The Video Bible site posted an answer to the question Was Goliath One of the Nephilim?
It begins, “The Bible does not directly identify Goliath as one of the Nephilim, though he was certainly a giant and a formidable opponent of Israel.”
That simple sentence raises a few issues such as:
It directly identify Goliath as a non-Nephil: he’s referred to as a Repha virtually every single time he’s mentioned.
I’m unsure what “certainly a giant” has to do with anything—stand by. For now, keep in mind that biblically contextually “certainly a giant” means “certainly a Repha.” The article notes “Rephaim, a race of giants distinct from the Nephilim” which is quite accurate—Nephilim were strictly pre-flood hybrids, Rephaim were strictly post-flood humans, and there’s zero correlation between them—but the article’s usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” appears to be something unspecific about subjectively unusual height. That has nothing to do with the English Bible’s usage since therein, 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.
And that he was an “opponent of Israel” is irrelevant since that has nothing to do with Nephilim who only lived before there was any such thing as Israel.
It’s noted “The Nephilim are mentioned only in Chapter sample: On the Post Flood Nephilim Proposal.
We’re also told that Goliath was “approximately nine feet tall” so I’m unsure why it wasn’t mentioned 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.
At least it’s noted “Goliath’s background, therefore, connects him more directly to the Philistine culture and less to the mysterious Nephilim.”
It’s noted “Ancient Israel encountered various groups of giants during their conquest of the Promised Land” but keep in mind that such is a misuse of one modern word, see my book Bible Encyclopedias and Dictionaries on Angels, Demons, Nephilim, and Giants: From 1851 to 2010.
Noted are “Anakites and Rephaim” but the former were like a clan of the latter tribe.
After some sermonizing that’s not contextual to my review, we’re told “Joshua and Caleb: Unlike the other spies, Joshua and Caleb believed that God could overcome the giants in Canaan, demonstrating faith over fear (Numbers 13:30, 14:6-9)” but that’s focusing on sermonizing and not that the issue is that the 10 just made up a fear-mongering scare-tactic tall-tale due to their fear of what was noted in the first, original, accepted as is report in that chapter: being itinerant wilderness tent dwellers having to confront six strong people groups living in large and well fortified cities.
At least it’s rightly concluded “Goliath was not one of the Nephilim” even if that sentence ends with the linguistically fallacious terms “but a giant descended from the Rephaim.”
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