Brian R. Doak wrote a paper titled Shocking Discoveries of Giants You Will Not Believe!!! (Journal of Religion and Popular Culture (2025) 37 (2-3): 109–140).
In included Doak in my book The Scholarly Academic Nephilim and Giants: What do Scholarly Academics Say About Nephilim Giants? and so was interested about what he had to say about my contextual interest in that paper.
He referenced, “Nephilim and other biblical giants” which biblically contextually would mean, “Nephilim and other biblical Nephilim” so key questions are: what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Doak’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
He noted:
The Hebrew term here rendered “giants”—which in terms of commercially available translation history comes exclusively from the KJV/NKJV Bible—is Nephilim, a rare and disputed word that has been understood in terms of giants but which at any rate does not clearly refer to beings of giant stature by etymology.
Endnote:
The “Nephilim” of Gen 6:1–4 are not clearly “giants,” though they have been interpreted that way throughout the history of interpretation (and they do appear almost explicitly as giants in Num 13:33); see discussion in Doak 2012, 53–67. Other, more straightforward “giants”—defined as characters who are unusually tall and who have some other set of negative moral traits associated with them (e.g., arrogance, opposition to Israel, etc.)—appear sporadically in the Hebrew Bible, and include Og and the Rephaim (Deuteronomy 1–3; Joshua 12–13); Goliath (1 Samuel 17); and other miscellaneous Philistine giants fought by David’s men (1 Chr 11:22–23; 2 Sam 21:15–22//1 Chr 20:4–8).
I appreciate the technical qualifying term that giants is a rendering rather than a translation as many unspecifiable have it. Yet, telling us of, “Nephilim and other biblical giants” then of, “giants” and then, “understood in terms of giants” merely begs the questions I asked since without those answers his statements don’t mean anything—it’s a case of, “understood in terms of ____________” with a blank he didn’t fill.
Now, due to what he noted about, “throughout the history of interpretation…giants in Num 13:33” his usage is clearly well, something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average (and yes, that is how useless the common parlance usage of that modern English word is).
Thus, he had really told us of, “Nephilim and other biblical” something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average. And, “Nephilim…has been understood in terms of” something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average.
Thus, his usage doesn’t agree with the English Bibles’ usage because the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants 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 so never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.
Moreover, Nephilim, “have been interpreted” as something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average due to, “almost explicitly as giants in Num 13:33” only by those who rely on one single unreliable sentence from one single unreliable evil report spoken by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
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.
Thus, we can’t viably correlate anyone to Nephilim based on something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average. Thus, there’s no such thing as, “Nephilim and other biblical giants.”
He even includes Og amongst the subjectively, “unusually tall” when we’ve no physical description of him.
Other, “unusually tall” personages are said to be found in the following:
Deuteronomy 1–3
These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea. In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them.
I’ve no idea what that has to do with something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average.
Joshua 12–13 are two entire chapters so I won’t quote them but I’ve no idea what they’re supposed to say about something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average.
As for Goliath, he did go on to write, “the Dead Sea Scroll (4QSama) and Septuagint (Greek) reading of the ‘shorter Goliath’ who measures something more like 6’6” (‘four cubits and a span’) rather than the 9’6” Goliath of the (later) Masoretic Hebrew traditions” and he neglected to include that Flavius Josephus also had the shorter Goliath: who would still have been taller than the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
1 Chr 11:22–23
And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a valiant man of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds. He struck down two heroes of Moab. He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen. And he struck down an Egyptian, a man of great stature, five cubits tall. The Egyptian had in his hand a spear like a weaver’s beam, but Benaiah went down to him with a staff and snatched the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear.
This reference to a 7.5ft. man is interesting since Regular guy Benaiah took a spear like a weaver’s beam, just like Goliath’s, from and successfully wielded it against him in hand-to-hand combat.
2 Sam 21:15–22//1 Chr 20:4–8
There was war again between the Philistines and Israel, and David went down together with his servants, and they fought against the Philistines. And David grew weary. And Ishbi-benob, one of the descendants of the giants, whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of bronze, and who was armed with a new sword, thought to kill David. But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid and attacked the Philistine and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, “You shall no longer go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.”
