Houston Christian Magazine posted an article titled Biblical Giants in the Archaeological Record? Scholars Reexamine Evidence for the Nephilim.
Houston Christian Magazine’s bio on them noted, “Katy and Fort Bend Christian Magazines have over fifteen years of experience in getting Christian-centered messages out…Katy and Fort Bend Christian Magazines pride themselves on the values of enterprise, family, and truthfulness, and have helped foster a culture of fearless honesty, rigor of business and industry, and interconnected networking among the readership.”
Well, if they “pride themselves” then they need to repent since pride is a vice, not a virtue, it comes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18).
The premise of the article is:
For generations, Bible readers have grappled with the cryptic reference in Genesis 6 to the Nephilim—giants said to be the offspring of the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men.”
But in recent years, a growing number of researchers have begun revisiting this ancient mystery, not simply as a theological curiosity, but as a potential historical reality backed by suppressed archaeological records, oral traditions, and scattered artifacts.
I will note the downgrade from “Scholars” to “researchers” and it’s a well earned downgrade—stand by.
Biblically contextually “Nephilim—giants” would mean “Nephilim—Nephilim” so key questions are: what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Katy and Fort Bend Christian Magazines’ usage? Do those two usages agree?
Without knowing that, the risk is that the researchers will merely chase the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” around ancient histories, archaeological records, oral traditions, and scattered artifacts regardless of context: being vague is a best practice to merely mashing things together in order to form a grand narrative but that does not necessarily make for a reflection of reality.
Now, since the statement was, “Nephilim—giants” it would seems that giants is just being used as an aka for Nephilim and that’s reinforced by the statement, “Genesis 6:4 describes the Nephilim as giants who appeared both before and after the flood. This idea, echoed in later biblical texts and extra-biblical writings like the Book of Enoch.”
Yet, that doesn’t really reinforce but only makes things more unclear since we were told, “describes the Nephilim as giants” so now giants must mean something else. It’s safe to assume that by giants they mean 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).
And yet, there’s no such thing as “Genesis 6:4 describes the Nephilim as” something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average.
There’s also no such thing as, “Genesis 6:4 describes the Nephilim…who appeared…after the flood.”
Also, no examples of “echoed in later biblical texts,” plural.
As for, “extra-biblical writings like the Book of Enoch” that’s just Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.
What is follows up with is, “stories of David and Goliath, Israel’s battles with the Anakim and Rephaim, and other accounts of towering foes” but that’s a category error that violates the law of identity since that was about Anakim and Rephaim, not about Nephilim—nor could it have been since Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim (and the Anakim clan of that tribe) were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them.
As for, “towering foes” this is part of the article’s vague references along with, “abnormally large skeletons…immense size…gigantic…unusually large …oversized…massive…extraordinary size…enormous…unusually large”: what these terms have in common is that they are just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as giants.
For example, Rephaim/Anakin having been “towering” well, Deut 2 tells us that they were “tall” and that’s subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
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. so that’s the preponderance of the earliest data.
Yet, those are the sorts of terms thrown about by the referenced downgraded researchers and that is a way to impress whilst not really saying much of anything at all.
We’re told, “In a recent interview on The Michael Knowles Show, researcher and author Timothy Alberino took a cautious but compelling stance. ‘According to the Bible, they’re giants,’ Alberino said. ‘We’re talking individuals who are nine to 15 feet tall.’”
Alberino is a researcher but not a scholar: he’s a pop-Nephilologists who, by definition, makes a living by selling un-biblical tall-tales to Christians.
Apparently, he said, “According to the Bible, they’re…nine to 15 feet tall” but who is the “We’re talking”? He’s asserting. 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.
Yet, we’re told that “His argument rests on” not Mosaic sources but “a mosaic of sources: early Smithsonian records noting the discovery of abnormally large skeletons” whatever that means—besides subjectively compared to the parochial average of Native Americans.
We’re told that “He also cited Peruvian chronicles in which a post-conquest Catholic priest described entering a cave and finding ‘three gigantic corpses…’” whatever that means—besides subjectively compared to the parochial average of Spaniard priest.
