anakim” Anakim were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe.

Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them.

As for, “Gibborim” well, that is merely a descriptive term, the one under the English words, “heroes” or, “mighty” seen above. That term is applied variously to Nephilim (Gen 6:4), Nimrod (Gen 10:8), Angels (Psa 103:20), Boaz (Ruth 2:1), some of King David’s soldiers (1 Chron 11:11), even God Himself (Isa 9:6).

There is no such thing as a Gibborim people group like unto a tribe or some such thing.

Paganelli went on to write, “‘Gibborim’ (plural of gibbôr) means ‘mighty men’ or ‘heroes.’ In some contexts, it refers to valiant warriors, in others to negatively connoted beings (possibly hybrids, as in the days of Noah).”

Thus, perhaps we can say, “…Referred to by various names such as the Nephilim” who were one of many merely described as, “Gibborim” in terms of might.

As for, “Nephilim…frequently associated with great size, unnatural appearance” there is no indication of either of those: the dirty little secret is that since we have 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.

As for, “Rephaim, Anakim…frequently associated with great size, unnatural appearance”: the only contextual thing we are told about them is that, on average, they were, “tall” (Deut 2) subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days and that one of them had extra digits, “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 [Repha]” (2 Sam 21).

Thus, when the author goes on to refer to, “Nephilim and their descendants” any Nephilim descendants would be Nephilim, by definition, and would only have existed pre-flood since they did not make it past the flood in any way, shape, or form nor by any other name.

G. Paganelli wrote:

The Rephaim are often described as a race of giants or spirits of the dead, sometimes identified with ancient populations destroyed by Israel. The term appears in both geographical and eschatological contexts.

Key questions are what is the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word, “giants” in English Bibles? What is Paganelli usage? Do those two usages agree?

See, biblically contextually, “The Rephaim are often described as a race of giants” means, “The Rephaim are often described as a race of Rephaim” so that is redundantly circular.

As for, “or spirits of the dead” well, that is a case of applying the root word to the human tribal people group, so it is a word-concept fallacy.

Same issue with the claim that Anakim were, “Descendants of Anak, described as giants” since that means, “Descendants of Anak, described as Rephaim.”

Paganelli wrote:

Numbers 13:28–33 – The ten spies report that the Anakim are so tall they seemed like grasshoppers: “We saw the Nephilim… the sons of Anak.”

The tall statement was about Nephilim: so, what about my dirty little secret claim?

Well, any time anyone references that, they must note that they are relying on:

1. One single unreliable sentence (v. 33 being the key 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.

Paganelli also myopically wrote:

1 Samuel 17:4–7 – Goliath of Gath is described as over 2.7 meters tall, with heavy armor and a massive spear. He represents the Philistine challenge to Israel.

I said myopic since it was not pointed out that the Masoretic text has Goliath 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.

Paganelli wrote a non-sequitur by noting:

Deuteronomy 3:1–11 – Giant king of Bashan, last of the Rephaim. Defeated by Moses. His immense stature is attested by his iron bed nine cubits long (about 4 meters).

To conclude, “His immense stature” as per, “attested by his iron bed” is to jump to a huge conclusion based on various mere assumptions. I am surprised that an admirer of Dr. Heiser neglected to point out that all indications are that the bed was a ritual object, not something upon which Og slept—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?

Emim and Zamzummim are also mentioned: those are just aka for Rephaim (Deut 2).

The article is interesting in that it extensively quotes some early sources commenting on the Gen 6 affair, as I term it, and I provided many, many more in my book.

Sadly, the application of those views in the article are marred by the category errors that violates the law of identity.

Consider the implications of fallacious Nephilology, it damages theology proper since now we have to conclude that God failed, He must have missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, and must invent un-biblical fantasy stories about just how Nephilim, by any supposed other name, made it past the flood, past God.

I posted the following comment to the article:

Friend, correlating “Nephilim, Gibborim, Rephaim, Anakim” is a category error that violates the law of identity.

Ok, Gibborim is merely a descriptive term so Nephilim were gibborim and so was Boaz, Gideon, Angels, God, etc.

But Anakim were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe and there’s no correlation between them and Nephilim: you only get Anakim connected to Nephilim from one unreliable sentence from non-LXX versions of one unreliable “evil report” (Num 13:33) by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.

There are other issues such assertions about height: we don’t know Nephilim’s size, you were myopic about Goliath’s, and took a bad guess on Og’s.

scriptamemo@gmail.com

January 23, 2026 at 4:42 pm

Thank you for your comment. Here I give you the passages so you can go and check for yourself.

The Bible passage that connects the Anakim to the Nephilim :

Numbers 13:33

New International Version

33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

And the one linking the nephilim with Gibborim (which is an adjective that surely can be applied to a Giant).

The Bible identifies the nephilim with them so it’s not a matter of opinions:

Genesis 6:4 (ESV):

“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 (gibborim) who were of old, the men of renown”.

I hope it helped. Thank you for visiting the page.

Reply

scriptamemo@gmail.com

January 23, 2026 at 5:40 pm

Also The Rephaim are the most mysterious of the 3 because we have less informations about them. I have a post here about a scholar work about the Rephaim here.It gives few options.

Reply

Ken Ammi

January 23, 2026 at 6:41 pm

Appreciate your replies, my friend, I’ve written some dozen research-based books on Nephilology issues.

When you say “The Bible passage that connects the Anakim to the Nephilim : Numbers 13:33” you needed to mention that you’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.”

Well, sure there’s, “linking the nephilim with Gibborim” since that just means Nephilim were referred to as mighty: it’s just that you made it sound as if Gibborim is a tribal people group or some such thing.

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

Actually, we have a LOT more info about Rephaim than we do about Nephilim: it’s a mere two verses about Nephilim vs. many about Rephaim—to include references to Anakim since they were like a clan of that tribe.

That brought the discussion to an end as no more replies were forthcoming.

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