Tim Milner posted Giants in the Bible? wherein he began by asking the title question and another straight away, “Where did the giants come from—and how did one end up standing in front of David?”
These questions beg the questions: What’s the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word “giants” in English Bibles? What’s Milner’s usage? Do those two usages agree?
Well, we get a styled answer when his first point is, “1. Giants before the flood: The Nephilim” so, does he mean that it’s a linguistics issue in that Giants is merely a rendering of Nephilim or that Nephilim were something generically vague about subjectively unusual height compared to the parochial average?
He notes and quotes, “Genesis 6:1–4 describes a mysterious group: ‘The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose… The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward…’”
He follows directly with, “The Nephilim are often linked to giants. In Numbers 13:33, Israel’s spies say, ‘We seemed like grasshoppers… next to the Nephilim.’”
This ranges from confused to a misrepresentation. That, “Nephilim are often linked to giants” only begs the questions I asked: thus far, he’s telling us that, “Nephilim are often linked to” well, a word he hasn’t defined so that’s a non-statement.
As for, “In Numbers 13:33, Israel’s spies say” well, that’s too generic: there were 12 spies, there’s a report in that chapter that is accepted as is but then the 10 unreliable spies present an, “evil report” wherein they make that claim and were rebuked by God—to death.
Milner then reviews views as to, “where did they come from?”:
A. Fallen Angels View
-“Sons of God” = fallen angels
-“Daughters of man” = human women
-Their offspring were hybrid, unnatural giants
-This view explains their size and corruption, and is supported by some early Jewish literature (e.g., 1 Enoch) and by New Testament texts like Jude 6 (may be relevant?), which reference angels who “left their proper domain.”
From this 99% very good succinct synopsis we get the answer to his usage since he wrote, “giants” followed by, “their size” so it seems that he means something generically vague about subjectively unusual height compared to the parochial average: and that’s how useless that word is.
Well, for one, the answer to the third question is, “No” since his usage doesn’t match the English Bible’s usage.
That is because the usage of the vague, generic, subjective, multi-usage and modern English word giants in English Bibles?
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.
Moreover, he has Nephilim as giants in terms of some size due to one single sentence from an evil report by 10 unreliable guys whom God rebuked.
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.
The original, traditional, and majority view among the earliest Jewish and Christians 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.
The other view he notes is:
B. Lineage View
-“Sons of God” = righteous descendants of Seth
-“Daughters of man” = unrighteous descendants of Cain
-The sin was not angelic corruption, but intermarriage between the godly and the ungodly—resulting in a morally compromised society
This view avoids supernatural assumptions and is supported by the way “sons of God” is sometimes used in the Old Testament to refer to faithful humans (Deut. 14:1, Hosea 1:10). In this view, the Nephilim may have been a group of warrior elites or tyrants, not literal giants.
This view is a late comer and based on myth and prejudice.
It actually ends up proposing that, “righteous descendants of Seth” weren’t righteous since they were such terrible sinners that their sin served as the premise for the flood: so, that’s rather odd.
Also, why did it just so happen that exclusively male (alleged), “righteous descendants of Seth” married exclusively female, “unrighteous descendants of Cain”? Weren’t there any attractive female Sethies nor attractive male Cainites?
Bottom line is that there’s no indication that this was about, “the godly and the ungodly” since it’s a prejudice myth that Sethies were righteous/godly and Cainites weren’t.
Indeed, “‘sons of God’ is sometimes used in the Old Testament to refer to faithful humans” yet, Job 38:7, as one example, shows us that “sons of God” can refer to non-human beings (which the LXX has as “Angeloi”: plural of “Angelos”) since they, at the very least, witnessed the creation of the Earth.
Milner notes, “Either way, the Flood wipes out the pre-flood Nephilim” and yet, the, “pre-flood” qualifier is odd since that’s the only time Nephilim existed.
Now, one reason (conciuos or not) that pop-Nephilologists use the term giants without defining it is that it creates a watered down effect that allows them to correlate things that aren’t correlated.
Example, he concluded, “the Flood wipes out the pre-flood Nephilim” but then jumps languages again when he follows directly with, “2. Giants after the flood: Goliath and the Anakim” so, what happened to Nephilim? Apparently, we’re just supposed to focus on height—apparently because one unreliable sentence by unreliable guys in a unreliable report.
He notes, “In 1 Samuel 17:4, Goliath is described as ‘six cubits and a span’ tall…9 feet 9 inches” yet, he knows that generically referring to, “In 1 Samuel 17:4, Goliath is described as” isn’t accurate since, “some ancient manuscripts (like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint) say Goliath was ‘four cubits and a span,’ which would make him about 6 feet 9 inches—still massive in a world where the average man was 5’5”.”
So, the preponderance of the earliest data (and he neglected to note that Flavius Josephus also has that shorter range) is 6.9ft. yet, still, what does that have to do with anything?
At least Milner rightly notes, “Goliath wasn’t a leftover Nephilim from before the Flood—he descended from the post-flood line of Ham, through Egypt, to the Philistines. And specifically, Goliath belonged to a group known as the Rephaim or Anakim, who were known for their great size (Deuteronomy 2:10–11, Joshua 11:21–22).”
With, I will note, “great size” being just as vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as, “giants.” The only relevant thing we’re told about them is that they were subjectively, “tall” (Deut 2) on average and compared to the parochial 5.5ft. average: the estimates I’ve read are actually 5.0-5.3ft. for Israelite males of those days—and with, “tall” being vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage as, “great size” and, “giants.”
He then goes about, “Putting it all together” as that, “Before the Flood, Genesis describes giants (Nephilim)…” but, again, we’ve no reliable physical description of them and thus, no viable manner whereby to correlate something generically vague about subjectively unusual height compared to the parochial average to them—not that Milner is doing that, it’s just word noting since that’s a pop-Nephilology talking-point modus operandi.
He then notes, “After the Flood, different groups of large people—like the Anakim, Rephaim, and Philistines—are described as giants, but with traceable human ancestry through Ham…Goliath…not supernatural, just a very large man”
Again, “tall” is all we get and with an example being 6.9ft., most reliably.
He ends with encouraging words pertaining to that, “to get caught up in the size and mystery of giants” shouldn’t distract from that, “the real power in these stories is what they reveal about God’s strength through weakness.”
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