A certain Holly Peterson posts pop-Nephilology related things on Facebook (referring to un-biblical tall-tales sold to Christians). She’ll post a few paragraphs which end with, “To be continued in C0mments 👇” referring to a link she’ll post in the comments section.
In this case, the issue is The Flood Couldn’t Destroy Them: The Hidden Hebrew Clue About the Philistines’ Escape which is a site titled family3.newstoday123 which is basically a click-bait site disguised as something to do with news and which, based on a previous post of hers I reviewed, has the article attributed to lananh8386, which may or may not be Peterson and which stated that it may have been spat out by AI.
To begin with, the title is odd since “The Flood” clearly refers to Noah’s but Philistines didn’t exist at the time since no such people and such a region existed until centuries post-flood.
Holly Peterson or the AI noted “The Bible is clear. The floodwaters rose and covered the highest mountains. All flesh that moved upon the earth perished. God’s purpose with the storm was not merely to punish sin, but to exterminate a biological anomaly: the Nephilim, the giants born from the forbidden union between fallen angels and women.”
Biblically contextually, “Nephilim, the giants” would mean “Nephilim, the Nephilim” so the questions become what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Peterson’s/the AI’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
As for “union between fallen angels and women”: 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.
We’re told, “When Noah left the ark, the world was supposedly clean. The corrupted DNA had been drowned. But there is a terrifying problem that traditional religion cannot explain. If all the giants died in the water, who was the giant Goliath that David faced? Who were the monsters that terrified Moses’ spies in Canaan?”
Note the dropping of the term Nephilim and only a reference to giants. Such is why answering my linguistics questions is key since she/it leaves us to guess what’s being referenced—see my linguistics book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
For now, let’s wonder what Goliath would have to do with the flood and to which of “Moses’ spies” reference is being made.
The Flood Couldn’t Destroy Them, Philistines, is technically accurate since something that didn’t exist can’t be destroyed. Yet, the goalpost was then moved to Nephilim and giants and Goliath and whoever some spies noted. Yet, the premise is that someone pre-flood couldn’t be destroyed by the flood, we were then told “The floodwaters…exterminate[d] a biological anomaly” so that was clearly the end of them and yet, the demonic cat is next let out of the bad since we’re told “the Nephilim tricked the flood and where they fled.”
Well, water can’t be tricked: this statement is really claiming that Nephilim tricked God who clearly failed, must have missed the fled loophole, so the flood was much of a waste. Post-flood Nephilology damages theology proper.
The research study isn’t cited but it’s asserted “For centuries, biblical scholars have avoided asking this simple question because it undermines the foundation of the Christian salvation narrative” yet, for centuries, biblical scholars have asked, and answers (to whatever level of coherence), see my book The Scholarly Academic Nephilim and Giants: What do Scholarly Academics Say About Nephilim Giants?
Also, just in case, it wasn’t a “40-day and 40-night flood”: that’s just for how long it rained
We’re told that the flood “was a complete divine cleansing—an apocalyptic baptism that swept away all genetic corruption from the planet—then how is it possible that the Bible itself recounts the Israelites’ encounter with giants centuries later?” one reply is that when reference is made to the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” then one can claim just about anything anyone wants to since it’s vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage.
We’re told, “Leviticus, Numbers, and Samuel explicitly mention peoples of colossal stature” with colossal being just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as giants and just as useless.
Moreover, note the abrupt nature of that assertion: why make it, what does it have to do with anything the article has thus far stated, what has that to do with pre-flood days?
Yet another contradiction comes when it’s bluntly asserted “The Nephilim not only survived God’s wrath; they planned to survive. They had a plan” and apparently, God wasn’t aware of that plan. Also, this contradicted the Bible five times (Gen 7:7, 23; Heb 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20 & 2 Peter 2:5) since that’s how many times we’re told who survived the flood but they’re never listed.
The article then goes back to “start at the beginning, not with the Genesis you know, but with the Genesis that the Hebrew scribes knew” and that which I term the Gen 6 affair is quoted thusly “When human beings began to multiply on the earth and had daughters, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, as they pleased…The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them.”
We’re told “That phrase, ‘and also afterward,’ should be in bold red in all editions of the Bible. Because it means that the Nephilim were not merely a pre-flood anomaly. They continued to exist after the flood, after the supposed complete destruction of all life on Earth…The corrupted seed of the giants had persisted. And not only does it persist, the path multiplies again.”
How can someone read where the verse told us to what days reference is being made and then come to that conclusion?
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.
We’re then told “Conventional scholars try to get around this in various ways” but that wasn’t a get around, it was what the text literally states—the fact is that pop-Nephilologists try to get around this in various ways, all of which violate basic reading comprehension and all of which imply that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
Yet, we’re told:
Some say that verse 4 refers only to the days before the flood, that the phrase is a simple description of what was happening before the flood, not a prophecy of what would come after. But this does not hold up when faced with an honest reading of the Hebrew text. The grammatical pattern is clear; there was “nefil.”
Furthermore, the repetition of the idea, the insistence in the text reaffirming the presence of the giants, is not accidental. It is deliberate; it is a warning. And this warning becomes even more disturbing when we examine what the Pentateuch itself says about the post-flood period.
