Rabbi Cantor Inna Serebro-Litvak independently wrote an article for The Times of Israel’s blog titled “Giants” Among Us.
The bio states that this Rabbi, “pursued her undergraduate studies at the Music Academy of Tel Aviv University…completed her Rabbinic Ordination and Master’s Degree in Jewish Studies at AJR…is currently serving as the senior rabbi.”
She begins by noting, “the average height of an NBA player is 6 feet 7 inches…roughly eight inches taller than the average American male and probably about ten inches taller than the average Jewish American male.”
To that, she appends, “Yet I don’t think that when encountering such a ‘giant’ we feel intimidated. On the contrary, if we came across a Knicks player, we would probably be very excited. Most likely, we would ask for a selfie and an autograph…if you were walking through a rough neighborhood and someone of that height were walking toward you, you might be frightened.”
My typical questions to anyone referring to giants is: what is the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s your usage? Do those two usages agree?
Her usage is clearly 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).
That means that the answer to whether there’s agreement is: no. That’s because the usage in modern 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.
Rabbi Inna Serebro-Litvak elucidated:
That [frightened] is exactly how ten of the twelve spies whom Moses sent to scout the Land of Canaan (modern-day Israel) felt upon seeing the Anakites (which literally translates to “giants”) and the Nephilim. Once they saw those enormous inhabitants of the Promised Land, the land did not look so promising to them!
Hence, when they returned with their report, they tried to dissuade the Israelites from moving forward by saying: “We cannot go up against this people, for they are stronger than we are!… The land we traveled through to inspect is a land that consumes its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size… We seemed to ourselves as tiny as grasshoppers next to them, and so did we seem to them!” (Numbers 13:31–33)
Caleb and Joshua—the other two spies—had a very different impression. Caleb said to the Israelites, “We can go up and take possession of it [the land], for we can indeed overcome it [the giants].” (Numbers 13:30)
There is no indication of fear by Joshua and Caleb.
There is no indication of, “Anakites…literally translates to ‘giants.’”
If, “Anakites…literally translates to ‘giants’” that only begs the key questions I asked above: we can only know from her usage that she claims it translated so something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average.
Anak was the man after whom Anakim/Anakites are named and it means something like long neck.
See my linguistics book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
It is not merely a matter of that, “Caleb and Joshua…had a very different impression” in that they were assured they would still be successful—and, “overcome it [the giants]” is clearly an artificial insertion.
There is not even any reliable indication of, “enormous inhabitants of the Promised Land.”
There is no indication of, “the twelve spies…seeing…Nephilim.”
There is no indication of, “the twelve spies…their report” singular.
There is no indication of, “the twelve spies…tried to dissuade” and if there is then what happened to, “Caleb and Joshua…had a very different impression” since they were two of the twelve?
Twelve are sent, they return but two reports are presented: the first is a reliable report that is accepted as is in terms of factuality. What Rabbi Inna Serebro-Litvak did is to ignore that one, only appeal to the evil report.
Anyone appealing to Num 13:33 needs to mention that they are 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.”
Also, the dirty little secret is that since we have 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.
She continued by noting, “the scare tactics of the ten spies” emphasis added for emphasis, “worked…Joshua, the son of Nun, offered another perspective. He said, ‘The land we traveled through to inspect is an exceedingly good land. If God desires us, He will bring us to this land and give it to us, this land flowing with milk and honey.’ (Numbers 14:7–8).”
Yet, that was not only, “another perspective” it was the original perspective which was a report of what was seen in the land, what God was giving them and who was to be conquered.
Incidentally, yet vitally important, the original report listed whom they saw, “the descendants of Anak…The Amalekites…The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites…And the Canaanites.” Note that Nephilim are missing from that list: that is because they were not there—they could not have been—the ten embellished the original report with a fear-mongering, scare-tactic, “Don’t go in the woods!!!” style of tall-tale.
That is about all there is for me to review since it exhausts my contextual interest: the rest is about modern Israeli history, politics, the new New York Mayor, etc., to the effect of, “Friends, these ‘giants’ continue to appear among us…” which also goes to show the aforementioned multi-usage nature of the word giants.
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