No. The nephilim are the "heroes of old, men of renown".
As to the identity of the sons of God, a lot of ink has been spilled. I maintain that the sons of God and daughters of men are just references to two groups of people. Possibly referring to the descendants of Seth and descendants of Cain respectively.
The nephilim, therefore, were mere mortal men. Hence their being called "heroes of old, men of renown".
There are several reasons why I reject the sons of God = angels theory. But the most basic reason is that angels don't have bodies, they therefore don't have reproductive parts or carry genetic information. Sexual reproduction is a property that belongs to flesh and blood creatures which need to pass on their genetic information from one generation to the next. The command "go forth and multiply" was never given to angels, but to plants, animals, and human beings.
Angels don't have bodies, but "He makes His angels winds, His servants flames of fire" (Psalm 104:4, Hebrews 1:7). Jesus says that in the resurrection, the bodily raised shall be like the angels in that, like the angels, the resurrected will "neither marry nor be given in marriage" (Matthew 22:30).
No angel-human hybrids.
No race of fantasy giants.
Just people.
-CryptoLutheran
The nephelim were men of renown because though they were men, they were part divine. Because their parents were both human (the woman) and angel (the sons of God) and sometimes they were 2/3 human and 1/3 angel, with a human father and mother, and an angel that dwelled within one of the two.
Also, there are many examples of angels having physical bodies in the old testament. So I don't know what you're talking about there. Sometimes angels come and eat dinner with people. Sometimes they physically wrestle with people.
Angels in the old testament were described very similarly in form as people.
The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground. He said, “Please, my Lords, turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the square.” But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.
Genesis 19:1-7 NRSV
He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. He said, “My Lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
Genesis 18:2-8 NRSV
The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”
Genesis 32:22-30 NRSV
Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites.
Judges 6:11 NRSV
And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Although you are barren, having borne no children, you shall conceive and bear a son. Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like that of an angel of God, most awe-inspiring; I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name; but he said to me, ‘You shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.’ ”
Judges 13:3, 6-7 NRSV
"A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like that of an angel".
Angels in parts of the old testament have an appearance as something similar to, if not almost indistinguishable, in some instances, from people.
Angels having sexual interaction with humans was also common in literature of old testament times. And was common in second temple period literature.
Also, the nephelim are not just regular humans. They're described in many passages in the Bible as being giants.
amos 2:9
numbers 13:32 to 33
Deuteronomy 2:20-21
deuteronomy 3:11
1 samuel 17:4
This includes of course the mighty Goliath, of Gath, where the remnant of the rephaim remained in which King David waged war.
Peter and Jude lay it out clear as day:
For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly;
2 Peter 2:4-6 NRSV
And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great Day. Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Jude 1:6-7 NRSV
in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
1 Peter 3:19-20 NRSV
When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.
Genesis 6:1-4 NRSV
The angels that rebelled in the time of Noah. The spirits in prison, imprisoned in gloomy darkness.
The Bible spells this all out very clearly. The sons of God are pointed to over and over and over again as divine beings.
So unless someone can address these passages, it's case closed.
