Someone at the Pursue God site wrote an article titled Who Were the Nephilim? What Genesis 6 Really Says (“our mission is to equip churches, families, and believers with free discipleship tools that give biblical answers to everyday questions. Our resources are built to be shared, helping you make disciples at church, at home, or in the world”).
It’s rightly noted, “Moses gives very few details, which is a big reason this passage has sparked so much curiosity over the centuries” and that which I term the Gen 6 affair is quoted thusly:
Genesis 6:1-4 Then the people began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them. The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any they wanted as their wives. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.” In those days, and for some time after, giant Nephilites lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times.
We’re told, “The Hebrew word nephilim may come from a verb meaning ‘to fall,’ which is why some translate it ‘fallen ones,’ though scholars still debate the root” since some claim it’s the Aramic naphiyla though scholars still debate what that means—since scholars debate everything—with some, such as Dr. Michael Heiser claiming that it means giants. Yet, that’s question begging since now we have to ask what’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s your usage? Do those two usages agree?
Others such as the J. Edward Wright Endowed Professor of Judaic Studies, who is J. Edward Wright, Ph.D. himself, and who is the Director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona notes, “The term traditionally translated as ‘giants’ in both the Greek Septuagint (γιγαντες) and now in English is נפילים nephilim, a term based on the root נפל npl meaning ‘fall.’ It has nothing to do with size” and specifies that this goes for both Hebrew and Aramaic as “The root npl in Aramaic also means fall and not giants” (Private communique, July 2019).
It’s also noted that, “The NLT calls them ‘giant Nephilites,’ following the ancient Greek translation that called them giants.” Biblically contextually “giant Nephilites” would mean “Nephilites Nephilites” so it begs the questions above, to include: what’s the NLT’s usage?
For more linguistics details, see my book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
As for the “Sons of God,” we’re told, “The oldest view, common in Jewish writings before Jesus and among many early church leaders, says the ‘sons of God’ were angels who rebelled against God.” Indeed, the original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christian 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.
Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that, “sons of God” can refer to non-human beings (which some LXX editions have 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 of Angels in the Bible. So, if they’re not referring to the Gen 6 affair, we’ve no idea to what sin they’re referring.
It’s noted, “A second view holds that the ‘sons of God’ were the godly descendants of Seth who married into Cain’s ungodly line. People who hold this view often cite Jesus’ teaching that angels in heaven don’t marry (Matthew 22:30). A third view sees them as ancient kings who claimed divine status and took whatever women they wanted.”
The third view is quite early but barely made a blip on the radar of historical interpretation.
The Sethite view is a late-comer based on myth and prejudice.
As for, “Jesus’ teaching that angels in heaven don’t marry (Matthew 22:30)” He taught no such thing and that’s not what that verse notes. His statement was very detailed, very nuanced, He employed qualifying terms, “the angels in heaven.”
So, not all Angels at all times in all places at in all circumstances but the loyal ones, “of God” and “in heaven” which is why those who did marry are considered sinners since they, “left their first estate,” as Jude put it, in order to do so.
The next subsection is as follows:
Did the Nephilim Survive the Flood?
The Nephilim show up one more time, centuries later, when Moses sends twelve spies to scout the Promised Land. Ten of them come back terrified, and their report gets everyone’s attention.
Numbers 13:32-33 So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
Genesis 7:23 says the only people who survived the flood were Noah and his family, so how could Nephilim still be around? Pay attention to how Moses describes the spies’ words: a “bad report.” They were exaggerating to scare people, and “Nephilim” was likely the most frightening label they could reach for, much like calling someone a monster today. The descendants of Anak were real, tall people, but they weren’t a surviving hybrid race.
That’s a helpful guardrail for us. The Bible doesn’t support theories about secret giant bloodlines or ancient aliens in Scripture. Caleb and Joshua saw the same people and trusted that God was bigger.
The primary biblical answer to “Did the Nephilim Survive the Flood?” is no, of course not, God didn’t fail, didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
It’s simply not the case that, “The Nephilim show up one more time, centuries later,” anyone appealing to Num 13:33 needs to mention that they’re relying on:
1. One single unreliable sentence
2. From strictly non-LXX versions (since that version’s version of that verse doesn’t even mention Anakim)
3. Of an unreliable “evil report”
4. By 10 unreliable guys
5. Whom God rebuked—to death
6. Who made five mere assertions unbacked by even one single other verse in the whole Bible
7. Who contradicted Moses, Cable, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole entire Bible
8. Then post-flood Nephilologists have to invent un-biblical fantasy tall-tales about how Nephilim got past the flood, past God.
I could go on but see my post Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal—which I’m currently updating.
It’s not merely “Genesis 7:23” but that Gen 7:7, 23; Heb 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20 & 2 Peter 2:5 we’re told who survived the flood but Nephilim aren’t mentioned.
In my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology I quote over 60 scholarly sources that affirm that the report ranges from exaggerating to straight up deception.
As most neo-Nephilology articles, this one ends with what I’ll call sermonizing about, “Why Does the Story of the Nephilim Matter Today?” and, “The Takeaway” which are fine for what they are but not the focus on my review.
Thus, overall a very good article (although I suspect it’s partly AI) and just needed a little touching up.
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