It’s not a good sign when there’s an error within the first three seconds of a podcast: the show began by quoting, “there were giants in the earth in those days” and citing it to Genesis 6:1 when it’s actually verse 4 and yet, that’s just a slight error.
An episode of The Monster Talk Podcast, co-hosted by Karen Stollznow and Blake Smith, along with Ben Radford, is titled Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum! and they seem to have opted for a version of that verse that employs the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” because it allows for one to merely imagine to what it refers and so one can use it to tell tall-tales.
We will have to see if the episode answers these key questions:
What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles?
What’s Stollznow’s, Smith’s, Radford’s, and the guest archaeologist Dr. Ken Feder’s (Central Connecticut State University), usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants”?
Now, Stollznow is described as linguist so we will have to see if she unpacks such key issues.
The show’s description includes, “Giants appear in cultures around the world: Biblical tales of giants more than ten feet tall; Roman and Greek stories of titans and heroes; European stories of giants of mountain and hill. They all have one thing in common: enormous monsters” so it will cover, “giants, biblical archeology.”
The next thing we hear is, “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an English man, be alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread” from, Jack the Giant Killer. We’re told that there are, “biblical tales of giants more than
10 ft tall” but that’s a problematic assertion so we shall have to see whence they got such info.
Now, since I’ve familiarized myself with over two millennia worth of data relevant to Nephilology (which I used to write my dozen, or so, research-based Nephilology books) my focus will be the claims about the Bible.
Interestingly, a point is made about being driven crazy, “when people take that past and they misrepresent it” about which an example is, “a book called Morning of The Magicians, which is which is essentially Eric Von Daniken before there was Eric Von Daniken…I knew some of the stuff that they these guys were talking about and knew that it was complete crap and it got me really pissed off.”
Now, I figured that I would quote the show in general rather than spotting to specify which of the many participants actually said this or that—which is especially tedious when there’s crosstalk.
They get around to tongue and cheek stating, “the Bible has stories of giants,” whatever that means, “well then, it
must be true, well there you go, we’re done”—FYI: at least three participants are described as, “skeptics” whatever that means (there’s a fine line between people who self-identify as skeptic and people who are cynics).
It’s noted:
I actually did a word search of the Old Testament and found something like, I don’t know, 20 specific references in there to whole races of giant…completely populated by 12 foot tall giants and, of course, you know there’s Goliath…Goliath was, what, 11 or 12 feet tall.
So, there are a lot of references in the Bible to it and I think that people grab that, run with that, and say, “Oh, there must have been giants.”
We will have to see if anyone is skeptical enough to linguistically and textually challenge what was just merely asserted: I can certainly confirm that there’s literally zero indication of any such things whatsoever—stand by.
But the reference to, “a word search” reminds me of how and why pop-Nephilology is the mis-info and dis-info un-biblical tall-tales which it is, to the point that I coined the term KWBT for: Key-Word Based Theology. This refers to typing a word into some sort of search engine and merely stringing together the verses in which it appears into a grand narrative, regardless of context.
Did the searcher do as I did in my book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010 wherein I sought to discern what the usage of giants was, why the usage was used, whether the sources were reliable, etc., etc., etc., or was it a case of, “Yup, ‘the Bible’ says, ‘giants,’ I’ll just imagine to what that refers, and so, ‘the Bible’ is dumb—done!”?
Playing off of the Cardiff Giant hoax, it’s noted, “although scientists knew immediately this thing was a fake, nobody listened to the scientists: they wanted to believe it” which led to the kneejerk reaction of of:
If scientist said it…they were hiding something, they just couldn’t accept the fact that this was proof of a Bible story…
So many people want to treat the Bible’s giant tales as literal truth. I think there’s a, you know, when people talk about the Bible…
For example, when some of the cities mentioned in the Bible turn out to be actual…folks embrace that.
The reasoning being well, if one fact in the Bible is true…maybe every fact in the Bible is true.
And so, I think that’s, you know, it’s something as ridiculous as 12 foot tall giants, that science scoffs at people like me.
Speaking for myself, I would only scoff at the utter lack of facts and skepticism exhibited by what were mere rants.
Since that’s all there was about the Bible in a show that began by quoting it, what was that all about? Much ado about nothing. What was said about, “biblical archeology” well, about half a sentence. What was the linguist’s input about the utterly key issue of defining terms with any given usage: nothing.
This was just about taking a pop-shot and the Bible and discrediting oneself in the process—perhaps that’s why some scoff: when they use a platform to un-contextually go on the attack (and debunk themselves in the process), “if there can be giants, there can be Noah’s Ark, there can be Ezekiel’s wheel, there can be the shroud of the, there can be miraculous bursts of energy from dead bodies.”
It’s noted, “there is a historical context to the Bible but then they take that one little fact and they run with it.” Well, the show was a case of projection since it exampled, “take that one little [non-]fact and they run with it” and as afore-quoted, “people grab that, run with that.” And with what did they run? They, un-skeptically, ran with, “I…did a word search.”
The show’s premise is that the word giants refers to something uselessly generic about subjectively unusual height. Well then, the answer to key question, “Do those two usages agree?” is clearly, “No” since 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.
The word searcher is clearly unaware of that—and the linguist didn’t help.
Thus, when, “I…found something like, I don’t know, 20 specific references in there to whole races of giant” the searcher didn’t realize the results were mere renderings of Nephilim and Repha/im and not about height of any sort.
But what about, “completely populated by 12 foot tall giants…Goliath was, what, 11 or 12 feet tall”? Well, there’s literally zero indication of any such thing.
Nephilim:
1) the only physical description we have of them is recoded in Num 13:33 but that’s unreliable and so irrelevant since that’s just one sentence form an, “evil report” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked: there’s zero indication that it’s even possible that what they asserted was even anywhere near close to factual—see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
2) thus, we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim—oops, that fact alone just debunked 100% of pop-Nephilologists who sell un-biblical tall-tales to Christians for a living.
Rephaim: the only relevant thing we’re told about them is that they were, “tall” (Deut 2) on average and that’s subjective to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days.
Goliath: The Masoretic text has him at just shy of 10 ft (unsure why he was plumped up to 11-12 on the show). Yet, the earlier LXX and the earlier Dead Sea Scrolls and the earlier Flavius Josephus all have him at just shy of 7 ft. (compared to the average Israelite male who was 5.0-5.3 ft. in those days) so that’s the preponderance of the earliest data.
Og: I might as well throw in King Og of Bashan since someone might actually assert that he was 12-13ft. Well, we’ve no physical description of him (well, not until utterly wild and impossible folkloric tall-tales from millennia after the Torah). And, merely pointing to the size of his bed and subtracting a cubit or foot from it would be a fallacy based on various mere assumptions—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
Thus, the show was a case of, “when people take that past and they misrepresent it.”
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