In view is Tim Chaffey’s article Giant Speculations (August 26, 2013 AD). He’s, “founder of Midwest Apologetics and work as the Content Manager with the Attractions Division of Answers in Genesis.”
I included him in my book, Nephilim and Giants As Per Pop-Researchers and also assisted him by providing him references he had missed when writing his book about the Genesis 6 affair’s sons of God (from what I recall, I made him aware of 8 missed references and he made me aware of 2 I had missed—we realized we were working on similar books at the same time, mine is titled 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.
After referring to the movie, “Jack the Giant Slayer” and referring to, “giant…giant…Giant…giant…giants…giants…giants…Giants…a giant cyclops” Chaffey notes, “The idea of monstrous giants” and references that, “The Book of Enoch is not part of the Bible, but it is quoted in the short book of Jude and its early chapters expand upon the fallen angel view of Genesis 6:1–4. According to 1 Enoch, 200 angels decided to marry women and sire children by them.”
He needs to answer these key questions:
What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
What’s Chaffey’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
Do those usages agree?
From his inclusion of a cyclops and 1 Enoch (Bible contradicting folklore from millennia after the Torah, see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch), we have to infer that he’s implying a usage having something to do with subjectively unusual height—1 Enoch has Nephilim having been miles tall, which is great folklore but poor reality.
That’s not the usage in English Bibles wherein giant/s merely renders (doesn’t even translate) Nephilim in two verses or Repha/im in 98% of all others and never even implies anything about height whatsoever.
Tim Chaffey then appeals to the Book of Jubilees which is also folklore from millennia after the Torah, see my book The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants.
He references, “man-eating giants” and appeals to, “the Old Testament book of Numbers to see an intriguing passage. Moses sent twelve spies into the Promised Land. Of these twelve, only two (Joshua and Caleb) encouraged the people to follow the Lord’s command to go out and conquer the land. The other ten spies were obviously afraid of carrying out the command. They reported the following details,” before getting to the details, it’s refreshing that a Nephilologist would actually specify the key distinction amongst the spies since virtually 100% of pop-Nephilologists speak generically in terms of the spies as a unit.
Yet, we will find that Tim Chaffey needed to be more detailed still as he, prepped us to think in terms of what was said by, “The other ten” and what, “They reported” but then quoted the first of two reports in Num 13, the original, reliable, accepted as is, report which noted:
“We went into the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”
Chaffey then specifies, “After Caleb tried to encourage the people to be obedient the frightened spies continued” and quotes:
“So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, ‘The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.’ (Numbers 13:28–33, NASB).”
Thus, when he goes on to write, “The spies reported that they had seen giants in the land,” keep in mind that he’s referring to the bad/evil report by unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
At this point, Tim Chaffey wrote, “The Amorites were giants (Amos 2:9), as were the Anakim or sons of Anak, who were ‘part of the Nephilim.’ As I’ve explained before on this blog, the word Nephilim means ‘giants’ (it does not mean ‘fallen ones’ as is popularly claimed), and in this case it may refer to a specific race or line of giants.”
Do you discern the problem with employing the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants? Telling us that, “Amorites were giants” is telling us they were subjectively unusually tall—that is, taller than the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
Yet, he sought to be more specific by appealing to Amos 2:9 which reads, “Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, though his height was like the height of cedars” which post-flood Nephilologists literally take literally as if Amos was implying conducting a one-to-one ratio based calculation.
We know that they don’t actually take that seriously since the verse goes on to say, “And he was as strong as the oaks” which is something that 0% of such Nephilologists have calculated.
They take Amos telling us that they were big and strong as some sort of physical description. To further prove they don’t’ actually take that seriously—they just use it (or, abuse it) to build their tall-tales—0% claim that Amorites had fruits and roots sticking out of their bodies even though, after all, the text directly went on to notes, “I also destroyed his fruit above and his roots below.”
Tim Chaffey directly followed with, “as were the Anakim or sons of Anak, who were ‘part of the Nephilim’” and, “the word Nephilim means ‘giants’ (it does not mean ‘fallen ones’ as is popularly claimed), and in this case it may refer to a specific race or line of giants.”
