What are the Nephilim?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Two classes of men, with strong hand and strong will, are here described. "The giants," the well-known men of great stature, physical force, and violent will, who were enabled by these qualities to claim and secure the supremacy over their fellow-men. "Had been in the land in those days." In the days when those intermarriages were beginning to take place, the warriors were asserting the claim of might. Violence and rapine were becoming rampant in the land. "And after that." The progeny of the mixed marriages were the second and subsequent class of leading men. "The sons of God" are here contradistinguished from the "nephilim, or giants," who appear therefore to have belonged to the Cainites. The offspring of these unhallowed unions were the heroes, the gallants, the mighty men, the men of renown. They were probably more refined in manners and exalted in thought than their predecessors of pure Cainite descent. "Men of name," whose names are often in men's mouths, because they either deserved or required to be named frequently on account of their influential or representative character. Being distinguished from the common herd by prominent qualities or memorable exploits, they were also frequently marked out by a special name or surname, derived from such trait of character or deed of notoriety. "Of old" (מעולם mē'ôlām). This has been sometimes explained "of the world," in the sense of αἰών aiōn; but the meaning is too late for the present passage. The phrase uniformly means "of old," covering a more or less extensive length of time. This note of time implies a writer probably after the deluge, who could speak of antediluvian affairs, as happening of old.

It is remarkable that we have no hint of any kind of government in the antediluvian world. It is open to us to suppose that the patriarchal polity would make its appearance, as it is an order based upon natural relations. But it is possible that God himself, being still present and manifest, was recognized as the governor. To him offerings were brought, and he deals with Cain on his first and second transgression. In that case the lawless violence of the strong and willful is to be regarded as rebellion, not only against the patriarchal rule, but the divine supremacy. A notice of civil law and government would not of course affect the authority of the book. But the absence of such notice is in favor of its divine origin. It is obvious that higher things than these have the attention of the sacred writer.

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Clarke's Commentary on the Bible

There were giants in the earth - נפלים nephilim, from נפל naphal, "he fell." Those who had apostatized or fallen from the true religion. The Septuagint translate the original word by γιγαντες, which literally signifies earth-born, and which we, following them, term giants, without having any reference to the meaning of the word, which we generally conceive to signify persons of enormous stature. But the word when properly understood makes a very just distinction between the sons of men and the sons of God; those were the nephilim, the fallen earth-born men, with the animal and devilish mind. These were the sons of God, who were born from above; children of the kingdom, because children of God. Hence we may suppose originated the different appellatives given to sinners and saints; the former were termed γιγαντες, earth-born, and the latter, ἁγιοι, i.e. saints, persons not of the earth, or separated from the earth.

The same became mighty men - men of renown - גברים gibborim, which we render mighty men, signifies properly conquerors, heroes, from גבר gabar, "he prevailed, was victorious." and אנשי השם anshey hashshem, "men of the name," ανθρωποι ονομαστοι, Septuagint; the same as we render men of renown, renominati, twice named, as the word implies, having one name which they derived from their fathers, and another which they acquired by their daring exploits and enterprises.

It may be necessary to remark here that our translators have rendered seven different Hebrew words by the one term giants, viz., nephilim, gibborim, enachim, rephaim, emim, and zamzummim; by which appellatives are probably meant in general persons of great knowledge, piety, courage, wickedness, etc., and not men of enormous stature, as is generally conjectured.

I have to say that I find it rather difficult to believe! Such news would be everywhere and not just on one or two sites of the internet! The problem with the internet is that you can find almost anything you are searching for! For example if you want proof that Evils is working in a Chip Shop at the bottom of someone's road you will find it! if you look hard enough! Giants once existed this is true, but only in the relative form that they were much taller than those who reported seeing them, Skeletons have been unearthed of people over 7feet tall, one such site is on the islands off the coast of Scotland, but these were just very tall people! As for the Nephilim they in fact come from a very old Greek story which migrated into the biblical story, there are many thing that we do not know of our past and some things that have become lost and only remain in myth, but one must always keep one feet on the ground even if one is looking for giants.

The term Nephilim comes from the Book of Enoch, which some orthodoxies don't consider credible nor 'canon', for use in religious matters. The Nephilim, also called the Children of the Earth in the Book of Genesis. We the resulting offspring of angels lusting after human females. Its said that they were enchanted by the hair of women. Though the origins lost in antiquity, some sects have the ordinence that women were to cover their hair, it was to prevent angels from coming down and mating with them.

