History of Israel site seems to have no about page nor name of who wrote which article but they published one on Nephilim and one on Rephaim so hereinafter I will review both.
The article The Nephilim begins by quoting that which I term the Gen 6 affair thusly:
“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” Genesis 6:4
It’s then asserted that, “The book of Numbers speaks of their descendants – a mystery in itself seeing how the Nephilim supposedly perished in the flood” to say the least.
We’re then told, “The Nephilim and their ancestors were known for being giants. They were powerful, huge in stature & size, and provoked absolute terror in all but one of Moses’ spies (Cf. Numbers 13:31-33.” Two huge issues:
1) What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s the usage of whoever wrote that? Do those two usages agree?
2) It wasn’t, “provoked absolute terror in all but one of Moses’ spies” it was but two (Caleb and Joshua who sided with him) and, “provoked absolute terror” in the Israelites due to that the other time told a fantasy tall-tale of an, “evil report”—and were rebuked by God.
It’s noted that, “The Septuagint was translated by Jewish Elders in Alexandria. They believed the ‘sons of God’ were indeed fallen angels” and the fact is that 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.
This, we are told, resulted in, “half-divine and half-human offspring. These offspring would have naturally possessed otherworldly traits seeing how half of their genetic DNA was of divine origin” even if we don’t know what those traits were beyond, “These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown” for unknown reasons—mighty how, due to doing what, etc.?
It’s merely asserted, “We catch a glimpse of the abilities the Nephilim may have possessed when we watch movies like Superman, Hancock, the Marvel series, etc.” and while that’s exciting, it’s just sci-fi-ing it up.
This leads to asserting cross-cultural interconnections the problem with which is the tendency to water things down so as to more easily claim correlations, “Famous figures like the Sumerian Gilgamesh, Mesopotamian Apkallu, the Egyptian Ra, the Greek gods of Zeus, Hermes, Hera, Aphrodite, Hades, Achilles and others, likely sprang from the memory of the Nephilim. The Nephilim offspring provide a historical basis for the half-human, half-divine gods that dominated the spiritual landscape of antiquity.”
Yet, the important, and appreciated, qualifying terms are, “sprang from the memory of…historical basis.”
My theory is that post-Tower of Babel, after when humanity lived in relative proximity and began spreading abroad, quite broadly, what was shared history eventually came to be called myth and legend with time and telling.
The article notes, “Angels Marry Women?: This is an excellent and in-depth article written by Robert Gentet” which led me to write a review of it titled The Creation History site’s Robert E. Gentet answers “Angels Marry Women?”
We’re also told:
The Return in Numbers: Scripture states the flood in Genesis was a worldwide flood, destroying all life upon the earth. However, in Numbers 13 the Israelite spies encounter these people! How can this be? This is yet another mystery surrounding these mysterious people.
It’s not generically, “the Israelite spies encounter these people!” it’s that there were 12 spies and the 10 unreliable, disloyal, contradictory, embellishers whom God rebuked merely asserted seeing them: it was just a fantasy tall-tale.
It’s noted:
The Rephaim: The Rephaim were descendants of the Nephilim, according to Numbers. Abraham and Lot would have encountered these people during their time in Canaan. The Rephaim also fell victim to the same King Chederlaomer responsible for conquering Sodom and Gomorrah.
There’s literally zero indication, “Rephaim were descendants of the Nephilim” and it’s no wonder that the non-citation is, “according to Numbers” which states no such thing.
From experience, I can tell you how some come to that fallacious conclusion:
1) They read Num 13:33, actually believe it, pick it up, run with it, and (mis)apply it.
2) They actually myopically only read non-LXX versions of that one single sentence (since that version’s version of that verse doesn’t even mention Anakim) which reads, “we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim)” (ESV).
3) They ignore that it refers to Anakim rather than Rephaim.
4) They jump to Deut 2 which, in essence, informs us that Anakim were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe.
5) They aggrandize non-LXX version’s correlation between Nephilim and Anakim to actually refer to all Rephaim.
The whole thing is fallacious and 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
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.
Yes, “Abraham and Lot would have encountered” Rephaim, not Nephilim, nor Rephaim related to Nephilim: Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them.
We’re told that, “Moses” was, “so brief in his treatment of the Watchers (sons of God) and the Nephilim in the Genesis account” because, “he already had the full account in the Book of Enoch. As the Israelites already possessed Enoch’s telling of the narrative” but there’s literally no indication that the Book of Enoch (which is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch) existed prior to a few centuries BC.