After this there was again war with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Saph, who was one of the descendants of the giants. And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. And 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. And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, David’s brother, struck him down. These four were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
The reality of the text isn’t as exciting as fantasy imagination about giants but it reads thusly, “descendants of the” Rephaim. But at least we got a reference to, “great stature” of one Repha and yet, that’s just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as, “unusually tall” or giants.
Incidentally, since pop-Nephilology is un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales those selling such tales to Christians merely assert that, “six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot” is a Nephilim trait even though that’s only stated about one single person and he was a Repha, not a Nephil.
Brian R. Doak went on to write about that which I termed vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage:
…it is crucial to point out the definitional slippage that can occur in discussions of giants—how tall, exactly, does one have to be for the “giant” label to apply? Are current NBA basketball players “giants”? Would a seven- or even eight-foot skeleton constitute a true “giant” on the biblical model without being part of a “race of giants”?
The apologetic value of the “smaller giant” becomes apparent for those trying to prove the historical reality of biblical giants (e.g., Heiser 2015)—we would not need to find legions of fifteen-foot-tall monsters littering the land of pre-Israelite Canaan but only a few suggestively tall individuals, such as the Dead Sea Scroll (4QSama) and Septuagint (Greek) reading of the “shorter Goliath” who measures something more like 6’6” (“four cubits and a span”) rather than the 9’6” Goliath of the (later) Masoretic Hebrew traditions (Richey 2021, 346).
Even if one does gain some historical credibility for “giants” by reducing their height and thus avoiding the need to explain a lack of verifiable giant bodies in the archaeological record, what is crucially lost is any sense that the biblical giants were truly extraordinary—at least enough to have been the literal, genealogical offspring of the mysterious scene in Genesis 6:1–4 (Num 13:33 states that the Anaqim, a group of giants encountered by Hebrew spies exploring the land before attempts to conquer it, are “from the Nephilim”; see Doak 2012, 79 on the use of Hebrew min- [“from”] as a genealogical cue).
Perhaps, however, the demonic giant DNA is what really matters, that is, something “internal” and not outstanding height, and conspiracy-themed accounts of giants have begun to focus on precisely this DNA-level analysis to discuss something sinister that has survived throughout the centuries and affects our world even today (on which see more below).
Since he referenced Dr. Michael Heiser I’ll note that he wrote, “I don’t think the biblical giants were taller than unusually tall people of modern times (between 7-9 feet).”
Dr. Heiser 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 aforementioned book The Scholarly Academic Nephilim and Giants.
As for, “the literal, genealogical offspring of the mysterious scene in Genesis 6:1–4 (Num 13:33 states that the Anaqim, a group of giants encountered by Hebrew spies exploring the land before attempts to conquer it, are ‘from the Nephilim’…the use of Hebrew min- [‘from’] as a genealogical cue” that’s missing the point of the entire narrative and hyper focusing on one single word.
Anyone appealing to Num 13:33 needs 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)
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—which I’m currently updating.
Thus, it’s simply not the case that they were, “encountered by Hebrew spies” but that the 10 unreliable ones merely asserted they encountered them.
It wouldn’t be, “demonic giant DNA” it’d be, “Angelic no reliable physical description DNA.”
As for, “DNA…has survived throughout the centuries…” that implies that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc. and contradicts 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 God told us who survived the flood but Nephilim aren’t mentioned.
His awareness of the vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage nature of the word giants makes him not defining his usage, and misusing it, all the more disappointing.
Since his paper, “explores content on the YouTube video platform claiming to reveal evidence that giant humans existed in antiquity” he touches upon:
…a claim that giants may still exist today, offering a strange example first popularized on a “Coast to Coast” radio episode in which it is claimed that in 2005 United States special forces in Kandahar, Afghanistan, encountered a twelve- to fifteen-foot-tall adversary.
According to the story, the cave-dwelling, cannibalistic, six-fingered and six-toed Kandahar giant killed one service member before being shot, loaded onto a cargo plane, and taken back to an American base (all participants were forced to sign nondisclosure agreements, etc.; see Figure 3). Another popular YouTube video, “Special Forces ATTACKED by unidentified creature” narrates the same incident with essentially the same details.
