Dasyd Ministry’s Jerry Hennig posted, “Excerpts from the BN & Theme Books” regarding sons of God and giants.
He notes upfront, “SONS OF YAH (GOD)…are simply fallen angels who seduced the daughters of men creating giant human offspring, and perhaps even strange and weird animal crossbreeds.”
At this point, we must keep an eye out of what the usage is of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Hannig’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
It seems that his usage if something vaguely generically about subjectively unusual height (see why the stand-alone word “giants” is useless?) since, for example, when he points out that, “Orthodox Jews say the sons of God are religious nobles” he counters that, “If there were nobles of men marrying daughters why would Yah get so angry about this that He would want to destroy the world over it? How do giants come from such a thing taking place anyways?”
Well, the usage in the English Bibles which employ it is that therein 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.
Thus, his usage does not correspond to the English Bibles’ usage.
FYI: his second statement is more accurate than the first since that view pertains to, “nobles of men” in general and not specifically to, “religious nobles.” Regardless, 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 also argues against the, “theory…that the Godly sons of Seth married the bad daughters of men, who’s offspring were giants. The problem we have here is that Yah said the only righteous people on earth at that time were Noah and his sons. How could Seth’s sons be Godly and yet marry evil daughters of men at the same time? If the problem was “mixed marriages”, then Yah’s wrath should have only come upon Seth’s sons and their wives. What about Seth’s daughters? How did giants come from regular men and women?”
That view, the Sethite view, is a late-comer of a view based on myth, prejudice, and which only creates more problems than it solves (so, more than zero) but some of Hennig’s counters are not cogent:
Yes, that theory assets, “that the Godly sons of Seth” yet, logically, they weren’t really Godly since they were such terrible sinners that their sin served as the premise for the flood so, that’s rather odd.
We’ve seen that by, “who’s offspring were giants…How did giants come from regular men and women?” means were vaguely generically subjectively tall but we’ve no indication of something even that non-specific—stand by for more on this point.
Sure, “the only righteous people on earth at that time” just before the flood, “were Noah and his sons” and by extension their wives, but the Gen 6 affair, as I term it, commenced, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them.”
Jerry Hennig then comments on Nephilim, the supposedly alleged giants by first quoting a version of Gen 6:1-4:
Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3 Then ADONAI said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 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”.
He notes and asks, “It’s important to notice in these verses that these Nephilim came into the daughters of men at the time of Noah ‘in those days’, as well as ‘also afterward’. So if the theory of the Almighty bringing the flood was to eradicate these hybrids was true, then what about the afterwards part of the verse.”
Note how he bypasses the key point, the point that identifies the timeline, by only quoting four words from v. 4 and by prepping his readers to think of it in a certain way and he commits a category error:
He stated, “Nephilim came into the daughters of men” just after quoting, “the sons of God came in to the daughters of men.”
He stated that was, “at the time of Noah” but again, he just quoted that it was, “when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose” which was when, “sons of God came in to the daughters of men.”
As for, “‘in those days’” indeed, “those days” was, “when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men” which was, “when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them.
Thus, “also afterward” is simply after, “those days,” “when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men” which was, “when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them.
Thus, they commenced doing it and kept doing it.
Hennig ignores that the verse told him exactly to what days it’s referring and opted to artificially insert, “the flood” into a verse that states nothing of it—in fact, the flood’s not even mentioned for the very first time until a full 13 vss. later.
Thus, the answer to, “if the theory of the Almighty bringing the flood was to eradicate these hybrids was true, then what about the afterwards part of the verse” is a non-issue since it’s anachronistic: he took, “afterwards” to refer to post-flood but it’s not pointing forwards, it’s pointing backwards to the Gen 6:1 timeline—and then forwards from that but it’s still all pre-flood.
Jerry Hennig continues thusly:
Obviously Adonai did not flood the earth only for the purpose of wiping out all the unrighteous people on it. It may have been part of His plan, but certainly not the only part. Num. 13:33 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.”
They were also called Anakim. Anakim are called the race of giants. This is after the flood, so if all corrupt humans were killed during the flood, where did these Nephilim come from?
I’m unsure what the ergo is for this first line. He seems to imply the, “theory of the Almighty bringing the flood was to eradicate these hybrids” is inaccurate and yet, “not the only part” so there was more to it: it wasn’t a one-stop shop: it was to be rid of all the unrighteous, and Nephilim, and sons of God/fallen Angels, and some animals, etc.
