TJ Steadman elucidated the purpose of his book, Answers to Giant Questions: How Understanding the Biblical Nephilim, as being, in large part, to answer questions such as:
Why did the God of the Old Testament flood the entire earth?
How did the giants reappear after the Flood?
Did God really command the Israelites to slaughter the Canaanites?
Did Jesus show awareness of, or interact with, the giants at all?
What did Jesus mean when He mentioned the “days of Noah?”
And how does this knowledge help me as a Christian today?
Sadly, in replying to these questions, he often causes many more problems than he solves. Many of those problems are faulty conclusions based on faulty premises. Some of them are created when he claims that a certain word or a certain word’s root means one thing and one thing only or is used in one way and one way only, when such is not the case.
Or, when he realizes that one word/root means more than one thing and misapplies it by being myopic—or seeking to buttress a point. And when he employs generic terminology, such as using the vaguely subjective and undefined English term giants to mean many different things—and leaving it to the readers to guess what he means by it at any given time.
He has noted that “I don’t buy into the modern ‘science fiction view’ of ancient texts. There are no ancient inscriptions that really depict ancient aliens, UFO’s and all that kind of thing.” Yet, he does seem to buy into, and perpetuate, the modern (that which I term) un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales of ancient texts wherein “giants” are peppered everywhere you look and if you do not see one, you just invent one.
It also seems to me that he may have crossed a certain line. God’s word has always been perspicuous. Now, when we learn about what historically contextual Pagans wrote it may help us by adding to the cultural and grammatical context. Yet, as I noted to him during out debate: when the Bible plays off of Pagan cultural and/or literature, it does so, so as to set it straight but not to incorporate it into biblical theology. It seems that he fills gaps, or supposed gaps, in the Bible by actually incorporating Paganism (even if he does not consciously mean to do so).
For example, he argues that “once Nimrod had drawn on their power to invoke the spirits of the dead Nephilim giants from the Flood, the Anuna-gods had an army that would do their bidding” and that Nimrod “was little more than a tool in the hands of a greater, darker power. The Leviathan” and that “The astrology of the ancient world strengthens” that view that Nimrod “the giant, pursued the ancient pre-Flood spirits, becoming joined with one of them; one associated with the Light-bringer, Satan,” etc.—see my article “TJ Steadman on the rise and fall and rise of Nimrod aka Enmerkar, Giant, Nephil, Repha, Assyrian, Rahab, Leviathan.”
At that point, we may be dealing with a fascinating and exciting story but one that is clearly not biblical.
Lastly, I actually find it more comfortable to critique his teaching—since I consider it sharpening iron with iron (although I always say that when we seek to sharpening iron with iron someone tends to get cut) and I want others to do the same with me (unlike some Nephilim related teaches who utterly refuse to engage anyone who disagrees with them, which I know from experience)—than I do critiquing him as an author.
He writes very well. He has clearly done a tremendous amount of research. His book is written in a conversation style which I dislike but I know other like a lot. But one thing I do recommend is that he needs to add an index to the book because for researchers such as myself, not having one makes it very difficult.
For example, he is writing about “Nimrod” but then claims he is aka “Enmerkar” and is also aka “The Assyrian” but then that “The Assyrian” is not actually Nimrod but is a spirit that empowers Nimrod which is also aka “Rahab,” is tied in with “Leviathan” and that Nimrod was a “Giant” and a “Nephil” 2.0 which are aka “Rephaim.”
Now, attempting to track all of that is not only confusing due to his conversation style: the style of let me mention A then remember I mentioned A, well now I am saying more about it thus, B and then going back to B, now let me bring up C, etc., etc., etc. so that without an index it is very difficult to retrace his steps and actually see how he connects such things/terms/concepts and, especially, if he does so viably or not.
Such is part of why I am writing a serious of articles based on his book which I did not do before our debate so that I did not, in a manner of speaking, poison the well.
TJ Steadman also wrote:
The purpose of this book is to help readers of the Bible to better understand the accounts of giants in the Scriptures, in light of the cultural context in which the Bible was written, and as a result, to be able to apply this understanding to everyday Christian life and witness.
As we progress through the book, we will take in glimpses of the ancient Israelite worldview. We will look at the beliefs of the enemy nations that provided the impetus for the preservation of God’s message. We will attempt to grasp the supernatural world obscured by our “enlightened” culture, which is obsessed with science and insists on finding science fiction wherever science fails to find any fact.
The cultural context of both the Scripture writer and his intended audience must never be overlooked. For this reason, you will come across references to ancient Mesopotamian ideas, later rabbinical thought, classical Greek mythology and 2nd Temple Period Jewish literature, etc. Rest assured, the doctrines presented do not rely in the slightest upon anything you cannot find in your own Bible if you are careful enough in your study of it.
