Herein is a review of Derek Gilbert’s video VFTB 5/7/23: Giants in the Bible are Weird… and Important which is a 2019 AD, “presentation…at the Look, He is Coming with the Clouds Prophecy Conference at Crosspointe Church in Sanger, California.”
The info section notes, “The bottom line is this: The Nephilim were divine-human hybrids whose creation was universally accepted by the prophets, apostles, and early church. The spirits of the giants destroyed in the Flood of Noah are the demons that are with us today.”
Following on his assertion that, “spirits of the giants…are the demons,” he speaks of, “Cults inspired by the spirits of those giants” and also refers to, “monstrous giants.”
His usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants is something about subjectively unusual height but that is not the usage in English Bibles wherein it is merely rendering (not even translating) Nephilim in two verses or Rephaim in 98% of all others—without implication about height whatsoever.
In keeping with his un-biblical misusage of that one modern word, he follows his assertion about Nephilim with that, “that’s just how the later Israelites explained the megalithic structures they encountered when they moved into the land of Canaan the dolmens sites like Gilgal Rephaim [stone Wheel of the Rephaim] and so forth.”
The term later Israelites is also vague since he does not tell us later than when. If he is referring to biblical times, then there is no indication of any such a thing.
He notes, “the purpose of this talk was to illustrate…the importance of giants.” Do you see the problem with employing a vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage term? He leaves the listener to attempt to guess, at any given usage, whether he is referring to, “the importance of subjectively unusually tall personages” or, “the importance of Nephilim” or, “the importance of Rephaim” or what?
He traces back his interest in these issues—off of which he has earned his living for many, many years—to when, “an evangelist started preaching on Genesis chapter 6, and I was intrigued because I like weird stuff, science fiction fan.”
This is very, very telling since Derek Gilbert is one of the pop-researchers who has consistently sold that which I term neo-theo-sci-fi-tall-tales-Nephilology—and now you know why. This is also why so many of the pop-Nephilologists have written sci-fi tales (novels, comic books, etc.) since what they teach as biblical Nephilology is actually already un-biblical sci-fi so it is not a stretch at all to go on to publish in that genre.
Along the way, he refers to, “LA Marzulli’s novel Nephilim” and the work of Michael Heiser, Judd Burton, Timothy Alberino and others which makes it clear why he takes the stances he takes: he is in a sadly long line of un-biblical Nephilologists.
Note an utterly key issue which he asks during the presentation, “if the Nephilim were killed in the flood how is it that there were giants around in the days of David?” Note how in this case, he jumped from the specific ancient Hebrew word Nephilim to the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage modern English term giants.
So, again, is he asking, “how is it that there were subjectively unusually tall personages around?” or “how is it that there were subjectively unusually tall Nephilim around?” and why think that Nephilim were subjectively unusually tall anyhow?
That is yet another of his assertions: even fellow pop-Nephilologist Gary Wayne will tell you that he does not know how big Nephilim—and that was only after years of asserting that Nephilim were giants and only when I asked him one little question: and then, he went on to say he will keep asserting they were giants. What sense does it make to refer to the height of someone who’s height you do not know?
Check this video for his statement.
Now, he asserts that demons are Nephilim spirits but appears to want his cake and to eat it too so he also asserts post-flood Nephilim in the seeming flesh. Any concept of post-flood Nephilim in the flesh implies that God failed: He meant to be rid of the via the flood but could not get the job done, He must have missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., and so Derek Gilbert, just like all post-flood Nephilologists, had to invent an un-biblical tall-tale about how they made it past the flood—in some way, shape, or form.
Playing off of Michael Heiser’s linguistics, which Heiser did not incorporate into his theology proper, Gilbert claims:
…the word translated when as in, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man [Gen 6:4] in Hebrew can also be translated as whenever.
Whenever: does that mean that there was another incursion after the flood where Angels came in and possibly, I tend to think that when the Angels who sinned, [there] were the other Angels, saw what had happened to the Angels who Sinned, they’re in chains and gloomy darkness until the time of the judgment, “I don’t want that,” I think they laid off.
