Who Are the Nephilim?
The mysterious beings of Genesis 6
Alexandre Cabanel, CC0,, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The Nephilim, the product of the sons of god mingling with the daughters of Adam, the great biblical giants, “the fallen ones,” the Rephaim, “the dead ones”—these descriptions are all applied to one group of characters found within the Hebrew Bible. Who are the Nephilim? From where do the “heroes of old, the men of renown” come?
Genesis 6:1–4 tells the readers that the Nephilim, which means “fallen ones” when translated into English, were the product of copulation between the divine beings (lit. sons of god) and human women (lit. daughters of Adam). The Nephilim are known as great warriors and biblical giants (see Ezekiel 32:27 and Numbers 13:33).
It was once claimed that the mating of the sons of god and the daughters of Adam that resulted in the Nephilim caused the flood, and this caused the Nephilim to have a negative reputation. This was believed because the next verse (Genesis 6:5) is the introduction to the flood narrative and because their name means “fallen ones.” It is unlikely that this interpretation is correct because Genesis 6:4 presents nothing but praise for the Nephilim and no criticism is present. In addition, the name “fallen ones” is likely a reference to their divine paternity transforming—falling—into the human condition, albeit an almost superhuman condition.
Genesis 6, Ezekiel 32, and Numbers 13 are the only passages that mention the Nephilim by that term. So where do the names Rephaim and “the dead ones” originate? The first thing to recognize is that these are not two separate titles, but rather a name, Rephaim, and a meaning, “dead ones.” The Bible refers to two groups as the Rephaim. The first are dead people who have achieved an almost divine status, similar to the concept of Saints. The second is a term that is applied to races of biblical giants. It is this second usage that is often conflated with the Nephilim.
The Rephaim appear in Deuteronomy 2:11; 3:11; 2 Samuel 21:19 and Joshua 11:22 and almost always take the form of one member of the Rephaim (Anaqim, Og, Goliath) being in opposition with Israel or its representative. In this sense, the Rephaim live up to their name, as their purpose in each narrative is to die. The juxtaposition of the mighty biblical giants defeated by the underdog, God’s chosen, is foreshadowed in the very name attributed to these characters.
Ellen White, Ph.D. (Hebrew Bible, University of St. Michael’s College), formerly the senior editor at the Biblical Archaeology Society, has taught at five universities across the U.S. and Canada and spent research leaves in Germany and Romania. She has also been actively involved in digs at various sites in Israel.
This Bible History Daily article was originally published on November 19, 2014.
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Matthew I think you should understand that Moses was the author of the first five books of the bible. During Moses time he probably would have never heard of Greece. The Hellenization of palestine brought by Alexander the Great happened many centuries later. You may be thinking well would if someone just added the stuff about the Nephilim to the text later. The thing you have to understand is that Jewish scribes who would copy God’s word did it with painstakingly scrupulous accuracy. They had to copy the text word for word jot for jot and tittle for tittle. If they messed up once they had to throw out the scroll and start over. In order to add something later they would have to gather the thousands of already copied scrolls throughout Israel and somehow edit them. Because a copy that differed in content would have been recognized and thrown out. Also, adding to God’s word is probably the most dangerous thing anyone could because of their reverence for God. They have found scrolls of the Bible that were about 1000 years earlier than more recent scrolls. They examined the content and saw that they were copied word for word. The only changes were names of cities because the old name for that city wasn’t in use anymore. Kind of like how New York was previously called new hampster or something like that. Other than that none of it has been changed. Most people would assume a slight altering or at least one added story but that isn’t the case.
The reference to Ezekiel 32:27 seems to sum up the meaning of the term “Nephilim” in Genesis 6:5 that was later confused with giants. Their legacy has “fallen” into the underworld though they are still remembered as “mighty ones who existed from of old; the men of renown.” The Epic of Gilgamesh is probably what the Jehovist author of Genesis had in mind, since the final revision was composed by the Babylonian priest Sin-leqe-unninni probably around the 13th-12th century B.C.E.: This version was given the title taken from the first line, “He who saw the deep,” which was based on an Old Babylonian version entitled, “Surpassing all other kings.”
Interestingly, in Genesis 4:4-5 it states that “Yahweh looked to Abel and his offering. And He did not look to Cain and his offering. And Cain glowed greatly with anger and his face fell (nephil).” The philosopher Philo of Alexandria places Cain in the category of those who make only an outward show of piety and writes:
“Accordingly, most excellently (scripture) says not that God saw the offerings but that He first saw those who were offering gifts before the gifts themselves, for men look at the quantity of gifts and approve them; but God looks at the truth of the soul, turning aside from arrogance and flattery” (Philo; Questions and Answers on Genesis, Book 1, #61).
