Giants or Nephilim

Echolipse

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NO - the septuagint is NOT the gold standard for OT text - the Hebrew Masoretic is.

The book of Enoch was mentioned or alluded to (not sure "quoted" is the right term) is that it was a well known book in its day. Even Paul referred to polytheistic Greek poets as having one thing right:

Acts 17:28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

Does that make those poems a part of scripture also? Of course not.

Do you know the history of the septuagint or how it got that name?

It was commissioned by Alexander the Great. He wanted to read the Jewish Torah (5 books of Moses) in his own language. So he hired 70 (sept-) scholars to translate it and supposedly they all agreed word for word. It was finished shortly after his death. But over the following century or so the rest of the Jewish OT and then other writings not part of the Jewish canon were added to it.

Check out Jude 1:14, it was definitely a quote and a mention or allude.
Jude 1:14 - It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, 15to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

While yes, quoting something doesn't automatically make the entire thing truth, I still believe that 1 Enoch should be canon. I've failed to see why they removed it in the first place. I'm specifically speaking of 1 Enoch, not 2 or 3.
 
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Dave-W

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I've failed to see why they removed it in the first place. I'm specifically speaking of 1 Enoch, not 2 or 3.
Because it is pseudopigrapha - written under a false name. It was never written in Hebrew and therefore never in the OT cannon until added to it by some in the coptic church. (their canon only) It was entirely lost to western civilization until the 1800s.
 
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Echolipse

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Because it is pseudopigrapha - written under a false name. It was never written in Hebrew and therefore never in the OT cannon until added to it by some in the coptic church. (their canon only) It was entirely lost to western civilization until the 1800s.

So because something was never written in Hebrew automatically ineligible to be considered canon? Who's to say it was hidden until a specific time? Also if it wasn't canon why would Jesus and the apostles quote from it? I have a hard time believing something isn't canon if Jesus quoted something, but then man removes it from the Word of God saying it's false. Mind you, Christ never referred to any Greek philosophy since He only said what God told Him to say.
 
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Dave-W

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So because something was never written in Hebrew automatically ineligible to be considered canon?
For the OT - yes.
Also if it wasn't canon why would Jesus and the apostles quote from it?
Answered that already. They were pulling from well known works to make a point.
Mind you, Christ never referred to any Greek philosophy since He only said what God told Him to say.
He was not called to preach to any Greeks, period. He was ONLY for the lost sheep of Israel.

The disciples, and Paul specifically, were commissioned to take the gospel to the Greeks and other gentiles. Paul DID quote from Greek philosophers.
 
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Echolipse

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For the OT - yes.

Answered that already. They were pulling from well known works to make a point.

He was not called to preach to any Greeks, period. He was ONLY for the lost sheep of Israel.

The disciples, and Paul specifically, were commissioned to take the gospel to the Greeks and other gentiles. Paul DID quote from Greek philosophers.

Eh, I personally don't buy it. To me, 1 Enoch is canon. I can't speak about 2 or 3 Enoch since I haven't read them yet. So unless, the Lord shows me otherwise personally, I'm considering it canon. Absolutely nothing against you of course. If you believe you feel in your spirit not to believe it's canon, that's all you.
 
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Job8

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Does anybody believe that the giants aka nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6:1-8 were the hybrid offspring of fallen angels and human women? Why or why not?
Please note the connection between "sons of God" and "giants" (Gen 6:1-4):
And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

Nephilim is simply a transliteration of the Hebrew word. The KJV has translated it as "giants".
Strong's Concordance 5303
Nephilim: "giants," name of two peoples, one before the flood and one after the flood
Original Word: נְפִילִים
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: Nephilim
Phonetic Spelling: (nef-eel')
Short Definition: Nephilim

You will notice that none of the men who were justified and deemed righteous from Abel to Abraham were ever called "sons of God". But the angels are called "sons of God" in Job.
 
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Vicomte13

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Enoch book is apocryphal, it is not doctrinal.
The whole Bible talks about the Son or sons of God and angels are never called sons in the Bible.

