This pertains to the MythVision Podcast vid ORIGINS of Giants BEFORE The Bible | Nephilim, Anakim & Rephaim.
I’m going to treat the transcript as that which was posted by MythVision in general since my context is the data and not spending a lot of time breaking down who, in particular, that spoke during the podcast said what.
You know we’re in for it when MythVision blunders within mere seconds into the podcast. We’re told:
…Genesis 6[:1-4]…sons of God came down and took human…Nephilim are mentioned in several other passages sometimes associated with the races of giants occupy the promised land before the Israelites two groups in particular the Anakim and the Rephaim.
The term “several” is certainly a hyperbolically inaccurate manner in which to refer to literally merely only one single one: and not even one “passage” but one single sentence/verse.
Thus, as for “associated with the races” means one single such instance.
As for “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 MythVision’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
As for “the Anakim and the Rephaim” note that Anakim were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe.
Biblically contextually “the races of giants…the Rephaim” would mean “the races of Rephaim…the Rephaim.”
That’s because the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English 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.
Ergo, that never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever. And yet, I’m guessing that such is how MythVision is using that term so their usage doesn’t agree with the usage in English Bibles.
Thus, it seems that their usage is 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).
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.
As for Rephaim/Anakim: the only contextually relevant thing we’re told about them is that, on average, they were “tall” (Deut 2) which is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
MythVision tells us:
…the apocalyptic Jewish book of First Enoch tells a similar story about angels called Watchers who long ago descended from heaven and took human wives who gave birth to Giants.
1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch: it has Nephilim as being MILES tall which is great folklore but poor reality. For more on growing with time and telling, see my paper How Nephilim Absconded from the Tanakh and Invaded Folkloric Territory.
Focus is then put on the single sentence/verse I aforementioned:
Nephilim in Numbers 13
To understand Genesis 6 we first need to examine some other Bible passages that are influenced by similar traditions. One key story is found in Numbers 13, this chapter describes how Moses having led the Israelites out of Egypt dispatches 12 men to spy out the land of Canaan…in verse 22 the inhabitants of the
land observed by the spies include three individuals living in Hebron who are said to be descendants of Anak: nothing here suggests that these three men are physically unusual.
However, a few verses later after Caleb suggests invading the land the other spies protest this is their reason “the land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants and all the people that we saw in it are of great size and there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak come from the Nephilim, and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers and so we seemed to them.”
Here we are given the additional information that the inhabitants of Canaan are of great size and this seems to include a group called the Nephilim the statement that the sons of Anak come from the Nephilim is almost certainly a later insertion since it disrupts the text and is missing from the Greek.
Nephilim, whoever they were are, included among these giants.
We should remember however that Genesis 6 says nothing about the Nephilim having gigantic stature.
That’s a good assessment.
Again, biblically the “One key story” is the only (post-flood) one.
Indeed “12 men to spy out the land” and the 10 (since Joshua sided with Caleb) unfaithful, disloyal, unreliable, contradictory, embellishers made up a fantasy tall-tale.
Indeed, nothing physically unusual about Anakim: they were taller than 5.0-5.3ft. on average but we don’t even know by how much.
That “the land…devours its inhabitants” contradicts the original report upon their return which had it being a good land.
As for “all the people that we saw in it are of great size” there’s literally zero indication of that tall-tale.
When anyone merely appeals to Num 13:33 (as pop-Nephilologists love to do) they 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 “missing from the Greek”)
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
I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
Thus, the important qualifiers “this seems to” and “almost certainly a later insertion” so that “Nephilim, whoever they were are, included among these giants [whatever that means]” in one unreliable fantasy tall-tale.
Indeed, on MythVision’s usage, “We should remember however that Genesis 6 says nothing about the Nephilim having gigantic stature” and Num 13:33 is unreliable hence by statement about the dirty little secret.