Yet, it seems he can’t go the route of, “to eradicate these hybrids” due to Num. 13:33 but when he quoted that he, for some unknown reason, neglected to mention utterly fundamentally key facts such as that he quoted one, non-LXX, sentence, from an, “evil report,” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked—to mention a few of the problems with that sentence, for more see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
It seems that he’s telling us that Nephilim, “were also called Anakim” but there’s literally zero reliable indication of that, Anakim were named after Anak, Arba’s son, and were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe, Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them, and as for being a, “race of giants” due to his misusage of that English term he doesn’t realize that when he reads that about them in the Bible the Hebrew is telling him that they’re Rephaim: they only contextually relevant thing we’re told about them is that they were, “tall” which is just as vague generic and subjective as giants and is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
Indeed, “This is after the flood, so…where did these Nephilim come from?” nowhere, they didn’t make it past the flood in any way, shape, or form since God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
Jerry Hennig notes, “Nephilim (Strong’s #5303) In Hebrew it means giants” but that only begs the question of what giants means since what he wrote reads thusly without the answer to that question, his usage would have that mean, “Nephilim (Strong’s #5303) In Hebrew it means of vaguely generically subjectively unusual height of some unspecified degree.” See why it’s useless: if you have to define to what you’re referring every time then you might as well not use it but just say to what you’re referring.
Yet, he adds that, “The root word for Nephilim…means: 1) to fall, lie, be cast down, fail or reject” which would make one wonder how such a root ends up referring to vaguely generically subjectively unusual height of some unspecified degree—see my linguistics book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
He refers to Nephilim as, “mutants” and claims, “Many Greek gods are half man half beasts called Nephilim” but called Nephilim whereabouts, by whom, when, etc.? Why would half man half Angel look like half man half beasts?
Hennig also asserts, “Another word for Nephilim is ‘Rephaim’” for which there’s literally zero indication. He attempts to appeal to Gen. 14:5 which refers to Rephaim which are aka Zuzim (aka Zamzummim) and like Anakim, another of that tribe’s clans were Emim but the text makes no correlation to Nephilim, of course.
He myopically asserts, “Rephaim comes from the Hebrew root rapha which means; spirits, shades” whilst no mentioning that the root has a wide range of meaning and usage to include healing/healer: such as when God is called YHVH Rapha: God the healer (Exodus 15:26)—an apocryphal Angels’ name is Raphael: God’s healer or healing God, etc.
He notes, “They were also…race of giants” but it’s the same issue for Rephaim in general as it was for Anakim in particular: they were, “tall” on average and were strictly English readers might see, “giants” in their English Bibles, the underlying Hebrew is as aforementioned, “Repha/im.”
Oddly, he asserts, “They were also called the Zophim, watchers, descended angels in: Num. 23:14 [‘]So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar’” which doesn’t include even one single word about correlation to Rephaim nor Nephilim nor being whatever, “watchers, descended angels” means: he seems to be employing the Second Temple Era term for Angels/Malakin which is Watchers so it really reads, Angels, descended Angels. Well, what he did is read Strong’s which notes, “Zophim = ‘watchers.”
He concludes, “In other wards there are multiple names for giants in scripture” but he comes to that conclusion before showing us anyone who was more than merely subjectively tall, by misunderstanding the usage of the term giants, and by merely asserting correlation where they is none.
Thus, when he specifies, “They can be called: Nephilim, Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, Zamzummims, or Zophims” here’s the breakdown:
Nephilim: 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.
Rephaim aka Zuzim aka Zamzummims along with Emim (and Anakim): subjectively tall.
Zophims: that’s a place name, not a people group.
So, where are all of the giants?
For some reason, Jerry Hennig asserts, “All of these giant offspring were males which may be true since, “There is no mention in the Bible of any giant women” but then again, the only reliable statement in the Bible about Nephilim—forget giants—calls them by the male plural Hebrew ending, “im” and calls them, “men” but it’s common to refer to males and females as im/men in general. I actually don’t have a hybrid dog in that fight, it was just a thought.
He asserts, “Angels can manifest themselves as people” but there’s literally zero indication of any such thing. Rather, Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such isn’t their ontology—see my book What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.
He asserts, “Gen. 6:1-4…Sons of God…were angels that took Lucifer’s side when he was thrown out of heaven” but he was thrown out due to his Gen 3 sin but Angels sinned during the Gen 6:1 timeline.
