Pillar College posted a video fully titled The Nephilim: Ancient Giants of Myth and Legend Explained in 2024 which is an interview with someone who isn’t identified.
It’s noted that Nephilim, “first appear in Genesis chapter 6” and it’s noted that the, “im” ending in, “Nephilim” is, “plural”—technically, it’s male plural.
A version that reads, “Nephilim” is quoted and it’s then noted, “generally it’s translated, ‘the giants’”—technically, that’s a rendering, not a translation.
What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
What’s the interviewee’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
If consistent, biblically contextually, the usage is that it refers to Nephilim, by definition.
It’s noted, “Nephilim were the product of the relations between sons of God, bene [ha] Elohim and the daughters of man” which, it’s concluded, refers to, “sons of the gods” (we’re not told who those gods are) and humans.
We’re told, “the backstory of this is you, if you read in both Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, there are comments about who Satan was and then his fall and the idea, and we pick this up also in Revelation 12, that when he was kicked out of heaven…God kicked him and a third of the other elohim, the sons of God, out of heaven and where does it say He sent them? To the Earth…He sent them to, this planet was not yet inhabited by humans, that’s why Genesis 1 starts out, ‘the earth was without form and darkness was upon the face of the deep’ it was void.”
As for Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, see my post The Apocalypse of the Hidden Hand: The Bible’s teaching on the spiritual sovereign behind the human sovereign.
Yet, the rest of the comment is anachronistic. Rev 12 is clearly a chronological chapter but doesn’t begin when, “he was” first, “kicked out of heaven” since it has it that, “God” will kick, not the past tense, “kicked him and a third of the other Elohim, the sons of God, out of heaven.” It has that as a post-Jessus’ ascension event and not when, “this planet was not yet inhabited by humans” so it has nothing to do with, “the earth was without form and darkness was upon the face of the deep’ it was void.”
Rev 12 starts with Satan already being the dragon so it picks up when he’s already fallen, it then has Jesus’ birth and ascension, then the war in heaven followed by Satan and, “his Angels” being cast to Earth thereafter.
We’re then told, “every time after every day” of creation, “God says, ‘Ah it is good…it is good’ and then after day six, when He creates man He say, ‘it’s very good.’ If it’s all good where did the snake come from? Where did the serpent come from? Where did Satan come from? He was already here.”
It’s not so much a matter of, “where” he came from but of when and the Gen 3 timeline is the time during which he fell.
It’s noted, “when you get to this passage that we just read from, Genesis 6, Satan’s trying to create his beings in his own image.” Well, that may be some manner of speaking but the fact is that Satan’s only known role in the Gen 6 affair is that he cast the 1/3 of Angels to Earth—which would be during the Gen 6 timeline: the beginning of that timeline, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them.”
A question is displayed on the vid asking, “How big were the Nephilim”? the reply to which is, “there are several names that are use, the Nephilim is the first name. Studies have shown, and we find it even in the Book of Enoch, okay, so the Book of Enoch is not in our Bible but it was in the Bible, so to speak, of the New Testament people before the canon was decided upon, what should be in the Old Testament, what should be in the New Testament, both in the Book of Jude and Second Peter, there are references to the Book of Enoch.”
There’s literally zero indication that, “there are several names that are use” for Nephilim.
I realize it’s a vid and a segment of a longer interview at that (11 mins, 57 secs) but the studies go unnamed and uncited.
It’s tragic that the implications are that, “the Book of Enoch,” he really means 1 Enoch, “was in the Bible” because, Jude quotes Enoch and others may paraphrase it: that’s a non-sequitur. Well, Paul quoted Geek poets, are we to then assert that those texts were, “in the Bible”?
It also wasn’t noted that 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.
We’re told, “the Book of Enoch says that the Nephilim were 300 cubits high…450 ft.” One reason we can know that the text is folkloric is assertions such as that Nephilim were well, hold on: it actually claims that they were 3,000 and measures as per ells which amounts to being miles tall which is great folklore but poor reality.
The interviewee ends up stating, “was Enoch wrong, I don’t know” but does seek to support it by making appeals to that, “nobody knows how things like Stonehenge and Easter Island and even the pyramids were formed, right, I mean did, how did that happen, they had no equipment, as far as we know” which is a double argument from silence.
It’s then asserted, “So, you got Nephilim. Then later on they’re called Rephidim: so Goliath was a Rephidim. Goliath, as we know, was about 9 and 1/2 ft tall.” Rephidim is actually a place name, he’s supposed to be referring to Rephaim.
