The Rapture Ready site posted an article by a certain Joe Hawkins that’s titled Return of Nephilim: Giants, Hybrids, & the Final Deception.
He appeals to that which I term the Gen 6 affair by noting:
The word “Nephilim” first appears in the Bible in Genesis 6:4, which states: “There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and bore children to them.” In Hebrew, Nephilim literally means “fallen ones,” but it is rendered as “giants” in many translations. According to a widely held interpretation among Bible prophecy students, the Nephilim were the hybrid offspring of a forbidden union between heavenly beings and human women.
In the Genesis account, “the sons of God” refers to fallen angels—often called Watchers in extra-biblical literature—who rebelled against God and descended to earth. These angelic beings took “daughters of men” as wives, resulting in half-angel, half-human progeny: the Nephilim. The biblical text emphasizes the extraordinary nature of these offspring, calling them “mighty men of old, men of renown.” They were apparently renowned for their strength, size, and perhaps advanced knowledge, making a terrifying imprint on the ancient world.
He provided us a very important qualifying term in that, “Nephilim…is rendered” in some English versions, “as ‘giants’” since indeed, that’s a rendering, not a translation. Now, due to that and the title’s reference to, “Nephilim: Giants” we can know that his usage of “giants” is as just an aka for “Nephilim.”
As for, “a forbidden union between heavenly beings and human women” 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.
Yet, he does assert, “renowned for their…size” and yet, the dirty little secret is that since we’ve no reliable physical description of Nephilim then their height is a non-issue and that alone debunks 99% of un-biblical Nephilology—the modern branch of which is just un-biblical neo-theo sci-fi tall-tales.
He adds that the affair was, “a calculated move by Satan to prevent the coming of a pure human Messiah” which is a common speculation.
The result, of course, was failure since, “God’s response to the Nephilim epidemic was swift and severe” since, “In prophecy-focused theology, it is believed that this corruption refers not only to moral decay but quite possibly to genetic corruption through the Nephilim…To halt the spread of the hybrids and preserve humanity, God sent the global Flood…wiping out the rampant Nephilim scourge…The Flood cleansed the earth of the Nephilim”
Yet, Joe Hawkins then drastically contradicts himself, and the Bible, by asserting, “intriguingly, Genesis 6:4 had noted ‘and also afterward’ – hinting that the Nephilim would somehow reappear in history after the Flood.” This would imply that, actually, God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
Also, note how he based that on a mere three words. Yet, he previously quoted the whole verse and it noted, “There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and bore children to them.”
He’s forcing, “afterward” to refer to post-flood but that’s not the direction in which the verse took us: it didn’t take us forward in time but backward.
It can’t mean anything about the flood since:
1) the flood’s not even mentioned for the very first time until a full 13 verses later.
2) the ONLY post-flood reference to Nephilim is from an “evil report” by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
3) God didn’t fail, He didn’t miss a loophole, the flood wasn’t much of a waste, etc.
Gen 6:4 states, “Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”
The question becomes: when were those days?
Well, Gen 6:1 told us, “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 next question becomes: when was afterward?
Since it was after those days then it was simply after, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them…”
Thus, they began doing it then and they continued to do it but that’s all pre-flood.
Yet, in order to attempt to justify imply what He implied, he wrote:
Giants and Legends After the Flood
After the Flood, the Bible records a resurgence of giant beings among various people groups, especially in the Middle East. When the Israelites later scouted the Promised Land, they encountered formidable giants. Numbers 13:32–33 reports that the spies saw men of extraordinary stature: “There we saw the giants (the sons of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight.”
These post-Flood giants are often identified as Nephilim or their descendants under different names – such as the Anakim, Rephaim, Emim, and Zamzummim. One famous example is Goliath of Gath, whom young David fought (1 Samuel 17). Goliath’s height (around nine feet tall) and strength made him a fearsome warrior, consistent with the traits expected of a Nephilim descendant. Another is King Og of Bashan, described in Deuteronomy 3:11 by the size of his iron bed, over 13 feet long!
Keep in mind that contextually, as per his usage, that really reads as Nephilim and Legends After the Flood. Thus, he seems to have written, “…a resurgence of Nephilim beings…encountered formidable Nephilim…we saw the Nephilim. My impression, due to being familiar with over two millennia worth of relevant data (that I used to write my dozen, or so, research-based Nephilology books) is that he’s unfamiliar with the relevant data and is just repeating pop-Nephilology talking points.
What he did is to misrepresent Num 13 by generically asserting, “When the Israelites later scouted the Promised Land, they encountered formidable giants” without informing his readers that there were 12 spies but when he wrote, “reports that the spies saw men of extraordinary stature” he’s only referring to 10 of them.
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.
Thus, he seems to be unaware of the narrative, he’s unaware of the textual critical issues, and he seems unaware that he implied that God failed even whilst not bothering to tell us just how Nephilim made it past the flood, past God.