Screenshot of the Kandahar Giant from Universe Inside You, “Giants Emerging Everywhere”; the image appears to be taken from the website of Stephen Quayle, author of a book called LongWalkers: Return of the Nephilim…
The Kandahar giant tall-tale is just an internet hoax based on some anonymous guys making vague claims about generic regions and sold to us by two guys who make a living by selling un-biblical tall-tales to Christians: LA Marzulli and the plagiarist and evolutionist Steven Quayle. And those who merely assert that it was a Nephil imply that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
Doak quotes that which I term the Gen 6 affair thusly and comments upon it:
When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair, and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the LORD said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown. (NRSV)
Divine beings of indeterminate kind—some presume “angels” but this is not clear in the text—mate with human women to produce figures called “Nephilim.” Alternatively, the Nephilim could be identified with the divine beings who mate with women to produce the “heroes that were of old, warriors of renown” (i.e., the Nephilim are the “sons of God”).
Yet another possibility: the Nephilim could be a proper name for the “heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.” Interpretations spin off in several directions on this point. Already in the Bible itself, we find a narrator identifying the native inhabitants of the land as “Nephilim” (Num 13:32–33):
The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them. (NRSV)
Regardless of whether from a historical-critical perspective we see either this text or Genesis 6:1–4 as historically primary, the story cryptically suggests that the Nephilim survive the flood event to birth later generations of giant adversaries to Israel. After this point, however, the Nephilim are never mentioned again by name (except perhaps by wordplay in Ezekiel 32; Doak 2013) until we find them in the post-biblical traditions of 1 Enoch and the Dead Sea Scroll materials.
As for, “some presume ‘angels’” indeed, “this is not clear in the text” but 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.
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.
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.
The Alternatively view turns the narrative’s focus into a focus lacking remix.
As we have seen, there’s literally zero indication of, “a narrator identifying the native inhabitants of the land as ‘Nephilim’ (Num 13:32–33)” since that very narrator is the one who tells us that he’s about to record an evil report and God’s subsequent rebuking, to death, of those who made that report.
It’s only a case of, “cryptically suggests that the Nephilim survive the flood” if we literally ignore every single of the very many problems with that non-sequitur of an unviable conclusion.
As for, “the post-biblical traditions of 1 Enoch and the Dead Sea Scroll materials” see my article How Nephilim Absconded from the Tanakh and Invaded Folkloric Territory and my books In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch and The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts.
Brian R. Doak also wrote:
In review of Israel’s post-Exodus journey, the opening chapters of Deuteronomy take up arcane aspects of the names and artifacts of giants in pre-Israelite Canaan. Deuteronomy 2:10–11, 20–21 comments on the habitation history of various parts of the land, offering new names for giants that had never or seldom appeared earlier, such as the “Emim” (see Gen 14:15), “a large and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim” who had formerly inhabited the land and who “are usually reckoned as Rephaim” (i.e., another group of giants), as well as telling us that these “Rephaim” are actually called “Zamzummim” by the Ammonites. The pièce de résistance of this material appears in Deuteronomy 3:11:
Now only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. In fact his bed, an iron bed, can still be seen in Rabbah of the Ammonites. By the common cubit it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide [i.e., around 13 feet long and 6 feet wide]. (NRSV)
Biblical scholarship has focused on the problem of whether the “bed” (Heb. ‘eres) is a traditional bed or something else—such as a tomb or coffin (Lindquist 2011). Either way, the object may imply that Og was around thirteen feet tall, and whatever the case, the narrator takes a moment to obsesses about this detail, as if to substantiate the reality of Og’s spectacular physique and actual, historical existence for the audience. I cannot think of a reason for any of this except that the author (and audience) was simply intrigued by it and had a genuine antiquarian interest in it.
One could make a similar assertion about details given for Philistine giants encountered by David and his men, such as the following:
The technical overview of Goliath’s armor and weaponry (1 Sam 17:1–7);
The fact that David takes Goliath’s head to Jerusalem and deposits Goliath’s armor in his own tent (1 Sam 17:54);
The gratuitous narrative detail about how Goliath’s sword was taken to the Nob sanctuary and was kept wrapped in cloth behind the sanctuary’s primary cult object, the “ephod” (1 Sam 21:2–10);
The body notes about an anonymous six-fingered / six-toed giant in 2 Sam 21:16 // 1 Chr 20:6.
Keep in mind that by, “names and artifacts of giants in pre-Israelite Canaan” he’s referring to personages who were taller than 5.0-5.3ft. by some unknown margin with only two exceptions: the 7.5ft. Egyptian and Goliath at whatever range one may prefer for him.
