I am reviewing Hope Bolinger’s (“an acquisitions editor…author of almost 30 books…”) Christianity.com article Who Was Anak and Did He Spawn Giants? due to the portion of a longer discussion I had with a certain William Uchtman which follows, since he asserted, “Numbers 13:33 mentions King Anak/Arak, a cruel king who is said to be a descendant of the Nephilim, and ancestor of the Anakim who go to war with the Israelites.”
I replied, “There’s no such thing as, ‘King Anak/Arak’ anywhere. ‘said’ by whom ‘to be a descendant of the Nephilim’?”
William replied, “Maybe the name was edited out of whatever version of the Bible you’ve read. The name IS mentioned in several books on Biblical history.”
I, in turn, noted, “Cool, in that case: just quote and cite the book, chapter, and verse(s) and the version.”
He replied, “Here’s a link with all the history on Anak. Who Was Anak and Did He Spawn Giants?”
I commented, “So, you asserted but you don’t know. And now, even though I wrote a whole chapter about Anakim and another whole chapter about Rephaim in my book ‘What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology’ I have to read an article because you can’t back your assertions. I’ve familiarized myself with over two millennia worth of relevant data that I used to write my dozen or so Nephilology books but whenever someone realizes they can’t support their assertions they think the answer is to do one internet search and tell me to go read an article or watch a video.”
William Uchtman relied, “Can you please be more specific? You’re not explaining anything. You’re doing a commercial for your book.”
I noted, “That’s a tragically unfriendly thing to say to someone who has interacted with you on three threads: makes me think I’m wasting my time. I’ve already noted various times that you believe what you do about Anakim based on:
one single sentence from an ‘evil report.’
one single sentence by unfaithful, disloyal, unreliable guys.
Guys whom God rebuked.
Who merely made assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the entire Bible.
Guys who contradicted Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole Bible.
You’re only looking at exclusively non-LXX versions of that one single sentence.
Do you want me to keep going?”
And while that discussion is ongoing, I will tackle his go-to source of info—which, BTW, does not affirm a, “King Anak/Arak” since not such personage is known to history.
The first question she asks, and answers, is, “Who Was Anak and Did He Spawn Giants?” due to the wording of the question and the wording on the answer which includes, “it appears he fathered giants,” 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 Bolinger’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
We will have to see if she gives us enough data to discern those answers along the way.
She dives into the answer by also asking, “Did he have something to do with the Nephilim—the demon-human hybrids that appeared before (and maybe after) the time of the flood?” Well, it wasn’t, “demon-human” but, “Angel-human and never after the flood: since God didn’t fail and the flood wasn’t much of a waste.
She notes, “Anak…was a descendant of a man named Arba (Joshua 15:13)…Anak…was considered a ‘great man,’” such that the Anakim clan of the Rephaim tribe were named after him. Hope Bolinger notes that he wasn’t, “great…by moral standards. Most likely, he was considered great for his appearance—his physical prowess.” Yet, three’s no indication of any of those things since, as she goes on to say, “We’re not given many explicit details about him.”
The key questions are key because, for example, when she follows directly with, “We know many giants descended from Anak (we get this detail from passages such as Deuteronomy 2:19-21 and Numbers 13:1-2)” that reads as, “We know many _________ descended from Anak.”
I discern that by, “giants” she means something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height: which is not helpful since it’s unspecific and only begs questions. If that’s the case, then the answer to the third question is, “No.” That’s because the usage of the 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.
Deuteronomy 2 tells us that Rephaim had some a.k.a.s such as Emim and Zamzummim and that, on average, they were, “tall.” Yet, of course, that’s just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as the modern English word “giants.” And it’s subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
Numbers 13:1-2 notes, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them’” so I’m unsure what relevance that has—at least at this point.
Hope Bolinger notes, “We know before Anak was born, ‘the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them’ (Genesis 6:4)” indeed, many centuries before.
She refers to, “giants called the Nephilim” but biblically contextually, that means, “Nephilim called the Nephilim” and she follows directly with, “We also know that God wiped out most of humanity through the flood, presumably killing off the original race of giants.” So, she’s jumping from the specific ancient Hebrew term, “Nephilim” to the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage modern English word “giants” which makes things more confusing and hard to follow. Yet, we know by now that she’s just misusing the English word.
As for, “presumably” well, since biblically contextually those, “giants” were Nephilim then they 100% didn’t make it past the flood—in any way, shape, or form—since God didn’t fail and the flood wasn’t much of a waste.
