A certain Sarah published an As in the Days of Noah Series of articles on the Extrabiblical Librarian site which was of interest to me since I have written the following contextually relevant books:
The Apocryphal Nephilim and Giants: Encountering Nephilim and Giants in Extra-Biblical Texts
In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch
The Paranormal in Early Jewish and Christian Commentaries: Over a Millennia’s Worth of Comments on Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Satan, the Devil, Demons, the Serpent and the Dragon
Sarah self-IDs as, “I love the Bible, Yahushua (Jesus), and His commands. I also have a strong passion for extra-biblical writings!”
First in the series is What Can We Learn about Angels from Extra-Biblical Books?
An intriguing statement in the intro is, “Yahushua (Jesus) equated His return to the days of Noah. In this series, we will investigate what extra-biblical books reveal about the days of Noah” which is intriguing since via texts such the Bible contradicting folklore in 1 Enoch from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, we get what may range from historical fiction to fraudulent hoax and from delusions of prophecy to much more including any mixture of these—which is the stuff of which pseudepigrapha, as well as some apocrypha, is made.
Sarah notes, “Angels are often called messengers” but it is more a matter of that the Hebrew מַּלְאָכִ/mal’āḵ means messenger—this was a mere linguistics note.
She added, “They are also known as sons of God in the Book of Job. (Job 1:6-7, 2:1-2, 38:7)” about which I will emphasize that Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that sons of God can refer to non-human beings (which the LXX has as ἄγγελοί/Angeloi: plural of Angelos) since they, at the very least, witnessed the creation of the Earth.
I will note that she quotes the Literal Standard Version of Jubilees 2:2 which refers to God creating, “all the spirits which serve before Him—the messengers” but that is a problematic and wrongly translated/rendered modern English category into which to put Angels since they are not spirits.
Biblically, Angels are always described as looking like human males, performing physical actions, and without indication that such is not their ontology—see my book What Does the Bible Say About Angels? A Styled Angelology.
Saran goes on to note, “1 Enoch, specifies three types of angels: cherubim, seraphim, and ophanim” yet, such a statement is actually quite common but it is a category error which violates the law of identity.
Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, and Ophanim are four categories of being which are distinguished one from another in at least three ways: different job titles, different job functions, different morphologies.
The only types of Angels, if we may categorize them as such, would be The Angel of the LORD, the Archangel (Michael), and regular Angels (I suppose) with subcategories perhaps being able to be said to be guardian Angels, the Angel of death/destroying Angel, etc. if, that is, those are wholly roles and not styled additional duties as it were.
She adds, “Watchers are another type of angel” but its is more of another case of a linguistics issue since Watchers is really merely an a.k.a. for Malakim/Angels from the Second Temple Era (516 BC-70 AD: which is why it is used in 1 Enoch, for example).
Sarah wrote, “Another Watcher: Lucifer” but that takes us back to the category error since he is a Cherub (Ezek 28). Thus, when she continues with, “He became the first fallen watcher” he actually became the first, and perhaps only, fallen Cherub.
As for that fall, she notes it, “probably happened shortly after Creation. (1 John 3:8)” with that verse reading, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” Indeed, the moment of his fall was during the Gen 3 timeline.
She further noted, “Lucifer’s name, meaning shining one, changed to Satan, meaning adversary or accuser. His form also changed, although he still possessed extreme intelligence.”
Well, Satan is not a name but is merely one of various manners in which to refer to him. For example, Rev chaps 12 and 20 refer to, “the great dragon…that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan” There is also no indication that, “His form also changed” nor does Sarah elucidate that assertion.
We now come to the second article of the series which is titled The Sin of the Watchers.
She notes, “1 Enoch 15:6-7 teaches that angels were not intended to have wives and reproduce. Yahushua (Jesus) alluded to this in Matthew 22:30 and Mark 12:25. Elohim did not create female angels.”
That is quite correct—recall my statement regarding Angels looking just like human males.
Jesus specified that God’s Angels in heaven (two qualifiers) do not marry nor are they given in marriage.
She continued with, “But the watchers wanted wives. In the days of Jered (Enoch’s father and Noah’s great-great-grandfather), 200 watchers formed a coup. (1 Enoch 6:3-6) They disguised themselves as humans, chose wives, and had children.”
Gen 6 is vague in stating, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.”
The Enoch text specifies, “In the days of Jered” and also specifies, “200”—from wherever the author got those ideas, to include merely making them up.
As for, “disguised themselves as humans” well, that is neither biblical nor Enochical and also goes contra biblical Angelology: they did not need to disguise themselves as humans since they already, ontologically, look like humans.