We know from Moses’ narrative that when the Israelites entered Canaan, they immediately encountered peoples of giants. Numbers 13 describes the mission of the spies that Moses sent to explore the land. Ten of the twelve spies returned terrified. They had seen cities surrounded by towering walls, and worse, they had seen the Anakim. “We saw the Nephilim. The sons of Anak, who come down from the Nephilim, and we ourselves seemed like grasshoppers in their sight.” The account is visceral, terrifying. These men, warriors accustomed to seeing death and carnage, felt like insects before those beings. And these were not imaginations; they were not exaggerations of primitive fears.
I’m unsure what the point was in asserting “The grammatical pattern is clear; there was ‘nefil’” especially since that singular form is never used in the whole Bible.
No, note how in order to argue for post-flood Nephilim a typical pop-Nephilology word-swap-game is played so that our focus is goal-post moved to giants. And it may be that such a swap, “is not accidental” since it allows strictly English readers to chase that vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage modern English word around a specific ancient Hebrew Bible and thereby, incoherently mash together unrelated things in terms of category errors.
How can we “know from Moses’ narrative that when the Israelites entered Canaan, they immediately encountered peoples of giants” when we don’t know who/what giants are?
But the citation of Num 13 makes it clear: the 10 unreliable, unfaithful, disloyal, contradictory, embellishers mere asserted “We saw the Nephilim. The sons of Anak, who come down from the Nephilim, and we ourselves seemed like grasshoppers in their sight.” It’s merely asserted that “these were not imaginations; they were not exaggerations” but anyone who appeals to that need 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.
A violation of the law of identity follows committing category errors and in this case, it’s jumping from Nephilim to Rephaim as we’re told:
Goliath of Gath was six cubits and a span tall, approximately 2.9 meters, depending on how you calculate the ancient cubit. But it wasn’t just Goliath. There was Saph, whose spear weighed 300 shekels of bronze. There was Ishbi-benob, who was also a giant and a descendant of the Nephilim. The lineage had never been cut.
For some odd reason, Peterson and/or lananh8386 and/or the AI didn’t mention that the Masoretic text has Goliath at just shy of 10 ft. Yet, the earlier LXX and the earlier Dead Sea Scrolls and the earlier Flavius Josephus all have him at just shy of 7 ft. (compared to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days) so that’s the preponderance of the earliest data.
As for Saph’s spear: regular guy Benaiah took such as spear from a 7.5 ft. Egyptian and successfully wielded it against him in hand-to-hand combat (2 Sam 23).
As for Ishbi-benob, biblically contextually “who was also a giant” would mean “who was also a Repha” and there’s no version of the Bible in any manuscript, any language, from any time or anywhere that states he was “descendant of the Nephilim.”
The lineage had been cut, at the flood.
A question is then posed “How is it possible that the lineage of the Nephilim survived the flood?” which is the wrong primary question to ask as the right one is “Did the lineage of the Nephilim survived the flood?” the biblical (logical, bio-logical, and theo-logical) answer to which is no, of course not and one unreliable sentence and playing language jumping games doesn’t change that.
No, to answer that question, Peterson and/or lananh8386 and/or the AI discredit themselves even more with:
The answer, if you dare to seek it, lies buried in the ancient Hebrew texts that predate the canonical compilation. It is found in the Midrashim, the oral traditions that the rabbis preserved and transmitted through generations. And it is a name that appears only once in the canonical Bible.
A name that carries terror in every Hebrew letter: Og, the king of Bashan. Og was no common giant. According to the Midrash Rabbah, one of the oldest texts of rabbinic commentary, preserved through centuries of handwritten copying by obsessively meticulous scribes, Og was the last of the original Nephilim. His genealogy went directly back to the days before the flood. His body was so colossal that the Torah describes his iron bed, his bed forged specifically for his own monumental body.
Deuteronomy 3:11 specifically mentions this bed. For Og, king of Bashan, was the only one remaining of the Rephaim. Rephaim—another word for Nephilim, another designation for those who should not exist after God’s cleansing. But Og existed, and according to the most obscure rabbinic tradition, he had survived the flood itself.
The story preserved in the ancient Midrashim and in certain Talmudic manuscripts, which has never been included in most modern editions, is terrifying. When Noah was building the ark, when he was hammering wood and applying pitch to seal each crack, Og was watching. He knew what was coming. The antediluvians were not naive. God’s wrath had been announced. And while Noah’s sons obeyed, Og, still in his youth, centuries before becoming king, made a deal with Noah.
Ancient texts suggest that Og offered himself as a servant, as a slave who would have access to the ark. He promised eternal obedience in exchange for salvation. And according to the most disturbing version of this legend, Noah accepted. Or more precisely, Noah couldn’t resist, because Og, even in his youth, was so colossal that Noah had no choice. The giant simply clung to the hull of the ark. His fingers were so enormous that Noah, seeing the inevitability of the situation, cut a hole in the hull of the ark and passed food to the monster through a small opening.