For some reason, he loops back to note that, “Some of these Nephilim (giants) were referred to as Rephaim, Emin, Horim, Zemsumim, Arba, (Gen. 14 and 15).” Well, he ought to not have looped back since this made things worse:
Rephaim/“Zemsumim” (slight misspelling for Zamzummim) tribe and Emin clan: again, subjectively tall.
Horim: unrelated to Rephaim and for whom we’ve no physical description.
Arba: a man for whom we’ve no physical description—he was Anak’s father and Anakim were named after Anak so it’s likely that Arba and Anak may have been subjectively unusually tall.
He then makes the mistake of looing back to the evil report—again without the most important factoids—since he wrote, “Remember when Moses sent twelve spies into the land of Canaan, they reported seeing giants and told Moses that these giants couldn’t be defeated.” Not so, he just told us, “twelve spies…they reported” but the text point is that such wasn’t the case. Rather, twelve were sent, Caleb and Joshua remained loyal but the other 10 showed themselves to be disloyal, unreliable, unfaithful, contradictory, embellishers since they are the ones who presented the evil report upon which, for some odd reason, Hennig relies. They contradicted Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole Bible so I will side with Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole Bible.
He wrote, “In Num. 13:33 it says ‘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.”
Yet, that’s not, “Num. 13:33” rather, that’s Num. 13:32b-33 and the fact is that we can’t even verify some thing as generic as that, “all the people whom we saw in it are men of GREAT size”—GREAT size is as useless as tall and giants—see my article ???
Jerry Hennig then asserts, “Anak and his seven sons were Nephilim descendants in the land of Canaan” for which, of course, there’s zero indication—unless, that is, you want to claim that one single non-LXX sentence from an evil report by unreliable guys whom God rebuked is a solid enough source for you: all post-flood Nephilology is literally premised on that one single sentence so post-flood Nephilologists must consider guys whom God rebuked to have been infallible, they take them at their word, uncritically pick up that one sentence, run with it, build an all-encompassing theory on it, and care not that by doing so they damaged theology proper since now they have a failed God.
He also loops back to a Greek context in noting, “Nephilim were referred to as Greek Titans (in Hebrew means Satan). They were half human, half godly beings of incredible looks and strength.” I’ve no idea upon what he asserted that Titans means Satan. It’s also myopically generic to assert, “Nephilim were referred to as Greek Titans” since there were more than one generation of Titans and they looked vastly different such as the second generation having the lower bodies of snakes, having 100 arms, etc. He refers to Nephilim, “looks” but, again, we’ve no reliable physical description of them and all indications are that they looked just like regular humans since both sides of their parentage look just like humans: Angels and women.
He generically asserts, “Many believe these giant celestial beings were responsible for building the pyramids, Stonehenge, etc., prior to the great flood.” Well, perhaps but then those structures (which pyramids, BTW?) would date to pre-flood days, by definition, that may be a theory that takes away from human ingenuity—especially at a time when humans were still close enough to the originally created two that they were smarter than we genetically degraded moderners—see my video
He generically asserts, “Many believe demons come from the Nephilim (giants).” Yet, that 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?
For some unknown reason, he then included 261 words about bestiality without telling us why.
He then asserts, “Goliath was one of the descendants of the giant Nephilim.” Yet, there’s zero indication of any such thing—and biblically contextually, “giant Nephilim” means, “Nephilim Nephilim.” Goliath was a Repha, not a Nephil: we’re told that about him virtually every single time he’s mentioned.
Jerry Hennig notes, “He supposedly had six toes and six fingers” but there’s no indication of that: that was one of his sons—the only person in the Bible described as such.
He also assets, “He was over nine feet tall and wore over 125 lbs. of armor, the iron head on his spear weighed 6 lbs. alone.” Yet, for some odd reason, he didn’t inform his readers that the Masoretic text 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) so that’s the preponderance of the earliest data.
He had a guy assisting with the equipment. Regular guy Benaiah took a spear like a weaver’s beam, just like Goliath’s, from a 7.5 ft. Egyptian and successfully wielded it against him in hand-to-hand combat (2 Sam 23). Also, you can search for strongman or weightlifting competition vids and see guys who are around 6 ft. lifting 1,000 lbs.
He loops back to noting, “It may have been partially because of the degenerate acts of the humans and human/hybrids on earth that Yahveh brought the great flood, who knows.” Well, God knows and he told us: all were corrupt sans Noah in particular and his immediate and extended family by general implication.
