The Hungry Hearts Collective site posted an article titled THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE LAND: THE “BIG MEN” OF MESOPOTAMIA AND THE NEPHILIM OF THE BIBLE.
Up front, the correlation of GIANTS to BIG MEN denotes that the article’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word GIANTS is something to do with subjectively unusual height at some level above the parochial average.
This usage is not only useless, since it has to be defined and then has to elucidate that unusual height (for example, biblically unusual height is subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days)—and BIG is just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage.
Note that this usage does not agree with the usage in English Bibles wherein 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.
Yet, within the context of BIG, we’re told, “Throughout history, the echoes of giants have persisted—from the Nephilim of Genesis to the towering Anakim, from Goliath and his brothers”:
1) 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.
2) The only contextually relevant thing we’re told about Anakim is that they were, “tall” (Deut 2) which is just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as GIANTS and BIG.
3) 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.
4) The only physical description we have of, “his brothers” (his sons, really) is of just one of them, “a man of great stature” (2 Sam 21:20) which is just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as GIANTS, BIG and tall.
I’m unsure why these facts weren’t mentioned in the article.
It’s noted, “A particular Sumerian stone panel housed in the British Museum adds fuel to this ancient mystery. The relief shows a figure nearly as tall as a palm tree, towering over those around him…could this be one of the legendary ‘Big Men’ of Sumer—Lugal, the great king?”
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Perhaps, but it could be adults interacting with a child.
Those could be not fully mature, not fully grown, trees.
And why should we take ancient, or from any time, carvings literally?
Was Abraham Lincoln really that big?
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Now, we do get a reason for why Nephilim are referred to as BIG GIANTS in the article via a subsection titled, “‘We Were as Grasshoppers in Their Sight’: The Giants of the Bible” which notes:
In Numbers 13:33, the Israelite spies return from Canaan with a fearful report:
“There we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
This was no exaggeration. The Anakim, a remnant of the Nephilim, were so massive that warriors felt dwarfed in comparison. The Bible speaks of:
Og, king of Bashan, whose bed was over 13 feet long (Deuteronomy 3:11).
Goliath of Gath, a warrior over 9 feet tall (1 Samuel 17:4).
The Rephaim, a race of giants referenced throughout biblical texts.
The Hebrew word for giants in Numbers 13:33 is נְפִילִים (Nephilim).
This is multifacetedly problematic:
1) It’s a misrepresentation of the chapter to generically assert, “the Israelite spies,” in general, said that since there were 12 but that was stated by the 10 unreliable ones.
2) “giants [Nephilim], the sons of Anak…” is only from non-LXX versions since that version lacks any reference to Anakim in that verse and it’s literally impossible that Anakim had anything to do with Nephilim. Anakim were like a clan of the Rephaim tribe and Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them.
3) That was from an, “evil report” (fearful report) which consisted of five mere assertions and contradicted Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the whole rest of the Bible—see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
4) God rebuked the 10, to death.
5) It was beyond an exaggeration, it was an impossible tall-tale and since that’s the only physical description we biblically have of Nephilim then, again, we’ve no reliable physical description of them and so can’t correlate subjectively unusual size to them.
6) Non-LXX versions of that unreliable report by unreliable guys whom God rebuked is the only indication of, “Anakim, a remnant of the Nephilim” so there’s no reason to believe in that version of the tall-tale. Anakim were named after Anak who was Arba’s son (Josh 15:13) and we have zero reliable indication that they were Nephilim: such an assertion is illogical, ill-bio-logical, and ill-theo-logical.
7) What the 10 felt dwarfed by was what the original, accepted as is, reliable report noted earlier in that chapter, “the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large…we saw the descendants of Anak…Amalekites…Hittites…Jebusites…Amorites…And the Canaanites…” not a single word about Nephilim or height.
8) We don’t have a physical description of Og but the mere assumption (which his based on various hidden assumptions) is that his, “bed” denotes something about his personal height. Yet, that wasn’t something upon which he slept, it was a ritual object—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
9) We already saw that, “Goliath…over 9 feet tall” is a latter data point.
10) Biblically contextually, “Rephaim, a race of giants” means, “Rephaim, a race of Rephaim.”
I’m unsure why these facts weren’t mentioned in the article.
We’re then told, “Etymology and Meaning of נְפִילִים (Nephilim) – GIANT” even though, “Root Word: נָפַל (nafal) – meaning to fall, to be cast down, to collapse.” Well, if, “Meaning of נְפִילִים (Nephilim) – GIANT” that only begs the question of what GIANT means, with which we already dealt—for more linguistic details, see my book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
“Possible Interpretations” are noted, “‘The Fallen Ones’ – Some” unnamed, unquoted, and uncited, “scholars suggest Nephilim refers to fallen beings, possibly linked to fallen angels in extra-biblical traditions.” The original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, was the “Angel view” as I proved in my book, On the Genesis 6 Affair’s Sons of God: Angels or Not?: A Survey of Early Jewish and Christian Commentaries Including Notes on Giants and the Nephilim. This means that Nephilim were not the fallen Angels but that those Angels were their dads.
“‘The Mighty Ones’ – Others propose that Nephilim signifies mighty or powerful beings, not necessarily fallen but of great stature and strength.” It signifies that only in that Nephilim are described as gibborim which is a mere descriptive term for might/mighty—not that the term Nephilim means that.
“‘Those Who Cause Others to Fall’ – A military interpretation suggests they were fierce warriors who made their enemies collapse in fear.” In one way or another, that’s generally fair enough. Note that it seems that Nephilim is what Israelites ended up calling them and they would demean them: it’s doubtful that if you had met Nephilim back in the day, they would have been using that as a moniker, like a self-identification, they likely didn’t call themselves Nephilim.
We’re then told, “In Numbers 13:33, the Nephilim are described as ‘the sons of Anak,’” by some impossible extension, “a race of giants so massive…physically imposing” but for post-flood and GIANT Nephilologists that one single (non-LXX) sentence is the only game in town: without it, they literally have nothing, they must side with unreliable guys whom God rebuked rather than with the God who rebuked them—and have to invent un-biblical fantasy tall-tales about how they got past the flood, past God.
Thus, when it comes to, “The biblical portrayal of giants mirrors Mesopotamian traditions, where great kings were often depicted as physically immense, ruling with divine authority” we can instantly dismiss that.
For example, when we’re told, “Gilgamesh…is described as physically massive, much like the Nephilim” we know that’s baseless.
The article ends with, “How do the biblical accounts of giants (Nephilim, Anakim, Rephaim) compare to the Mesopotamian depictions of ‘Big Men’ (Lugal) and figures like Gilgamesh?” well, uhm, thy all had feet, ears, heads, elbows, etc., and were mighty in one or another way but that’s about all folks.
It’s also asked, “What role does fear and perception play in the biblical [10 unreliable rebuked] spies’ report of the giants in Canaan (Numbers 13:33)?” it played a hugely gigantic role that led to the fear-mongering scare-tactic, “Don’t go in the woods!!!” style of tall-tale.
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