The Faith Quest posted a video titled Rob Skiba REFUTES Sam Shamoun on Genesis 6? | Who are the NEPHILIM? which actually features Pastor Doug Wilson, Dr. Peter Gentry, and Rabbi Jeff Zaremsky as well.
The vid is a compilation of clips and begin when the host, “who exactly were the Nephilim were they giants or were they something else?” Since biblically contextually, “Nephilim were they giants?” means, “Nephilim were they Nephilim?” then it seems that 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 any of these gent’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
Doug Wilson is up first and notes, “the Nephilim which were giants…the end result of this inter-marriage is giants which is not what you usually get when a Christian marries a non-Christian.” Indeed, “the Nephilim which were giants” means, “Nephilim which were Nephilim” and as for that such inter-marriage don’t result in giants clearly means that his question to the second key question is that it has something to do with subjectively unusual height. That means that the answer to the third key question is, “No” since the answer to the first one is that 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 and so never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.
He continued:
…if the giants were the end result of this marriage and then was the flood, what do we do with Nephilim after the flood?…they were all killed in the flood so there are different possibilities: one is that the same thing happened again after the flood…
Another possibility is that the genetic material from this misbehavior was preserved on the ark in other words, through Noah’s family.
I don’t think that would be true if God’s whole point was to wipe it out, why would He, why would He preserve it?
Of course, same goes for, “the same thing happened again after the flood” since both are un-biblical made up stories about that God failed, He missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc. and the latter one also contradicts the Bible five times (Genesis 7:7, 23; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; and 2 Peter 2:5).
Moreover:
The other, I think the most likely explanation, is that the giants, the Anakim, the Nephilim after the flood are simply given the same name…so the giants after the flood are NBA player, giants…big human beings, not anything supernatural.
Note that he jumped from the specific ancient Hebrew word Nephilim to the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants and now throws in Anakim. Well, there’s never been any such thing as Gen 6, “Nephilim after the flood” since God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
The Anakim were only giants in the biblical usage due to that they were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe.
The Anakim were only giants in the Wilsonian usage due to that they were, “tall” (Deut 2) maybe like, “NBA players” and yet, subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
Overall, there’s literally zero indication that giants—again, referring to either Nephilim or Rephaim—has anything to do with even, “NBA player, giants…big human beings”—with big being just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as giants.
The host asks, “But what if the Nephilim giants were never the offspring of fallen Angels?” and next up is Peter Gentry:
When it says, ‘the Nephilim were there in those days and also afterward,’ it could mean that before the Angels had sex with the humans, the Nephilim were there and they were also there after the Angels had sex with women. So, it could mean that the Nephilim had nothing to do with the Angels…
I think that is the correct interpretation for two reasons.
First of all, I examined every occurrence of this expression, ‘and also afterward,’…and the second interpretation best fits and suits how this word is used…
There’s a second reason why this is the correct interpretation, the last sentence says, ‘they were the heroes who were from the ancient past, the men of renown.’
In this case, what Moses is doing is he’s de-mythologizing the Nephilim…the text doesn’t tell us who the Nephilim were…they don’t come from the cohabitation of Angels and humans…that’s the correct interpretation.
Well, it does not mean, “before the Angels had sex with the humans” since it’s a simple the Gen 6 affair narrative’s contextual focus is the sons of God and daughters of men: their attraction, their marriage, and their offspring. Thus, it would violate that narrative’s contextual focus to artificially insert a mere passing reference to some unrelated Nephilim guys who just happened to be around at the time, are mentioned for no apparent reason, and about whom nothing more is said in relation to the narrative’s contextual focus.
Thus, this isn’t about checking contextually disconnected stand alone usage of, “and also afterward” but about the narrative’s focus which tells us how to understand the flow.
As for, “the text doesn’t tell us who the Nephilim were” well, it actually does just that: it tells us the basic time range when they were born, tells us their parentage, tells us that they were mighty and renown, and, of course, by implication, that they didn’t make it past the flood.
Yet, Peter Gentry continued thusly:
In the 3rd Century BC and the 2 Century BC they came to an incorrect interpretation, they thought that the Nephilim were giants who were produced by Angels cohabiting with humans and this got into the Book of Enoch.