The Book of Enoch is canonical to the Ethiopian Orthodox, who date from the time of the Apostles. Jude addressed it by name, and many of Jesus' own words come directly out of it.

Catholics and other Orthodox don't consider it canonical, but that doesn't mean they are right. Jesus' own direct quotes from it, coupled with Jude's direct reference and Peter's indirect reference to it cause me to conclude, on balance, that the Ethiopian Orthodox are probably right to treat it as canon, though there may be some corruptions of manuscripts that make a word-for-word accuracy less sure.

Nephilim were the product of angelic matings with human females, both before and after the Flood. This is pretty clear from the Genesis text, and made absolutely clear in detail by Enoch.
 
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Vicomte13

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That is fact, as scripture tells us they were the great men of renown - see Genesis 6.

"Giant" may not refer to stature. Was Hercules a "giant"? He was a strong man, a demi-god (indeed, a nephil: half god-half human). Later, there are a group of real giants, of sorts, the Rephaim of Canaan, beside whom the Israelite spies referred to themselves as grasshoppers. But the text never quite closes the loop to say that Rephaim were Nephilim.

Basque legend about our own distant, obscure origins and strange language is partial from jentilak and mairuak, giants living in the high Sheep Hills (aka, the Pyrenees) since time immemorial. Olentzaro was (and maybe is) the last of them - he was the only one among them who, on seeing the bright sings in the sky signfying the birth of Christ - decided to follow the Christ. The others resisted and said no, and so when Christianity eventually came to Euskadi (the Basque country), many people retreated to the pagan jentilak and mairuak, but they would not come down out of the high mountains, but Olentzaro would join with the people on the plains down where they lived and told them it was good to listen to the teachings about Christ. So they did. Eventually the other jentilak and mairuak died - some say by throwing themselves into the sea, or by falling off mountains, or by simply retreating up into the snows never to return.

But Olentzaro would come back down at Christmastime...and is said to be the one who gives gifts to children in their shoes.

Behind legends there are always grains of truth.
 
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throughfiierytrial

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"Giant" may not refer to stature. Was Hercules a "giant"? He was a strong man, a demi-god (indeed, a nephil: half god-half human). Later, there are a group of real giants, of sorts, the Rephaim of Canaan, beside whom the Israelite spies referred to themselves as grasshoppers. But the text never quite closes the loop to say that Rephaim were Nephilim.

Basque legend about our own distant, obscure origins and strange language is partial from jentilak and mairuak, giants living in the high Sheep Hills (aka, the Pyrenees) since time immemorial. Olentzaro was (and maybe is) the last of them - he was the only one among them who, on seeing the bright sings in the sky signfying the birth of Christ - decided to follow the Christ. The others resisted and said no, and so when Christianity eventually came to Euskadi (the Basque country), many people retreated to the pagan jentilak and mairuak, but they would not come down out of the high mountains, but Olentzaro would join with the people on the plains down where they lived and told them it was good to listen to the teachings about Christ. So they did. Eventually the other jentilak and mairuak died - some say by throwing themselves into the sea, or by falling off mountains, or by simply retreating up into the snows never to return.

But Olentzaro would come back down at Christmastime...and is said to be the one who gives gifts to children in their shoes.

Behind legends there are always grains of truth.


King David...before he was named king...killed the giant Goliath...he was over 9 feet tall...spelled out for us in Scripture.
 
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Gentle Lamb

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I recently went back and read through the whole Old Testament (20 chapters short of being done) and giants are ALL OVER scripture. For anyone to deny their existence and what they were means that they didn't do their homework. Means that we should be spending some important time reading the living word of God. Jesus was not joking but prophesying when He said as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. The earth was full of giants at that time and it will be again because God is not a man that He should lie. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. If you DON'T have ears to hear, pray for them! God is merciful but if we have His word in our hands and refuse to read it then what excuse will there be then for us?
 