If, “The fallen Watchers and their hybrid offspring the Nephilim was well known by the Israelites of Moses’ day” it was due to that they knew pre-flood history.
It’s noted, “The mysterious Book of Enoch remains the most comprehensive account detailing the vague passage in Genesis. It fills in the gaps left in Genesis 6. While left out of the official canon of the Western church, the book of Enoch remains in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.”
But with what does it fill? Indications are that it fills it with historical fiction, folklore, speculation, fantasy, etc. and not additional historical facts.
That 1 Enoch is in the Ethiopian canon doesn’t make that one canon uniquely correct but rather, uniquely incorrect to include that the cannon also contains a text titled The Life of Adam and Eve which claims that when God created Adam, God commanded the Angels to worship Adam.
We’re told, “Enoch was one of the great men of the Old Testament” but that has nothing to do with a text onto which some one came along millennia later and slapped his name.
It’s also noted, “Accounts of the Nephilim exist in extra-biblical works” such as, “The Dead Sea Scrolls…The Testament of Amram” about which you can read my book The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts.
The article then gets into linguistics with:
Nephilim Word Study
The word Nephilim in Genesis 6 is, nefil. In Hebrew it appears as;
נְפִילִ or נְפִלִ
The word nefil has a somewhat convoluted meaning. It comes from the Hebrew root, naphal;
נָפַל
Naphal means, ‘to fall’, ‘lie’. In this sense, nefil, or the plural, nefilim (Nephilim), can mean ‘the fallen ones’.
However, the Septuagint (LXX) – the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament – used the word gigas instead of nefil. Gigas translates as “giant”, or “giants”. This is in-line with the Biblical representation of the Nephilim and their descendants as being giants.
Thus Nephilim has come to mean “giants”. Dr. Michael Heiser aptly stated; “Jewish writers and translators (e.g., the Septuagint) habitually think “giants” when they use or translate the term.” (Reversing Hermon, 16).
Whether the term means giant(s) or fallen ones is, in the end, irrelevant. Based on the nature of the Nephilim they were both.
Fallen in the sense their parents were fallen angels from heaven. Giant in the sense they were, physically, giants compared to the rest of humanity.
Even Peter believed the Nephilim were the progeny of fallen angels. He reveals this belief in II Peter 2:1-10. In v.4 he writes; “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned…”. The only angels in Scripture that can be said to have sinned are those in Genesis 6.
Jude, too, believed this to be the case. Jude alludes to the Nephilim in Jude 6; “And the angels who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling place, he has kept in eternal bonds…”
Jude also directly quotes from the book of Enoch in Jude 14 when speaking of Enoch.
These NT disciples, along with others, believed the angels who sinned were the fallen watchers of Genesis 6 who had sex with homo sapien females. Leaving their proper abode in heaven they descended on the earth to pollute the seed of the woman (C.f. Genesis 3:15).
Similarly, the Nephilim were viewed as the abhorrent byproduct of this forbidden union—a monstrous lineage traced to the serpent’s influence (C.f. Gen. 3:15). These towering giants plagued humanity and despoiled the earth, their corruption so grievous that Yahweh ultimately unleashed the Flood as an act of divine judgment to eradicate their wickedness.
With this knowledge in mind, one shudders at the enigmatic words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 24:37;
For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
See my linguistics book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
It’s myopic and not the case that, “Gigas translates as ‘giant’, or ‘giants” and that only begs the question since we still have to ask 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?
Thus, following not elucidating the usage of giants by telling us of, “Nephilim and their descendants as being giants” tells us nothing.
A more typical translation of Nephilim (and gibborim and Rephaim) in the LXX is gigantes which means earth-born: Gaia was the Greek mythological false goddess of earth so gigas refers to her/the earth which is why gigantes refers to having been earth-born/born of Gaia.
That, “Jewish writers and translators (e.g., the Septuagint) habitually think ‘giants’ when they use or translate the term” doesn’t tell us what it meant to Jewish writers and translators. Clearly, the common parlance usage amongst pop-Nephilologists is 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).
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.
And it turns out that Heiser told us, “I don’t think the biblical giants were taller than unusually tall people of modern times (between 7-9 feet).”
And so by the time the article is straight forward enough to write, “Whether the term means giant(s) or fallen ones is, in the end, irrelevant. Based on the nature of the Nephilim they were both. Fallen in the sense their parents were fallen angels from heaven. Giant in the sense they were, physically, giants compared to the rest of humanity…towering giants” we know they’re off the mark.
And that is 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.
