In consideration of the GODSAIDMANSAID site’s article And There We Saw Giants, the Sons of Anak.
The article features instances of the term “GOD SAID” which is actually somewhat tricky—and in this case, deleterious—since it can give the wrong impression.
For example, “GOD SAID, Genesis 6:1-4” followed by something that “GOD SAID” to the author He was inspiring which was about, “…when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose…There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”
Then, “GOD SAID, Deuteronomy 3:13: And the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the half tribe of Manasseh; all the region of Argob, with all Bashan, which was called the land of giants.”
At this, point we must ask key questions:
What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
What’s the article’s author’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
Do those usages agree?
As we await the answers, we’re also told, “GOD SAID, Numbers 13:33: And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
Now, this “GOD SAID” is particularly problematic—especially when only one single verse is quoted—especially when followed by “MAN SAID: Of course academics reject the Bible, and one big reason is the ‘fairy-tale’ nature of this so-called sacred book. Empty exaggerations like hordes of giants once roaming the earth typifies the kinds of bunk that rightfully earns such skepticism.”
The implication, of course, is that we are to reject what “MAN SAID” regarding “fairy-tale…hordes of giants” because, after all, “GOD SAID…There were giants…GOD SAID…the land of giants…GOD SAID…there we saw the giants…”
So, whom will you believe? “GOD” or “MAN”?
Let us continue as we ponder these various questions.
We’re told “Giants—could they be true? Are the Bible’s approximately 200 references to giants certified true by third-party experts? Do paleontology, archaeology, historical records, and societal accounts all say yes? There can be no reasonable doubt.” From this, I discern that the author’s usage of “giants” differs radically from the modern English Bible’s usage—stand by.
Abruptly, the author asserts, “The mysterious giants have risen again, but this time under the title of the Nephilim” but it seems to be a reference to “risen again” as an issue of discussion since that followed upon this statement “GodSaidManSaid has published several features addressing the subject of giants over the past decade or so”—although many pop-Nephilologists literally do assert that giants/Nephilim have risen again as literal physical beings running about yet oddly unseen but known about, etc.
Now, we were told of “approximately 200 references to giants” and now “The word Nephilim is found in the NIV and other minority-text translations, but in the majority-text Authorized King James Version, the word is correctly translated as giants.” Yet, that is not only an assertion, “giants” for “Nephilim” is not a translation but is a rendering, and telling us that it’s “correctly translated as giants” begs these questions:
What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
What’s the author’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
Do those usages agree?
Well, we finally get an answer “there were giants in those days…giants of old and people of enormous height…There were entire populations of giants. The scriptures refer to giants nearly 200 times. If the Word of God makes mention of giants so many times, then there should be empirical proof that they did once exist—and of course, there is.”
So now, we have a definition, “enormous height” which his just as vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage as “giants,” and so the texts to which we will be referred will back that usage.
The author then gets more specific than “GOD SAID” with that “In Deuteronomy 3:13, Moses speaks…all Bashan, being the kingdom of Og…the land of giants” and emphatically declares “It was the land of giants!”
Such isn’t—I repeat, is not—the way to do hermeneutics, the way to do reading comprehension, the way to do proof-texting, etc.
So, we might as well answer as to the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
What the author seems unaware of is that “the land of giants” biblically contextually reads as “the land of Rephaim” and the declaration “It was the land of giants!” as “It was the land of Rephaim!” and these statements have nothing whatsoever to do with “enormous height.”
In the modern English Bibles that employ the term “giants,” it’s rendering “Nephilim” in two verses, it’s rendering “Rephaim” in 98% of all other verses, and it’s literally never even implying anything about subjectively unusual height whatsoever, ever, never.
But, the author follows that with a text that doesn’t employ the term “giant” but appears to inform us of, “enormous height” since we’re told, “God reminds backslidden and rebellious Israel of their roots in Amos 2:9: Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath” with the comment being, “The Amorites were giants, having great strength and enormous height.”
Again, since “enormous height” is subjective we don’t know what it means. Note that Amos tells us that Amorites were big and strong which really, as far as we can discern, means taller than 5.0-5.3 ft. since that was the average height of Israelite males.
As for Og, mentioned above, we’re told, “King Og was the leader of the giants” which reads as “King Og was the leader of the Rephaim” and we’re told “Deuteronomy 3:11 reads: For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants [Rephaim]; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.”