Long story short: Zamzummim and Emim are just an aka for Rephaim, Anakim were like a clan of that tribe, and, on average, they were taller than 5.0-5.3ft.
The, “pièce de resistance” is a pièce of stuff since indeed, we can’t refer to Og’s height (note the double qualifying terms, “may” and, “imply”) so giants obsessed people claim to be able to derive his personal height based on a bed. Well, all indications are that it was a ritual object, not something on which he slept—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
As for, “to obsesses about this detail” and, “the reality of Og’s spectacular physique” and, “I cannot think of a reason” well, those are all subjective statements. The text implies that the author thought it interesting that a bed of that size and materials we on display.
As for, “The technical overview of Goliath’s armor and weaponry” recall that a regular guy could wield his spear. Also, he had a guy assisting with the equipment and you can search for strongman or weightlifting competition vids and see guys who are around 6 ft. lifting 1,000 lbs.
Brian R. Doak goes on to note:
I do not intend to give the impression here that biblical narrators are obsessed with the minutia of giant bodies and names and artifacts, but there is a notable impulse at specific points to engage with this minutia, to wonder at it, and to tantalize the audience with it. We find in these texts elements of pre-modern ethnography, literary fascination, and an archaeological impulse to place the giant body and its artifacts in some particular place and time.
The fascination with these creatures, who seem to have passed away completely as a “historical” reality by the end of David’s reign, makes a stunning comeback in early Jewish literature of the third or second century BCE (e.g., Goff 2010; 2015; 2021). In the opening chapters of 1 Enoch, for example, we find a type of interpretive “fan fiction” based on Genesis 6:1–4, making some of what was ambiguous in the source material clearer: Divine “Watchers” have sex with human women, producing Gibborim and then Nephilim (all giants).
Later in the book, these giants receive judgment from God but live on as “evil spirits” who dwell explicitly on earth and not in heaven, sowing strife among themselves and humans. 1 Enoch thus suggests the sinister idea that wicked giant lineages may still be among us—an idea taken up in a spate of recent conspiracy-themed publications and even scholarly-adjacent materials reviewed below. Two oblique New Testament references to Enoch (or Enoch-like traditions) in 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 presumably offer Christian audiences a slim but notable warrant for integrating the spirituality of the Enoch world into their own lives.
The, “impulse” is more the doings of pop-Nephilologists who, time and again, make much ado about nothing or not very much but aggrandize personages and hyperbolize at specific points to engage with this minutia, to wonder at it, and to tantalize the audience with it. We find in these texts elements of pre-modern ethnography, literary fascination, and an archaeological impulse to place the giant body and its artifacts in some particular place and time.
He noted:
The fascination with these creatures, who seem to have passed away completely as a “historical” reality by the end of David’s reign, makes a stunning comeback in early Jewish literature of the third or second century BCE (e.g., Goff 2010; 2015; 2021).
In the opening chapters of 1 Enoch, for example, we find a type of interpretive “fan fiction” based on Genesis 6:1–4, making some of what was ambiguous in the source material clearer: Divine “Watchers” have sex with human women, producing Gibborim and then Nephilim (all giants).
If by, “reality by the end of David’s reign” he means Nephilim then no rather, it’s a case of reality by the end of the flood.
As for the stunning comeback indeed, see my paper How Nephilim Absconded from the Tanakh and Invaded Folkloric Territory.
The phrase, “producing Gibborim and then Nephilim (all giants)” is odd:
“producing Gibborim” in terms of that Nephilim are described as gibborim: mighty.
“producing…Nephilim” certainly, even though 1 Enoch has them being MILES tall—and that text is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.
“producing…(all giants)” well, that goes back to the issue of the usage of giants.
He adds:
Later in the book, these giants receive judgment from God but live on as “evil spirits” who dwell explicitly on earth and not in heaven, sowing strife among themselves and humans.
1 Enoch thus suggests the sinister idea that wicked giant lineages may still be among us—an idea taken up in a spate of recent conspiracy-themed publications and even scholarly-adjacent materials reviewed below.
Two oblique New Testament references to Enoch (or Enoch-like traditions) in 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 presumably offer Christian audiences a slim but notable warrant for integrating the spirituality of the Enoch world into their own lives.
Indeed, that evil spirits are dead Nephilim is just folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah. For a biblical view, please see my article Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?
