Adam Phillips founded the website The Witness which consists of a, “team of writers [which] includes pastors, theologians, and everyday Christians.” He wrote an article titled, Shocking Biblical Revelation: Was Goliath Secretly One Of The Ancient Giants? (January 22, 2024).
Now, the title begs questions to which we shall get but for now, note that, “Ancient Giants” are said to pertain to, “a fascinating debate among scholars regarding whether Goliath was one of the Nephilim.”
We then come to the second usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” with, “The Nephilim are mentioned in the Bible as a group of giants.”
What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
What’s your usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi -usage and modern English word “giants”?
We will find out that the answer to the second question is something to do with subjectively unusual height.
Thus, the answer to the third question is, “No.”
That is because the answer to the first question 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.
Ergo, biblically contextually, “The Nephilim are mentioned in the Bible as a group of giants” actually reads as, “The Nephilim are mentioned in the Bible as a group of Nephilim.”
Likewise, when Adam Phillips writes, “Goliath, described as a mighty warrior and a giant” it biblically contextually means, “Goliath, described as a mighty warrior and a…” well, here we come to the issue of, “whether Goliath was one of the Nephilim” so we will momentarily put a pin on the grenade as to how it biblically contextually reads—stand by.
Adam Phillips notes, “Some scholars believe that Goliath’s immense size and strength suggest that he may have been one of the Nephilim” but the only reason (thus far?) we have for thinking that such is anything but a non sequitur is a misused for the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants.”
Thus, based on nothing (as of yet?), he notes, “To understand the debate surrounding Goliath’s connection to the Nephilim, it is important to explore the biblical references to these ancient giants” and so he focuses on, “Who Were the Nephilim?”
He takes the Angel view of their origins so I will note that 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.
He tells us, “The term ‘Nephilim’ actually means ‘fallen ones’ or ‘giants’ in Hebrew” but the latter is not the case in the least bit. That is based on various mere assumptions based on sloppy linguistics and good ol‘ fashioned fallacies: besides, if “Nephilim” means, “giants” that only begs the question, “What does the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word ‘giants’ mean?” For details on the linguistics, see my book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
Adam Phillips then refers to Nephilim’s, “impressive size” but again and still only based on one misused word.
For some reason, he repeats his premise, “Some believe that Goliath, the formidable opponent of David, may have been one of the Nephilim due to his immense stature and strength” so that (at least thus far) we have zero reason to correlated Nephilim with, “giant [as per Philips’ usage]…size…stature.”
Adam Philips then relates the story of David and Goliath in sermonizing terms so I will bypass it since I’m seeking cogent data.
He again refers to, “Goliath’s size” but has not yet told us what that size was.
We are then told about, “Characteristics of the Nephilim” which include, “the Nephilim were a group of giants” and we reviewed how to read that biblically contextually (which results in a circularly redundant statement) and does get specific, “Giant Size: The Nephilim were said to be giants, known for their extraordinary height” and tell us that, “Some,” unquoted and uncited, “sources indicate that they were around 9-12 feet tall!” Well, “Some sources” also have them as 100% human so that’s nothing upon which to go.
For some unknown reason, Adam Philips asserts, “Nephilim were not just a one-time occurrence. The Bible mentions their presence both before and after the great flood” but he does not provide us any reason—logical, bio-logical, or theo-logical—for believing in any such thing.
After repeating previous statements, he gets down to it with, “Was Goliath one of the Nephilim?” and re-repeats, “The Nephilim were a group of giants mentioned in the Bible” along with the assertion, “These giants were known for their exceptionally large size” which he has only based on, “Some” unknown anonymous, “sources.”
He notes, “when it comes to Goliath, there is no direct mention in the Bible that he was one of the Nephilim.” He gets specific in that, “Goliath was a giant Philistine warrior who stood over nine feet tall.” He fails to mention that it’s the Masoretic text that 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.
Recall that we’re still on, “stand by” about what he now put as, “Goliath was a giant” means biblically contextually.
He then sermonizes about, “The story of David and Goliath” once again but adds, “it does not directly imply Goliath’s connection to the Nephilim” but notes, “whether Goliath was a Nephilim or not remains uncertain.”
He then repeats himself again and concludes, “whether Goliath was one of the Nephilim remains unanswered…Nephilim are mentioned in the Bible, their connection to Goliath is not explicitly stated.”
So, we actually already have the answer to that when Adam Phillips writes, “Goliath, described as a mighty warrior and a giant” it biblically contextually means, “Goliath, described as a mighty warrior and a Repha.”
Recall that he merely asserted post-flood Nephilim but any concept of post-flood Nephilim implies that God failed: He meant to be rid of them via the flood but couldn’t get the job done, He must have missed a loophole that you found, the flood was much of a waste, etc. See, fallacious Nephilology negatively effects theology proper. Also, post-flood Nephilologists have to just invent un-biblical tall-tales about how they made it past the flood.
This describes 100% of pop-Nephilologists. And those who claim they survived the flood contradict the Bible five times.
I’ve written whole books debunking them such as, Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales.
Now, when it comes down to it the only way to even imagine (and imagination is all that it is) that Goliath was a Nephil would be to take giant leaps of logic, biologic, and theologic.
One has to begin by actually believing an, “evil report” (Num 13:32-33) stated by unreliable guys whom God rebuked—a report wherein 10 guys merely assert that they saw Nephilim centuries post-flood. This was their assertion (they actually made five assertions but I will focus on the key one—for more, see my Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal), “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.”
Now, Anakim were a clan of the Rephaim tribe so one must actually side with guys whom God rebuked rather than with the God who rebuked them, one must merely assert that if one clan was related to Nephilim then then whole tribe must have been, one must only appeal non LXX versions sine the LXX doesn’t have Anakim mentioned in that verse, and one has to invent tall-tales about how Nephilim made it past the flood—and are the most awe inspiring beings on the planet but no one bothered ever mentioning them again in any context.
Incidentally, we saw that Adam Philips misused the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” linguistically speaking and note that since the only physical description we have of Nephilim comes from the, “evil report” by unreliable guys whom God rebuked that means that we have no reliable physical description of them.
Thus, there’s zero reasons to correlate Goliath with Nephilim in any way, shape, form, or language.
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