Appeal is then made to my aforementioned Deut 2 in part to note that Rephaim were aka Emmim and Zuzim/Zamzummim and Anakim were like a clan. Incidentally, it note that one people group calls them Emmim and another Zuzim/Zamzummim so I theorize that Rephaim is what Israelites called them—and did so for polemical reasons—which calls into question: how, pray tell, did Rephaim/Emmim/Zuzim/Zamzummim refer to themselves?
MythVision noted, “giant race…King Og of Bashan…his bed, an iron bed…is nine cubit long and four cubit wide.”
Clearly, this is meant to jump from the size of a bed to the size of a man for whom we’ve no physical description. Yet, that’s a huge jump to a conclusion and one that’s based on various mere assumptions. In short, the “bed” was a ritual object, not something on which he slept—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
It’s re-emphasized that the “associated with each other” are “the Nephilim the Anakim and the
Rephaim. These groups are portrayed in Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua” but there’s no indication of that: “associated with each other…in Numbers” Anakim are but only in one single non-LXX unreliable sentence. Rephaim, as a whole are not and neither Anakim in particular nor Rephaim in general in Deuteronomy nor Joshua.
We’re then told that in those three books “the ancient ruling elites of Canaan and sometimes but not always, they are depicted as giants” which causes problems since appeal is made to a useless modern English word that they’re biblically misusing.
MythVision goes on to note “The legend of the Rephaim predates the Bible, for they are mentioned numerous times in the tablets of ancient Ugarit where they are called the” what I will type as per a general transliteration which is rph. The point is that they “appear in legendary tales as great ancestors of old usually kings and heroes and renowned as warriors. The word was originally believed to come from a root that meant to heal but some scholars doubt this connection.”
I’ll bottom line this: the root, typically transliterated as rapha, ranges wildly in meaning/usage from heal/healer to dead/death. Thus, especially amongst pop-Nephilology circles (which sells un-biblical tall-tales to Christians) the depiction of Rephaim as some sort of living dead and underworld denizens is due to that in Ugaritic texts recently deceased kings and heroes are referred to as kings and heroes but after they had been dead for some time, they were referred to as rph, could be summoned from the grave/underworld to attend rituals, etc., see my article Dead Kings and Rephaim The Patrons of the Ugaritic Dynasty.
Thus, MythVision is mostly on point when noting a “dual meaning of Rephaim both as the ancient elite of Canaan and as spirits of the ancient dead is reflected by the Bible. In biblical narratives the Rephaim are always indigenous ethnic groups in Canaan but in poetic passages they are kings and heroes of old who now occupy the nether world called sheol” (emphasis added for emphasis).
Likewise “most scholars take the view that fallen means fallen in battle. Ezekiel 32 explicitly uses the term Nephilim” from the root naphal/fall/fallen/feller, etc. “to describe warriors of old as a positive contrast to the Egyptians they lay with the warriors. The Nephilim of old who descended to sheol.” Thus, here too the Nephilim half-people groups are equated with the underworld due to the root word being turned into a specific reference to the beings that resulted from what which I term the Gen 6 affair.
Biblically, they’re just a 100% human tribe and the root is sometimes used regarding the dead. So, in order to get paranormal Rephaim in the Bible, pop-Nephilologists have myopically opt for the dead/death meaning/usage of the root word and actually incorporate Pagan mythology in to biblical theology.
Now, this is why I noted that Rephaim seems like Israeli polemics since they were basically calling that tribe dead meat!
MythVision notes “legends of giants were prompted or encouraged by the discovery of whale and mastadon bones” about which you can 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.
Reference is again made to glosses meant to “explain how the time of the Nephilim continues after the
flood” even though there’s no such time.
It’s noted “Genesis 6 never tells us when the sons of God stopped mating with women” but since as Jude and 2 Peter 2 tell us that those sons of God/Angels were incarcerated. Now, they don’t tell us when but since the flood was when God was cleaning house, as it were, then it would have been during the flood or before it.
And we will leave it at that since the latter portion deals with the aforementioned 1 Enoch.
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