Carey Griffel, Masters of Biblical Studies with Redemption Seminary, posted an article titled Post-Flood Nephilim Options on her Genesis Marks the Spot site.
Sadly, right from the get go, she notes, “In my opinion, the most comprehensive exploration of the giant narrative in Scripture is T.J. Steadman’s book/podcast, Answers to Giant Questions.” I say sadly because I debated this with him and his Nephilology isn’t reliable: see the vid of our debate and my various articles critiquing his book and posts.
Griffel notes, “The question presumes that the nephilim are a result of the union of the spiritual sons of God and daughters of men and they are connected to the giant clans of the conquest, etc.” Key questions are: what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s her usage? Do those two usages agree?
The next thing she wrote is, “How were there Nephilim/giants post-flood?” which isn’t the correct primary question to ask rather, the right one is, “were there Nephilim/giants post-flood?” the biblical answer to which is: of course not, God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
Now, due to her usage of, “Nephilim/giants” we can see that she’s employing, “giants” as merely an aka for Nephilim. So, her usage only agrees with 2% of the usage in English Bibles since the usage in English Bibles is that it merely renders (doesn’t even translate) Nephilim in 2 verses or Repha/im in 98% of all others—and, just in case anyone is wondering, it never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.
Her answers are:
Option 1: The sons of God went into the daughters of men both before the flood as well as after the flood. This means the incident occurred multiple times.
Option 1a: The incident happened multiple times, but not necessarily in the same way each time. There could, for instance, have been an initial incursion which caused the proliferation of depravity in man that led to the flood, while after the flood there was some sort of restriction that prevented them from doing the exact same thing, so they changed tactics. (The nephilim before and after the flood would not be exactly the same, but would be related in that the spiritual sons of God would be involved.) See options 5, 6 and 7.
There’s no indication, “sons of God went into the daughters of men…after the flood.” If that took place multiple times they were all pre-flood. God failed, missed that loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
The biblical, “restriction that prevented them from doing the exact same thing” post-flood would be that Jude and 2 Peter 2 combined refer to a sin of Angels, place that sin to pre-flood days and correlate it to sexual sin which occurred after the Angels, “left their first estate,” after which they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible. So, if they’re not referring to the Gen 6 affair, we’ve no idea to what sin they’re referring. 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.
As for, “nephilim before and after the flood would not be exactly the same” they’re not the same since the pre-flood Nephilim existed but post-flood Nephilim didn’t.
Next:
Option 2: Noah was a nephilim or had “giant DNA.”
Option 2a: A member of Noah’s family had “giant DNA.”
There’s no indication of any such thing. That would contradict the Bible five times (Gen 7:7, 23; Heb 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20 & 2 Peter 2:5) since that’s how many times we’re told who survived the flood but Nephilim aren’t mentioned. God didn’t fail, didn’t miss that loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
Next:
Option 3: There was a stowaway on the ark.
There’s no indication of any such thing. That would contradict the Bible five times. God didn’t fail, didn’t miss that loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
Next:
Option 4: The flood was regional, not global, so some survived.
No indication, contradicts the Bible five times, the scope of the flood is irrelevant to Nephilology since they either didn’t make it past the flood because it was global or because they lived in the flooded region: either way, they didn’t make it past the flood in any way, shape, or form. God didn’t fail, didn’t miss that loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
Next:
Option 5: The giants after the flood weren’t really “related” directly, except in size and/or concept (literary or metaphorical connection for the enemies of God/terrorizing or “scary” people groups).
Keep in mind that by, “giants after the flood” she means, “Nephilim after the flood” so this is a non-issue since there were no post-flood Nephilim. As for, “weren’t really ‘related’ directly” then they wouldn’t have been Nephilim by definition. As for, “except in size,” the dirty little secret is that since we’ve 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. It can’t even be, “and/or concept” since Nephilim were specifically offspring of sons of God and daughters of men and not just a catch-all term. As for, “literary or metaphorical connection for the enemies of God/terrorizing or ‘scary’ people groups” then why is the term Nephilim only found post-flood in only one single unreliable sentence from one single unreliable evil report spoken by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked?
Next:
Option 6: Ritualistic temple prostitution between the sole “image of the god” (the king) and a temple prostitute with the possibility of a pagan deity “indwelling” the king.
This is a category error since, again, Nephilim were specifically offspring of sons of God and daughters of men so there’s no indication that, “Ritualistic temple prostitution” between humans can result in Nephilim—whether the, “pagan deity ‘indwelling’ the king” or not.
Lastly:
Option 7: Necromancy or other rituals.
Same applies as I just noted. 6-7 were category errors.
Now, those were options (100% inviable but the stuff of which post-flood Nephilology is made: un-biblical tall-tales). Next, Carey Griffel tells us her view:
She opts against, “too propositional with it and want the text of the Bible to be something it’s not (a modern, chronological, history)” thus, she opts to, “take it as” her view of how, “the ancient person intended: as their history (which wasn’t written using an ‘objective’ stance and so might include things such as repurposing old stories or writing polemics) and as a narrative design thread that spreads across the text.”
She rightly notes, “The ‘giant DNA’ or ‘stowaway’ options feel like they do damage to the intent of the story and the character of Noah and his family” and I would add that all of those options do likewise to, “the intent of the story” which was the doing away with the tripartite perfect storm: fallen humans, fallen Angels, fallen Nephilim sans the eight on the ark.
She notes, “I have no problem with a local/regional flood, but I don’t think we ‘need’ that when we’ve got spiritual entities who are involved with historical man, and a local flood would definitely not have been in the mind of the original audience.”
Recall that she wrote of, “spiritual sons of God” which she now has as, “spiritual entities” by which she seems to be asserting that Angels are spirit entities. If that’s the case then that’s not the case since Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such isn’t their ontology—see my book What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.
We don’t need a local/regional flood since it doesn’t assist post-flood Nephilologists.
Thus, her view is well, only that she specifically rejects a few of the options.
She concludes with, “The Bible’s narrative arc from Genesis to Joshua to King David to Jesus to Revelation seems to give credence to the idea that rebellious elohim have been at work in many different ways, that those ways got “less incursion-y” over time through the Old Testament til Jesus came in victory, and since Jesus their control has weakened but will not be fully defeated til the eschaton.”
She merely asserted post-flood Nephilim and so that I don’t merely assert lack of them I will note that all post-flood Nephilology is premised on that only one single unreliable sentence from one single unreliable evil report spoken by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked. That sentence is Num 13:33 and anyone who appeals to it neededs to mention that they’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: which is important for those who commit the category error of merely asserting that Anakim were post-flood Nephilim 2.0)
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
8. Then post-flood Nephilologists have to invent un-biblical fantasy tall-tales about how Nephilim got past the flood, past God.
I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal”
Besides the unfortunate reference to Steadman, she also directs us to The Lord of Spirits podcast which is also problematic since that typically refers to the too vaguely generic teachings of Rev. Fr. Stephen De Young (see my articles about him here) and Dr. Michael Heiser who was credentialed and experienced but his Nephilology wasn’t 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?
And in various articles.
Recall that Griffel noted, “…the union of the spiritual sons of God and daughters of men” and, “the giant clans of the conquest” the latter has nothing at all to do with Nephilim and as for the former: the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christian 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.
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