He has one single word in one single verse as, “often.” But note that thus far, his usage of giants was an aka for Nephilim but now he wrote, “giants are often identified as Nephilim” which contextually consistently would mean, “Nephilim are often identified as Nephilim” which is circularly redundant.
Thus, it seems that he switched his usage of giants (and didn’t inform his readers) since now he seems to mean something vaguely generic about subjectively unusual height of some unknown level above the parochial average (and yes, that is how useless the common parlance usage of that modern English word is). So, actually, the key questions become: What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s his usage? Do those two usages agree?
As for, “identified as Nephilim or their descendants under different names – such as the Anakim, Rephaim, Emim, and Zamzummim” what he’s done is to uncritically pick up one single unreliable sentence from one single unreliable evil report spoken by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked, ignored (or is just unfamiliar with) the LXX issue, pick it up, ran with it, and applied it. He then expanded a single non-LXX reference to Anakim and applied it to all Rephaim, Emim, and Zamzummim.
He also seems unaware that Zamzummim is merely an a.k.a. for Rephaim and that Anakim and Emim were like clans of that tribe.
He then appeals to Goliath but doesn’t seem to be aware that the Masoretic text has Goliath at just shy of 10 ft. 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—not that it matters since he can’t be correlated to Nephilim via height anyhow.
Goliath is specifically identified as a Repha but Joe Hawkins has manipulated that into meaning Nephil.
He then mentioned another Repha, Og, and seems to think that the size of a “bed” has something to do with something. He seems to commit a non-sequitur by merely assuming that the size of a “bed” equals the size of a person. Well, Og was a king living a lavish lifestyle and, most importantly, every indication is that the “bed” was a ritual object, not something on which he slept—see my book The King, Og of Bashan, is Dead: The Man, the Myth, the Legend—of a Nephilim Giant?
He then asks the wrong primary question, “How did the Nephilim return after the Flood if the world had been completely cleansed?” the right one is, “did the Nephilim return after the Flood if the world had been completely cleansed?” the biblical answer to which is: of course not, we’ve literally zero reliable indication of that and it implies that God failed, missed a loophole, the flood was much of a waste, etc., etc., etc.
He then notes that unnamed, uncited, and unquoted, “Scholars have proposed a few theories” all of which, by definition, are un-biblical fantasy tall-tales which damage theology proper:
One view posits a “second incursion” – that at some point after the Flood, possibly during the days of the Tower of Babel or in the patriarchal era, another wave of fallen angels again cohabited with human women, producing a new generation of Nephilim. This would explain the presence of giant clans in Canaan and surrounding areas by the time of Abraham and later Moses.
Jude and 2 Peter 2 tell us that sinful sons of God/Angels were incarcerated. Now, they don’t tell us when but since the flood was when God was cleaning house, as it were, then it would have been during the flood or before it. Also, there’s only a one-time fall/sin of Angels in the Bible.
An alternate theory suggests that genetic traces of Nephilim survived through one of Noah’s daughters-in-law. If a woman on the ark carried latent Nephilim DNA, it could manifest in her offspring and lead to giants among her descendants. In either case, by the time of Israel’s exodus from Egypt (about 1,000 years after the Flood), pockets of giant tribes existed in the Near East.
This one contradicts the Bible five times (Gen 7:7, 23; Heb 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20 & 2 Peter 2:5) since that’s how many times God told us who survived the flood but Nephilim aren’t mentioned.
Due to his misunderstanding and misusage of linguistics, he appeals to, “hybrid bloodlines had names like Anakim and Rephaim” but there’s literally zero reliable indication they were anything but 100% human.
Yet, he ads, “when God commanded the Israelites to conquer Canaan, He often ordered them to utterly destroy certain tribes. This harsh mandate makes more sense in light of the Nephilim presence” God told us many time why He commanded such things but never said one single word about Nephilim.
He specifies, “The wars of Israel under Joshua can be seen as a continuation of the ancient conflict: a targeted cleansing of Nephilim lineage” but there’s literally zero reliable indication of that.
Yes, “Joshua 11:21–22 notes that Joshua cut off the Anakim giants” but he doesn’t seem to realize that biblically contextually, “Anakim giants” would mean, “Anakim Rephaim.”
He then goes on about, “Outside of the Bible…gods, demigods, and giants that closely parallel the Nephilim narrative” which don’t rescue his implications nor assertions.
He directs us to, “old giants: the land of Canaan had the Valley of Rephaim; Bashan (where Og ruled) was legendary for giants; and even beyond the Bible, structures like the megalithic stone circles of Gilgal Refaim (Wheel of the Giants) on the Golan Heights bear a name linking them to Nephilim lore.” That is linguistically myopic, misinformed and a category error that violates the law of identity. It’s not, “Wheel of the Giants” but “Wheel of the Rephaim” and it’s of the Rephaim who, not even on his appeal to non-LXX Num 13:33 is about all Rephaim.