But now we see in this modern transhumanist movement, where scientists are in the lab combining monkey DNA was human and human pig hybrids and things like that.”
That is a bit hard to follow due to his short attention-span manner of speaking. He seems to be touching upon LA Marzulli’s tall-tale about a post-flood incursion but backs away from it and, for some unknown reason, jumped context to, “this modern transhumanist movement.”
So, what is his answer to, “if the Nephilim were killed in the flood how is it that there were giants around in the days of David?”?
Now, I noted that Heiser’s, and now Gilbert’s, linguistics do not incorporate into their theology proper because, again, they imply that God failed, etc.
Let us grant the whenever reading since the point it the same, biblically speaking. The verse would read thusly, “The 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.”
Yet, whenever begins with the v. 1 timeline, which is, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them,” and up until the flood.
See, this has to be about systematic theology, since the flood was God cleaning house, as it were, that would have brought the whole Gen 6 affair to a full and final end.
But if he denies a post-flood incursion then what does Heiser’s tall-tale about whenever getting us past the flood have to do with it? What do disembodied dead demon spirits have to do with physical giants which, “explained the megalithic structures”?
Derek Gilbert appeals to how, “the book of First Enoch…expounds on this, also the Book of Jubilees and Jasher.” 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from millennia after the Torah, Jubilees is also folklore from millennia after the Torah, Jasher is just a modern-day hoaxed fraud: see my books The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants and In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.
Gilbert stated, “Angels were not only sinning against humanity by crossing the species barrier, they were doing so with the animal kingdom as well. There are some who theorize that this is where the giant reptiles, the dinosaurs, came from…that’s only a theory, we don’t know.”
Well, we do not know to what he is referring by species—as opposed to biblical kinds.
He asserts, “doing so with the animal kingdom” due to the aforementioned folklore.
The average size of a dinosaur was the size of the sheep and I am unsure what giant reptiles have to do with any of this—except, of course, his assertion that Nephilim were giants which would apparently have something to do with something.
He notes, “for whatever reason, or whatever, however it happened, God found it so grievous that he put a stop to it” and yet, Derek Gilbert (somehow) has post-flood Nephilim in the flesh, leaving behind megaliths, so that, by definition, God did not put a stop to it after all.
He notes:
Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Blameless: the Hebrew word there translated means perfect, uncorrupted. When you look at how that word is used throughout the Old Testament, it refers to an unblemished sacrifice, usually an animal that is perfect.
Blameless in his generation: I think we’re talking about here is his genetic code, not only was he a righteous man, but he was not a hybrid, he was not a hybrid.
I think we’re dealing with an attempt by these Elohim, these Watchers, and by the way that phrase is in the Bible.
Indeed, Noah was not a hybrid but as I showed in my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology, the statement is about him being righteous and it matches up to how Abraham is described.
Note that an animal could have been genetically a purebred but if it sustained even one little cut, it would be considered unclean and thus, not eligible for sacrifice. Thus, this is most certainly not about genetics: not in Noah’s case and not in an animal’s case.
Derek Gilbert speaks in terms of that, what I term the Genesis 6 affair, resulted in that, “these entities, the giants, the Nephilim…Giants were created” and yet, that, “demons are the spirits of the Nephilim destroyed in the flood” which is an assertion he picked up from folklore from millennia after the Torah. For a biblical elucidation of what demons are, see the article Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?
Note that since he asserts that Nephilim were unusually tall, he argues thusly, “it’s…logically incoherent” that, “the sons of Seth marrying the daughters of Cain produce these evil giants…the giants…occupied the land that the Hebrews were given by God when they got to Canaan they found some pretty scary dudes occupying the Holy Land, the Rephaim tribes who lived east of the Jordan River or the Trans-Jordan, you might remember that incident in Genesis chapter 14.”
