Undergoing consideration is the article by The Limited Times site titled Evidence of the existence of the Nephilim, the giants from the Bible, was found in the Golan Heights? – Voila!
Upfront, we’re told “Evidence of the existence of the Nephilim, the giants from the Bible, was found in the Golan Heights.”
Now, the phrase “Nephilim, the 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 your usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
To one of the sentences in the article, I will add a much needed qualifier by having it begin with a rare few and incoherently inaccurate, “Believers argue that these giants were real and that their descendants may have survived for long by intermingling with human populations.” Yet, perhaps the first question should be, “survived” what? If the flood is meant then that contradicts the Bible five times: Genesis 7:7, 23; Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; and 2 Peter 2:5.
Any concept of post-flood Nephilim implies that God failed: He meant to be rid of them via the flood but couldn’t get the job done, He must have missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc. See, fallacious Nephilology negatively effects theology proper. Also, post-flood Nephilologists have to just invent un-biblical tall-tales about how they made it past the flood.
This describes 100% of pop-Nephilologists. And those who claim they survived the flood contradict the Bible five times.
I’ve written whole books debunking them such as, Nephilim and Giants: Believe It or Not!: Ancient and Neo-Theo-Sci-Fi Tall Tales.
Supposedly, “alleged discoveries and strange findings” led to that an, “investigation was opened here in the Golan Heights.”
Now, we get a taste of the answer to the second key question via this statement, “In ancient times there were stories about huge creatures called the Nephilim” but while there were some such tales in, “ancient” times we must keep in mind that the term ancient is vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage. That’s because they may be ancient to us today but they are still from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah.
Yet, that’s with the exception that the Torah itself, in Num 13:33 which may have been the beginning of mere tall-tales about Nephilim being, “huge” (which is also vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage) since it merely records an, “evil report” by some unreliable guys whom God rebuked: see my Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
We’re told, “stories of the fallen giants came from ancient myths and religious texts. One known mention is found in the book of Genesis (chapter 6, verse 4).” Yet, that’s incoherent since there’s no reference to the article’s misusage of, “giants” which is in terms of, “huge” in that text. Such is why we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim, the only one we have is in the unreliable evil report ergo, we don’t have one.
Yet, it’s merely asserted (via a quotations merely of, “sons of God” from the text) that what I term the Genesis 6 affair, “resulted in the birth of powerful beings of unusual size or shape known as the Nephilim” but again, that’s a mere assertion.
Yet, we’re told, “according to what is told in Genesis and some of the midrashi[m] of the Sages if we accept the description literally, were angels or the offspring of a marriage of the sons of God or angels with human daughters. In the midrashim and the external books written in the days of the Second Temple, the Nephilim are identified with the angels who betrayed God, violated their duty and were banished or descended to the earth.”
I have a feeling that the article was spat out of an AI word generator farm.
Midrashim are not strict Bible commentaries but are sermonizing homiles. Also, the range widely in terms of when they were written, from centuries to millennia after the Torah, so lack of citations doesn’t help.
To get a taste of the Midrashic folklore, “Other midrashim describe the Nephilim as legendary creatures, each of whom required a thousand camels, a thousand horses and a thousand oxen to satisfy his mighty hunger, and when God decided to destroy the earth with a flood, the Nephilim tried to show their strength in a form of defiance towards God, they sent their hands to heaven and tried to block the chimneys of heaven and with their feet to plug the abysses, but God boiled the water and threw them away.”
We then move on to that, “people wonder if the blood of these ancient giants continues to exist…their descendants may have survived for long by intermingling…with these descendants likely also inheriting unique traits from their giant ancestors.” And with that bit of illogical, ill-biological, and ill-theological assertion in place, we are quickly moved on to that, “Proponents of the theory point to alleged discoveries and strange findings as possible evidence of the Nephilim’s existence. These include finding extremely large skeletons” (with, “large” also being vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage).
Then comes the purpose of the vague and generic article, the sales pitch, “The docu-series of The Inspiration Networks, a religious family entertainment network, called Angels & Giants, The Watchers & Nephilim…includes four hour-long episodes that are a serious investigation of the theories in question.”
“Rudy Landa, executive producer and director” noted, “The Bible describes the Nephilim in several places” which is quite accurate—if, that is, “several” refers to two and, “places” refers to mere verses.
He also referenced, “Nephilim, a race of giants” so, here we go again, 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 Landa usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
Do those two usages agree?
For support, “He enlisted the help of author Douglas Van Doren [“Dorn,” actually], who had just written a book on the subject, to guide the project.” Please see my articles:
And:
My review of Zachary Garris’ review of Douglas Van Dorn’s book “Giants Sons of the Gods”
For Landa’s oddly and extremely specific assertion, “It makes sense to start in Israel, in the place where the story of the Nephilim began – and that is in the Golan” we’re told that, “Book of Hanuch [“Enoch”?] 1, an apocryphal source from the second century BC…describes the Nephilim and claims that the name of Mount Hermon…According to the book of Enoch 1, the Nephilim were expelled from heaven and sent to Mount Hermon. The area, known as Bashan, is The place where King Og came out against the Israelites when they entered the Promised Land.”
1 Enoch is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah (“second century BC,” see my book, In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch) and Og has nothing to do with any of this since he was a Repha, not a Nephil, and was born centuries post-flood.
Yet, we’re told, “the Gemara teaches that Og, king of Bashan, was alive during Noah’s time but escaped the flood by clinging to the side of the ark using a ladder.” Well, that refers to the Talmud Bavli, the Babylonian Talmud which was put into writing 300-500 AD, it anachronistically has Og being alive centuries before he was born and has him surviving the flood which, again, contradicts the Bible five times—oh, and it has Noah contradicting’s God’s purpose for the flood.
We’re told, “Landa’s search for the truth led him to Gilgal Rafaim (Wheel of the Giants)” and we can see the name-games being played as, “Rafaim” is typically transliterated as, “Rephaim” it’s then merely rendered as, “Giants” and it has nothing to do with, “Nephilim”—but wait, there’s more!!! Landa decides to term it a, “ghost wheel” since, apparently, that’s sexier.
We are also told, “Og also appears in Deuteronomy 3, verse 11, as the only person left from the ghosts” whatever on Earth that incoherent assertion is supposed to mean. Well, okay, I know to what it refers: since according to Pagan mythology, the Ugaritic equivalent of Repahim were long dead kings and heroes who could be summoned from the grave to appear at rituals then some are so utterly fascinated with the un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales of which modern Nephilology consists that they are willing to actually incorporate Pagan mythology into biblical theology—or, Nephilology, or Rephaology, etc.
We are also told, “A rough estimate of Og’s size can be made based on reference to the size of his bed” but note that we don’t have a physical description of him (not until wild folklore from millennia after his time) that we can reckon it via his, “bed” is based on various assumptions, see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
So, Nephilim or Rephaim or giant or ghost—it’s all under the big top folks, hurry, hurry, step right up!!!
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