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Vicomte13

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I recently went back and read through the whole Old Testament (20 chapters short of being done) and giants are ALL OVER scripture. For anyone to deny their existence and what they were means that they didn't do their homework. Means that we should be spending some important time reading the living word of God. Jesus was not joking but prophesying when He said as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. The earth was full of giants at that time and it will be again because God is not a man that He should lie. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. If you DON'T have ears to hear, pray for them! God is merciful but if we have His word in our hands and refuse to read it then what excuse will there be then for us?

I certainly won't argue with you on any of that. I will say to be careful about anchoring on the word "giant", because that is not the word that is in Scripture. The word is "Nepilim", which we have translated as "giant". It is composed of four Hebrew pictographs: NPLYM.

As a pictographic sentence, this is "the seed/generation, the mouth/blow, shepherd/staff/lead, arm/point, waters/chaos". So, the name NPLYM - NaPaLYM - Nepilim - "Nephilim" - is a descriptor: "The seed of the mouth that leads to chaos". The Nephilim are the offspring whose mouths blow out the words that lead men to chaos.

Giants, big men, super-heroes, "the mighty men of old", easily become leaders, generally leaders who lead (particularly in a pre-gunpowder age) based on strength, power, usually to confrontation, war and its resultant death and chaos.

It's important to actually understand the word, because if you mistakenly think that the word is literally "giant", you might think that until beings of great physical stature appear on the earth, we're ok. But that's not actually what the text says. The roots of Nephilim are mouths blowing - and of course the spirit is what blows from the mouth (for in Hebrew, spirit and breath are the same thing). Hitler, Stalin, Mohammed, Napoleon, Mao, Genghis Khan - these men were not noted for their physical stature, but they were giants among men, towering over others because of their power of leadership, which ultimately came from the power of their words. They rose above men, towered over them in influence, and they pointed the way forward with the words that came from their mouths. Their spirits mastered men, and caused me to ride forth to war, death, destruction and chaos.

Goliath was physically huge. It's easy to see a "giant" in him. It's harder to see Hitler or Mohammed as giants, and yet if we look at Nephilim, we see that the key letter in there is PEY - which is a mouth, followed by LAMED, the shepherd's staff of leadership.

What makes a man a "giant" among men is leadership, the size of his spirit. And that issues forth from his mouth as words, words that lead. Those with the mighty spirits whose mouths issue forth the words that lead men to chaos - they are the Nephilim. And they might only be 5 foot 6.

So, we give ourselves a false sense of security if we rely on the weak English translation of the word "Nephilim" to simply mean "giant". It refers to words and leadership unto chaos - THAT is a "giant". Napoleon was a giant among men because of his leadership. He may not have been a "Nephil", lacking divine origin. But then again "Your father is the Devil" is something that Jesus said to many men. We have two fathers - one biological, and the other spiritual. There is a physical generation and there is also a spiritual generation.

If we just look for physical giants we can lull ourselves into the belief that we have nothing to fear until we see them. And we may never see towering physical giants, and our eyes, lulled by our misinterpretation of a word, could fail to see that men who tower over others by ideas and laws, leading to chaos fit the word "Nephil", though they don't fit the English word "giant".
 
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Echolipse

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I certainly won't argue with you on any of that. I will say to be careful about anchoring on the word "giant", because that is not the word that is in Scripture. The word is "Nepilim", which we have translated as "giant". It is composed of four Hebrew pictographs: NPLYM.

As a pictographic sentence, this is "the seed/generation, the mouth/blow, shepherd/staff/lead, arm/point, waters/chaos". So, the name NPLYM - NaPaLYM - Nepilim - "Nephilim" - is a descriptor: "The seed of the mouth that leads to chaos". The Nephilim are the offspring whose mouths blow out the words that lead men to chaos.

Giants, big men, super-heroes, "the mighty men of old", easily become leaders, generally leaders who lead (particularly in a pre-gunpowder age) based on strength, power, usually to confrontation, war and its resultant death and chaos.

