A certain Troy Black wrote an article titled Nephilim Spirit Prophecy: Stop This 1 Pattern Before It Opens a Door to Darkness for a site that self-IDs as, “Publishing cutting-edge prophetic messages to supernaturally empower the body of Christ…Destiny Image is a community of believers with a passion for equipping and encouraging you to live the prophetic, supernatural life you were created for!”
He began with, “…I heard the Holy Spirit say” and what he claims to have been told is, “The spirit of the Nephilim never left the earth. There’s a shadow of their effects at work all over—in any work that is born out of demonic influence” along with that, “The spirit of the Nephilim is the spirit of the shortcut mentality. It is a shortcut to freedom—a shortcut to God’s promise.”
Unfortunately, such a generic and subjective usage of the term spirit of the Nephilim allows for the watered-down concept of being, “shortcut mentality” to be applied to whatever one wants and so it ends up having no relation at all to Nephilim.
Troy Black wrote:
Genesis 6:4 (NASB) says about the giants, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward….”
Presuming the before and after here speaks of the pre-flood and post-flood days, it’s not unlikely that the Nephilim, or some form of them, walked the earth after the great flood. Some scholars believe that Nimrod himself, who ruled the pre-Babylonian kingdom of Babel, was one of these giants.
I’m unsure why anyone would presume something uniblical within the context of elucidating the Bible.
When one cuts a thought, a sentence, a verse in half then well, sure, they can presume anything. He cut it just when it was telling us to what days it’s referring and the flood ain’t it.
What, “Genesis 6:4 (NASB) says” is, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of mankind, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”
It can’t mean anything about the flood since:
1) the flood’s not even mentioned for the very first time until a full 13 verses later.
2) the ONLY post-flood reference to Nephilim is from an “evil report” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
3) God didn’t fail, He didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc.
Gen 6:4 states, “Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”
The question becomes: when were those days?
Well, Gen 6:1 told us, “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. And they took as their wives any they chose.”
The next question becomes: when was afterward?
Since it was after those days then it was simply after, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them…”
Thus, they began doing it then and they continued to do it but that’s all pre-flood.
As for, “about the giants, ‘The Nephilim’” biblically contextually that means, “about the Nephilim, ‘The Nephilim’” so the key questions are What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Black’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
For now, let’s grant that he’s using giants to mean Nephilim thus, “Some scholars believe that Nimrod himself, who ruled the pre-Babylonian kingdom of Babel, was one of these giants.”
Well, I’m unsure who those unnamed, uncited, and unquoted scholars are but it’s literally logically, bio-logically, and theo-logically impossible that he was a Nephil.
Actually, I may have a clue as to who they are since I wrote the book The Scholarly Academic Nephilim and Giants: What do Scholarly Academics Say About Nephilim Giants?
Yet, Troy Black argues his case:
Several factors point to Nimrod potentially being of Nephilim blood. First, both Nimrod and the Nephilim are described using the Hebrew word gibborim, meaning “mighty men.” Second, Micah 5:6 associates “the land of Nimrod” with the land of Assyria, which later became a vassal state of Babylon. Third, the historian Josephus, an extra-biblical source, described Nimrod as desiring to get revenge on God for destroying his forefathers through the flood.
The, “using the Hebrew word gibborim” is a non-starter since it’s word-concept fallacy and myopic. In order to inform, rather than assert, he would have to have written, “Several factors point to Nimrod, Angels, Gideon, Boaz, some of David’s soldiers, and even God Himself potentially being of Nephilim blood. First, both , Angels, Gideon, Boaz, some of David’s soldiers, and even God Himself and the Nephilim are described using the Hebrew word gibborim.”
See, it does not work when we bring in all relevant facts: Nephilim (Gen 6:4), Nimrod (Gen 10:8), Angels (Psa 103:20), Boaz (Ruth 2:1), some of King David’s soldiers (1 Chron 11:11), God Himself (Isa 9:6), etc.
Unsure what the land of Nimrod/Assyria/Babylon has to do with Nephilim—and Black didn’t elucidate.
The last attempt is to appeal to Josephus (37-100 AD) who complied info from who knows where and at what level of reliability, “an extra-biblical source” which are unnamed, uncited, and unquoted—see my book The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts.
As for, “his forefathers” even if we grant that, why merely assume that his pre-flood forefathers had to be Nephilim?
In fact, we know exactly who his pre-flood forefathers were:
Adam
Seth
Enosh
Kenan
Mahalalel
Jared
Enoch
Methuselah
Lamech
Noah
Ham
Ham
Cush
Nimrod
(Gen chaps 5 and 10)
There’s no indication whatsoever, anywhere, that anyone in that line was a Nephil.
Troy Black added:
Another biblical link between Nimrod and the Nephilim can be uncovered in Numbers 13 when the Israelite spies return from spying out the Promised Land after their first journey through the wilderness.
So they reported to him and said, “We came 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 indeed, we saw the descendants of Anak there! Amalek is living in the land of the Negev, the Hittites, 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” (Numbers 13:27-29 NASB).
The Israelites observe the descendants of Anak living in the land of Canaan. The Canaanites came from Canaan, son of Ham. Ham was Nimrod’s grandfather (see Genesis 10:8).
That’s a misrepresentation since it wasn’t, “the Israelite spies” in general but 10 of them.
So, it was the 10 who reported and he needed to mention that he’s relying on:
- One single unreliable sentence
- From strictly non-LXX versions (since that version’s version of that verse doesn’t even mention Anakim)
- Of an unreliable “evil report”
- By 10 unreliable guys
- Whom God rebuked—to death
- Who made five mere assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the whole Bible
- Who contradicted Moses, Cable, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible
I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
Sure, Anakim were there and so were Amalekites, Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, and Canaanites (Num 13). In fact, in Deut 1 when Moses relates the Num 13 events, he only focuses on Anakim since they were notorious and the real dangers on the ground, he didn’t even bother mentioning Nephilim: he was too practical to bother about some fantasy tall-tale.
So, of course since there’s nowhere from which to draw, in order to support, “the direct connection between the sons of Anak and the Nephilim” appeal is made to one unreliable sentence from non-LXX versions of one unreliable evil report by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
Also, due to that evil report merely asserting, “all the people whom we saw in it are people of great stature, Troy Black merely uncritically repeats, “Not only were all the people inhabiting the promised land apparently large in stature” for which there’s no backing data and, of course, “verse 33 [in non-LXX versions] directly relates the Anakim with the Nephilim.”
He adds, “Whether this means they were directly descended from the Nephilim, or whether it means they had a similar origin story, it does not much matter.”
It matters tremendously since fallacious Nephilology damages theology proper: if Anakim were related to Nephilim then post-flood Nephilologists need to invent un-biblical fantasy tall-tales as to how they made it past the god who failed to be rid of them via the flood, the flood which was much of a waste.
Moreover, he wrote, “it does not much matter. Either way, they were both giant” regarding, “their physical” yet, we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim and the only contextually relevant thing we’re told about Anakim is that they were, “tall” (Deut 2) which was subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
He then goes back to, “What was the prophetic word I heard about the Nephilim?” which was, “The spirit of the Nephilim never left the earth…the spirit of the shortcut mentality” and such vaguery allows him to claim, “Nimrod was able to build many cities…his giant-like nature” and goes on to apply the spirit of the Nephilim even to pre-Nephilim times, “Adam and Eve being tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden.”
And on he goes offering supposed examples, “Abraham and Sarah…The Israelites…The devil…Babylon the Great” and on it goes.
This is tantamount to endless sermonizing references to giants in the and preaching about defeating the giants in your life: it may make for good preaching but waters down the premise.
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