As I elucidated in Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal, Chaffey informed us of an unreliable report by unreliable guys but still appeals to it, relies on it in fact.
As for that, “as were the Anakim” giants well, the only physical description we have of them is that they were generally, “tall” (Deut 2) which is as ague, generic, subjective, multi-usage as giants and so also meaning taller than 5.0-5.3 ft.
But he asserts that they were, “part of the Nephilim” based on that one single statement from a bad/evil report—a statement that’s lacking form the LXX version, by the way.
As for that, “Nephilim means ‘giants’” well, he’s implying that Nephilim means subjectively unusually tall but that’s actually one of those let the scholars fight it out situations since he’s appealing to the view of Michael Heiser who doesn’t trace Nephilim to the Hebrew root naphal but rather, to the Aramaic naphiyla which, he claims, means giant.
Of course, that only begs the question: what does giant mean? In this case, Heiser told us, “I don’t think the biblical giants were taller than unusually tall people of modern times (between 7-9 feet).”
So much for the correlation to the assertion of the ten who said that in comparison, they were as grasshoppers.
In any case, in order to assert that Nephilim were subjectively unusually tall, Tim Chaffey can only appeal to one single sentence in a bad/evil report by unreliable guys whom God rebuked since that’s the only physical description we have of Nephilim so that we don’t have a reliable physical description of them.
As for that, “Nephilim…may refer to a specific race or line of giants,” biblically, that would read as, “As for that, “Nephilim” does, “refer to a specific race or line of” Nephilim: they only line there ever was, pre-flood Nephilim—since that’s the only time they existed since they didn’t make it past the flood in any way, shape, or form.
Thus, “The Amorites were,” big and strong, “the Anakim or sons of Anak,” were tall, that they, “were ‘part of the Nephilim’” is a merely and impossible assertion in non-LXX versions, we’ve no reliable data that, “Nephilim means ‘giants’” nor that it refers to, “a specific race or line of” subjectively unusually tall personages.
Yet, recall that this was all about, “man-eating giants” to which he gets with that, “It was ‘a land that devours its inhabitants.’” He ponders, “What if this phrase meant that the giants they saw in the land actually devoured the land’s inhabitants?…giants ate people…man-eating giants.”
It actually doesn’t matter since, for one, the unreliable spies straight up contradicted the original, reliable, accepted as is, report which noted, “it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.”
Yet, Tim Chaffey seeks to defend guys whom God rebuked thusly:
“Some people will object to commenting on this passage as though the spies accurately described the land because it says that they gave a bad or evil report. However, the Hebrew word used here does not refer to a false report, but a true report about bad tidings or true statements made with sinister intentions. It is the same word used to describe Joseph’s report about his brothers’ bad behavior in Genesis 37:2. The text is not telling us that the spies lied. After all, neither Joshua nor Caleb attempted to refute what the spies reported. Instead, they tried to encourage the people to prepare for battle while the other spies were trying to discourage the people. So let’s assume that the giants in this land were eating people.”
Let’s not.
The report isn’t to be considered as wholly unreliable due to what it’s titled but rather, due to its contents: it consists of five mere assertions that aren’t supported by even on single verse in the entire Bible.
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, the flood was much of a waste, etc.
That’s why Chaffey has to invent an un-biblical tall-tale about how they made it past the flood. Moreover, if that tall-tale has Nephilim surviving the flood then that contradicts the Bible five times: Genesis 7:7, 23; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; and 2 Peter 2:5.
As for that, “neither Joshua nor Caleb attempted to refute what the spies reported,” it wasn’t a formal moderated debate and clearly, every statement of the interaction wasn’t recorded. One way we can discern that Joshua nor Caleb did refute what the, ten, spies reported is that they never said one single word about Nephilim—ever—and that when, for example, Moses relates that event in Deut 1, he mentions the Anakim but not the Nephilim: he was being practical, he was concerned about the real dangers on the ground and not about some tall-tale.
Thus, the narrative, the immediate and greater context, beg us to recognize that, “the spies lied.”
