This is review of podcast notes for episode Deuteronomy: Giants and Justice.
The title’s reference to, “Giants” 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 The Bible Project’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
Do those two usages agree?
Reference is made to, “Nephilim, the evil demon-human hybrid beings we first met in Genesis 6” which is an instant issue since they weren’t, “demon-human” but, “Angel-human.”
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.
As for the difference between Angels and demons, please see my article, Demons Ex Machina: What are Demons?
Directly thereafter, we’re told, “they resurface as giants inhabiting Canaan” so we seem to have gotten the answer to key question 2 which means that the answer to key question 3 is, “No”: at least, 50%—stand by.
We are told, “The Nephilim were spiritual being-human hybrids and wicked, violent giants. The Anakim, who inhabited the land of Canaan, were descendants of the Nephilim.”
Let’s review:
I actually have no idea what, “We are told, “spiritual being-human hybrids” means but they were human-Angel hybrids.
As for, “wicked, violent” that would be as per the greater context of Gen 6.
As for, “giants,” the key questions are:
What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
What’s the podcaster’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
Do those two usages agree?
As for, “Anakim…were descendants of the Nephilim”: that’s based on one single, non-LXX, sentence from an, “evil report” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked so there’s zero reason to believe that and many problems with believing it such as how Nephilim managed to make it past the flood, past God? Let’s see if the podcast review convers that key issue. Besides, Anakim were a clan of the Rephaim tribe and were named after a man named Anak, Arba’s son.
This follows directly with, “The flood is an important archetype of judgment” but, of course, any archetype comes after the actual event.
A subsection titles, “Giants in the Land” notes, “a second key theme in the first movement of Deuteronomy, giants”—whatever that means.
Another subsection is, “The Anakim and Nephilim” and we are told that, “Moses mentions giants in Deuteronomy…Moses refers to a group of people called the ‘Anakim’” but, again, the only way to correlate Anakim with Nephilim is, you guessed it, one single non-LXX sentence by unreliable guys whom God rebuked: the, “evil report” of Nun 13:333. Thus, the review wasn’t even able to back its assertion about Nephilim in Duet: but then again, it was not about, “Nephilim” therein, it was about whatever is meant by, “giants” and when you speak and write in unspecific manners then you water things down enough to give the appearance of making things fit that actually do not.
It is noted that, “the 12 spies sent to explore the promised land identified the Anakim as well as the Nephilim” but, as I just noted, that’s mistaken since Caleb, and Joshua who sided with him, were not part of they who merely asserted having seen Nephilim.
We’re also told, “Anakim were considered ‘bad guys’ in the biblical story, representing the greatest evil of both humans and spiritual beings.” Yes, they were bad guys but there’s no indication of any to represent, “spiritual beings.” We’re also told of, “the storyline of the Nephilim and Anakim throughout the Torah” but those are two distinct story lines: with the exaction, I supposed, that they converge only via pointing out that non-LXX versions correlate them only within the unreliable, “evil report.”
“Nephilim, giant human-spiritual being hybrids” are noted—whatever that means—and that, “the clock starts ticking down toward the great de-creation event in the Torah, the flood.” But if the flood de-created Nephilim how, pray tell, were they recreated post-flood? In no way per the Bible and in no way that is stated, it’s only generically assumed, in the podcast notes.
It’s further noted, “The flood is God’s response to the violence of the Nephilim” but He must have failed since they were still around post-flood and so the flood was much of a waste—at least as per post-flood fallacious Nephilology.
Interestingly, it’s noted that Deuteronomy 7:1-3 states:
When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to take possession of it, and he drives away many nations from before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God turns them over to you and you defeat them, you shall utterly destroy them. You shall not make a covenant with them nor be gracious to them. Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them.
Indeed, mentioned are, “Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites” but not Nephilim. In fact, the patriarchs, Moses, et al., were told of the people living in and around the land but were never told one single word about Nephilim.
So, again, “we’re told, ‘they resurface as giants inhabiting Canaan’ so we seem to have gotten the answer to key question 2 which means that the answer to key question 3 is, ‘No’: at least, 50%—stand by.”
I noted 50% and that’s all we got. In the English versions which employ the term giants it merely renders (doesn’t even translate) Nephilim in two texts and what was missed in the review which is that it renders Rephaim in 98% of all others—and, FYI, it never even hints at anything to do with height whatsoever.
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