Two issues here, we have no reliable physical description of Nephilim, giant-Nephilologists merely uncritically pick up one single sentence from an evil report spoken by utterly unreliable guys whom God rebuked, run with it, and literally use it as the premise for their Nephilology (Num 13:33, see Chapter sample, “On the Post-Flood Nephilim Proposal”).
There are already enough problems with the Sethite theory and giant-Nephilologists do a disservice to themselves when they argue thusly against it since Sethite theorists can easily counter just as I did.
Now, again, if post-flood Nephilim were disembodied spirits, how could Nephilim be, “evil giants…the giants…occupied the land”?
Well, we just got the next step in his abyss of assertions: he merely swapped the word and concept Nephilim with the word and concept Rephaim: which is a world-class, textbook classic case of a bait and switch.
Indeed, I do remember that incident in Genesis chapter 14: it does not state one single word about Nephilim, it was about Rephaim, and it makes no connection between them whatsoever.
Moreover, “the Anakim…are counted as Rephaim this is in Deuteronomy 2 verse 11. In fact, Joshua’s war of conquest in Canaan was all about wiping out the Anakim, these Rephaim tribes, or tribes counted as Rephaim, Joshua…cut off the Anakim.”
Anakim were a clan of the Rephaim tribe, but the missing piece of Gilbert’s Nephilology puzzle is what any of that has to do with Nephilim.
Derek Gilbert notes that as per, “Jewish religious scholars”:
…here’s the origin of the word Nephilim—by the way, scholars think that the word comes from a Hebrew term meaning to fall so Nephilim being the fallen ones.
Maybe, I mean, you could see that, that could kind of make sense. But Dr. Michael Heiser’s—it’s not a real presentation unless I mentioned Mike at least two or three times—presentation it makes a really good case that this is actually a loan word from Aramaic.
Based on a loan word from Aramaic…there’s a word in Aramaic naphiyla, naphiyla which means giant.
So, Mike shows convincingly, because he’s a scholar, that this word is the likely origin of Nephilim.
…the Hebrew scholars who translated the Septuagint, which is the Greek Bible that would have been used by the Apostles in the first century, this was translated in the third Century BC, it was completed a couple hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the Greek mind had a similar story: the Greek religion had a similar story to what we see in the Bible where giants.
When it comes to the Hebrew of Aramaic origins, it is a case of letting the credentialed scholars fight it out since ??????
Yet, that does not even matter for at least three reasons:
1) if, “naphiyla…means giant” that only begs the question it does not answer: what does the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants mean?
2) while his usage was un-biblical, we know what Heiser meant by giants and it was subjectively unusual height of circa 8 ft.
3) merely jumping from the word giants to asserting that Nephilim were subjectively unusually tall is just a basic level word-concept fallacy—just like the metaphorical usage of, say, Elon Musk being a giant of technology tells us nothing about his height.
The point about that, “it’s not a real presentation unless I mentioned Mike at least two or three times” is interesting since there are people who seem to literally think that his was the final word and merely name dropping him settled any matter—no matter what fallacious assertion was being questioned.
Dr. Heiser was credentialed and experienced but not infallible, his Nephilology wasn’t biblical, and he tended to create more problems than he solved—see these for examples:
Rebuttal to Dr. Michael Heiser’s “All I Want for Christmas is Another Flawed Nephilim Rebuttal”
Review of Amy Richter and Michael Heiser on Four Enochian Watcher Related Women in Jesus’ Genealogy
As for, “the Hebrew scholars who translated” and rendered, “the Septuagint”: we do not know their motivations, we do not know if they were attempting to speak to their culture in terms of making the Torah relevant to their tall-tales, etc.
We know that, for some reason, they rendered (did not translate) Nephilim and also Rephaim and also gibborim all as gigantes or gigas which are references to the Earth-goddess Gaia so that Nephilim were being referred to as somehow pertaining to Gaia, with gigantes meaning earth-born, as in born of Gaia.
Yet, that also goes for Rephaim but since it also goes for gibborim and that is merely a descriptive term for might/mighty then we cannot merely illogically just jump to that they were Titans and such tall-tale stuff.