Now, she refers to, “other giants, such as Goliath, appearing on the scene after the flood” but since by, “giants” she means something about unusual height then since she hasn’t written a single word about why we should think that Nephilim were even subjectively unusually tall so there’s nothing to which to add, “other.”
She wrote that Goliath, “was ‘six cubits and a span’ (1 Samuel 17:4), somewhere six and a half feet tall and 10 feet tall—we can imagine the Anakim could boast tall statures.” Yet, she didn’t inform us that it’s a myopic statement since the Masoretic text has him 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. So, “we can imagine the Anakim could boast tall statures” taller than 5.0-5.3 ft.
She notes that Anak, “Fathered a Race of War-like People (Deuteronomy 9:2)” about which I will say, sure. Yet, Hope Bulinger wrote that, “Numbers 1[3]:33 says that Anak’s race was descended from the Nephilim, which may explain why they were big.” Well, “big” is just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as, “giants” and we’ve still no reason to think that Nephilim were even whatever, “big” means.
She didn’t elucidate that she’s directing us to an “evil report” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked. They just made up a fear-mongering scare-tactic tall-tale that’s unsupported by even one single other verse in the whole entire Bible. And, if she, for some odd reason, actually believes guys whom God rebuked then she needs to tell us how Nephilim made it past the flood, past God, which made the flood much of a waste. Moreover, she also didn’t tell her readers that the key fragment of the unreliable verse upon which she’s relying can only come from non-LXX versions since the LXX lacks any reference to Anakim in that verse.
She speculates, “Given that the Numbers passage” which is utterly unreliable, “describes Anak’s people as descended from the Nephilim, we may wonder how Anak connects to this race of giants spawned by demons” again, Angels, “Perhaps after the original Nephilim died in the flood, demons got involved in human affairs again and bred more giants.” Well, there’s zero indication of any such thing, the Angels who did that pre-flood were locked away (Jude and 2 Peter 2) and there’s only a one-time fall of Angels in the Bible, God didn’t miss that loophole, etc.
Hope Bolinger actually wrote, “Scripture isn’t clear on whether Anak was born before or after the flood” but Anakim didn’t exist until centuries post-flood and we know the names of all of the males who survived the flood and Anak isn’t one of them and she hits this point, “it’s hard to imagine how he could have descendants if he died in the flood, given that he wasn’t one of Noah’s sons (Shem, Ham, Japeth) who was in the ark” so why even speculate in that dead-end direction?
Yet, she just shifts the speculation in another direction, “Anak was probably born after the flood, perhaps fathered by demons trying to breed more Nephilim with sons of Canaan” for which there’s literally zero indication whatsoever. Again, we don’t even know if Anak was personally even a jerk—even if his descendants were trouble.
She firmly asserts, “By the time Joshua and the Israelites arrived in Canaan, some Nephilim were still around (Numbers 13:33-34)” and, “The Israelite spies stated that next to the Nephilim, they felt like grasshoppers (Numbers 13:34)…Nephilim (and presumably their descendants like the Anakim) were huge.” Note that for those assertions she could only rely on that one infamous sentence: without it, we have no post-flood Nephilim nor, “huge” (just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as, “big,” “tall” and, “giants”).
And note the vague manner in which that’s misrepresented: recall the verse about, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan” well, there were 12 of them but she wrote an all-encompassing term, “The Israelite spies” rather than specifying that she’s actually appealing to the 10 unreliable ones.
She notes, “Since demons,” Angels, “fathering children with humans would go against God’s holy order of creation, it would make sense that the Nephilim and Anakim had to be destroyed. This happened years later, in the Promised Land” but that’s an anachronistic category error since the last of Nephilim were destroyed in the flood and centuries later the utterly unrelated Anakim were destroyed for different reasons.
Hope Bolinger goes on to circle back to Goliath and notes he, “was tall. To the point where no one—but a shepherd boy from Israel—would fight him” but that’s myopic since the text also specified that he was a, “champion.” She also notes, “He seems to have many giant characteristics” which she seems to conclude based on, “Gath…the city was huge…built for huge people…a tall breed of people” with, “huge…tall” being vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage.
She also circles back to the flood in the conclusion wherein she noted, “Satan…tried to make human-demon hybrids…When God wiped them out, he decided to start over with the line of Anak” for which there’s literally zero indication—except, perhaps, one single non-LXX version’s worth of one line from an evil report by unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
Bottom line is that by employing vaguely generic terminology, not defining terms, misusing terms, and failing to elucidate the complexities of certain issues by being myopic (purposefully or due to lack of awareness) we can certainly concoct fascinating tall-tales and speculate in various directions. Yet, such is why modern, especially pop, Nephology is the unreliable and un-biblical thing which it currently is.
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