Well, if wicked giant lineages are still be among us they’re only here in spirit form ergo, no longer physically giants.
Indeed as well, pop-Nephilology is 100% post-flood Nephilology so it’s premised on the implication that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.—except that it claims physical post-flood Nephilim.
The point about, “notable warrant” is due to that what Jude quotes of 1 Enoch is, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” That seems to have been paraphrasing Deut 33:2, “The LORD came from Sinai and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran; he came from the ten thousands of holy ones, with flaming fire at his right hand.”
Of course, Jude also quotes/paraphrased The Assumption of Moses, Paul quoted Greek poets, etc.
Continuing, Brian Doak noted:
In the Common Era, the fascination with giants continues, often in the form of narration recounting the excavation of bones or other anthropological musings. As Walter Stephens (1989, 58) points out in his review of the prolific giant traditions that spread all over medieval Europe, the giant played a central role as “a historical touchstone of ancient and medieval anthropological discourse.”
The second century CE Greek geographer Pausanias (1913, 1:412) gives generous space in his Guide to Greece (VII.29.1–3) to describing a process of human-size degeneration from the heroic period of Homer until his present day and offers an account of a giant corpse uncovered within a giant coffin.
Augustine of Hippo (fourth–fifth centuries CE) cites multiple instances of giant-bone discoveries—including his own first-hand experience with a giant tooth—in his monumental City of God (XV: 9, 23). The historian of ancient science Adrienne Mayor (2011) speculates that the fossils of dinosaurs and other large animals could have served as real-life fodder for legends about giant creatures.
Similarly, monumental architecture from the Bronze Age in Israel-Palestine that would have been visible during the period of biblical composition may have inspired references to groups such as the Anakim that were associated with large buildings (Num 13:28; Deut 1:28; 9:1–2; Josh 14:12), and archaeologists and biblical scholars have recently elaborated an “ancient ruins” theory for the origins of biblical giant traditions (i.e., that the observation of abandoned giant structures inspired stories of giants who created them; Hendel 2021, 273–282; 2022, 54–58; Maeir 2020).
And we know that giant bones have been discussed by famous Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—such as the colonial preacher Cotton Mather, who mistook ice age elephant bones as those of a giant (Levin 1988; Semonin 2002, 15–40), and Abraham Lincoln (1848), who alluded to (native burial?) “mounds” filled with the bones of a “species of extinct giants.”
Only in the early twentieth century did we see a thoroughgoing non-mythical view of giants emerge as a major interpretive option (e.g., Luanois and Roy 1904; Wright 1938)—and given some of the material we have been reviewing, that view is not clearly the dominant or only view even today.
Common Era is an anti-Christian manner whereby to refer to AD: Anno Domini.
We now see one of the problems with using the term giants without elucidating one’s usage (and/or employing multiple usages: all without informing the reader along the way) since, “prolific giant traditions” can refers to various things but implies prolific traditions about something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average. So, since that’s about as watered down and unspecific as it can get, it’s very simple to just throw just about anything into a blender and call it prolific giant traditions.
Another examples is a, “giant corpse uncovered within a giant coffin” which means nothing when isolated from the subjective parochial average.
As for Adrienne Mayor, see the appendix about her in my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology.
Note the vague assertion, “Anakim that were associated with large buildings” but it is followed by citations so let’s check them:
Num 13:28, “However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there” indeed, and yet, that’s myopic since he cut the statement off when it actually continued with, “The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.” Also, we modern humans who range from, what, 5-7ft build large buildings.
Deut 1:28; 9:1–2 the first citation is a reiteration of the one in Num 13, “Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, ‘The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there’” and the other is, “Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’”: note that, “large buildings” is about as generic as, “fortified up to heaven” which is clearly hyperbolic.
Josh 14:12, “So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.”
So, we know that Anakim were taller than 5.0-5.3ft by an unknown margin and that they lived in very large cities: what of it?
As for, “giant bones” of something or other, “in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” America, see a whole chapter about such reports in newspapers in my book Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales.