And Paul warns his readers against…foolish myth, this is a direct reference to the Book of Enoch which has a long genealogy of all the Angels until you finally come down to Satan. And then they blame all the evil in the world on Satan.
What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to blame chaos and death and evil in the world on Angelic sin instead of blaming it on human sin and the Bible clearly puts the blame on humans.
Here we have again the issue of, “Nephilim were giants”/“ Nephilim were Nephilim.” Yet, his reference to, “the Book of Enoch” really being to 1 Enoch (which is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch) and since it has Nephilim as being MILES tall (which is great folklore but poor reality) then he too is misusing that term.
My criticisms of that text don’t include, “trying to blame chaos and death and evil in the world on Angelic sin instead of blaming it on human sin” since it’s not that simple, it’s a package deal: we might as well claim that the Bible isn’t legit since it’s, “trying to blame chaos and death and evil in the world on Satanic (the serpent’s) sin instead of blaming it on human sin.” Chaos and death and evil in the world is due to human sin, Satan’s sin, Angels’ sin, and Nephilim’s sin.
Sam Shamoun is up next with:
Genesis 6:4…says, ‘now there were giants in those days and then afterwards.’ When it says, ‘there were giants in those days’ what days is the author referring to?…the days leading up to the flood, the days before the flood, the days leading up to the flood…
But then it says, ‘there were giants before the days of the flood and then after that.’ How can you have giants existing after the flood if the giants are the offspring of the Angelic sons of God with Earthly women?…
Read carefully, read slowly because if you actually read the passage, the passage doesn’t necessarily say the Nephilim are the offspring of the sons of God.
I suppose that it’s by definition that, “those days” refer to, “the days leading up to the flood” but the days leading up to the flood begin with the first day of creation. The Gen 6 timeline begins with, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them”—it’s uncertain when that is, it could have been as early as when Adam and Eve’s children began having children.
Shamoun is speaking exclusively in terms of giants so it’s hard to follow since we know not to what, to whom, he’s referring by, “giants existing after the flood” but since he at least contextualized that usage as referring to, “the offspring of the Angelic sons of God with Earthly women” then, again, there’s no such thing.
He too commits the reading comprehension/hermeneutical fallacy.
He continues:
This word, giants, appears again in the Pentateuch, the Books of Moses, Numbers 13:31-33. Pay attention to verse 33, ‘but the men that went up with him said, ‘we be not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we.’ And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched…saying…all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature,’ notice 33, ‘and there we saw the giants.’
Guess what: the Hebrew word is Nephilim, we saw the Nephilim in Canaan. Moses, during the time of the Exodus, the sons of Anak, oh wow, notice the Nephilim are not the sons of the Angels, they’re the sons of a human being named Anak and Anak is a Canaanite, a descendant of
Ham.
Well, he meant, “This word” Nephilim: keep in mind that the appearance of a word does not equate the appearance of they who are identified by that word. Example: I could refer to the first USA POTUS George Washington right now and you could say, “This name, George Washington, appears again in what Ken wrote in 2024 AD” but that doesn’t mean Georgie is alive.
Now, “Pay attention to verse 33” since he didn’t bother telling us that he’s taking seriously an “evil report” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked. Also, his reference to Anakim means that he’s relying on non-LXX versions since the LXX doesn’t mention Anakim in that verse.
Thus, he’s just taking one version of a falsehood and making much ado about nothing—especially since Anakim are never referred to as Nephilim even though the 10 unreliable guys merely asserted an impossible relationship between them.
So, it was just a fear mongering scare tactic tall-tale that they saw post-flood Nephilim—and they contradicted Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole Bible.
Sam Shamoun also merely asserted, “Nephilim are not the offspring of the Angels, they’re a group of human beings who are excessively huge. Goliath is one of them.”
That they were, “excessively huge—which is just as just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as big and giants—comes exclusively from that evil report: 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, “Goliath is one of them” not so, we’re told that he was a Repha virtually every single time he’s mentioned.