Yes, Goliath was a Repha but there’s literally zero reliable indication that Rephaim is an aka for Nephilim.
Also, why were we not told that the Masoretic text has him at that 9.5 ft height 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.
Yet, that’s all irrelevant since, again, the question was about Nephilim but he replied about a Repha and merely asserted that Rephaim equals Nephilim.
It’s then noted, “when Moses sent the spies up into Canaan and they came back, 10 of them, terrified because, ‘we seemed like, little’ ‘we saw giants in the land and we seemed like little grasshoppers in their sight.’” It’s interesting that in the vid, he very quickly included the qualifier, “10 of them” yet that’s the key but for some odd reason, he didn’t elucidate that he’s actually exclusively relying on, believing and applying one sentence from an evil report (Num 13:30-33) by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked—guys who just made up an impossible tall-tale and contradicted Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible—see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
That is the only physical description of Nephilim in the Bible and so the dirty little secret is that we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim and so their height is a non-issue.
We’re then told, “Amorites and the Amalekites which were, kind of, the tribal names for some of the Nephilim” which is another mere assertion for which there’s literally no indication.
It’s then noted, “King Og and Shihon who are both described as [changes the pronunciation to] Rephi’im, they’re sons of Anak they, and, and they’re beds are referred to as being 13 ft long, you know and, 6 feet wide and, and they were the last, according to the text there, of the Nephilim.”
Yet, they were Rephaim, it’s unknown is they were specifically Anakim (Anakim being a clan of the Rephaim tribe) and we’re told of Og’s bed, not, “they’re beds” plural. We’ve no physical description of either of them and merely asserting that a bed has something to do with height is based on many mere assumptions: it 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?
As for, “they were the last, according to the text there, of the Nephilim” there’s literally no such statement in the entire Bible. Firstly, something like that was stated about Og, not Shihon, and secondly, he was said to be the last of the Rephaim, not Nephilim (Deuteronomy 3:11).
We’re then told, “so later on there still seem to be giants but they’re called other names, Rephidim.”
Well, it would seem that the answer to the second key question above is that his usage is something vague about subjectively unusual height which means that the answer to the third key question is, “no.” And that’s because in the English Bibles which employ it, the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” 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.
But what of subjectively unusual height? Well, sure Goliath was about just over 1.5 ft. taller than the subjective average, we’ve no physical description of Og, and we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim. Ergo, the reply to how big Nephilim were was a non-reply.
It’s then noted, “the whole purpose of the flood, apparently, is to wipe out this aberrant race created in the image of Satan, the fallen Elohim and, um, so, but you can’t drown a spirit. So, you asked me earlier were they spirits or physical they, they were drowned as, as you know, beings, except the spirits, and it is thought, generally, pretty widely, that the, uh, the residue of the Nephilim, or the spirits which, which are today the demons.”
After that, it’s noted, “Angels are not elohim and, and really there were no fallen Angels, what, what fell were the elohim that went with Satan.”
Note what just happened here:
He told us that there were post-flood Nephilim, by any other name.
He told us, “the whole purpose of the flood, apparently, is to wipe out this aberrant race.”
If that was, “the whole purpose” but there were post-flood Nephilim then God failed, He missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
He didn’t get around to telling us how it was that Nephilim got past the flood, past God.
He told us that there were post-flood Nephilim that were physical and could be described as very tall—by the unreliable.
Yet, he seems to take a step back to merely claiming spirit post-flood Nephilim (as 1 Enoch has) along with another generic uncited assertion about something to do with, “it is thought, generally, pretty widely” that demons are dead Nephilim. Well, for some odd reason, he didn’t tell us that he’s merely asserting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah—for a biblical view, please see my article, Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?
Also, he previously argued that, “God kicked…a third of the other elohim, the sons of God, out of heaven” specifically based on, “Revelation 12” which very specifically identifies the 1/3 as, “Angels.” Yet, he now merely asserts, “Angels are not elohim.”
He also merely asserts, “really there were no fallen Angels” yet, Jude wrote of, “angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling” and 2 Peter 2 reference that, “God did not spare angels when they sinned.”
Pillar College’s mission statement reads that it, “educates, inspires, and equips students for excellent scholarship, service, and leadership. Rooted in and committed to Christian faith and love, PC fosters intellectual, spiritual, and social development among its diverse student population at various instructional sites.”
It’s stunning that such a Christian academic institution is charging student to lean un-biblical, incoherent, anachronistic pop-Nephilology.
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