Shepherd Campbell wrote an article titled Nephilim Giants for the Israel, a history of site.
Since biblically contextually, “Nephilim Giants” means, “Nephilim Nephilim” we will have to discern between the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles vs. his usage.
He notes that the Gen 6 records what he puts as that, “The corruption of the earth was widely credited to the Nephilim in Genesis. The earth had become so corrupt and perverted that God felt the simultaneous destruction of earth and man was the only solution…to destroy the earth and every living thing upon it.”
He has it that, “an unknown race of beings called ‘sons of God’. Perhaps these were human, perhaps divine…produced offspring…Nephilim giants.” As for the unknown beings well, Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that “sons of God” can refer to non-human beings (which the LXX has 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/sin of Angels in the Bible.
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.
Shepherd Campbell asks and answers, “Was the giant Goliath a descendant of the Nephilim? Could Goliath have been a distant descendant of the Nephilim? Goliath may have been closely related to the giants from Numbers who lived in the land of Canaan prior to the Conquest under Joshua”: keep an eye especially on the latter point—stand by.
He notes, “The controversy of this passage rests on the interpretation and identity of the ‘sons of God’, also known as the Nephilim giants” yet, Nephilim were offspring of the sons of God which is something he goes on to state, “Nephilim giants are the offspring of these mysterious ‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men.’”
He explores one alternative option which is, “the ‘sons of God’ refers to the sons of Seth, ie, the human male descendants of Seth; and the ‘daughters of men’ is taken to mean the daughters of Cain, ie, human females descended from the lineage of Cain” along with a fantasy about, “the cursed seed of Cain” which somehow led to, “unholy marriage.”
Pray tell: why weren’t there any attractive female Sethites nor attractive male Cainites?
In any case, the Sethie view is a late-comer of a view based on myth, prejudice, and which only creates more problems than it solves—so, more than zero.
We end up getting the answer to his usage of, “giants” in that he counter-argues, “If the Nephilim giants from Genesis were the descendants of Cain, why would such a union produce giants, or mighty men of renown?” Thus, he’s clearly implying a usage of giants which is as useless as vaguely referring to some generically subjective level of height above the parochial average: which means virtually nothing.
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.
Shepherd Campbell concludes, “Evidence continues to support the theory of the Nephilim giants being a by-product of angelic and human unions.”
He notes, “Angels can appear in physical, human form. They can eat food, walk, and talk just like humans. There are numerous instances in the Bible of angels appearing to men and women in male forms” but it’s not a case of, “can…appearing…” but rather, Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such isn’t their ontology. See my book, What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.
He points out, “The King James translates ‘Nephilim’ as ‘giants’. This, however, is not an accurate translation of the word. Nephilim comes from the root, naphal. Naphal has been translated as, ‘fallen ones’. A more accurate translation is, ‘to fall’, ‘lie’, ‘be cast down’, ‘fail’” which is why, “giants” isn’t a translation but rather a rendering.
Campbell wrote, “A similar term is found in Aramaic culture. Nephila was used in Aramaic culture to describe the constellation Orion. The linguistic resemblance of Nephila and Nephilim are clear. From this, it followed that the Nephilim giants were the semi-divine ancestors of Orion, in Aramaic culture.”
It’s more like that one of the usages of Nephila (aka naphiyla) is referring to Orion. As for, “linguistic resemblance of Nephila and Nephilim” well, nephila/naphiyla means the same as naphal: fallen/to fall/feller/to cause to fall, etc. Some demand that it means giant but that’s circular since it begs the question: What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in Aramaic sources? What’s your usage? Do those two usages agree?
Thus, it’s too (myopically) specific to conclude, “Nephilim giants were the semi-divine ancestors of Orion, in Aramaic culture.”
I ran across the article Biblical astrology: Orion which notes, “Orion, the mighty hunter, is Kesil in the Hebrew, a strange word that is also translated as fool. According to Peake’s commentary, Orion is Nephila in Aramaic [p260], which means that the Nephilim – a race of giants – were the descendents of Orion. A very similar word, (H5307 [naphal]) means the fallen ones, although the etymology is uncertain. The Nephilim could then be identified with the Orionids meteor shower.”
It’s not, “Orion…means that the Nephilim” but that via some linguistics machinations, some correlate them. As for, “Nephilim– a race of giants” keep in mind two things:
1) biblically contextually, “Nephilim– a race of giants” means, “Nephilim– a race of Nephilim” which is redundantly useless.
2) he means, “Nephilim– a race of vaguely, generically, subjective level of height above the parochial average” and yet, 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, “Nephilim could then be identified with the Orionids meteor shower” well, if I had to interact with that concept I would say that meteors are called shooting stars, that there are biblical allowances for referring to Angels as stars, and that meteor shower can be symbolic of the fall of Angels: as strained as that my be in terms of levels of linguistics abstraction.
Campbell then tells us, “The Greek Septuagint translates Nephilim as ‘gegenes’. Gegenes implies ‘giants’, however the word has little to do with size and strength. The correct translation of ‘gegenes’ is ‘earth born’. In fact, the Greek mythological Titans were described as Gegenes. Indeed, the Nephilim giants in Genesis were also earth-born beings. This meant they were the offspring of diving beings and humans, and they were born on earth, as opposed to created in the heavens.”
It would have been refreshing for him to have written the English Bibles’ usage of the word, “‘giants’…has” nothing, “to do with size.”
More typically, the Septuagint/LXX uses gigantes (or gigas) both of which refer to the Greek false goddess Gaia with the former, indeed, referring to earth-born.
Yet, “the Greek mythological Titans were described as” gegenes/gigantes but why the LXX uses that term is unknown. Was it because Titans and Nephilim were both of vaguely, generically, subjective level of height above the parochial average or both tyrannical or both hybrids? It’s unknown.
Also, there were more than one generation of Titans with some having the lower bodies of serpents and a hundred hands. Well, we can assume that the LXX renderers weren’t fixated on height since they also rendered gibborim as such but that’s just a descriptive term for might/mighty and concepts/descriptions don’t have sizes: might isn’t gigantically tall.
He notes, “God allotted man 120 years on the earth before He destroyed it. One hundred and twenty years would have been more than enough time for the Nephilim in Genesis to corrupt all of man, and spread their influence across the globe…from the rain forests of South America, to the Far East.” Yet, they didn’t first come into being at the beginning of the 120 year period but, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them” which could have been as early as when Adam and Eve’s children started having children. As for, “from the rain forests of South America, to the Far East” since those were pre-flood days what, pray tell, were South America and the Far East back then—and wherever they were, they would have been washed away in the flood.
He then references, “the book of Enoch” without telling us which one and notes, “The Catholic Church deemed this book heretical. However, the ancients viewed this work as divine scripture. Jesus Christ and His disciples would have been thoroughly familiar with the book of Enoch . Astonishingly, the New Testament resonates with themes and passages found in Enoch’s writings.”
Well, “ancients” is a tragically vague term and as for being, “familiar with” well, I’m also familiar with those books and can tell you that 1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah and the others are even worse—see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.