|
|
The Sons of God saw the
daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of
all which they chose.
Genesis 6:2
Some commentators believe that the expression 'sons of God'
refers to the 'godly line' of Seth, and 'daughters of men' to
women from the line of Cain.
Commentary on the Living Bible
The Book of Giants was another literary work concerned with
Enoch, widely read (after translation into the appropriate
languages) in the Roman empire....The 'giants' were believed to
be the offspring of fallen angels (the Nephilim; also called
Watchers) and human women.
Robert Eisman and Michael Wise, The
Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered
In The Book of Giants (i.e., 4Q531, 6Q8 Frag. 2 and 4Q530 Col.
2), the name of one of the giants is Gilgamesh, the Babylonian
hero and subject of a great epic written in the third millennium
B.C.E.
Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and
Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (1996) p.
247)
The root of Nephilim is nephel which means untimely birth,
abortion and miscarriage.
The Nefilim were upon the Earth in those days and thereafter too.
Those sons of the gods who cohabited with the daughters of the
Adam, and they bore children into them. They were the Mighty Ones
of Eternity, the People of the Shem.
Genesis 6:4
The tradition in Genesis 6.4 may reflect the Canaanite myth of
the birth of minor gods from the union of El and human women. The
conception of the Rephaim as supermen may reflect the Canaanite
tradition of defunct kings as rp'um, or Dispensers of fertility.
The identity in tradition of 'the fallen ones' of Genesis 6:4 and
the Rephaim is supported by the nature of the latter in Proverbs
2:18; Job 26:5 and Phoenician funerary inscriptions.
John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology
Megalithic monuments, found by the Hebrews on their arrival in
Canaan, will have encouraged legends about giants; as in Greece,
where the monstrous man-eating Cyclopes were said by
story-tellers ignorant of ramps, levers and other Mycenaean
engineering devices, to have lifted single- handed the huge
blocks of stone that form the walls of Tiryns, Mycenae and other
ancient cities.
Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, Hebrew
Myths: The Book of Genesis
On a parchment fragment 4Q201(En ara) copied ca. 200-150 B.C.E.
found at Qumrum: 13. [They (the leaders) and all ... of them took
for themselves] wives from all that they chose and [they began to
cohabit with them and to defile themselves with them]; and to
teach them sorcery and [spells and the cutting of roots; and to
acquaint them with herbs.] And they become pregnant by them and
bo[re (great) giants three thousand cubits high ...]
Book of Enoch (from Translation by J. C.
Greenfield)
Later Jewish tradition has it that their seduction was at least
partly their own fault since they had taught the girls the art of
cosmetics, and so had begun the awful progress of mankind to
degeneracy and sexual abandon. More important, they taught them
charms and enchantments, the cutting of roots, and make them
acquainted with plants... (Enoch 7:1ff).
John M. Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and
the Cross
The Hebrew word for giants (nephilum) literally means the
fallen-down-ones because these tall celestial beings fell from
the sky. Their half-breed progeny and their descendants are often
mentioned in the early books of the Old Testament until the last
of them were finally killed off. They were known as the Rephaim
[Hebrew for 'phantoms'], Emim, Anakim, Horim, Avim, and
Zamzummim. Some scholars speculate that this tradition of giants
born from the union of gods and humans formed the basis for the
demigod of Greek mythology.
Raymond E. Fowler, The Watchers
Those giants...are termed n'philim (lit. 'those who have fallen'
or 'perished'). A similar tradition mentions such a race of
primordial giants in the Rephaim.
John Gray, Near Eastern Mythology
The Nefilim ('Fallen Ones') bore many other tribal names, such as
Emim ('Terrors'), Repha'im ('Weakeners'), Gibborim ('Giant
Heroes'), Zamzummim ('Achievers'), Anakim ('Long-necked' or
'Wearers of Necklaces'), Awwim ('Devastators' or 'Serpents'). One
of the Nefilim named Arba is said to have built the city of
Hebron, called 'Kiriath-Arba' after him, and become the father of
Anak whose three sons, Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai, were later
expelled by Joshua's comrade Caleb. Since, however, arba means
'four' in Hebrew, Kiriath-Arba may have originally have meant
'City of Four,' a reference to its four quarters mythically
connected with the Anakite clans: Anak himself and his 'sons'
Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai.
Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, Hebrew
Myths: The Book of Genesis
And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, which come of
the Nephilim: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and
so we were in their sight.
Numbers 13:33
The Emim - a large and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim -
had formerly inhabited it [Moab]. Like the Anakim, they are
usually reckoned as Rephaim, though the Moabites call them Emim.
Now only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the
Rephaim. In fact his bed, an iron bed, can still be seen in
Rabbah of the Ammonites. By the common cubit [63.5 cm/25 in] it
is nine cubits [5.7 m/18.75 ft] long and four cubits wide.
Deuteronomy 2:11, 3:11
Our skills and behavior are finely attuned to our size. We could
not be twice as tall as we are, for the kinetic energy of a fall
would then be 16 to 32 times as great, and our sheer weight
(increased eightfold) would be more than our legs could support.
Human giants of eight to nine feet have either died young or been
crippled early by failure of joints and bones. At half our size,
we could not wield a club with sufficient force to hunt large
animals (for kinetic energy would decrease 16 to 32-fold); we
could not impart sufficient momentum to spears and arrows; we
could not cut or split wood with primitive tools or mine minerals
with picks and chisels. Since these all were essential activities
in our historical development, we must conclude that the path of
our evolution could only have been followed by a creature very
close to our size. I do not argue that we inhabit the best of all
possible worlds, only that our size has limited our activities
and, to a great extent, shaped our evolution.
Stephen Jay Gould, Sizing Up Human
Intelligence, Physical Anthropology 96/97 pp.150-51
For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of
the dead.
Proverbs 2:18
The dead are in deep anguish, those beneath the waters and
all that live in them.
Job 26:5
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of
God hath not life.
I John 5:12
Who were the Nephilim?
(Heb. nephi„li„m; Numbers 13:13). The form of the Heb.
word denotes a plural verbal adjective or noun of passive
signification, certainly from na„pal, “to fall,”
so that the connotation is “the fallen ones,” clearly
meaning the unnatural offspring that were on the earth in the
years before the Flood, “and also afterward, when the sons
of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to
them” (Genesis 6:4). The mention of the great stature of the
Nephilim, the sons of Anak, in the evil report that the ten spies
brought of the land of Canaan (Numbers 13:33) together with the
LXX rendering, gigantes, suggested the translation giants. They
were exceedingly wicked and violent so that “every intent”
of the thoughts of men’s hearts “was only evil
continually” (Genesis 6:5).
(Genesis 6:4; Numbers 13:33). The Nephilim are considered by many
to be giant demigods, the unnatural offspring of the “daughters
of men” (mortal women) in cohabitation with the “sons
of God” (angels; cf. Genesis 6:1-4). This utterly unnatural
union, violating God’s created order of being, was such a
shocking abnormality as to necessitate the worldwide judgment of
the Flood. Another view of the Nephilim is that they were
particularly violent (the name is from a root, “to fall,”
i.e., on other people), strong (“mighty”), and infamous
(“men of renown”) people who predated the marriages of
v. 2. This viewpoint often explains the unions as intermarriage
of the godly line of Seth (described in 4:25–5:32) with the
ungodly line of Cain (4:1-24).
From the book The Bible Has the Answer, by
Henry M. Morris and Martin E. Clark.
Assyrian and Akkadian Demonology