What is ‘Nephilim‘ in christian and jewish writings?
Genesis 6:1-4
13:32-33
were there really giants back then?
Could you please be a little more informative than just saying “No” or “Yes” there is really no point in saying one word answers as it shows a lack of knowledge and shows you don’t put much thought into your answers.
Answer by Kryten
No.
The no was to the body of the question “Were there really giants back then?”
No. There weren’t.
The word “Nephilim” is used to describe legendary heroes, similar to the Titans and heroes of Greek mythology. They were supposed to be the offspring of the Sons of God and the daughters of men. Needless to say, they did not exist as such.
Traditional Rabbinical Jewish writings have used the term, but as there is no original source material or direct evidence, it is pretty safe to say that they didn’t exist.
The term “Nephilim” occurs just twice in the Hebrew Bible, both in the Torah. The first is Genesis 6:1-4, immediately before the Noah’s ark story:
1. When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
2. the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
3. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
4. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
The second is Numbers 13:32-33, where the Hebrew spies report that they have seen fearsome giants in Canaan:
32. And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.
33. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
There is some disagreement about it:
1.”Sons of God” refers to fallen angels who lived on earth and married human women. The Nephilim are giants of extra-human strength who were the offspring of these marriages.
2.”Sons of God” refers to descendents of Seth, who were godly men who sinned by marrying descendents of Cain, who would have been pagans. The Nephilim were simply “heroes”, not giants, and may or may not have been the offspring of the mixed marriages.
3.”Sons of God” is better translated as “kings” or “sons of nobles” and “Nephilim” is best translated as “princes” or “great men.” That is, the “sons of God” were royalty or aristocrats who were generally immoral and married common women, possibly against their will or despite their already being married.
Dinosaurs, duh?
The Nephilim (“fallen ones, giants”) were the offspring of sexual relationships between the sons of God and daughters of men in Genesis 6:1-4. There is much debate as to the identity of the “sons of God.” It is our contention that the “sons of God” were fallen angels (demons) who mated with human females and/or possessed human males and then mated with human females. These unions resulted in offspring, the Nephilim, that were “heroes of old, men of renown” (Genesis 6:4).
http://www.gotquestions.org/Nephilim.html
(Neph′i·lim) [Fellers; Those Who Cause [Others] to Fall Down].
This is a transliteration of the Hebrew word nephi·lim′, plural in its three occurrences in the Bible. (Ge 6:4; Nu 13:33 [twice]) It evidently stems from the causative form of the Hebrew verb na·phal′ (fall) as found, for example, in 2 Kings 3:19; 19:7.
The Bible account describing Jehovah’s displeasure with men in the days of Noah before the Flood relates that “the sons of the true God” took for themselves wives from among the attractive daughters of men. It then mentions the presence of “Nephilim,” saying: “The Nephilim proved to be in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of the true God continued to have relations with the daughters of men and they bore sons to them, they were the mighty ones [Heb., hag·gib·bo·rim′] who were of old, the men of fame.”—Ge 6:1-4.
The sons of God mentioned at Genesis 6:2, therefore, must have been angels, spirit “sons of God.” This expression is applied to angels at Job 1:6; 38:7. This view is supported by Peter, who speaks of “the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in Noah’s days.” (1Pe 3:19, 20) Also Jude writes of “the angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place.” (Jude 6) Angels had the power to materialize in human form, and some angels did so to bring messages from God. (Ge 18:1, 2, 8, 20-22; 19:1-11; Jos 5:13-15) But heaven is the proper abode of spirit persons, and the angels there have positions of service under Jehovah. (Da 7:9, 10) To leave this abode to dwell on earth and to forsake their assigned service to have fleshly relations would be rebellion against God’s laws, and perversion.
The Bible states that the disobedient angels are now “spirits in prison,” having been ‘thrown into Tartarus’ and “reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.” This seems to indicate that they are greatly restricted, unable again to materialize as they did prior to the Flood.—1Pe 3:19; 2Pe 2:4; Jude 6.
In Mythology. The fame and dread of the Nephilim, it appears, gave rise to many mythologies of heathen people who, after the confusion of languages at Babel, were scattered throughout the earth. Though the historical forms of the Genesis account were greatly distorted and embellished, there was a remarkable resemblance in these ancient mythologies (those of the Greeks being only one example), in which gods and goddesses mated with humans to produce superhuman heroes and fearful demigods having god-man characteristics.
They were giants, NightChemical:
In fact I have seen pictures of graves with giant soldiers. Goliath’s bed was nine feet, and in Crosby, Texas, there is a human femur that is four feet long–and that is from the hip to the knee joing.
Before the flood, the entire human race was taller and majestic. Excavations of Cretateous lime stone show human foot prints two feet long. an 18 inch one can be seen at http://revelado.org/thetimeoftheend.pdf
Blessings, Ticlesh