He ends by noting, “The children of the Angels were there when the Nephilim were there, they existed side by side” but, of course, that’s a faulty conclusion based on a faulty mis-reading.
The late pop-Nephilologist Rob Skiba is up next and noted:
Genesis 6:4 itself, I maintain, doesn’t even support the idea of multiple incursions…nothing about Genesis 6:4 even remotely supports the idea that we’re talking about Angels coming back again after the flood.
He said that mostly because he and fellow pop-Nephilologist LA Marzulli used to trade barbs: they both taught/teach un-biblical Nephilology but they differed on just how God failed so they both made up un-biblical tall-tales and both implied that their was the best loophole that God missed and made the flood much of a waste.
Thus, “nothing about Genesis 6:4 even remotely supports the idea that we’re talking about Angels coming back again after the flood” nor that Nephilim came back in any way, shape, form or by any other name.
He very specifically asserts that, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them,” which was when, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose,” was, “in the days of Jared” because that’s what folklore in Jubilees from centuries, if not millennia, after the flood asserts.
Skiba’s post-flood Nephilology contradicts the Bible five times (Genesis 7:7, 23; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; and 2 Peter 2:5). Skiba implied that God missed a genetic loophole that Skiba was clever enough to figure out.
He also stated:
I want to unpack Genesis 6:12 because it says that all flesh had be become corrupted. Well, the extra biblical text of Jasher goes into a whole lot more detail and tells you that how they became corrupted, they began to blend species together they begin to blend animals and plants and reptiles and fish and birds and people.
Jasher is just a modern day hoaxed fraud—see my book The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts. Note that species isn’t biblical taxonomy, kinds are—and no one can tell me what the original Hebrew is behind species since there’s no ancient manuscripts of Jasher.
Yet, like many pop-Nephilologists, Skiba tended to quote anything written by anyone at any time for any reason in any genre, then watered it all down and mashed it all together into an incoherent grand narrative.
He also noted, “Guess what we’re doing today, blending species, ah, now, Yeshua said Matthew 24:37 that the last days would be like the days of Noah.” Yet, Jesus’ words, His emphasis, His points, His context, were:
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.
He emphasizes, “The last 120 years leading up to the flood were all about genetic modification, also confirmed in Jubilee…7:24, ‘they sinned against the beasts and the birds and all that moveth and walketh on the earth and much blood was shed.’”
Well, when you prep your audience to think a certain way and throw half-quoted folklore at them—and then tell them how to put it all together—it may sound good. Yet, the folklore reads thusly (7:21-24):
…owing to these three things came the flood upon the earth, namely, owing to the fornication wherein the Watchers against the law of their ordinances went a whoring after the daughters of men, and took themselves wives of all which they chose: and they made the beginning of uncleanness.
And they begat sons the Naphidim, and they were all unlike, and they devoured one another: and the Giants slew the Naphil, and the Naphil slew the Eljo, and the Eljo mankind, and one man another.
And every one sold himself to work iniquity and to shed much blood, and the earth was filled with iniquity.
And after this they sinned against the beasts and birds, and all that moves and walks on the earth: and much blood was shed on the earth, and every imagination and desire of men imagined vanity and evil continually.
Wait, by sin reference wasn’t being made to generic manipulation but rather, the context is, “they devoured one another…they sinned against the beasts and birds, and all that moves and walks on the earth” so that was a sin because God had not yet allowed the eating of animals so, “much blood was shed” due to slaughtering animals to devour them.
He also relies on folklore from centuries, if not millennia after the Torah—including Jasher. And he even takes those texts out of context to make a pretext for a prooftext since he merely asserts that to “sin” against those animals was to genetically manipulated them but the text is 100% that it meant that they started eating them (before God allowed the eating of animals) which is how and why, “much blood was shed.”
Skiba noted, “That brings us to the post-flood return of the Nephilim. Of course, we have the flood take place, you know, and then after the flood, the giants are there right away.” Consciously or not, this is a typical pop-Nephilology move: jump from the specific ancient Hebrew word Nephilim to the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants since watering things down makes it easy to assert connections where there are none.
