(Genesis 6:1-4) 6 Now it came about that when men started to grow in numbers on the surface of the ground and daughters were born to them, 2 then the sons of the [true] God began to notice the daughters of men, that they were good-looking; and they went taking wives for themselves, namely, all whom they chose. 3 After that Jehovah said: “My spirit shall not act toward man indefinitely in that he is also flesh. Accordingly his days shall amount to a hundred and twenty years.” 4 The Neph′i·lim 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 who were of old, the men of fame.
does this mean that the other spies did actually see giants? and was not a false report after all? *** it-2 p. 493 Nephilim *** A Report Intended to Terrorize The ten spies who brought back to the Israelites in the wilderness a false report on the land of Canaan declared: “All the people whom we saw in the midst of it are men of extraordinary size. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who are from the Nephilim; so that we became in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and the same way we became in their eyes.” No doubt there were some large men in Canaan, as other scriptures show, but never except in this “bad report,” which was carefully couched in language designed to strike terror and cause panic among the Israelites, are they called Nephilim.—Nu 13:31-33; 14:36, 37. just large men? what about Goliath.. he had a brother called Lahmi apparently - was he 9ft.5in too? so if the Nephilim were the result of Angels getting it on with the lady's, did they get it on again after the flood? puzzled.Genesis 6:4 - where did the Giants come from if they were wiped out by the flood?
by BroMac 11 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Quarterback
Well, the Green Giant, comes from the Valley of the Jolly.
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anezthy
Brooklyn? San Francisco?
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TOTH
Maybe genetic tinkering was not outside the abilities of the deeemunz?
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BroMac
i missed an underline
4 The Neph′i·lim 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 who were of old, the men of fame.
what i mean is: so if the Nephilim were the result of Angels getting it on with the lady's, did they get it on again after the flood?
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Leolaia
4 The Neph′i·lim 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 who were of old, the men of fame.
That highlighted text is what one would call a harmonisitic parenthetical gloss. It awkwardly intrudes into the text in order to account for the giant traditions concerning the indigenous inhabitants of Canaan (both Nephilim and Rephaim) preceding the conquest of the Israelites. It would not have been necessary if J's primeval narrative had not included a Flood narrative, which specifies that everything that lived on earth died. Indeed there are multiple indications that J was secondarily revised (at sometime prior to the compilation of the Pentateuch) to conform to the kind of Mesopotamian primeval narratives exemplified by Atrahasis, Eridu Genesis, and the Sumerian King List. These divide primeval history into two ages interrupted by a great Flood. The older pre-exilic Israelite narrative likely would have represented native Israelite/Canaanite traditions and resembled the Sanunchiathon Phoenician primeval history compiled by Philo of Byblos, which gave a continuous development of civilization from creation to the founding of the first Phoenician cities without any interruption by a Flood. This would have included the Eden narrative, the story of Cain and Abel, and Cainite genealogy marking major milestones in the development of civilization, the Nephilim story, the story of Noah the vinedresser and the discovery of wine, and so forth. There are many clues that J originally did not presume a Flood story: Cain was the eponymous ancestor of the Kenites (cf. also the reference to Cain in the Balaam oracles), the "comfort" from agricultural labor promised by Noah was not salvation from the Flood but the discovery of wine, Noah's sons are children in the post-Flood wine narrative and adults in the prior Flood story, etc. The story of the Nephilim in ch. 6 of Genesis — described as gibborim (mighty ones) and "men of fame" — anticipates the story of Nimrod in ch. 10, for Nimrod was explicitly called a gibbor and so famous to have inspired a proverbial saying about him. Also, Nimrod was named as the builder of Erech (the Sumerian city of Uruk), and this likely reflects knowledge of Gilgamesh from the Gilgamesh Epic who as king of Uruk built its mighty walls and who was described as born from a union between the gods and people. The Gilgamesh Epic was set sometime after the Flood as it involves his journey to meet the Flood survivor Utnapishtim, and also the Sumerian King List places Gilgamesh after the Flood. What is especially interesting is that in the Enochic Book of Giants, one of the Nephilim before the Flood was in fact named Gilgamesh (another character in the story, Atambish, might reflect the name Utnapishtim). So J's Nimrod represents a conflation of dimly remembered Mesopotamian kings (including Sargon of Akkad and later Assyrian rulers), while the post-exilic Book of Giants reflects more direct literary influence from the Gilgamesh Epic. So my hypothesis is that the earliest version of J construed the giants as descendents of the gods and humans in the primeval period who were the mighty kings of old who were the original inhabitants of Canaan eventually conquered and wiped out by the Israelites (cf. 1 Baruch 3:26-27; cf. also the story of King Og, the last of the Rephaim who was described as a giant, which has echoes of older Canaanite traditions about the Rephaim). Then J was revised either before the exile or during the exile to adapt it to more closely resemble Mesopotamian primeval narratives (such as the inclusion of the Tower of Babel story, which reflects the Enuma Elish). This later edition of J included a story of the Flood drawing on Atrahasis and/or the Gilgamesh Epic. This introduced the problem of how the Nephilim presumably wiped out by the Flood could still be around when the Israelites conquered the Promised Land. Then in the post-exilic period, the Pentateuch was compiled from J, P, and other narrative strands. It is possibly at this stage that the redactor added the harmonistic gloss that connects the pre-Flood Nephilim with the post-Flood Nephilim in the Promised Land. However this awkward gloss fails to give any explanation of how there were giants after the Flood. This was left for later exegetes to explain. There were, for instance, post-exilic stories about the builders of the Tower of Babel and even Noah himself being giants. Even the story of the birth of Noah in 1 Enoch may be a response to this tradition since the baby Noah was first suspected of being a Nephilim. Or it might reflect the presumed early tradition that the early heroes of old, including Noah, were Nephilim/Rephaim (cf. also the primeval history of Philo of Byblos in which the traditional Phoenician gods were the first kings, discoverers of civilization, and builders of cities).
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BroMac
Had to read that 3 times.
I will get round to someday reading the book of Enoch
thankyou Leolaia you get a bow
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BroMac
Thanks Shanagirl.
"The Nephilim are described in great detail in the Book of Jubilees and Book of Enoch . Both of these books have been traditionally rejected as apocryphal by the European Church. However, they were both considered canonical by the Ethiopic Church from the time of Christ until today, and the Book of Enoch was quoted in the Biblical Epistle of Jude ."
http://www.stargods.org/EnochQuoted2.htm
Enoch ii, xxvi 2
Behold, he comes with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon them, and destroy the wicked, and reprove all the carnal for everything which the sinful and ungodly have done and committed against him. ... [who utter with their mouths unbecoming language against God, and speak harsh things of his glory.]
Jude 14,15
Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