Tim Chaffey continues directly with that, “When Joshua and the Israelites finally conquered the land approximately forty years later (c. 1400 BC), they either killed or drove out the giants…there were no more Anakim…except in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod…Goliath was from Gath (1 Samuel 17), as were a handful of other giants mentioned in 2 Samuel 21.”
This is how employing the term giants makes things very messy. Chaffey has it referring to Nephilim and to being subjectively unusually tall—tall as cedars, making humans seem like grasshoppers, etc.
Thus, with that prep, that eisegesis, in mind, one would read the just quoted statemen as, “killed or drove out the” extremely tall Nephilim, “Goliath was” an extremely tall Nephil and there were, “other” extremely tall Nephilim, “mentioned in 2 Samuel 21.”
Actually, they “drove out the” Rephaim tribe of which Anakim were a clan and of whom Goliath was one with 2 Samuel 21 referring to Rephaim—and the preponderance of the earliest data, Goliath was just shy of 7 ft.
Tim Chaffey then applies his misreadings, misunderstandings, misusages, misinterpretations, and misapplications to ponder that, “Since the Israelites attacked from the east, it seems very plausible that some of the giants who fled would have traveled west via the Mediterranean Sea. What if some of these giants settled on some of the islands in the nearby Aegean Sea? And what if these islands just happened to be the same islands that were supposedly visited by Odysseus” ergo, “man-eating giants…descendants of man-eating giants that may have been described in Numbers 13.”
At least he admits, “I realize there is quite a bit of speculation” with the qualifying term, “a bit” being a bit too mild since the whole premise is fallacious as is that which he built atop it.
Yet, post-flood-giant Nephilologists literally base their entire un-biblical theory upon one single, non—LXX version—sentence from a bad/evil report stated by unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
I thought to review some of the comments posted to the article.
Someone uncontextually notes, “Something there doesn’t fit for me however, concerning the ‘sons of God’ being angels because of Jesus’ saying to the Sadducees when they tried to shame him on his teaching of the resurrection. He said in Matt 22:30 ‘… in the resurrection they are neither married nor given in marriage, but are as the angels’. This implies that angels are heavenly eunuchs with no way to procreate and thus not the ‘sons’ of Gen 6. Coupled with the fact that Jesus is referred to as the only ‘begotten’ son of God might imply that God, by creation, made other heavenly beings he called sons; the naughty sons of Gen 6. Thoughts?”
The questioner seems to have abruptly ended the quotation of Matthew since normative versions have it that Jesus specifically referred to the, “Angels of God in heaven” or at least, “Angels in heaven,” the loyal ones, which his why those who did marry are considered sinners, having, “left their first estate,” as Jude put it.
As for Jesus being the, “only begotten,” Tim Chaffey notes, “the term ‘only begotten’ does not necessarily mean that the person is the only one who was begotten” such as in, “Abraham offering up his ‘only begotten’ son, Isaac. But Abraham had another son at that time,” etc.
Jesus is the only begotten uniquely authoritative Son. Blanketly stating, “Jesus is referred to as the only ‘begotten’ son” ends up denying that Christians are sons of God.
Someone else note that Chaffey’s articles are, “doctrinally sound” but, as we saw, fallacious Nephilology leads to fallacious theology proper.
This person also noted, “I think that the position on the Nephilin you take is the one which stays true to the plain meaning of the text” which is fallacious in and of itself. Yet that person asked, “If the flood destroyed all of mankind, except for Noah and his family, how is it there were Nephilin after the flood? Did more angels take women born after the flood, or did some Nephilin survive the flood? What is your opinion?”
In reply, Chaffey is forced to good ol’ fashioned make up stuff. He wrote, “The answer to your question is found in Genesis 6:4. We are told that the Nephilim were on the earth in those days (before the Flood) and also afterward (after the Flood), whenever the sons of God came into the daughters of men…”
He was forced to artificially insert, “the Flood” since the text doesn’t reference it. In fact, the flood’s not even mentioned for the very first time until 13 vss. later, v. 17. And by doing so, Chaffey missed that the text is telling us exactly to what days it’s referring—and it’s not the flood.