Derek Gilbert continues thusly:
Let me be very clear, Rephaim was the title given the name given to the spirits of the Nephilim. Rephaim equals spirits of Nephilim.
And these Jewish Scholars had no problem connecting the Rephaim to the Titans of Greek mythology.
They understood the giants were connected to the Titans, the gods who were bound in Tartarus—you see this in 2nd Samuel where the Valley of the Rephaim, which is near Jerusalem, in the Greek translation is Valley of the Titans in Isaiah 14.
The word shades in our English Bible, where the shades are roused up to greet the rebel from Eden upon his descent into shale the underworld.
In the Septuagint, the word in our English bible translated shades which in Hebrew is Rephaim, in the Greek Septuagint is giants.
They understood the connection: giants, Rephaim, Nephilim, Titans.
Proverbs 2:18, a word translated in Hebrew, or from Hebrew and English, as departed or the dead.
Proverbs 2:18 in Septuagint, it’s translated as earth-born which was a title given to the Titans.
In Proverbs 21:16, the assembly of the dead, in English, assembly of the Rephaim in Hebrew, translated into the Greek as congregation of the giants.
This is the sort of fast talking which makes the pop-researchers sound convincing—especially to those listening on the spot and who will not double check any of it.
That, “Rephaim was the title given the name given to the spirits of the Nephilim” is a mere assertion—based on a basic level linguistics error. He uses that to jump to, “Rephaim spirits who have plagued mankind since the flood.”
Yet, if Rephaim were giants but were actually merely disembodied dead Nephilim spirits then they had not size, by definition, could not have been the explanation for megalithic structures, etc.: Gilbert is not even connecting together his own assertions. Again, if Rephaim were merely disembodies spirits then how did Joshua, et al., fight them on battle fields in hand-to-hand combat?
That some unnamed and uncited, “Jewish Scholars had no problem connecting the Rephaim to the Titans of Greek mythology” is not necessarily relevant to the facts—particularly irrelevant to the biblical data.
Note that 2 Peter specifically specifies that the sinful Angles were incarcerated in Tartarus but Gilbert decided to put the, “giants…Titans” there as well (due to Greek mythology) yet, if they are dead and also bound in Tartarus then how are they also demons upon the Earth?
Now, the linguistics error Gilbert is committing is to take the root word rapha (which ranges in usage from healing to dead) and applying it to the 100% human people group, the Rephaim. Thus, another word-concept fallacy concludes that the Rephaim people groups where somehow some sort of living dead Nephilim spirits based on that the root word can refer to the dead.
Again, we do not know why the Septuagint renders (does not translate) Rephaim as Titans in that case. Now, think about how it could be that, “Rephaim, in the Greek Septuagint is giants” when giants is not a Greek word: talking too fast, I suppose.
Now, what, “the connection: giants, Rephaim, Nephilim, Titans” has been proposed to be is just watered down and confused linguistics premise on assertions and committing word-concept fallacies.
This portion of it comes down to that earth-born, “was a title given to the Titans” in some Greek mythology ergo well, I am unsure ergo what: something about how post-flood disembodied spirits of formerly very tall Nephilim were called Rephaim who left behind giant ruins even though they we not physical beings—or, something.
Derek Gilbert notes, “Angelic beings who rebelled against their creator, they were responsible for the flood of Noah. This is expounded on in Genesis 6, even further in the Book of Enoch and some of the other extra biblical uh Jewish texts from the centuries before the birth of Jesus.”
Do not be impressed by the point about, “centuries before the birth of Jesus” since that is referring to millennia after the Torah.
Note how he has the reason for the flood having been the Angelic beings but then he has some mysterious form of post-flood offspring of those beings.
Derek Gilbert quotes:
They, the giants that is, were devouring the labor of all the sons of men and men were not able to supply them. And the giants began to kill men and to devour them. And they began to sin against the birds and beasts and creeping things and the fish again the sin against the animals, which is why God had to destroy them in the flood as well, and to devour one another’s flesh and they drank the blood.