It’s also because Num 13:33 is unreliable ergo, we’ve no reliable physical description of them.
We’re told, “Yahweh ultimately unleashed the Flood as an act of divine judgment to eradicate their wickedness” and that, “With this knowledge in mind, one shudders at the enigmatic words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 24:37; For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” yet, that’s priming the pump by putting words in Jesus’ mouth since Jesus’ words, His emphasis, His points, His context, were:
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”
But He kept speaking directly with:
“Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed” (Luke 17).
Thus, this was about examples of being unaware/unconcerned about coming judgment.
The next article undergoing review is The Rephaim: Descendants of the Nephilim which notes:
Though the Rephaim are never mentioned directly in the same breath as the Nephilim, they are directly connected to the Anakim, whom are connected with the Nephilim.
Steve Quayle has conducted much research on the topic, and claims the two were cousins, or, shared some sort of blood relation. By extension, thus, the Rephaim were also distant descendants of the Nephilim…
Interestingly enough, these people are depicted as being defeated by the coalition responsible for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. As they were distantly removed from the 1st generation Nephilim, their strength was not on par with their ancestors. This defeat, however, does not seem to imply a complete annihilation…
…the descendants of the Nephilim; the Anakim, Rephaim, Zamzummin [sic.], and Emim, were in existence dating back to the time of Abraham.
…many scholars claim Canaan was a land of giants leading up to, and sometime after, Abraham’s arrival. Perhaps this was God’s reason for calling Abraham to the land of Canaan. Even during the lifetime of Moses, approximately 500 years after Abraham, the land was full of huge people. Moses’ spies reported back they “appeared like grasshoppers” compared to the locals…
Critics of the Bible have often pointed to the Old Testament God as being a God of wrath, jealousy, murder, and genocide. His treatment of the Canaanites has been a source of controversy over the years amongst scholars.
Yet, if in fact the Nephilim, or their descendants, were still living in Canaan , their influence would have been dominating, and their wickedness from the days of Noah continued, though on a much smaller scale.
When one considers the worldwide wickedness perpetrated by the Genesis Nephilim, it is not hard to fathom a similar control exerted over the “human” inhabitants of Canaan…
The wickedness soon spread to the entire region, thus God’s necessity in destroying all Canaanites, lest some more Nephilim slip through the cracks…
Regardless, God’s treatment of the Canaanites was justified by their atrocious wickedness, and their willingness to follow after the Nephilim’s descendants.
We were just told, “Rephaim are never mentioned directly in the same breath as the Nephilim” after being told, “Rephaim were descendants of the Nephilim” and yet, as I outlined, the assertion is due to, “they are directly connected to the Anakim, whom are connected with the Nephilim” only in on one single unreliable non-LXX sentence from one single unreliable evil report spoken by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
Steve Quayle is a plagiarist and evolutionist pop-Nephilologists who’s assertions are just that: mere assertions—and not even really his since he plagiarized them: see proof of that here.
Yes, “these people” the Rephaim, “are depicted as” such but there’s literally zero indication of any such thing as an part of any generation of Nephilim (which would have to be pre-flood by definition).
Thus, that, “the descendants of the Nephilim; the Anakim, Rephaim, Zamzummin, and Emim” is taking Deut 2 but artificially mashing Nephilim into it since it has it that Zamzummim and Emim were just aka for Rephaim and that Anakim were like a clan of that tribe but there’s no mention of Nephilim.
The article’s author then jumps languages again from Nephilim, Rephaim, Zamzummim, Emim, and Anakim to, “a land of giants.”
“Moses’ spies” refers to the 10 unreliable ones who evily, “reported back they ‘appeared like grasshoppers’” subjectively, “compared to the locals” but it matters not since that was just a fantasy tall-tale.
Seeking to defend God being charged with, “wrath, jealousy, murder, and genocide” by merely asserting, “Nephilim, or their descendants, were still living in Canaan” makes things worse since a discerning researcher will realize that neither Nephilim nor their descendants were still living in Canaan and that still leaves God being charged with, “wrath, jealousy, murder, and genocide.”
God told us many times why He commanded such supposed genocidal acts but never said one single word about Nephilim, or their descendants: I included an entire chapter about that issue alone in my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology.
Now, recall that we were told, “Yahweh ultimately unleashed the Flood as an act of divine judgment to eradicate their wickedness” yet, apparently God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc. since there they were post-flood and God had to get mere humans to accomplish the task He couldn’t get done. This is part of how un-biblical Nephilology damages theology proper.