Getting deep into the literal clown-show which is pop-Nephilology, he notes:
…a recent book by a self-identified Christian author named Jennifer Sanger entitled The Roots of the Federal Reserve: Tracing the Nephilim from Noah to the U. S. Dollar (Sanger 2020). A rare female author in a giants-conspiracy world dominated by male voices, Sanger tells a complex story about the origins of the Federal Reserve that involves, among other things, well-known conspiracy lines regarding the Jekyll Island meeting that created the Fed and antisemitic tropes about elite Jewish banking families, all of which prompt her to ask if there is “a hidden agenda of the central banking system intertwined with the Nephilim agenda” (Sanger 2020, 7). These tropes are not only historically preposterous but actively dangerous, as antisemitic hate crimes have been on the rise in major U.S. cities.
Predicated on the concept of a “seed war” between Eve and the Serpent—in Genesis 3:15, as part of the punishment for eating the fruit of the tree, God declares that he will “put enmity between you [the Serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring [Hebrew zera, ‘seed’] and hers”—Sanger proposes that not only did the terrible interbreeding between demonic forces and humans occur as a historical, physical reality in Genesis 6:1–4, but that the Nephilim have continued to find “host bodies” in which to live.
She proposes a set of criteria for determining whether one has a Nephilim host body, including negative moral qualities such as dishonest trade, sexual perversion, cannibalism, and bloodlust (2020, 128–31), as well as physical characteristics such as excessive strength, polydactyly (six fingers/toes), and red hair (2020, 215–16).
She devotes ample space to the Smithsonian theory and details how that institution covers up evidence of giants in North America (2020, 237–55). In her telling, Nephilim have travelled through human DNA, to the point where some of their descendants came to settle in Jekyll Island, thus influencing our national monetary system: “The spiritual DNA released upon Jekyll Island releases a sound of dissonance that attracts spiritual darkness.
The Nephilim agenda was deposited into the soil of Jekyll Island” (Sanger 2020, 349). The book ends with an exhortation to pray against these dark spiritual forces, summarizing the Nephilim agenda today in terms that bear striking resemblance to the progressive enemies vilified by the contemporary QAnon community—who are characterized as globalists, paedophiles, child sacrificers, and Deep State adherents (2020, 423).
In fact, Sanger includes a prominent QAnon slogan as an epigraph before the Introduction to the book: “Symbolism will be their downfall. -Q.” As many have already recognized, the QAnon conspiracy group has woven numerous antisemitic motifs into their ideology, including, in Sanger’s book, not only pernicious ideas about “Jewish elites” but also comments about alleged harm to children perpetrated by QAnon’s contemporary political enemies that recalls the “blood libel” (i.e., the false accusation that Jews ritually murdered children and drank their blood).
The association of the Nephilim with “seed” and genetics imagery has emerged as the central explanatory trope for contemporary conspiracists to connect the ancient Nephilim with our world today. Additionally, the invocation of genetics takes advantage of the love of science fiction themes combined with the prestige of scientific disciplines that one might lend to historical interpretation.
As a theological theme, the notion of a “seed war” appears in recently popular books about Nephilim, giants, and demons by Brian Godowa [sic.] (2014), a screenwriter with a professional researcher’s touch, as well as by Michael Hesier (2015; 2017), a traditionally educated biblical scholar (with a PhD from UW Madison) forging a publishing career based on heavy interest in the Nephilim and giants issue.
Heiser is careful at points to characterize the seed and genealogy issue as only spiritual and metaphorical (e.g., 2015, 134), though at other points the language of seed and genealogy are unqualified or come off as at least potentially literal and historical—in his popular Unseen Realm (2015, 142), Heiser speaks of “bloodline lineages” between the Nephilim and Anakim, and in Demons: What the Bible Really Says About the Powers of Darkness (2020), he argues that literal, contemporary real-world demons are the offspring of Nephilim.
Clearly, this is premised on the aforementioned folklore about the origin of evil spirits since it regards, “Nephilim have continued to find ‘host bodies’ in which to live” physically—and that, apparently, has something to do with the Fed Reserve.
This level of paranoid incoherence based on misinfo and disinfo is very, very dangerous because now you can identify people who aren’t fully human as anyone you subjectively categorize as, “dishonest trade, sexual perversion, cannibalism, and bloodlust.” Moreover, “excessive strength” for some reason, “polydactyly” although that has utterly nothing to do with Nephilim, and “red hair.”
So, God forbid some unhinged person takes that neo-theo-sci-fi-tall-tales to heart, that poses a danger to many people including red heads, powerlifting and strongman competitors, someone suffering from the simple genetic mutation that causes extra fingers to be constructed, etc.