But before elucidating that, note that he added, “Most English Bibles use the word ‘when’ instead of ‘whenever.’ This leads to some ambiguity about the meaning of the verse. Were the Nephilim already on the earth when this stuff was going on?…‘whenever’…refers to actions that were repeated in the past, either at fixed intervals or occasionally. In other words, it wasn’t a one-time event, which is what most English Bibles imply with the use of ‘when’…both before and after the Flood.”
He never did bother getting to the point of just how there were post-flood Nephilim but the whenever reading does not assist him.
Let’s go with it since it matters not, “Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, whenever the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.”
That begs the question: when were those days and when was afterward of those days—when was whenever?
Well, again, the text told us, “those days, and also afterward, whenever the sons of God came in to the daughters of man.”
As per v. 1, those days were, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive,” etc.
Thus, afterward was after they first did so. Tim Chaffey got close but then too a wrong turn by inserting words in to the text. Indeed, “In other words, it wasn’t a one-time event” since they began to do so and continued to do so yet, that’s all pre-flood: the whenever between, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them” and the flood.
Such is why the only reference to post-flood Nephilim comes from an utterly unreliable source.
Chaffey went on to explain that, “the reason there were giants in the land during Moses’ day is that some of the sons of God did this again.”
By jumping from the specific ancient Hebrew term Nephilim to the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants he, consciously or not, can get undiscerning English readers to chase an English word around a Hebrew Bible and think that post-flood giants are Nephilim.
Jude and 2 Peter 2 inform us that all sinful Angels were incarcerated—and there’s only a one-time sin of Angels in the Bible. They didn’t specify when they were incarcerated but since the flood was when God was cleaning house, as it were, then logically, and theo-logically, that would have been the time. And regardless, there’s literally zero indication that, “some of the sons of God did this again.” That’s just a post-flood Nephilology tall-tale that seeks to buttress the one single verse upon which they rely—that one and a manipulated second verse, Gen 6:4.
Yet, not only did he insert words into Gen 6:4, he’s emphatic, “I’ve heard people claim that the Bible never mentions angelic beings doing this after the Flood, but that’s precisely what Genesis 6:4 is telling us. Moses wrote it, and he was fully aware that there were giants on the earth in his days because of the sons of God siring children with women.”
And that, my friends, comes to us from a theologian. Others assert that a manipulated Gen 6:4 implies a survival of Nephilim past the flood but Chaffey somehow knows that it’s specifying that God wiped the slate clean but it just happened all again with more Angels doing it all again.
Someone else chimed in with that they, “Never knew that the word ‘when’ could be translated ‘whenever’. That sure clarifies the text” since Tim Chaffey got them to think it makes a difference.
That person asked, “So do you think there are still Nephilin being created today? Could these hybrid also produce offspring with women today?”
Chaffey replied, “They seemed to have been killed off during the reign of King David” even though there’s zero indication of any such a thing.
He notes, “The Bible tells us that there were giants who were born from other giants” which it does not—even if, of course, that would be the case.
He refers to that, “Anakim (who are of the Nephilim)” which, again, is based on one single non-LXX unreliable sentence. But that is how post-flood Nephilolgists literally invent Nephilim.
Even though he told a tall-tale about post-flood Angels sins but notes, “I don’t know if there are any other fallen angelic beings around that are capable of doing this…I think it’s possible that there are some demonic beings that are trying to do this again, but they may not be capable.”
Since there are not more physical fallen Angels on Earth then indeed, there are no more, “fallen angelic beings around that are capable of doing this” nor that, “demonic beings” since they are disembodied—see my article Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?
Someone else referenced, “[Kent] Hovind’s ‘photo’ of a human skeleton over ten feet tall.”
Reportedly, “The photo was taken with improper focus, and it is not a photo from the 1800s but a blurry photo of a hand-engraved illustration that was specially created to appear in a book from the 1800s, a book of unsubstantiated tales.”
Tim Chaffey noted, “creationists need to be much more careful…most have good motives” and noting much more than that.