Oddly, he then loops again by mixing two issues, “Some believe that the spirits of all those who died in the flood are the demon spirits used today by Satan. Although this theory seems possible, there is a verse in the Bible saying Adonai never called angels Sons of God. Hebr. 1:5a ‘For to which of the angels did He ever say, Thou Art My Son.” It’s odd that he claims those sons of God were Angels but then seems to argue against himself and make that irrelevant point as a non-sequitur to the folklore about demons.
Just in case, I’ll note that such is tacking Heb 1 out of context since it’s not about Angelology, it’s about Jesus. Ergo, God never called an Angel His son in the self-same manner in which He calls Jesus His Son since Jesus is uniquely authoritative. Or, should we deny that Christians are sons of God because, after all, Jesus is God’s only begotten Son?
He then asserts, “archeologists have found a 47 inch femur bone in the Euphrates river valley, south-east Turkey.” There’s literally zero indication of that. Again, he has failed to inform his readers of the facts of the matter. He included this photo:
???
The man in the photo is the later Joe Taylor and in my video Is the giant (Nephilim) femur bone real? Mt. Blanco Museum’s Joe Taylor explains, you can hear him explain that it’s not a bone, it’s a sculpture he made, he made it based on being told about a newsletter that he never saw which supposedly asserted that such a bone had been found. Thus, there are various degrees of separation between the alleged find no one can verify and a mere sculpture. Thus, when Jerry Hennig asserts, “Joe Taylor has the femur bone at his Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum in Crosbyton, Texas” that’s simply not the case, based on Taylor himself.
He takes a pretty common guess as to the motivation of Satan to have some influence in casting 1/3 of Angels to Earth (Rev 12) since a pop-theory is that, “Satan wanted to genetically modify the DNA of man so that the line of the Messiah would be polluted.” Well, according to such post-flood Nephilology theorists God failed, He had to have post-flood mere humans do the job he couldn’t handle and yet, all was a waste since there are people groups that such theorists would identify as having been post-flood Nephilim, members of which appear in Jesus’ genealogy. Bottom line is that nothing post-flood has anything to do with genetics and God took care of any such problem via the flood—once and for all.
He goes on to note, “The sons of God were corrupting everything in their path so possibly this is one of the reasons Yah had to destroy, flood, the whole world” and yet, this theory negates that by asserting post-flood Nephilim—based on one very problematic sentence.
He then notes, “the Book of Enoch talks about giants supposedly 437 feet tall (300 cubits). Enoch 7:12-13 ‘Whose stature was each three hundred cubits” yet, the text actually refers to 3,000 not 300 and ells not cubits: which is MILES tall. Yet, that matters not since 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah—see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch. Being MILES tall is great folklore but poor reality.
Jerry Hennig notes, “We know giants are real and at the time of Noah, but they were not 437 feet tall, of that you can be sure” but he’s offered no indication that, “We know giants are real and at the time of Noah” as per his misuse of that term.
Reference is made to unnamed, “Ancient writings Ancient Jewish writings of 135AD” regarding Amorites (so, from MILLENNIA after the Amorite’s time) from which the bottom line quote is, “the bodies of Amorites who were buried there” somewhere in Jerusalem, “One of them measured 18 cubits (30 ft) in height.” I tracked down that the quote is from Midrash Tanchuma and midrashim are sermonizing homilies. What we’re biblically contextually told about Amorites is that Amos 2:9 refers to, “the Amorite…whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.” He was clearly just saying they were big and strong and not implying conducting a one-to-one ratio based mathematical calculation. In fact, people who do measure cedars and claim Amorites were that tall never get around to a calculation correlating the strength of oaks—since they’re only interested in tall-tales. Plus, if they take it that incoherently literal then they have to conclude that Amorites had fruits and roots growing right out of their bodies.
One of Hennig’s summaries includes, “The conclusion when all is considered is obvious; the fallen angels came and had intercourse with the daughters of men before and after the Great Flood, creating Giants, Nephilim” with there not only being literally zero indication of that occurring after but there being no reliable reason for even inventing such a tall-tale. Jude and 2 Peter 2 tell us that those sinful Angels were incarcerated and there’s only a one-time sin/fall of Angels in the Bible–plus, God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
And so what we’ve seen is pretty typical pop-Nephilology which typically will employ inaccurate, watered down, and undefined terminology which makes it easier to assert correlations where there are none and leaves a lot of fundamentally important facts unstated along with misrepresenting the Bible and damaging theology proper.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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