This, of course, got us into the Angel view of that which I term the Gen 6 affair and that view was the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians commentators, starting in BC days, 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.
Sarah notes, “The fallen watchers’ children were not ordinary. They were giants. Many Bible translations call them by their Hebrew name Nephilim.”
That begs the key questions: what is the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants in English Bibles? What is her usage? Do those two usages agree?
She notes:
The fallen Watchers taught their wives, their children, and the other humans many wicked practices. (1 Enoch 7-8) They introduced the following sins:
Fornication
Abortion
Drugs
Sorcery
Astrology
Gene alteration
Drinking blood
Cannibalism
Weapon Production
War
I am quite unsure how she got Gene alteration out of 1 Enoch.
She noted, “The faithful watchers imprisoned the fallen in an abyss under the Earth (a.k.a. Sheol). There they await their eternal punishment on Judgment Day. (1 Enoch 10:11-16, Jubilees 5:6,10) The Apostles Peter and Jude referred to this.”
Sheol is actually where all human dead went pre-Jesus’ sacrifice—it is known simply as the grave. Yet, 2 Peter 2 specifies that they were incarcerated in Tartarus which is associated with the abyss in Greek mythology—and it is to that which we must term since biblically, the term Tartarus is a hapax legomenon so there is no biblical manner whereby to define it.
Based on 1 Enoch’s assertions and whatever other sources, Sarah claims, “Before Yahushua’s return, we will again see the evils that the Watchers taught. This includes war, abortion, GMOs, homosexuality, and the alteration of human DNA.”
The next segment is The Return of the Nephilim wherein she notes that Sirach 16:7 has it that, “‘He [the Lord] was not pacified toward the old giants, who fell away in the strength of their foolishness.’ (KJVA).”
That text, from the 2nd century BC, employs the term γιγαντων/gigantōn which was rendered as giants and which is a styled genitive plural form of the noun γίγας/gigas which has a linguistic relationship with γίγαντες/gigantes.
Those words ultimately spring from a reference to the Greek mythological Earth false goddess Gaia and refer to being Earth-born, born of Gaia.
Now, γιγαντων or γίγαντες or γίγας are used by the LXX/Septuagint to render, not even translate, Nephilim in 2 verses or Repha/im in 98% of all others—and so, just in case it is relevant to anyone’s interests, never even hints at anything to do with any sort of height whatsoever.
With the title as a premise, she notes that, “we’ll tack a deeper look at the Nephilim and their prophesied return.”
From the Gen 6 affair she derives that, “Nephilim were half human and half angelic, part mortal and part immortal. They were mighty, well-known men” and from elsewhere, she adds, “According to tradition, Nephilim were extremely intelligent and had tremendous physical abilities.”
From elsewhere still, she adds, “Remains of major Nephilim civilizations have been found in Peru and the Ohio Valley. Their skeletons have surfaced all over the world! They had enormous skulls and reached heights of anywhere from 8 to 36 feet. Some had 6 fingers and toes and even 2 sets of teeth.”
There is only one slight problem with those assertions: there is literally zero indication of any of it.
See, the reasoning is that we can know that, “major Nephilim civilizations have been found” due to having found, “Their skeletons” which feature, “enormous skulls…8 to 36 feet…6 fingers and toes and even 2 sets of teeth.”
Yet, the dirty little secret is that since we have no reliable physical description of Nephilim then we cannot know that we found their civilizations, nor their skeletons, nor that we can know that any height range identifies them, nor that they had even 2 sets of teeth and as for 6 fingers and toes well, we do not know that either and the only person in the whole Bible referred to as having extra digits was a Repha, not a Nephil (2 Sam 21).
Now, as for, “The Return of the Nephilim…their prophesied return,” Sarah wrote, “The Bible says all that breathed died during the Flood. (Genesis 7:21-23) This included the Nephilim” thus, logically—and bio-logically and theo-logically—that was the end of them in any way shape or form since God did not fail, did not miss a loophole, the flood was not much of a waste, etc., etc., etc. so that there cannot even be any sort of return of them.
Yet, she assures us:
Nephilim returned in Numbers 13:33 when the children of Israel spied out the land of Canaan.
Numbers 13:33 “We saw there [Canaan] the Nephilim, sons of Anaq, of the Nephilim. And we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in their eyes.” (TS2009)
The spies’ testimony presents the questions: What happened to the Nephilim during the Flood? And how did they return?
This is a typical misrepresentation of the concept and that verse has been popularized by pop-Nephilologists—who make a living by selling un-biblical tall-tales to Christians.
