Paul Pavao self-describes, in part, as, “I teach, and I am always trying to learn to disciple others…God has gifted me to restore proper theological foundations to the Christian faith. In order to ensure that I do not become a heretic, I read the early church fathers from the second and third centuries. They were around when all the churches founded by the apostles were in unity. My philosophy for Bible reading is to understand each verse for exactly what it says in its local context. Only after accepting the verse for what it says do I compare it with other verses to develop my theology…”
His article is Ignoring the Giants: Nephilim, Anakim, and the Sons of God
His site is Truth Before [denominational] Tribe and is tag lined as A Militant Quest for Honesty Among the Saints of God.
The title’s reference to, “Ignoring the Giants: Nephilim, Anakim” and that he begins with, “The giants–the Nephilim, Anakim, and Rephaim–occupy a central role in the books of Moses” begs these key questions: what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s his usage? Do those two usages agree?
Those are key since, for example, he continued with, “They show up again in 1 Samuel when David fights Goliath” but who are, “They”? Whatever his usage of giants is? Nephilim? Anakim? Rephaim?
Well, his goal is, “to focus, though, on a well-documented side story of giants in Genesis through Deuteronomy” so perhaps we will get an answer.
He quotes that which I term the Gen 6 affair’s v. 4thusly:
The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when God’s sons came in to men’s daughters and had children with them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
Now, he quoted a verse about, “the Nephilim” but went on to assert:
They come up again in Genesis 14:
In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and struck the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim, and the Horites in their Mount Seir, to El Paran, which is by the wilderness. They returned, and came to En Mishpat (also called Kadesh), and struck all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that lived in Hazazon Tamar.
Did you notice anything about Nephilim?
Yet, he’s committing a typical linguistics error since not having told us his usage of giants, he asserts, “Rephaim and Emim are also giants, said to be so in Deuteronomy” so he reads about, “the Zuzim…the Emim…the Amalekites, and also the Amorites” mashes them all into the giants category and that somehow means that Nephilim come up again in Genesis 14 where they’re not mentioned so that’s a category error that violates the law of identity.
Paul Pavao noted:
Later, Moses sends spies into the Promised Land to check out its fertility and inhabitants. Ten of the spies came back terrified, saying …
The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” (Num. 13:32-33)
In this story, we find that the giants in the land of Canaan, to whom the spies seemed to be mere grasshoppers, were Nephilim, specifically the descendants of Anak. The descendants of Anak are also called the Anakim, and we will see them again as well. In fact, let’s leap to the most important chapters on the Nephilim, Anakim, and Rephaim, both in Deuteronomy:
Yahweh said to me [Moses], “Don’t bother Moab, neither contend with them in battle; for I will not give you any of his land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the children of Lot for a possession.” The Emim lived there before, a great and numerous people, and tall as the Anakim. These also are considered to be Rephaim, as the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim. The Horites also lived in Seir in the past, but the children of Esau succeeded them. They destroyed them from before them, and lived in their place, as Israel did to the land of his possession, which Yahweh gave to them. (Deut. 2:9-12)
The comments about the giants here are likely an insertion into Moses’ speech by another writer, probably a later editor. The version I read, the World English Bible (because it has no copyright), puts parentheses around the parts about the Rephaim, Anakim, and Emim. This editor clearly approved of the fact that the Moabites and Edomites (sons of Esau) destroyed the giants. You may remember that the Emim were mentioned in Genesis 14.
He cut to the chase but the issue is that when we interact with the narrative we note that 12 spies were sent, a report is presented, Caleb (with Joshua siding with him) encourage doing that which God commanded (conquering the land), the 10 others show themselves to be unfaithful, disloyal, contradictory, embellishers by discouraging, and we’re then told they presented an evil report.
Anyone appealing to Num 13:33 needs 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)
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
8. Then post-flood Nephilologists have to invent un-biblical fantasy tall-tales about how Nephilim got past the flood, past God.
I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal—which I’m currently updating.
Paul Pavao didn’t deal with any of these issues.