We’re then directed to the aforementioned Deut 2:
A passage from the second chapter of Deuteronomy seems to confuse the Rephaim’s identity. With close examination, however, it may shed some light on their identity.
Deuteronomy 2:10-11
“The Emim lived there formerly, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim. Like the Anakim, they are regarded as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim.”
At first glance it would seem these beings, along with the Anakim and Emim, were different appellations for the same group of people. They were all “regarded” as Rephaim.
Though these groups were indeed very closely related, they were different factions of descendants from the Nephilim. This verse, then, seems to muddy the already muddied waters…
With this interpretation, then, these three groups were not meant to be figured as the same group of people. Rather, the Israelites thought of these people along the same lines as they did the Anakim and the Emim.
See what I meant? “Like the Anakim, they are regarded as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim” without a single word about Nephilim and so, “descendants from the Nephilim” is an eisegetical artificial insertion into that text. Indeed, “Israelites thought of these people along the same lines as they did the Anakim and the Emim” but not along the lines of Nephilim unless they relied only on non-LXX versions of one unreliable sentence.
As for, “tall…great size” that’s subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
But wait, that’s not all since we’re then told:
Deuteronomy 3:11.
“For only Og king of Bashon was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bedstead was an iron bedstead; it is in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon. Its length was nine cubits and its width four cubits by ordinary cubit.”
Og, king of Bashon, was said to have been the last of the Rephaim. Og is an extremely interesting person in the Old Testament.
Og and Sihon, king of Gilead, were feared warriors and monarchs prior to the Israelite’s entrance into Canaan. Scripture describes Og as a giant. His bed was over 14 feet long, and over 6 feet wide! Not only that, it was made of iron. Iron was no doubt needed to support such a large body, which most certainly weighed hundreds of pounds. Nephilim giants such as Og, according to some scholars, may have been numerous at this time in the history of Palestine.
Note that, “Scripture describes Og as a giant” because it describes his, “bed”: we’ve no physical description of him. And Concluding something about his size based on his, “bed” is a non-sequitur premised on various mere assumptions. 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?
And since he lived post-flood and was a Repha, asserting, “Nephilim giants such as Og” is an incoherent anachronistic category error that violates the law of identity.
We’re then told, “astounding evidence that the Nephilim were still dominant, and exerting a mighty influence upon the land of Canaan” based on, “Sihon is not said to have been a giant in Scripture” which in reality means that he’s referred to as a Repha, “Rabbinnic literature” from millennia after the Torah, “states Og and Sihon were brothers…Midrash” which refers to sermonizing homilies from millennia after the Torah, “states he was the equivalent of Og in bravery and stature, “These ancient rabbis” from millennia after the Torah, “listed Og and Sihon as grandsons of Shamhazai…Shamhazai was believed to have been one of the original fallen angles responsible for the Nephilim in Genesis” due to the 1 Enoch from millennia after the Torah, “These ancient documents also associate Sihon as the king of Arad, described as ‘the Canaanite’…Sihon was called ‘the Canaanite’ because he was the overlord of all the land.”
That’s a world class non-sequitur.
And this becomes dogma since we’re then told, “Whether this tribe, and other similar tribes, were descendants of the Nephilim are not is open for interpretation.”
We’re told, “The return of the Nephilim to Canaan seem to have taken place centuries before the conquest!” but oddly, we’re never told just how they got past the flood, past God.
And more supposedly alleged evidence of the dogma is linguistic:
Their names indicate such. Emim translates as “the fearful ones”.
Anakim translates into “the long-necked ones”.
The Rephaim translates as “the dead ones”.
The Zamzummim translates as “buzzers”.
According to the local inhabitants of Canaan, these people possessed a strange language, which sounded more like buzzing than actual speaking. Yet, another mysterious aspect of these descendants of the Nephilim.
I’ve no idea how being fearful, having a long neck, being what some sort of living dead and buzzing has anything to do with Nephilim and the only thing the article tells us about the supposedly alleged connection is, “a strange language, which sounded more like buzzing.”
As for, “The Rephaim translates as ‘the dead ones’” no, the root rapha ranges in meaning/definition from dead/death to healer/healing. So that’s myopic and also claiming that Rephaim were whatever, “the dead ones” would mean when applied to living people—stand by—this happens due to that 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.
As outlined in the chapter on Rephaim in my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology, my theory is that since one group called Rephaim Emim and another called Rephaim Zamzummim who called them Rephaim? It seems to me that the Israelites called them Rephaim as a polemic to the affect of you’re dead meat buddy!!!
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