As I will be all but forced to note time and again during my articles, there is no way we can “apply” “the accounts of giants in the Scriptures” “to everyday Christian life and witness” since he uses the term giants to mean many things and does not define that which he means it at any and certainly not every given instance.
I appreciate his concept of grasping “the supernatural world obscured by our ‘enlightened” actually, en-dark-ened culture—capiche? That is part of why I have written so much about such issues, including my books What Does the Bible Say About Various Paranormal Entities?: A Styled Paranormology and The Paranormal in Early Jewish and Christian Commentaries: Over a Millennia’s Worth of Comments on Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Satan, the Devil, Demons, the Serpent and the Dragon.
Again, yes, “The cultural context of both the Scripture writer and his intended audience must never be overlooked” and “references to ancient Mesopotamian ideas, later rabbinical thought, classical Greek mythology and 2nd Temple Period Jewish literature” are for informational purposes only and his “Rest assured” claim is suspect.
He also notes:
The first section of the book is dedicated to an explanation of just what the Bible means when it talks about giants. We will set the scene by exploring what the Bible says about how they came to exist and what they were really like.
We will see something of their influence on the ancient world and what happened to them at the time of the Great Flood of Noah’s day.
This will lead us into a discussion in Section II about the mysterious reemergence of giants after the Flood, where we will weigh up some of the theories about how that came about. This section will certainly make for interesting (and sometimes humorous) reading.
Section III will explore some of the major themes about good and evil, and their literary origins, in order to see how they contributed to the shape of Biblical theology. We will start to recognize just how important it is that we are aware of what was going through the minds of Biblical authors. We will learn about both the good and evil forces at work invisibly behind the scenes. In so doing we will explore just how it could be possible that the giants were able to reappear after the Deluge and the purpose behind their activities.
In the fourth section, we will look at some Biblical history and how the giants after the Flood were dealt with. We will be examining various Biblical accounts and relevant literature from the wider ancient Near Eastern context.
This will draw out some of the more interesting and theologically significant messages that are regularly overlooked in your average church setting.
The first section of the book makes it clear that he is essentially taking a typical (and typically erroneous) view of “what the Bible means when it talks about giants” not only by employing that terms to mean many different things but by taking a typical a pop-post-flood-Nephilim view—even when he denied believing in post-flood Nephilim but then telling us there were post-flood Nephilim in the form of demons and in the form of Nephilim 2.0 as Rephaim.
For example, a more fundamental question than “How did the giants reappear after the Flood?” would have been “Did the giants reappear after the Flood?”
Yet, he insists on claiming a “mysterious reemergence of giants after the Flood” and, again, “how the giants after the Flood were dealt with” rather than “were there giants after the Flood to deal with?”
Note that it is exciting to claim to have uncovered “interesting and theologically significant messages that are regularly overlooked in your average church setting” but it may not be a case of having “overlooked” but rather, of having looked and realized that personages such as TJ Steadman are, au fond, not teaching biblical doctrine but a correlation of such with Pagan theology.
He also noted:
Presented here is what I believe to be possibly the most in-depth yet concise exposition of the Biblical giants, focusing particularly on their origins and also on the work of Christ in dealing with them, compiled from Biblical texts.
To demonstrate the sufficiency of canonical Scripture in these matters, as in all others, there is a multitude of quotes directly from your Bible.
See what I mean, this is good PR marketing but with statements such as “the work of Christ in dealing with them” we can instantly know that we are not in for an actual Bible study but something else.
Lastly, I wanted to quote him thusly:
The serpent watched as Cain and Abel offered sacrifices to God. He saw how Cain did what was right in his own eyes rather than obedience to what God required. And he figured that Cain was his man. So, he prompted Cain to kill [technically, murder] Abel. And that would be the end of the “seed of the woman.”
But Eve had another son, and the serpent realized he was going to have to rethink his strategy. There would always be more humans as long as they could reproduce – a thing that the angels (or sons of God) do not do in heaven. How then would the serpent have his way upon the earth?
But there is a distinction to be made before we go further. Whoever the “seed of the serpent” is, it isn’t human. Because the prophecy doesn’t say that one “seed of the woman” will be at enmity with another “seed of the woman.” It says that one is of Eve, and one is of the serpent. They cannot be the same kind because they do not share a common origin.
Perhaps I keyed in on this due to having written a five-volume set of books contra the serpent seed of Satan theory but both Cain and Able were genetically of the seed of the woman yet, their actions showed that Cain was, in this case, functionally “of the wicked one” as John ends up putting it—and I am writing this portion just in case.
Thus, the “seed of the serpent” is, or rather are, human since the distinction is not genetic but based on actions.
It is about those who perform Godly actions versus those who do not: which is great biblical news since those who do not can always repent.
Ultimately, these seed are personified as Jesus and Satan.
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