Within the some of the older none biblical texts, they claim these offspring were giants that created alot of destruction on the earth. It is commonly held by many groups that the 'children of the earth' were all hunted down and killed by humans or wiped out in the FLOOD.

“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.” – Genesis 6:4

In the Christian Bible we are made aware of the Nephilim from the very beginning. Genesis 6:4 speaks of Nephilim who are born of human females but who are Fathered by the sons of God. Who exactly the sons of God are is often the subject of debate, some think they are humans that are descended from the biblical Seth but most understand them to be God’s messengers or Angels. In my opinion it is clear that the sons of God are actually the disobedient rebellious fallen angels (which in my opinion are physical beings with advanced technology possibly from another planet). Their offence was copulating with human females which resulted in the creation of the monstrous Nephilim race. The Nephilim tipped the natural balance of the Earth, which angered God as went to an awful lot of trouble to create that balance in the first place.

Most ancient myths speak of Gods copulating with human females to produce heroes of great strength. In Irish or Celtic myth, the God of Light known as Lugh (pronounced Loo) has sex with a human female to produce the mighty Setanta. The adventures of Setanta are spoken of even today by the Irish. This myth is mirrored in Greek mythology where Zeus mated with the mortal Alcmene producing the mighty Heracles known as Hercules to the Romans.

The book of Enoch is an ancient text that is still used to this day by the The Ethiopian Orthodox Church who regard it as canonical. Fragments of it were found among the dead sea scrolls and it was quoted from in the New Testament in the Letter of Jude 1:14-15. The book is written by Enoch himself, who used to walk with God, and goes into great detail about the various offices of the angels (both obedient and disobedient).

In Enoch it is clear that it was the angels that mixed their genes with human females to produce the Nephilim. The book states that they lusted after human females, mated with them and took them as wives, however this does not preclude the fact that the act might have been performed artificially in some way. These fallen angels then taught man about farming, medicine, metallurgy, astronomy, astrology and much more. They also taught women how to beautify the eyes with make up (which is hilarious but thank God they didn’t teach it to men).

God was angered by this act as the immortal beings were not allowed to father children.

Personally, I think that this is to religion as the Grand Unified Theory is to physics. It links original sin to eating from the tree of knowledge and explains why the flood happened and why later Joshua was instructed to finish off the lines of the Nephilim.

Consider this theory:

Imagine a world where the humans of the time lived in harmony with nature. The reason they lived in harmony with nature is because they evolved here on this planet in balance with all other creatures. Perhaps we were always meant to be relatively simple Neanderthals with little need beyond survival. A beautiful species on a beautiful planet.

Imagine then a more advanced race (from another planet perhaps) mixing with this life form. What are the implications of this uplifting?

■It would increasing their brain capacity so that humans would become self conscious and given the knowledge of good and evil.

■Women may have increased pain in child birth due to unnaturally increased cranium size (Genesis 3:16).

■We would be stained with the genes of our ancestors, meaning original sin could be handed down from Father to Son.

■Longevity, the people of the bible lived for approximately 1000 years

■Cause a rift between God and some of his Angels

In my opinion it was this uplifting that was offensive to God and is the root of all our problems. There are stories of how the Nephilim, because of their size, began usurping all of mans resources, especially food and that eventually when the food ran out they began cannibalism. Because of the inequities caused by this God decided to reset the planet and caused the flood. So he selected as pure a human family as he could find and gathered them with the animals and then destroyed the surface of the earth.

Incidentally, at this point God also reduced our live span to approximately 120 years (amazingly accurate when you consider it was written over 2000 years ago). The easiest way to do this for an entire species is to modify a small sample, kill the rest and repopulate using the modified set, which is exactly what happened according to Genesis.

So what are the Nephilim? Ancient humans with advanced technology (Atlanteans, Osirians, Ayrians etc.) or beings from another planet or realm?

If the story is true then there was also a policing system for these beings and that is encouraging.

i THINK nephilim are offsprings/children of fallen angels and humans. apparently, when god found out about a bunch of angel's betrayal or something, he cast them down to earth where they, er, did it with mortals.

They were believed to be a half breed of fallen angels and humans because they were giants in comparison with regular people. We still have some today, you can see them on WWE wrestling. (Big Show, Undertaker, the Big Kali)