It's important to actually understand the word, because if you mistakenly think that the word is literally "giant", you might think that until beings of great physical stature appear on the earth, we're ok. But that's not actually what the text says. The roots of Nephilim are mouths blowing - and of course the spirit is what blows from the mouth (for in Hebrew, spirit and breath are the same thing). Hitler, Stalin, Mohammed, Napoleon, Mao, Genghis Khan - these men were not noted for their physical stature, but they were giants among men, towering over others because of their power of leadership, which ultimately came from the power of their words. They rose above men, towered over them in influence, and they pointed the way forward with the words that came from their mouths. Their spirits mastered men, and caused me to ride forth to war, death, destruction and chaos.

Goliath was physically huge. It's easy to see a "giant" in him. It's harder to see Hitler or Mohammed as giants, and yet if we look at Nephilim, we see that the key letter in there is PEY - which is a mouth, followed by LAMED, the shepherd's staff of leadership.

What makes a man a "giant" among men is leadership, the size of his spirit. And that issues forth from his mouth as words, words that lead. Those with the mighty spirits whose mouths issue forth the words that lead men to chaos - they are the Nephilim. And they might only be 5 foot 6.

So, we give ourselves a false sense of security if we rely on the weak English translation of the word "Nephilim" to simply mean "giant". It refers to words and leadership unto chaos - THAT is a "giant". Napoleon was a giant among men because of his leadership. He may not have been a "Nephil", lacking divine origin. But then again "Your father is the Devil" is something that Jesus said to many men. We have two fathers - one biological, and the other spiritual. There is a physical generation and there is also a spiritual generation.

If we just look for physical giants we can lull ourselves into the belief that we have nothing to fear until we see them. And we may never see towering physical giants, and our eyes, lulled by our misinterpretation of a word, could fail to see that men who tower over others by ideas and laws, leading to chaos fit the word "Nephil", though they don't fit the English word "giant".

I see where you're going with this and I understand your concept, but you're incorrect on the topic. The Nephilum are the children of fallen angels and human females, this is per Genesis 6. There are at least 2 or three additional times in the OT where beings with 6 fingers and 6 toes are mentioned in scripture. Goliath was a descendant of these, along with his brothers. If you read scripture carefully you'll notice other times when the Israelites came across giant fruits along with giant people.

There are also published works that speak of the Native Americans talking about giants with 6 fingers and six toes on each hand and foot. They have this recorded and dated at the same time the OT was written. So two different peoples writing about the same thing on opposite sides of the earth? No such thing as coincidence.
 
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Vicomte13

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I see where you're going with this and I understand your concept, but you're incorrect on the topic. The Nephilum are the children of fallen angels and human females, this is per Genesis 6. There are at least 2 or three additional times in the OT where beings with 6 fingers and 6 toes are mentioned in scripture. Goliath was a descendant of these, along with his brothers. If you read scripture carefully you'll notice other times when the Israelites came across giant fruits along with giant people.

There are also published works that speak of the Native Americans talking about giants with 6 fingers and six toes on each hand and foot. They have this recorded and dated at the same time the OT was written. So two different peoples writing about the same thing on opposite sides of the earth? No such thing as coincidence.

Don't dig in too deeply here, because you're doing it based on tissue paper.

First, the "Native Americans", the Indians, had no written language. There is nothing whatever written and dated from OT times among the American Indians, because the American Indians had no written language until the arrival of the Europeans. There are no written texts of the American Indians before that, because the Indians never developed an alphabet or a hieroglyphic system. There are a few cave paintings, and some notch stuff on wood, but nothing more.

So no, there is no "recorded and dated at the same time the OT was written" written texts by American Indians. They do not exist. The Indians had no writing system until the 1500s. If someone is telling you otherwise, let him publish the actual PICTURES of these texts, lots and lots of them.

Anybody can write about anything. Except the American Indians, they could not write anything until after 1500, because they never developed a written language.

Genesis 6 does indeed say that the NPLYM ("NePiLYM") are the offspring of "sons of God" - angels - (it never says "fallen") and human females. And it says they (or at least some of them) were the "great men of old", in other words heroes.