Also, “In Sardinia, locals reportedly found bones so large ‘it took both of them to carry it into the church’” whatever that means—besides subjectively compared to the parochial average of Sardinians.
This also brings to question: bones of what? It’s well known that some such bones turn out to be bones of whales, dinos, pachyderms, etc.—see “Appendix: Review of Adrienne Mayor’s The First Fossil Hunters” in my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology.
At least we’re told:
While these claims are difficult to verify, their consistency across time and geography—and the pattern of unexplained disappearances—raise serious questions. Could these remains be connected to the Nephilim mentioned in Scripture? Could Jesus’ warning in Matthew 24:37—“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man”—point to the eventual return of such beings?
One reason “these claims are difficult to verify” is because they’re utterly generic so for one is one looking in the first place?
“Jesus’ warning” is one of the most used, abused, and misused texts by pop-Nephilologists: Jesus’ words, His emphasis, His points, His context, were:
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”
But He kept speaking directly with:
“Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed” (Luke 17).
Thus, this was about examples of being unaware/unconcerned about coming judgment.
As for a “return of such beings” that’s just a paranoid pop-Nephilology conspiracy theory.
We’re told that the Genesis Apologetics “Christian research group” produced a documentary tiled The Nephilim: Was There a Giant Problem in America? which “points to reports from sites such as the Hopewell Mounds and Lovelock Cave” which is part of what touches upon that some of the cases of “unexplained disappearances” pertain to the racism of early-ish European settlers who dealt with Native American claims to land rights due to ancestral remains in the area by taking them away and essentially replying with what remains?—see my article Lovelock Cave Giants: lost or found?
Interestingly, we’re told “The issue, researchers say, is not the lack of testimony—but the lack of physical evidence. Many of the remains have disappeared, and institutional silence has only deepened the mystery.” But the main reason for lack of physical evidence is that pop-researchers suffer from that which I term Gigorexia Nervosa: an obsessive desire to see giants and just making them up where they’re nowhere to be seen.
Example, we’re told “‘If we take the biblical record seriously,’ the film notes, ‘it’s hard to dismiss the idea that” something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average “were a part of human history’” which means essentially nothing.
It’s noted, “Goliath’s stature, described as over nine feet, was not unique. David’s men reportedly killed other giants—Saf, Ishbibenob, and others—indicating the presence of a class of warrior-giants in the ancient Near East.”
It’s myopic to assert “over nine feet” since 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 “David’s men reportedly killed other giants” contextually that means, “David’s men reportedly killed other” Rephaim. As for Saf, Ishbibenob, et al.: the text that names them has giants in some modern English versions but that’s merely rendering Repha.
We’re told that “Evangelist” not scholar, “Perry Stone, among others, suggests that evolutionary paradigms in academic circles may have led to the dismissal or suppression of findings that don’t align with conventional timelines.” Stone is quite unreliable on this issue: see my Perry Stone on the Mystery of Giants, Fallen Angels and Evil Spirits.
His go-to was, “Stone recently cited a particularly unusual find in Egypt: a pit filled with disproportionately large right hands…‘right hands of giant bones…unusually large leather shoes at a Roman fort, some measuring over 12 inches in length…speculating that these artifacts may reflect remnants of the Rephaim—another biblical giant lineage.”
Let’s grant this, the question becomes: what of it? We’re told of subjectively “disproportionately large …unusually large.”
Reference is also made to “early American newspapers” with which I filled a chapter of my book Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales. We can’t assume that just because it’s in the news must mean it’s true. Newspaper reports are very restrictive and with zero follow up: so and so says he found thus and such—period. And there’s the whole issue of who is qualified to determine if disjointed bones are human or animal.
Lastly, “Perhaps it is time, as Alberino and others suggest, to reexamine these stories not as folklore, but as fragments of a lost history—one that could help us better understand both our past and our future.” Well, the reexamination of these stories not as folklore, but as fragments of a lost history plus the tall-tales sold by the likes of Alberino have been ongoing and typical results are that the reality of the matter is just not exiting enough to sell like tall-tales told with watered down generic terminology that’s exciting.
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