Another person piggybacked on something Chaffey noted and added that stories/reports of people being, “abducted by aliens, having medical experiments/exams done on their reproductive organs, and their claims of seeing and/or interacting with hybrid ‘alien’/human beings have a very strong resemblance to the events of Genesis 6. Jesus did say before He came back, our world would be as it was in the days of Noah.”
Yet, that’s as abusive of Jesus’ statement as was inserting the flood into Gen 6:4. Jesus’ specific words, emphasis, context, point was:
“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.
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.”
Thus, He was providing examples of being unaware and/or unconcerned with coming judgment and nothing about neo-theo-sci-fi-tall-tales—which is what modern Nephilology has become.
That person also recommended L.A. Marzulli who sells un-biblical tall-tales for a living which is why I included him in the same book as I did Chaffey.
Another person went on and on about the, “Excellent article, Tim! In my research of this subject, your writings are by far the most professional and Scripturally sound I have found. I look forward to studying your other articles, your thesis, and your books.”
That person also appealed to, “Pausanias (the second-century AD Greek geographer)” who, “claims that in his day the sea washed out many giant human bones” and that, “one of the sons of Anax (sons of Anak?) was buried, and corpse was not less than ten cubits.”
Tim Chaffey noted, “The possible connection to Anak is obviously the most compelling for me” even though, again, there’s no real reason to correlate Anakim to, “not less than ten cubits.”
Interestingly, only at this point, Chaffey writes something he should have written at the outset, “he calls Protophanes a nothas (illegitimate), and calls him the son of Gaia (a gigantes, translated ‘giant’ and literally means born of earth).”
Indeed, the word giants ended up in some English Bibles due to following the Greek LXX which has Nephilim (but be careful, since it also has gibborim and Rephaim) as gigantes which, indeed, means earth-born.
Tim Chaffey went on to write, “Why would giants be called ‘born of earth’? Of course ‘earth’ in Greek mythology is the goddess Gaia, and according to some ancient Greeks, the gigantes were conceived when some of Uranus’ blood was spilled on the earth after his sons (the titans) castrated him. But why would giants be given a title that means ‘born of earth’? After all, aren’t we all earthborn? Could it possibly be a reference to their father(s) not being from earth and that these gigantes seemed to be supernatural, they were still born of earth?”
Well, we don’t know why the LXX was rendered as such (since that wasn’t a translation at this point) so as don’t know why three very different words with difference morphologies and different meanings were rendered as such.
He goes on to note that Pausanias, “shouldn’t be brushed aside so easily, although he (unlike Luke) probably exaggerated at times. The length of the corpse being no less than 10 cubits is greater than I would expect. I have my doubts that they could have reached these heights because of the extreme stresses that would be put on the skeletal system and many of the inner organs.”
Fascinatingly, he doesn’t seem to ponder that the ten unreliable spies were at the very, very least exaggerating. In any case, the primary issue isn’t exaggerating but is identifying. Was the second-century AD Greek geographer Pausanias such an expert anatomist that he could accurately discern the bones of whale, dinosaur, pachyderm, etc., from human/oid bones? See, “Appendix: Review of Adrienne Mayor’s The First Fossil Hunters” in my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology.
Tim Chaffey notes, “this section of Pausanias was secondhand or thirdhand information, so it could have been greatly embellished. It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that the ancient giants were between 8–12 feet tall, perhaps a little more.”
Someone else commented that in, “physics class in college…we studied King Kong our professor taught us that such a huge creature would be far more fragile than agile. This limitation would also seem to apply to the Greek heroes in the ILIAD and the giants in the Bible” but that presupposed anyone in the whole Bible being anything like unto King Kong.
That person added, “I do agree with you about the tendency to exaggerate. Philostratus who wrote about the discovery of giant bones in the third century AD said Achilles was 33 feet tall! That would make Achilles well over twice as tall as anyone else said he was.”
Someone else wrote, “Frequently I am told by skeptics that the ‘stories’ in the Bible are just myths” to which I will add that, “the ‘stories’” are not, “in the Bible” but, “are just myths” made up by post-flood-giant Nephilologists.
And I will leave it at this point.
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