This pertains to Dean Smith’s “The Bible and its GIANTS: What does archaeology have to say,” Open the Word, March 11, 2022.
Smith carefully and accurately notes, “in Joshua 12:4, where we have a reference to Og, the King of Bashan, who is described as the last of the Rephaim. We have no idea how big Og was, other than his iron bed was nine cubits long or about 13 feet (ca. 4 metres) in length (Deuteronomy 3:11).”
Smith adds, “The ancient Jewish historian Josephus who lived between 37 AD and 100 AD cited giants in one of his books entitled the Antiquities of the Jews” and that, “he added one small tidbit of information. Despite their immense size, they also had different facial features than the Jews”:
For which reason they removed their camp to Hebron; and when they had taken it, they slew all the inhabitants.
There were till then left the race of giants, who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing.
The bones of these men are still shown to this very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men.
A key question to post of Josephus is what were his sources? Here he refers to, “giants,” Rephaim, who were of, “bodies so,” subjectively, “large” along with the unique claim that they also had, “countenances so entirely different” which made them, “surprising to the sight” and another unique feature, “terrible to the hearing.”
The question is whence did Josephus acquire such data—and is it data or is it just folklore?
As for the, “bones of these men,” did he personally see them or is he just reporting that it has been reported to him that they are on display? If he personally saw them or not, does not the fact that they are, “unlike to any credible relations of other men” mean or imply that they were not human bones, not human Rephaim bones, but were the bones of large animals?
Smith notes that the reference to bones:
…leads to a fascinating interview that Dr. Chris Smith from Cambridge University in Britain had with Professor Lee Berger on his evolutionary podcast The Naked Scientist in 2007. Berger is an American-born paleo-anthropologist who works at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2016, Time Magazine recognized Berger as one of the top 100 most influential Americans in the world.
As part of his podcast, Smith actually flew to South Africa to interview Berger on a race of giant humans that once roamed Earth. According to Berger, these giants existed about 300,000 years ago…
Similar to what Josephus mentioned, Berger then proceeded to show Smith the thighbones of these giant men that were so large, Berger said it was impossible to calculate how big they actually were.
This last bit is rather odd since it is precisely such bones, especially thighbones, that would allow us to calculate how big they actually were.
In any case:
They have even reproduced replicas of their skulls from the fragments that they discovered.
In the interview, Berger stated:
“They are huge. That’s so big we can’t even calculate how big this individual was. You would need an NBA basketball player to get someone of that height. Someone like this would have been something like over seven feet tall.”
I realize that I am mashing together Smith’s and Berger’s comments but, “it was impossible to calculate” but it seems we can take a wild—and wildly vague—guess: subjectively “huge” and subjectively “big” but so very subjectively hugely big that, “we can’t even calculate” but why not?
And how is it that they were so very huge and big that it is incalculable yet, their height is estimated to that of, “NBA basketball player…over seven feet tall”?
Smith comments, “In other words, they were Goliath-sized” which I would say is overestimating but, fair enough for our purposes. He adds:
Of course, this leads to the bigger issue. Were these giants a one-off, like Robert Wadlow, meaning that the individual grew to a gigantic size because of a medical issue, such as a misfiring pituitary gland.
When Dr. Smith raised this possibility, Berger said absolutely not, they were part of a race of giants, because they are finding the remains of these giant people all across Africa.
I would be curious to know to what, quantitatively, he refers by, “they…giants…they…remains…these giant people,” all in the plural, who are, “all across Africa”? To how many such people is he referring?
In any case, this is clearly a case of subjectivism: they huge-big people were huge-big for their contextual average—even when some Africans, such as Ethiopians, are subjectively taller than other Africans, such as Pygmies.
Moreover:
In the interview, Berger told Smith:
“No because we found a lot of them. Everywhere we find them we find them enormous. These are what we call archaic Homo sapiens. Some people refer to them as Homo heidelbergensis. These individuals are extraordinary. They are GIANTS.”
So, to how many such people is he referring? The answer is, “a lot” which is subjectively generic. So now, they—however many “they” are—are subjectively huge, subjectively big, subjectively enormous, subjectively extraordinary, and subjectively GIANTS.
Furthermore:
Apologetics Press’s Dr. Miller adds that Berger description of this group as being archaic, in Biblical terms, would put them in the pre and post-flood era.
In a follow-up to his interview with Dr. Berger, Dr. Smith added that humanity went through a period of ‘giantism.’ He said:
“One of the most interesting thing that the fossil record reveals is that we went through a period of extreme giantism. These were people routinely over seven feet tall, they were huge.”
So, while, the Bible has been mocked relentlessly for its stories about a race of giants, these ancient writers were right all along.
Now we have it that, “this group”—huge, big, enormous, extraordinary, GIANTS: who did not even make it to 8 ft.—were chronologically from the “pre and post-flood era.”
Apparently, the timeframe of, “pre and post-flood,” which covers all of history, featured, huge-big-enormous-extraordinary-GIANTS who suffered from giantism, extreme giantism, and that extreme giantism resulted in people who were—behold!!!—over seven feet tall which is what is meant by, huge.
Smith notes, “So, while, the Bible has been mocked relentlessly for its stories about a race of giants, these ancient writers were right all along.” Well, if by giants we mean between 7 ft. and 8 ft. then, pray tell, who has or ever would deny any such a thing? Who would appeal to that in order to relentlessly mock the Bible? How could evidence of such heights accredit the Bible?
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