The concept that these angels were FALLEN because of these matings is not in Genesis. It is not in the Hebrew Old Testament. It is in the Greek Old Testament, in the Book of Enoch, which is part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Canon, but is not part of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant or Jewish canons.

Jude references Enoch, which would indicate that the FALLEN nature of these angels was indicated by Jude.

But if you stick within the Protestant/Catholic/Eastern Orthodox Canon, you don't have Enoch, and if you stick to the Old Testament, you cannot assert that the angels who mated with humans before and after the Flood were "fallen", or "wicked". Because the text never says it.

Nor does the text ever say that Goliath was a descendant of angels, or a nephil. It merely states that he was tall. People have interpreted that to mean he was a nephil, but that is pure speculation unsupported by anything in the text other than reference to his height. Kobe Bryant is also tall, and is a prominent "hero" of our day to many. Is he a nephil? It seems unlikely.

The Rephaim were described as very tall. King Og of Bashan with his 10 foot (or so) bed was one of them. But the Bible never actually uses the word "Nephilim" in conjunction with the word "Rephaim". It's a leap of logic readers present and past have taken, but it's not actually in the text.

In the Torah, as the Israelites approach Canaan, spies are sent out. They return with the message that the land is unconquerable, and say they met the Rephaim there, beside whom they were like grasshoppers. But Joshua and Caleb don't agree that the land is unconquerable. The context of this information is important. The spies who report the huge stature of these Canaanites may well be exaggerating, because they are trying to discourage the Israelites from attacking Canaan. The Rephaim may well have been very large of stature (and of course they could even have been giants, as reported, and even outright Nephilim), but to take at full face value as true the reports of men who are trying to actively discourage the Israelites from doing what they were supposed to do is not required. In fact, because the Israelites listened to those - probably much exaggerated - reports and decided not to enter Canaan on account of them, and God punished them for that by making them spend another 40 years.

Indeed, when the Israelites actually DID invade Canaan and Bashan, a few years later, they found large men (Og, and later still, Goliath), but they never encountered any men who made the Israelites look like grasshoppers alongside of them.

So, faced with these passages about the giant Rephaim, we cannot simply take them at face value for at least two reasons:
(1) they were being given by FALSE spies who exaggerated in order to discourage the Israelites from correct action, and
(2) When the Israelites did the right thing and invaded, they found big men, but they didn't find any towering Titans beside whom they were "as grasshoppers".

We can choose to take them at face value, if we want to, but even if we do, the word "Nephilim" does not appear in the accounts of the Rephaim, or of Goliath.

Moving on, when you mention that there are two or three ADDITIONAL times in which six-fingered men are discussed, that may be so, but the word "additional" is misplaced: there's nothing in the account of the Nephilim in Genesis that gives any suggestion that they had six fingers or six toes. The references to the six-fingered men is to a specific town, the Philistine town of Gath, whence Goliath hailed. That would indicate that there was an hereditary six-fingered trait there, but it doesn't tell us anything about the Nephilim as such, because the Nephilim are never mentioned at Gath.

So, to not put too fine a point on it, the "careful reading" of Scripture you have recommended - if you DON'T include Enoch as Scripture - does not lead where you have suggested. Nephilim does not mean giant. The Rephaim and some Gathites were big men, but the text does not call them Nephilim. Two different things are described as the English word "giant", but that's not actually SCRIPTURE, it's a mistranslation of two obscure Hebrew words, combining two thoughts - into one, and ascribing something to that one word that the Hebrew words don't contain.

There are some really big men in the Bible. And there are offspring of human women and heavenly beings in the Bible, Jesus being the most prominent, and the Nephilim being the others. They are not described as BIG, they're described as GREAT, as heroes, men of renown. Hercules wasn't 30 feet tall. Neither was Achilles. Demi-gods COULD be huge (Polyphemus the cyclops, for example), but their name "demi-god" doesn't mean "giant", and neither does the word "Nephil".

Equating the Rephaim with the Nephilim is simply an assertion based on an inference, not Scripture.

Unless Enoch is Scripture.