I included a chapter titled, “Nephil Kampf” in my book Nephilim and Giants as per Pop-Researchers: A Comprehensive Consideration of the claims of I.D.E. Thomas, Chuck Missler, Dante Fortson, Derek Gilbert, Brian Godawa, Patrick Heron, Thomas Horn, Ken Johnson, L.A. Marzulli, Josh Peck, CK Quarterman, Steve Quayle, Rob Skiba, Gary Wayne, Jim Wilhelmsen, et al. due to that so many pop-Nephilologists not only teach such faulty (mis)identification tactics but actually predict that Christians will have to wipe out such people.
In order for, “Nephilim…travelled through human DNA” God would have to have missed that loophole during the flood and that also contradicts the Bible five times since, by definition, a body consisting of Nephilim DNA is a Nephil and, again, we’re told five who survived the flood but Nephilim aren’t mentioned—but then again, note the qualifier, “spiritual DNA” whatever that means.
Brian Godawa and Michael Hesier both teach/taught un-biblical Nephilology: I included Godawa in my book Nephilim and Giants as per Pop-Researchers and Heiser in The Scholarly Academic Nephilim and Giants: What do Scholarly Academics Say About Nephilim Giants?, as previously noted. Indeed, Heiser taught post-flood Nephilim and the folklore about demons/unclean spirits.
Doak also references Ryan Pitterson’s Judgment of the Nephilim but he also teaches pop-Nephilology—see my articles on him.
Lastly, I will note that Brian Doak also wrote:
Pitterson points out…[“]The only logical conclusion is that demons are…the spirits of the Rephaim—the once legendary Nephilim of the antediluvian world…Giants were a satanic imitation of the prophesied Seed of the Woman who would one day save humanity…[”]
With so much at stake, given that the spirits of dead giants roam the world today and the “Nephilim DNA” remains alive and well, in Pitterson’s vision, the question of where exactly these Nephilim are right now would seem to be quite urgent. Unlike Sanger, however, Pitterson ends his study without pointing out any particular historical instantiation in the contemporary world where Nephilim have played a clear role…
Gary Wayne’s The Genesis 6 Conspiracy: How Secret Societies and the Descendants of Giants Plan to Enslave Humankind (2014), however, goes much further. The longest in this genre among recent works, Wayne casts aside all traditional boundaries of canon and religion and examines not only the Nephilim and ancient giants but carries the story forward through 1 Enoch, Freemasonry, the seven sacred sciences, Egyptology, holy grail bloodlines, UFOs and aliens, the “Rothschild-Rockefeller-Morgan axis,” the Illuminati, fairies, Atlantis, and dragons—to name only a sample of materials examined in the book’s chapters.
The basic thread through it all comes back to the literal, physical genealogy of giants that continues to live on in our world today, and which will inevitably occupy the entire world. As Wayne dourly puts it in conclusion of the whole matter (2014, Kindle loc 13761)…
I do not believe this book or any known Christian organization can prevent the relentless procession of juggernauts destined for global occupation. In fact, I do not believe this book will in any way stall the descendants of giants, and their powerful array of secret societies’ march to global occupation. They are too entrenched, too well financed, and too well organized.
That, “demons are…the spirits of the Rephaim” is just the latest trend in pop-Nephilology and seems to be premised on incorporating Pagan mythology into biblical theology since in Ugaritic texts recently deceased kings and heroes are referred to as kings and heroes but after they had been dead for some time, they were referred to as rph, could be summoned from the grave/underworld to attend rituals, etc., see my article Dead Kings and Rephaim The Patrons of the Ugaritic Dynasty.
Gary Wayne is another pop-Nephilologists—who debated me: see my articles on him and the vid of our debate. After DECADES of asserting Nephilim were “giants” (by which he means very, very, very big–which isn’t the English Bible’s usage of that term) it just took me asking him one little question, during our debate, to get him to admitting he doesn’t know how big they were, “we don’t know how big Nephilim were…we don’t know how tall that they were” (sic.)—and then, he went on to say he’ll keep asserting they were “giants.” What sense does it make to refer to the height of someone who’s height you don’t know?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby.
If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help out.
Here is my donate/paypal page.
You can comment here and/or on my Twitter/X page, on my Facebook page, or any of my other social network sites all which are available here.
Leave a Reply