Note the oddity of writing in terms of, “returned in Numbers 13:33” since that is really telling us returned in a citation. Some key hermeneutical questions are: who said it, why was it said, was it accurate, what was the reaction to it, etc.
It was not, “when the children of Israel spied out the land” but when 12 men did so.
And the, “We” were the 10 unreliable, unfaithful, disloyal, contradictory, embellishers.
See, when one refers to Num 13:33 they need to mention that they are relying on:
- One single unreliable sentence
- From strictly non-LXX versions (since that version’s version of that verse does not even mention Anakim)
- Of an unreliable “evil report”
- By 10 unreliable guys
- Whom God rebuked—to death
- Who made five mere assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the whole Bible
- Who contradicted Moses, Cable, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible
I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
Thus, it was not the generically vague, “spies’ testimony” but the evil report of the 10. Ergo, what that tells us about, “how did they return?” is nothing. The primary question is not, “how did they return?” but is rather, “did they return?” the biblical answer to which is: of course not since, again, God did not fail, etc., and there is literally zero reliable indication of it.
Sarah next moves from Gen 6:4 (the reliable record of Nephilim) and Num 13:33 (the unreliable scare-tactic, fear-mongering, “Don’t go in the woods!!!” style of tall-tale about them) to her premise, apocryphal pseudepigrapha:
Nephilim Spirits Became Demons
Although the watchers’ children died, the Nephilim were still active, immortal spirits. YHWH did not create these spirits. So, unlike man, Nephilim spirits did not return to YHWH. (Ecclesiastes 3:21)
Satan was given authority over 1/10 of these hybrid spirits. Like the Devil, they were forced to wander to and fro on the Earth. They sought hosts, preferably human hosts, and did their best to torture and mislead humanity. They became known as evil spirits or demons. (1 Enoch 15:8-12, Jubilees 10:1-9)
The spirits of the Nephilim are what we call demons.
Demons are the spirits of the deceased Nephilim.
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?
The 1/10 stat is another detail that is merely asserted the Enoch text and Sarah added:
When Satan was given 1/10 of the demons, the other 9/10 were imprisoned in a place called “the pit of the deep.” In the Book of Revelation, John saw these spirits unleashed in the End Days.
Revelation 9:1 “The fifth messenger sounded, and I saw a star from the heaven which had fallen to the earth. And the key to the pit of the deep was given to him.” (TS2009)
This star is likely Satan. (See Isaiah 14:12-14)
Recall that Angels were incarcerated in Tartarus which is associated with the abyss, well, Rev 9 is about disembodied Angels (demons) reinhabiting their bodies as they emerge from the abyss.
Also, the star is specifically said to be, “the angel of the bottomless pit [abyss]” and, again, Satan is a Cherub, not an Angel.
I filled a chapter of my book Nephilim and Giants as per Pop-Researchers with examples of pop-Nephilologists misusing Jesus’ statement in Matthew 24:37 “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (FYI: the subtitle of the book is A Comprehensive Consideration of the claims of I.D.E. Thomas, Chuck Missler, Dante Fortson, Derek Gilbert, Brian Godawa, Patrick Heron, Thomas Horn, Ken Johnson, L.A. Marzulli, Josh Peck, CK Quarterman, Steve Quayle, Rob Skiba, Gary Wayne, Jim Wilhelmsen, et al.)
Sadly, Sarah followed their MO by asserting, “The days before Yahushua’s (Jesus’) return, the End Days, will be days of the Nephilim” and yet, there is literally zero indication of any concept of any, “Return of the Nephilim” ever and no, “prophesied return.”
Not even the wildly imaginative 1 Enoch has physical post-flood Nephilim.
However, for support she quotes these texts:
Joel 2:1b-2 “Let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble, for the day of יהוה is coming, for it is near: a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains – a people many and strong, the like of whom has never been, nor shall there ever be again after them, to the years of many generations.” (TS2009)
Jeremiah 30:7 “Oh! For great is that day, there is none like it. And it is the time of Ya‛aqoḇ’s [Jacob’s] distress, but he shall be saved out of it.” (TS2009)
Yet, she is committing a styled word-concept fallacy: she misread Rev 9 as referring to Nephilim and so misreads something about, “darkness and gloom…clouds and thick darkness…clouds” as being Nephilim, “people many and strong” yet, that is illogical, ill-biological, and ill-theological.
As is reading Nephilim into, “distress.”
No texts which can be forced to appear to predict a return of Nephilim are to be had because none exist: not even in apocrypha or pseudepigrapha.
And that brings us to the end of the series in which Sarah provided some interesting extra-biblical info of whatever level of factuality and yet, along with linguistic and conceptual missteps—to include non-existing prophecies.
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