If Enoch is Scripture, neither Og nor Goliath were Nephilim, for Enoch tells us that the Nephilim were 300 cubits, the same length as the ark. That's about 600 feet tall. It's more complicated than that, for the Amharic version of Enoch tells us this, but the Greek version gives different races brought forth by the union of women and angels, of which the Nephalim were one.

If one adds in the Books of Jubilees and of Jasher, both of which are in the Ethiopian canon, a larger picture of the Nephilim emerges. And frankly, if one does that, one can begin to come to the conclusion that perhaps the great therapod DINOSAURS were Nephilim, and the Flood destroyed THEM, and was INTENDED to.

There's plenty of Scripture that will give you all sorts of details about the Nephilim and the Flood and the antediluvian world, but you'll have to go to the Ethiopian Orthodox to have them in your canon.

If you exclude those books and everything contained in them from consideration, from just the Bible itself you can't get all that far. And, thing is, even if you INCLUDE Enoch, Jasher and Jubilees, there is still the problem with the mistranslation of the Hebrew word Nephilim into Greek as "giant", because the word simply does not MEAN "giant". Nor does the word "Rephaim".

NePLYM is - the seed or generation of the mouth that leads to chaos.
RePYM is - the head (or summit) of the mouth that leads to chaos.

One speaks of a generation, a bloodline. The other speaks of the leaders, the heads. Same thing - but physical stature is not the key to the word, unless one views "summit" or "head" as meaning "promontory".

As I say, one can INFER things about the Repym/Neplym from the Catholic/E.O./Protestant and Jewish canon. And one can find some confirmation of that in the books mentioned in their canons but actually contained in the Ethiopic canon.

If you want your giants at their full stature, go with the Ethiopians.
 
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Gentle Lamb

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Maintaining what I said in my post above (#50) read your bibles folks. No substitutions for getting into the word of God and letting Him teach you Himself. Time is short, remember how in ancient Israel the prophets came to bring warning time and again and the people got more and more into sinful ways instead of repenting. We are worse than they are because we have their example and have rejected it. There is only one way and that is the narrow way, and being on the narrow way means sitting up under the shadow of the Most High, under His wings (Psalms 91), and letting Him instruct you Himself.
 
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Echolipse

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Don't dig in too deeply here, because you're doing it based on tissue paper.

First, the "Native Americans", the Indians, had no written language. There is nothing whatever written and dated from OT times among the American Indians, because the American Indians had no written language until the arrival of the Europeans. There are no written texts of the American Indians before that, because the Indians never developed an alphabet or a hieroglyphic system. There are a few cave paintings, and some notch stuff on wood, but nothing more.

So no, there is no "recorded and dated at the same time the OT was written" written texts by American Indians. They do not exist. The Indians had no writing system until the 1500s. If someone is telling you otherwise, let him publish the actual PICTURES of these texts, lots and lots of them.

Anybody can write about anything. Except the American Indians, they could not write anything until after 1500, because they never developed a written language.

Genesis 6 does indeed say that the NPLYM ("NePiLYM") are the offspring of "sons of God" - angels - (it never says "fallen") and human females. And it says they (or at least some of them) were the "great men of old", in other words heroes.

The concept that these angels were FALLEN because of these matings is not in Genesis. It is not in the Hebrew Old Testament. It is in the Greek Old Testament, in the Book of Enoch, which is part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Canon, but is not part of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant or Jewish canons.

Jude references Enoch, which would indicate that the FALLEN nature of these angels was indicated by Jude.

But if you stick within the Protestant/Catholic/Eastern Orthodox Canon, you don't have Enoch, and if you stick to the Old Testament, you cannot assert that the angels who mated with humans before and after the Flood were "fallen", or "wicked". Because the text never says it.

Nor does the text ever say that Goliath was a descendant of angels, or a nephil. It merely states that he was tall. People have interpreted that to mean he was a nephil, but that is pure speculation unsupported by anything in the text other than reference to his height. Kobe Bryant is also tall, and is a prominent "hero" of our day to many. Is he a nephil? It seems unlikely.