For 40 days and 40 nights, while the water rose and covered mountains, while all flesh died, Og clung to the ark, swimming, breathing, fighting against the fury of the waters that were to destroy his race forever, keeping himself alive through an unspoken agreement with the very patriarch whom God had chosen to repopulate the earth.
Firstly, Midrashim are sermonizing homilies, not history. Rabbah is from 300 and 500 AD and it’s simply incoherent to assert that it’s “one of the oldest texts of rabbinic commentary.” It’s impressive to say “preserved and transmitted through generations” but there’s no indication of that mere assertion: for all we know someone just invented that half a millennia after Jesus’ time, millennia after Og’s.
Yet, even if we grant oral traditions that the rabbis preserved and transmitted through generations that would only mean that it’s oral traditions that the rabbis preserved and transmitted through generations.
It was asserted “a name that appears only once in the canonical Bible” yet, not even that is correct as Og is mentioned 22 times and 22 is more than one.
Biblically contextually “Og was no common giant” would mean “Og was no common Repha.”
It was asserted “Og was the last of the original Nephilim” which is incoherently stated just before stating what Num 13 actually states “only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim” that is how incoherent the article is.
Note the slippery statement “His genealogy went directly back to the days before the flood” well, sure, as is mine and yours: it can be said of literally every human who lived post-flood that our genealogy goes directly back to the days before the flood—but that doesn’t mean that Og nor anyone post-flood is related to Nephilim.
Note the assertion that “His body was so colossal,” even though that’s just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as giants based on a bed without telling us that we’ve no reliable physical description of him—not until folkloric tall-tales from millennia after his time.
Indications are that the bed was a ritual object, not something on which Og slept—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
But even if he was whatever colossal means, what has that to do with anything? 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.
We’re told “Rephaim—another word for Nephilim” for which there’s literally zero indication—see my linguistics book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
It’s asserted that Og “survived the flood itself” which, of course, contradicts the Bible five times (Gen 7:7, 23; Heb 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20 & 2 Peter 2:5).
By “certain Talmudic manuscripts” reference is being made to text from 400-500 AD and are also not historical but are a combo of Rabbinic traditions, laws, ritual, discussions, folklore, etc.—unfortunately, no such manuscript is cited.
Also, that Og “made a deal with Noah” means that Noah, that uber righteous perfect guy, caused the flood to be much of a waste since he personally ensured that a Nephil survived the flood “an unspoken agreement with the very patriarch whom God had chosen to repopulate the earth.”
Stating “Ancient texts” might sound impressive but what’s ancient is subjective: sure, text from 300-500 AD are ancient to us but they’re from millennia after the Torah which is more ancient.
We’re told “This is not a fairy tale” even though it’s very, very, very, very late-dated, it’s from homiletic sources, it commits a category error, it’s anachronistic, it contradicts the Bible, etc., etc., etc.
But as per this utterly tragically poorly researched and fallacy saturated article, “It answers the question that the canonical Bible leaves open. Since all the giants died in the flood, why are there giants in Canaan when Moses arrives centuries later? The answer is Og” if, that is, you’re willing to based your views on utterly tragically poor research and fallacy.
Thus, the implication is that God failed, missed the Og loophole, and the flood was much of a waste since “through Og, an entire lineage of Nephilim multiplied again after the flood.”
God failed since Og is “proof that the mixing of fallen angels and humans had never been completely eliminated.” And the blasphemy is so utterly blunt that we’re even explicitly told “The genetic corruption that God had tried to purge through water had been preserved in living blood, and not only preserved, but propagated and multiplied” (emphasis added for emphasis).
We’re told “Deuteronomy 2:10–11 offers further evidence of this hidden reality. ‘The Emim lived there in ancient times, a great, numerous, and tall people, like the Anakim, the Emim, another people of giants, another group of beings whose existence the Bible records as a matter of fact, as if they were simply a common geographical and demographic fact.”
See how it works? Just insert the word giants wherever you want and you have yourself a tall-tale you can assert backs your fallacies. Biblically contextually “another people of giants” would mean “another people of Rephaim.”
Emim is just an aka for Rephaim and Anakim were like a clan of that tribe. Yet, they were “tall” which is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days—and irrelevant to Nephilim by biology and height.
We’re told “the Bible describe the giant populations that occupied Canaan…And no modern historian can adequately explain how they came to exist if the flood had wiped out their race” but anyone can: the assertion is premised on one single unreliable sentence from one single unreliable evil report spoken by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
But the phrase “if the flood had wiped out their race” was followed directly by “The Talmudic texts go even further. In the Niddah tractate, there is a disturbing discussion about the specific nature of the Nephilim.” Note that we haven’t even been told which Talmud is being referenced.
And we get more generic appeals to “physically gigantic…the giants…Goliath…was a Nephilim…the Nephilim having survived the flood…More giants…The destruction of Goliath did not end the Nephilim threat…other giants…giant…giant…Nephilim genetics…Israel never truly eliminated the giants” and on it goes (on and on and on and on [and on and on and on and on]—the article goes on for over 5,000 more words of pure and blasphemous incoherence.
And this is the stuff of which pop-Nephilology is made which are un-biblical tall-tales sold to Christians.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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