Since he takes what 10 unreliable guys merely asserted as infallible truth, he correlates Nephilim to, “physical evidence of giants…unusually large skeletons…Nephilim left behind remnants…anomalously large skulls and bones…elongated skulls and giant skeletal remains…” even though, “large” is just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as, “giants.”
As per his thoughts on, “Theological Significance of the Nephilim” it’s tragically ironic that under that subtitle he wrote, “The presence of Nephilim in the pre-Flood world nearly derailed the plan of redemption – hence the Flood was essentially an act of divine surgical removal of a cancerous threat to the messianic bloodline” but he teaches that it wasn’t that at all since the flood failed, God failed: He had to find mere humans who would do away with them post-flood, to do they job He couldn’t do.
He added, “Another theological aspect concerns the nature of demons. Many” unnamed, uncited, and unquoted people, “hold the view that the demonic spirits Jesus and His disciples cast out are actually the disembodied spirits of the dead 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?
Of course, he notes, “This idea finds support in ancient texts like the Book of Enoch” but that text is Bible contradicting folklore from centuries, if not millennia, after the Torah, see my book In Consideration of the Book(s) of Enoch—reliance of that text, BTW, is why he opts to refer to Angels as Watchers since that’s a Second Temple Era aka for Malakim/Angels.
He then appeals to one of the most used, abused, misused, and misapplied verse in the whole Bible by pop-Nephilologists, “‘As in the Days of Noah’: Nephilim and End-Times Prophecy”:
Jesus made a striking prophetic comparison: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man” (Luke 17:26, cf. Matthew 24:37). For prophecy students, this statement is loaded with significance. The days of Noah were marked by the Nephilim’s presence and the corruption and violence that precipitated the Flood.
By paralleling the end times with Noah’s era, Jesus hinted that similar conditions would surface in the world before His Second Coming. Many interpret this to mean that the end times will see a return to the Nephilim agenda – perhaps not in exactly the same form (i.e., giants openly roaming the earth), but in an array of comparable phenomena. Essentially, the fallen angels and Satan will once again ramp up attempts to tamper with humanity and defy God’s order, just like they did in Noah’s time.
One way this could manifest is through the explosion of transhumanism and genetic engineering in our modern age.
I wrote two books regarding Transhumanism so am very well aware of it but that doesn’t men I’m willing to take Jesus out of context—those books are Transhuman Hollywood: From Normative Fiction to Predictive Programming and The Golden Golem Goal: From Organism to Transhumanism—On the tangled web of occult mystical alchemy and high tech Transhumanist chemistry.
Jesus’ words, His emphasis, His points, His context, were:
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”
But He kept speaking directly with:
“Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed” (Luke 17).
Thus, this was about examples of being unaware/unconcerned about coming judgment.
He notes, “Another parallel to Noah’s days is the surge of UFO and ‘alien’ phenomena” and while I’ve written on that as well, I’m unsure how that pertains to Nephilim: see my books Fifty Shades of Gray Aliens and my series on Hollywood Aliens and UFOs.
He adds:
Some researchers connect specific end-time prophecies with a return of Nephilim-like beings. For instance, the Book of Daniel contains a cryptic verse describing the final world empire: “They will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another” (Daniel 2:43). While traditionally interpreted in terms of political alliances, a number of prophecy students suggest “they” could imply non-human entities trying to commingle with humans – essentially another attempt at hybridization, which ultimately fails to hold together.
A, “return of Nephilim-like beings” is just conspira-prophecy. He somehow took Daniel referring to two people groups that would engage in commerce but not intermarry into a fantasy tall-tale—see the relevant chapter about this very issue in my book What Does the Bible Say About Giants and Nephilim? A Styled Giantology and Nephilology.
He tells us, “the expected return of Jesus is seen as the ultimate answer to the Nephilim problem” when that problem was ultimately answered via the flood: what an utter shame that he missed that fact.
His conclusion includes, “Nephilim…gigantic tyrants…Nephilim is crucial for decoding the past and preparing for the future…the days of Noah…Noah and his family found refuge in the ark” even though that was only a faux refuge as per his assertions, “giants stalking the earth or ‘alien; deceivers in the sky…Nephilim, from Genesis to Revelation…God’s plan cannot be thwarted” even though He claims it original was, “Every Nephilim that arose fell under God’s judgment” after making it past the failed flood, “
He then offers a list of references, noting, “*Referencing does not equal endorsement*” and yet, they are very telling regarding his influences: Timothy Alberino, Tom Horn, Chris Putnam, LA Marzulli, Ryan Pitterson and Dennis Lindsay.
I’m unfamiliar with Lindsay but since he’s featured on the Prophecy Watchers site that’s a huge red flag. The rest is like a who’s who of pop-Nephilologists who make/made a living by selling un-biblical tall-tales to Christians.
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