The comment includes, “If you use the 18-inch cubit, his bed would be 13½ feet long and 6 feet wide—or, based on the 22-inch cubit, 16½ feet long and 7 feet, four inches wide. Give him a foot for head and toe clearance, and you have a giant of 12½ to 15½ feet tall!”
Yet, that those calculations are based on numerous mere assertions, including that the bed was one on which he slept when it appear to have been a ritual object—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
Before, we were told “GOD SAID, Numbers 13:33: And there we saw the giants…” and now that’s elucidated, “When the spies that Moses sent across Jordan returned, they alarmed the people with a story of ferocious giants. Numbers 13:33…”
So, it was not just a case of “GOD SAID” but that Moses wrote what the spies said.
Yet, the author is misleading us by being vague. An accurate statement would have been “When the” twelve “spies that Moses sent across Jordan returned” ten of them “alarmed the people with a story of ferocious giants” the ten unreliable ones whom God rebuked and who presented an “evil report” wherein they made five mere assertions—see my Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
The author then, again, circles back to Og, “Og, the king of the giants [Rephaim]…the race of giants [Rephaim]…these cities of giants [Rephaim].” It’s less impressive when we actually know what “GOD SAID” and not someone said who merely read something vague about subjectively unusual height into a modern English word.
We can determine about the Rephaim the same as we determined about the Amorites: they were “tall” (Deut 2) which is taller than 5.0-5.3 ft. by some unknown margin.
Interestingly, the author then quotes from the very same book by Charles DeLoach that I proved Stephen Quayle plagiarized—see my book 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.
The quote pertains to “great stone cities…huge and massive stones…houses so large” which are thought to have been “the cities of Rephaim” about which the article’s author tells us “‘Rephaim,’ mentioned above, simply means ‘giants.’” But if Rephaim means giants: what does giants mean? Well, something vague about whatever “enormous height” means.
Perhaps those were their cities but I’m always cautious about the non-sequitur which demands that large things must have been built for and by large people—with, of course, “large” being just as vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage as “giant” and “enormous.”
We’re told “Flavius Josephus…writes the following in chapter five of The Antiquities of the Jews:…they removed their camp to Hebron…till then [they] 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 shewn to this very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men.”
Again, we’re dealing with whatever is meant by “large.” Also, the author doesn’t mention that Josephus, along with the earlier LXX and earlier Dead Sea Scrolls, have Goliath at just shy of 7 ft. as opposed to the later Masoretic text which has him at just shy of 10 ft.
The author then sidetracks the reader into a list of “giants” reported in various times and place which, of course and again, has utterly nothing to do with the biblical usage of that term.
For some reason, the author then deals with, “How did the Native Americans get to the western hemisphere and where did they first arrive here?” and appeals to “L.A. Marzulli, in his book On the Trail of the Nephilim” which should raise enormously large giant red flags.
We’re also told, “Marzulli, in his book On the Trail of the Nephilim, lists numerous newspaper reports concerning discovery of giants in the western hemisphere”: I published an entire chapter’s worth in my book Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales. Those articles are what they are: fragmentary reports about someone who said they found something that somehow went missing or was later examined by anatomists and found to be whale, pachyderm, dinosaur, etc.
After prepping the readers to think that “giants” in the Bible has something to do with height, the author writes, There were tribes of giants in the Bible, namely: The descendants of Anak, the Anakims; A grouping of the Amorites; Emims; The Zamzummins; and of course, The famed Goliath, slain by one smooth stone. The accuracy of the Scriptures is continually challenged, but never bested—never. God’s Word is the place to build a life that will last forever.”
Let us challenge the accuracy of the author:
There was one tribe of Nephilim pre-flood.
There was one tribe of Rephaim in the Bible, namely: The descendants of Anak, the Anakims who were a clan of the tribe.
Amorites were big.
“Emims” and “Zamzummins” are just aka for Rephaim.
The famed Goliath was a Repha.
We’re then taken to the commencement with a repetition of, “GOD SAID, Genesis 6:1-4…There were giants…GOD SAID, Deuteronomy 3:13…the land of giants. GOD SAID, Numbers 13:33…there we saw the giants…” along with a reiteration “MAN SAID…fairy-tale…hordes of giants” and we’re left with, “Now you have THE RECORD.”
The record we have is of a misreading, misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and misapplication of one word, in the style of a word-concept fallacy, and many references to meaningless vagaries.
Let us consider one last issue: Gen 6:4 and Num 13:33 are the only biblical references to Nephilim and since only the latter, the unreliable “evil report,” vague refers to their height then that means we’ve no reliable reference to their size.
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