The Rephaim were described as very tall. King Og of Bashan with his 10 foot (or so) bed was one of them. But the Bible never actually uses the word "Nephilim" in conjunction with the word "Rephaim". It's a leap of logic readers present and past have taken, but it's not actually in the text.

In the Torah, as the Israelites approach Canaan, spies are sent out. They return with the message that the land is unconquerable, and say they met the Rephaim there, beside whom they were like grasshoppers. But Joshua and Caleb don't agree that the land is unconquerable. The context of this information is important. The spies who report the huge stature of these Canaanites may well be exaggerating, because they are trying to discourage the Israelites from attacking Canaan. The Rephaim may well have been very large of stature (and of course they could even have been giants, as reported, and even outright Nephilim), but to take at full face value as true the reports of men who are trying to actively discourage the Israelites from doing what they were supposed to do is not required. In fact, because the Israelites listened to those - probably much exaggerated - reports and decided not to enter Canaan on account of them, and God punished them for that by making them spend another 40 years.

Indeed, when the Israelites actually DID invade Canaan and Bashan, a few years later, they found large men (Og, and later still, Goliath), but they never encountered any men who made the Israelites look like grasshoppers alongside of them.

So, faced with these passages about the giant Rephaim, we cannot simply take them at face value for at least two reasons:
(1) they were being given by FALSE spies who exaggerated in order to discourage the Israelites from correct action, and
(2) When the Israelites did the right thing and invaded, they found big men, but they didn't find any towering Titans beside whom they were "as grasshoppers".

We can choose to take them at face value, if we want to, but even if we do, the word "Nephilim" does not appear in the accounts of the Rephaim, or of Goliath.

Moving on, when you mention that there are two or three ADDITIONAL times in which six-fingered men are discussed, that may be so, but the word "additional" is misplaced: there's nothing in the account of the Nephilim in Genesis that gives any suggestion that they had six fingers or six toes. The references to the six-fingered men is to a specific town, the Philistine town of Gath, whence Goliath hailed. That would indicate that there was an hereditary six-fingered trait there, but it doesn't tell us anything about the Nephilim as such, because the Nephilim are never mentioned at Gath.

So, to not put too fine a point on it, the "careful reading" of Scripture you have recommended - if you DON'T include Enoch as Scripture - does not lead where you have suggested. Nephilim does not mean giant. The Rephaim and some Gathites were big men, but the text does not call them Nephilim. Two different things are described as the English word "giant", but that's not actually SCRIPTURE, it's a mistranslation of two obscure Hebrew words, combining two thoughts - into one, and ascribing something to that one word that the Hebrew words don't contain.

There are some really big men in the Bible. And there are offspring of human women and heavenly beings in the Bible, Jesus being the most prominent, and the Nephilim being the others. They are not described as BIG, they're described as GREAT, as heroes, men of renown. Hercules wasn't 30 feet tall. Neither was Achilles. Demi-gods COULD be huge (Polyphemus the cyclops, for example), but their name "demi-god" doesn't mean "giant", and neither does the word "Nephil".

Equating the Rephaim with the Nephilim is simply an assertion based on an inference, not Scripture.

Unless Enoch is Scripture.

If Enoch is Scripture, neither Og nor Goliath were Nephilim, for Enoch tells us that the Nephilim were 300 cubits, the same length as the ark. That's about 600 feet tall. It's more complicated than that, for the Amharic version of Enoch tells us this, but the Greek version gives different races brought forth by the union of women and angels, of which the Nephalim were one.

If one adds in the Books of Jubilees and of Jasher, both of which are in the Ethiopian canon, a larger picture of the Nephilim emerges. And frankly, if one does that, one can begin to come to the conclusion that perhaps the great therapod DINOSAURS were Nephilim, and the Flood destroyed THEM, and was INTENDED to.

There's plenty of Scripture that will give you all sorts of details about the Nephilim and the Flood and the antediluvian world, but you'll have to go to the Ethiopian Orthodox to have them in your canon.

