Edward D. Andrews (“AS in Criminal Justice, BS in Religion, MA in Biblical Studies, and MDiv in Theolog”) wrote an article titled The Truth About the Nephilim—Fallen Ones, Not Fallen Angels – Updated American Standard Version with the last portion referring to that he’s the Chief Translator of the UASV.
If I were to judge an article by its title, I’d say that all who hold to the Angel view of that which I term the Gen 6 affair would agree that, “The Truth About the Nephilim” is that they were, “Fallen Ones, Not Fallen Angels” since they were offspring of fallen Angels.
Andrews notes:
Nephilim were not fallen angels themselves, nor mythological titans, nor mere tyrants of human lineage—they were the hybrid offspring of disobedient spirit creatures (angels) who willfully violated God’s ordained boundaries by materializing in human form to marry and procreate with women. Their offspring became infamous tyrants and were instrumental in filling the earth with violence, prompting Jehovah to bring about the global Flood.
My statement about the tile was correct, “Nephilim were not fallen angels themselves.”
Now, the reference to, “spirit creatures (angels)…materializing in human form” (and his usage of, “Jehovah”) makes me think that Andrews is an adherent of the Jehovah’s Witnesses org since those aren’t features of biblical Angelology but are JW man-made traditions—especially the latter.
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. There’s no indication whatsoever that Angels, fallen or not, have or even could materialize especially since they are already ontologically material.
He quotes the Gen 6 affair thusly:
“Now it came about, when mankind started to multiply on the surface of the ground and daughters were born to them, the sons of the true God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. And they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then Jehovah said, ‘My spirit will not tolerate man indefinitely, because he is flesh. So his days will amount to 120 years.’ The Nephilim proved to be in the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of the true God continued to have relations with the daughters of men and they bore sons to them. They were the mighty ones who were of old, the men of fame.” (Genesis 6:1-4, UASV)
He notes, “The distinction between ‘sons of God’ and ‘daughters of men’ implies a division between heavenly and earthly beings.” Part of why is the strict gender binary in the text. The Angel view explains that: Angels are always described as looking like human males thus, strictly male Angels had to mate with strictly females, by definition.
Edward Andrews notes:
Some commentators have attempted to argue that the “sons of God” were the righteous male descendants of Seth, intermarrying with the wicked female descendants of Cain. However, this interpretation does not hold up under scrutiny. Firstly, such marriages had already been happening for generations. Secondly, such unions would not logically produce monstrous offspring who were called “mighty ones,” “men of fame,” and distinguished as Nephilim. Thirdly, nowhere in Scripture are human worshipers of Jehovah referred to in this specific way as “sons of God” (bene ha-Elohim) in the Old Testament.
Granted, the Sethite view is a late-comer based on myth and prejudice. The original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christian 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.
Yet, isn’t not a good counter argument to appeal to, “monstrous offspring” especially since people can be, “mighty ones,” “men of fame,” and not be to whatever subjective thing monstrous refers.
To summarize some of what he notes thereafter, Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that, “sons of God” can refer to non-human beings (which some LXX editions have as “Angeloi”: plural of “Angelos”) since they, at the very least, witnessed the creation of the Earth.
Also, Jude and 2 Peter 2 combined refer to a sin of Angels, place that sin to pre-flood days and correlate it to sexual sin which occurred after the Angels, “left their first estate,” after which they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall of Angels in the Bible. So, if they’re not referring to the Gen 6 affair, we’ve no idea to what sin they’re referring.
Note that he notes, “In 1 Peter 3:19-20, we are told that Christ preached to the ‘spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in Noah’s days.’ These “spirits’ are…disobedient angels” but that one single usage of spirits taken to refer to Angels doesn’t outweigh the evidence of every single time they’re physically described.
It’s also tricky to interpret that since it’s sandwiched between another reference to spirit and persons:
Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
So, it’s about, “the flesh…the spirit” and it is, “spirit, in which he” apparently pre-His physical resurrection, “went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.”
Now, who, “did not obey” Angels, Nephilim, and humans: Angels were incarcerated in Tartarus, Nephilim would have surely gone to where all the dead went, sheol, along with humans.
And then a reference to those in the ark, “eight persons.”
Thus, Jesus, the physical human-God went in spirit to speak to spirits which may have very well been humans.
A subsection titled, “Nephilim: Hybrids, Not Heroes” seems like a false dichotomy since surely Hybrids could be Heroes—even if Heroes is being inserted into the discussion: even his own translation had, “mighty ones who were of old, the men of fame” not heroes.
He does refer to that Nephilim were, “mighty ones, men of renown, but not in a positive sense” just like one culture’s hero can be another culture’s villain.
Edward Andrews noes, “Their very existence was an affront to the divine arrangement for reproduction and a direct rebellion against Jehovah’s will that creatures reproduce according to their ‘kinds’ (Genesis 1:24-25) but Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such isn’t their ontology. We were created “a little lower” (Psa 8:5) than them, and we can reproduce with them so, by definition, we’re of the same basic “kind.” The problem was that Angels weren’t supposed to mate with us—keep in mind that I’m of the same kind as literally every woman on Earth but it’d me wrong for me to marry any other of them since I’m already married to one.
As for the subsection, “After the Flood: No Return of the Nephilim” I say AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:
The Nephilim were destroyed in the Flood. They were not resurrected, nor do they appear again in the biblical record as actual beings. However, the memory of them lived on. After the confusion of languages at Babel, as the nations dispersed, many ancient mythologies developed distorted echoes of the Genesis account. Pagan religions began to worship hybrid “god-men”—heroes, demigods, and superhuman warriors. The stories of Hercules, Gilgamesh, and other such figures may trace their origins back to the historical Nephilim, filtered through generations of oral tradition and corrupted by idolatry.
The only other mention of Nephilim in Scripture is found in Numbers 13:33, where the ten unfaithful spies sent into Canaan give their slanderous report:
“And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who are from the Nephilim; so that we became in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and the same way we became in their eyes.”
This statement was part of a bad report—a faithless exaggeration designed to discourage the Israelites. There is no indication in the inspired text that actual Nephilim had survived the Flood. These spies were not reporting a factual reappearance of pre-Flood hybrids, but expressing their fear through hyperbole. The Anakim may have been large and intimidating, but they were not Nephilim. No Nephilim were on earth after the Flood. Jehovah had eradicated them entirely, and the imprisoned angels responsible for their existence have never again been permitted to materialize (Jude 6; 2 Peter 2:4).
That’s right on point!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll note that anyone appealing to Num 13:33 needs to mention that they’re relying on:
1. One single unreliable sentence
2. From strictly non-LXX versions (since that version’s version of that verse doesn’t even mention Anakim)
3. Of an unreliable “evil report”
4. By 10 unreliable guys
5. Whom God rebuked—to death
6. Who made five mere assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the whole Bible
7. Who contradicted Moses, Cable, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible
8. Then post-flood Nephilologists have to invent un-biblical fantasy tall-tales about how Nephilim got past the flood, past God.
I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal—which I’m currently updating.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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