Thus, it’s a case of, “In this story, we find” that on one single unreliable non-LXX sentence from one single unreliable evil report spoken by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked, merely asserted a fantasy tall-tale about, “that the giants [Nephilim] in the land of Canaan, to whom the” 10 unreliable, “spies seemed to be mere grasshoppers, were” only in non-LXX versions, “Nephilim, specifically the descendants of Anak.”
In, “the most important chapters on the Nephilim, Anakim, and Rephaim” did you read anything about Nephilim?
We learned that Rephaim were aka Emim—and aka Zamzummim or Zuzim in a portion he didn’t quote—and that Anakim were like a clan of that tribe. Thus, Rephaim, by any other name, include Anakim but the one and only way that he can correlate them to Nephilim is by wholly relying on one single unreliable non-LXX sentence from one single unreliable evil report spoken by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
The imaginary later editor and modern English parentheses are irrelevant since the text is missing the key data point Paul Pavao needs but can’t find—anywhere.
He then quotes, “…only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron. Isn’t it in Rabbah of the children of Ammon? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its width, after the cubit of a man. (Deut. 3:10-11)” and notes, “13 1/2 ft. by 6 ft. bed.”
He then attempts to make a Repha and a bed to have something to do with Nephilim via, “Nephilim of Genesis 6:4 were definitely giants” which biblically contextually would mean, “Nephilim of Genesis 6:4 were definitely Nephilim.”
Clearly, the answer to the third key question is no, his usage of giants doesn’t agree with the English Bibles’ usage since 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.
Thus, he was telling us, well, “Nephilim of Genesis 6:4 were definitely” 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) even though Gen 6 doesn’t even hint at any such thing.
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 pop-Nephilology—the modern branch of which is just un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales.
For more on the relevant linguistics and Og see my book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010 and The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
Paul Pavao noted:
Note: AFTER I wrote this, I ran it by ChatGPT. It told me that “definitely heavenly beings” is overstating my case. Yes, the Nephilim were definitely giants, but my case for their fathers being heavenly beings is more probably than definite. I don’t agree, but I am passing on the warning.
He should have asked ChatGPT what its usage of giants is.
See, he’s committing a very common fallacy amongst Nephilologists: he’s chasing the generic modern English word giants around a specific ancient Hebrew Bible and just mashing together all verses in which it appears regardless of context.
He has a portion dealing with, “the sons of God” about whom I’ll simply note:
Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that, “sons of God” can refer to non-human beings (which some LXX editions have as “Angeloi”: plural of “Angelos”) since they, at the very least, witnessed the creation of the Earth.
Jude and 2 Peter 2 combined refer to a sin of Angels, place that sin to pre-flood days and correlate it to sexual sin which occurred after the Angels, “left their first estate,” after which they were incarcerated, and there’s only a one-time fall of Angels in the Bible. So, if they’re not referring to the Gen 6 affair, we’ve no idea to what sin they’re referring.
The original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christian 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.
He also gets into 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.
By the way, “ChatGPT pointed out that Tertullian, a Carthaginian lawyer writing around AD 200-220, argues for the authority of 1 Enoch in ‘On the Apparel of Women,’ ch. 1, par. 3. It also points out that the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches have 1 Enoch in their canon. Here’s a video of Dr. Wes Huff explaining Enoch.”
Yes, circa half a handful of early church writers accepted 1 Enoch compared to literally everyone else beginning in BC days which don’t.
That 1 Enoch is in the Ethiopian canon doesn’t make that one canon uniquely correct but rather, uniquely incorrect since 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from millennia after the Torah (see my book, “In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch”) in fact, that cannon also contains a text titled, “The Life of Adam and Eve” which claims that when God created Adam, God commanded the Angels to worship Adam.
The Eritrean Orthodox canon includes Jubilees as well which I would described as I did 1 Enoch.
He ends with, “Tomorrow, it seems, we should talk about the origin of demons!” and considering his appeal to 1 Enoch I’ll preempt by noting that That demons are the spirits of dead Nephilim is just folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah. For a biblical view, please see my article Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?
It would be truly wonderful if it was the case that, “God has gifted me to restore proper theological foundations to the Christian faith” but considering the article undergoing review, Paul Pavao is not accomplishing his God gifted mission at this point and has a lot to learn and discern.
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