The origination of the Nephilim begins with a story
of the fallen angels. Originating in the Book of Enoch {Apocrypha} Shemhazai, an angel of high rank, led a sect of angels in a descent to earth to instruct humans in righteousness.
The mission lasted for a few centuries, but soon the soldiers/missionaries/angels became corrupted in their lusting after
human females. After lusting, the fallen angels instructed the women in magic and conjuring, mated with them, and produced
offspring, who would later be referred to as the Nephilim.
Enoch was probably as well known to the ancient readers as he is
unknown to modern readers . Genesis says of him only that he "walked with God," and afterward "he was not, because God
had taken him" (Gen. 5:24). This passage made Enoch an exalted figure of considerable fascination.
The Book of Giants
Another work concerned with the fallen Angels and Enoch , It was
widely read in ancient Rome and Greece but only fragments of it, some un-translated exist today. See more here.
Other Info
"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, miscarriage". The Biblical
tradition says the Nephilim were on the earth before the Flood and afterwards, but they appear to be missing during the Flood.
"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
"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 unto them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."
-
Genesis 6:4 (King Jame's version)
"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
"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
"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