Thus, biblically contextually (according to only some English Bibles) there’s zero reliable indication of a, “post-flood return of the Nephilim” ever and, “after the flood, the giants are there right away” merely refers to when Rephaim came to be.
Rob Skiba noted:
Ham is the father of Canaan…who are the Israelites always having to deal with in the land?
The Canaanites, who were the ones that they were consistently told to utterly destroy…when you look at the breakdown of the of their offspring, Ham by far has some very interesting kids, there are many giants in the offspring of Canaan…one in Cush[’s line] but I don’t believe he was born that way, I believe he did something to modify himself and became that way, and that was Nimrod…
Amorites, described by the Book of Amos as being as tall as cedar trees…
See how the tall-tale grows? We jump from Nephilim to Rephaim to Canaanites and then to the final solution, “utterly destroy” post-flood Nephilim. Well, God told us many times why He commanded such things but never said one single word about Nephilim—nor of any (impossible) correlation with them.
As for, “many giants in the offspring of Canaan” well, we know that has zero to do with Nephilim, it has to do with Rephaim and if one insists on that it has something to do with subjectively unusual height then well, sure: some people are subjectively taller than others.
As for that Nimrod, “did something to modify himself” well, that’s just another pop-Nephilology neo-theo sci-fi tall-tale.
And as for, “Amorites, described by the Book of Amos as being as tall as cedar trees” well, Amos 2:9 says, “the Amorite…whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.” He was clearly just saying they were big and strong and not implying conducting a one-to-one ratio based mathematical calculation. In fact, people who do measure cedars and claim Amorites were that tall never get around to a calculation correlating the strength of oaks—since they’re only interested in tall-tales. Plus, if they take it that incoherently literal then they have to conclude that Amorites had fruits and roots growing right out of their bodies.
Jeff Zaremsky is up next with:
So, giants: who are these giants well, they were giants just as there were giants in the world. It’s just kind of a statement of fact, ‘there were giants in those days and also afterwards’ that’s all. It’s saying there were giants before the flood, there were giants after the flood: they were living 900 years, they can do a lot of growth in 900 years…
Yeah, there were giants and they were big people back then we still got some of those big people…[Moses is] not saying that these giants were an offspring of evil angels…
We ought to have learned in elementary school to not use a word to define itself. Thus, asserting, “giants…were giants” merely doubly begs the question. Note how simple it is when he misunderstands giants to refer to subjectively unusual height: since that’s all it means then, “there were giants…‘there were giants…’…there were giants…there were giants…there were giants…big people…big people…”
His view is:
Let’s look just two chapters before…the children of Cain, the daughters of Cain…who has a monopoly on livestock, music industry, the arts, and bronze, and iron manufacturing? Cain, Cain’s children, Cain’s offspring and are they the children of God or the children of men? Children of God or children of the Devil? Children of men, children of the Devil…
These are not following God and yet they control the industry, they are men of renown, they have a lot of influence, they are mighty men, they are instructors of every craftsman, of all who play the flute and the harp, they run the livestock industry…
I hope that some of that is hyperbolic. I’m also unsure how or why raising livestock, playing music, metallurgy, etc. is Satanically evil.
But his point is that it was about, “monopoly…industry…influence…instructors…craftsman” which is what, for some reason, is Satanically evil.
That allows him to merely assert that they were the mighty men of renown of Gen 6. That plus the mere assertion that, “the children of Cain” were, “Children of men, children of the Devil.”
Jeff Zaremsky then noted:
God’s people aren’t helping matters because God’s people are uniting with them and deluding the seed…So, the children of men were multiplying…on the earth and having a big influence a bigger influence than the children of God: that’s all it was saying.
I’m also unsure how purchasing such items or being instructed in craftmanship results in, “deluding the seed.”
Thus, he has it that, “‘the sons of God,’ godly people ‘saw the daughters of men’” so that godly people weren’t really godly since they were such terrible sinners that their sin served as a premier for the flood.
Thus, overall, we encountered fundamental level errors from Rob Skiba, Sam Shamoun, Doug Wilson, Peter Gentry, and Jeff Zaremsky. No wonder pop (and much academic) Nephilology is a cesspool of mis-info and dis-info.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.