If you exclude those books and everything contained in them from consideration, from just the Bible itself you can't get all that far. And, thing is, even if you INCLUDE Enoch, Jasher and Jubilees, there is still the problem with the mistranslation of the Hebrew word Nephilim into Greek as "giant", because the word simply does not MEAN "giant". Nor does the word "Rephaim".

NePLYM is - the seed or generation of the mouth that leads to chaos.
RePYM is - the head (or summit) of the mouth that leads to chaos.

One speaks of a generation, a bloodline. The other speaks of the leaders, the heads. Same thing - but physical stature is not the key to the word, unless one views "summit" or "head" as meaning "promontory".

As I say, one can INFER things about the Repym/Neplym from the Catholic/E.O./Protestant and Jewish canon. And one can find some confirmation of that in the books mentioned in their canons but actually contained in the Ethiopic canon.

If you want your giants at their full stature, go with the Ethiopians.

Have you not read the rest of the posts on this thread? I could be wrong here, but either on this thread on another we already touched on everything that you commented on. Some of the stuff you touched on you must think on the universal end and not just focus on the Hebrew end. What occurred to the Israelites, could have occurred to other nations as well.

Also, there are about 3 or 4 generations of Nephilum, each one having a name different, but similar to the name "Nephilum".
 
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Vicomte13

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Have you not read the rest of the posts on this thread? I could be wrong here, but either on this thread on another we already touched on everything that you commented on. Some of the stuff you touched on you must think on the universal end and not just focus on the Hebrew end. What occurred to the Israelites, could have occurred to other nations as well.

Also, there are about 3 or 4 generations of Nephilum, each one having a name different, but similar to the name "Nephilum".

If you want to know much about the Nephilim, you need to use the Ethiopian canon.

If you want to actually MEET descendants of the Nephilim, you're best bet is to go to the Basque country.
 
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Radrook

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The whole event brings up many questions which the Bible leaves unanswered.
So all we can really do is wonder and speculate.

1. How exactly do they materialize?
2. Was the production of Giants a voluntary or an inevitable consequence?
3. Was it predominantly attraction or curiosity?
4. Is the Book of Enoch a reliable source in relation to this event?
5. Does Jude quoting it indicate its reliability?
6. Are the chimeras mentioned in Greek mythology a reflection of angelic genetic tweaking during that period?
7. Why would God not make the abnormal action itself an impossibility for them?
 
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Radrook

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If you want to know much about the Nephilim, you need to use the Ethiopian canon.

If you want to actually MEET descendants of the Nephilim, you're best bet is to go to the Basque country.

So what will we find in the Basque country?
 
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ewq1938

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The whole event brings up many questions which the Bible leaves unanswered.
So all we can really do is wonder and speculate.

1. How exactly do they materialize?

Same way babies do?


2. Was the production of Giants a voluntary or an inevitable consequence?

Voluntary doesn't make any sense in this context.


3. Was it predominantly attraction or curiosity?

Not specified.


4. Is the Book of Enoch a reliable source in relation to this event?
5. Does Jude quoting it indicate its reliability?

Yes to both.

6. Are the chimeras mentioned in Greek mythology a reflection of angelic genetic tweaking during that period?

No, Mythology is exactly that, myth...which means it is not true.


7. Why would God not make the abnormal action itself an impossibility for them?

He doesn't make sin impossible else he would have and no one would be sinners.
 
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So what will we find in the Basque country?
Basques.

Whose blood type is that weird Rh negative stuff - it seems to have spread from there, with the only other enclaves of it being Israel, the Atlas Mountains and Southern Ireland and which makes it hard for them to interbreed with others.
Whose language is utterly unrelated to any other on earth, weirdly complicated.
Whose origins are utterly ancient and unknown. They didn't seem to "come from" anywhere. They were already there when other people showed up.
And whose own myths of their own origins are of being descended from giants in the hills.
And who were the first people with the skills to build boats to go onto the deep oceans, since time immemorial.

If angels did take women after the flood and whisked them off, and there's something particular and identifiable about their descendants, the Basques would be the most likely of all races to be descended of the Nephilim.
 
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