A certain Annemarije de Boer wrote an article titled Extinct Human Leg Bones Found On Seafloor Are Fueling New Claims About Real-Life Biblical Giantsfor the Gadget Review site.
This pertains to, “the first-ever Denisovan leg bones — a femur and tibia dredged from the Penghu Channel off Taiwan — and the individuals they belonged to were legitimately large by ancient human standards.”
The qualifier, “by ancient human standards” is key since the (click-bait) title’s reference to, “Giants” begs these key questions: What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s de Boer’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
And, “large” is just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as, “Giants.”
We’re told, “commentator Jimmy Corsetti posted his take connecting the find to the biblical Nephilim” and this is what Corsetti posted:
New discovery indicates that Denisovans were 8in TALLER than the average man today
I’ve asked before and I’ll ask again: Were Denisovans the ‘Nephilim Giants’ described in the Bible?…
Bottom line: The Denisovans were indeed significantly larger than both ancient and modern day Humans.
I know some academics that owe me an apology for when they mocked my reporting on this two years ago
One issue is that he didn’t bother telling us what is the height of, “the average man today”: a Google search determined, “~5 feet 7.5 inches (171–173 cm)” thus, Denisovans were ~6 feet 4.5 inches.
And note that he aggrandized bones from two people into that all, every, Denisovans, plural, was that height.
Besides that they lived back in the day, I’m unsure how, “Were Denisovans the ‘Nephilim Giants’ described in the Bible?” is even a question.
We need to ask for Corsetti usage of, “Giants” and note that biblically contextually, “Nephilim Giants” would mean, “Nephilim Nephilim.”
The usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants in English Bibles is that 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.
Now, to Corsetti being ~6 feet 4.5 inches means, “significantly larger than both ancient and modern day Humans.” Well, I’m 6.0ft so to him 4.5ft. is, “significantly larger” and that only goes to show that if you write in an generic manner that makes grand claims based on exciting click-bait tall-tales, you can say whatever you want.
Also, 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.
Thus, he’s comparing ~6 feet 4.5 inches to an unknown.
So, who owes an apology to whom?
Back to Annemarije de Boer who noted:
Two individuals are represented in the find. One stood roughly 180 cm tall and weighed around 83 kg; the other approximately 190 cm and 91 kg. Both were larger than earlier Homo erectus and Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens in eastern Asia, according to researchers cited by the European Research Council.
The study also suggests robust bodies and large brains for the Denisovan lineage broadly — a finding that sits alongside other cutting-edge biological science, such as recent work on frozen brain tissue. Worth flagging: the research is not yet peer-reviewed, and the biological sex of both individuals was inferred rather than directly determined.
It is an estimate to attempt to derive the height of people based on a partial bone—hence the qualifier, “suggests robust bodies.”
Note the subjective nature of, “larger than earlier Homo erectus” especially when by how much isn’t stated.
And that the, “biological sex of both individuals was inferred” is part of the issue since males tend to be larger then females.
There is a subsection titled, “The Nephilim Connection – and Why It Doesn’t Hold” which notes:
Corsetti’s speculation is culturally interesting; it just isn’t what the study found.
Corsetti advanced the Nephilim interpretation — the study’s authors did not. The Nephilim appear in Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33, described as giant figures born of divine and human unions, later elaborated in 1 Enoch. Mainstream scholarship treats them as mythological. The seafloor recovery location, which sounds dramatic in a headline, has a straightforward explanation: glacial periods dropped sea levels significantly, exposing land that is now underwater. That’s climate history and geology — not flood geology.
Here’s what’s genuinely worth acknowledging: the speculation does touch on something real about how mythology forms. Ancient communities encountering unusually large bones may well have constructed stories around them — essentially the prehistoric version of a Reddit thread spiraling into lore. But “may have inspired myths” is categorically different from “proves myths.”
The only reason of which I can think that, “Corsetti’s speculation is culturally interesting” is in terms of that it’s contemporarily pop-culturally interesting in that pop-Nephilologists suffering form that which I term Gigorexia Nervosa are utterly obsessed with seeing giants and making them up where they’re nowhere to be seen.
As for, “Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33, described as giant figures born of divine and human unions” it’s more like, “Genesis 6:4…described as…born of divine and human unions” and granting an un-biblical usage of giant as something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average (and yes, that is how useless the common parlance usage of that modern English word is), “Numbers 13:33, described as giant figures” but that’s on one single unreliable sentence from one single unreliable evil report spoken by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked—see my Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal—which I’m currently updating.
As for, “later elaborated in 1 Enoch” yeah, much, much, much, much later 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 and it doesn’t have ~6 feet 4.5 inches Nephilim but has them being MILES tall—great folklore, poor reality.
Indeed, “Ancient communities encountering unusually large bones” especially having no idea if they were human, humanoid, whale, dino, pachyderm, etc., “may well have constructed stories around them.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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