In the Gigamesh saga it is the death of Enkidu that causes Gilgamesh to become aware of his own mortality and to wander like Cain (after the death of Abel) who is banished from the Lord’s presence and dwelt in the land of Nod (wandering), east of Eden (Genesis 4:16). It is from the annals of Ashurbanipal II in the early 9th century B.C.E. that we have the first known reference to the city-state of Beth Eden (Amos 1:5) and its territory extended eastward and ended where the Euphrates River is linked with the Habor River. Like Gilgamesh who eventually ends up in the mythical pure land of Dilmun which is the source for the Edenic story, Cain returns to the origins of civilization, the city-state of Eridu (Irad, Genesis 4:18). The fact that Cain is mentioned as naming a city after his son Enoch (teacher) probably refers to the mythical human-fish hybrids known as “apkallu” (wise men, sages) who first brought the arts of civilization and were mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh as the seven sages who founded the city of Uruk (Erech, Genesis 10:10). Eridu is mentioned as a pre-flood city in the Babylonian King List, as is Shuruppak where Utnapistim was from:
“Artfully woven into Gilgamesh’s own story are the traditional tale of the Deluge, the great flood by which early in human history the gods sought to destroy mankind, and a long description of the gloomy realm of the dead. From all this Gilgamesh emerges as a kind of cultural hero. The wisdom he received at the ends of the earth from the survivor of the Deluge, Uta-napishti, enabled him to restore the temples of the land and their rituals to their ideal state of antediluvian perfection” (“The Epic of Gilgamesh” by Andrew George, Penguin Classics, p. xiv).
Correction; Genesis 6:4 for the term Nephilim which is mentioned twice, those before the,flood and those after, like Gilgamesh.
I would suggest that Ms White (despite her impressive–to some–credentials) reread Genesis, I Enoch, Jasher and, perhaps, Jubilees, before declaring her view as more enlightened and Biblical than what’s actually written in those texts. You seem to be just as guilty as Matthew in inventing (or, at least, espousing) an interpretation that fits your particular view of the Bible. Actually, the more that I’ve read “Bible History Daily”, the more I become convinced that its sole purpose is to refute God’s word. If you don’t believe what’s written in the Bible or if you’re somehow just too intelligent to believe in the supernatural aspect of our Creator and our past, why not become a Muslim or a Hindu or maybe just become an atheist? That would be preferable to changing God’s Word in order to fit into today’s world. As a matter of fact, what’s happening in the world today, as well as your participation in it, is specifically addressed and warned against in the Bible, as written and understood for thousands of years–even without the benefit of your “great” learning and interpretation.
Aliens… read it for what is is; symbolic allegory to explain what one could not explain.. aliens came down and corrupted the Homo Sapien Sapien bloodline… its always been Aliens 😉
I am still of the view that Nephilim are historical memory of a time when humans and Neanderthals shared the Levant.
Isn’t it possible that the term “sons of God” means believers (i.e., those who believed in God’s promise to send the woman’s Seed to crush the serpent’s head) and that the term “daughters of men” refers to unbelievers? It seems to me that this was the very problem: intermarriage between believers and unbelievers resulted in a great apostasy from true faith in the God who had created all things and all people, from the God who had promised to send a human Savior from sin.
I agree John. The meaning should come from the written context, not drawn from outside the Pentateuch. Context is king in Biblical hermeneutics. In order to understand what words like “sons of god” meant to the Israelites, we should look at how Moses used them elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Moses describes the Israelites as “sons (or children) of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 14:1 & 32:3-6). I am not aware of any passage where Moses calls angels “sons of God”.
If we look at it from Evolutionary perspective the mythological Adam and Eve represent Homo Sapience and the Nephilim represent Homo Neanderthals. The verse tells us that both species mated. New genetics research shows that we have a certain percentage of Neanderthal genes in our genetic build up.
Could the Nephilim be Neanderthals? We know they mated with humans.
I found the Epic of Gilgamesh to be of the order of other mythical accounts such as the Titans bound within a mountain; that is to be based on a truth but embellished into folklore and thus hidden from the truth to many an unsuspecting and superficial enquiry.
Nephilim are the hybrid offspring of a corrupted union of angels with humans. The 200 Watchers as described in the Book of Enoch fell from their first estate and sought to create a testimony for themselves. The Flood was to rid the world of this corruption which had extended to “all flesh”.
In effect, the fallen angels had “created” a hybrid that was not created by God and hence the corruption of all things began.
This corruption was not limited to angel/human hybrids but to all flesh. Now we have stem cell research creating chimeras adding a third strand of DNA to human DNA creating a “new species”. This has advanced significantly in the Universities of Newcastle and Warwick in the UK where we hold the dubious honour of being the world’s pioneers in this work.
Do not imagine that Satan does not already possess the key to these gates and this is why we must ensure we have salvation through the Christ in order that we are protected in the coming years when the devil mounts his final assault on God’s Creation.