He then tells us, “Dr Judd Burton…suggests that this is where stories of vampires and werewolves originated” about which I will say very well then, they originated from folklore from millennia after the Torah, since that was a quote from 1 Enoch.
Gilbert attempts to sell it to us thusly, “The Book of Enoch, by the way, the point Jude and Peter both connect the Angels and their sexual sin, crossing the species barrier, which they only could have known from the Book of Enoch with what happened in Genesis 6.”
There is no reason to doubt that they were aware of 1 Enoch but just like Paul quotes from Greek poets without anyone thinking that the poetry belongs in the canon, there is no reason to think that a Bible contradicting text contained anything more than a few accurate reiterations of what was already in the Tanakh along with tall-tales—for example, it has Nephilim having been miles tall: great folklore, poor reality.
He goes on to say, “Mesopotamians knew about these entities as well they were called Apkallu…they were…demigods half human half God.”
Anyone who blanketly only presents one such view about Apkallu is like anyone who blanketly only presents one view about Titans—and Gilbert did both.
Mythology varies in both accounts and so, for example, to myopically appeal to Titans due to being giants ignores that there are more than one myth about them, more than one generation of them, that some of them had a hundred arms and the lower bodies of serpents, etc., etc., etc.
Thus, even if the Septuagint translators/renderers were seeking to correlate Nephilim (and Rephaim and gibborim) with Titans, we would still not know why: because both were giants? Because both were hybrids? Because both were tyrannical? Because both had a hundred arms and the lower bodies of serpents? Because of other unknown reasons?
You see, Gilbert suffers from what which I term Gigorexia Nervosa: an obsession with seeing giants and just making them up where they are nowhere to be seen.
Thus, he ignores a lot of relevant data and nuance in order to water things down, fast-talk, and end up seeming to connect dots that actually do not connect.
He circles back to that, “the flood was sent to wipe out the Watchers and the Nephilim…Nephilim were being destroyed by the waters of Noah’s flood” so that brought an end to Nephilim, so that there has never been any such a thing as post-flood Nephilim.
Yet, Gilbert sought to get around this logical, bio-logical, and theo-logical fact by asserting, “what happened to the Nephilim giants? Their Spirits became demons, this was again explained in the Book of First Enoch.” By the way, “Nephilim giants” would biblically mean, “Nephilim Nephilim.”
Derek Gilbert points out, “one of the early church fathers, not right about everything but about this, he writes, ‘In my opinion, it is certain wicked demons and so to speak of the race of Titans or giants.’”
Thus, jumping even further away from the Torah, we have one person correlating wicked demons to Titans or giants in some way and for some reason, somehow.
He stated, “Spirits, the demons who proceeded from the bodies of the Nephilim, Isaiah 57, ‘among the smooth stones of the dead, a smooth stone of the valley is your portion they, they are your lot to them, you have poured out a drink offering, you brought a grain offering,’ Isaiah 57 verse 6.”
He tells us, “What’s he talking about there? The word translated smooth stones, scholars say, can also be translated as dead, among the dead of the valley is your portion, valleys were often used as places where the dead were buried.”
Okay, so they were pouring drinks on the dead in that case, what of it? And, apparently, the bodies of Nephilim were not buried under meters of flood sediment but were readily spotted.
Besides how to dissect giant-pop-post-flood-gigorexia-nervosa-neo-theo-sci-fi-tall-tales-Nephilology, I am unsure what anyone could have gained form that talk which was at a church, mind you.
Well, for some answers to the yet unanswered question, see my book which features Gilbert: Nephilim and Giants as per Pop-Researchers: A Comprehensive Consideration of the claims of I.D.E. Thomas, Chuck Missler, Dante Fortson, Derek Gilbert, Brian Godawa, Patrick Heron, Thomas Horn, Ken Johnson, L.A. Marzulli, Josh Peck, CK Quarterman, Steve Quayle, Rob Skiba, Gary Wayne, Jim Wilhelmsen, et al.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Twitter page, on my Facebook page, or any of my other social network sites all which are available here.