One of the major trajectories in my new novel The Portent, is how Christians think about end times — specifically, how some are prone to marry end times to conspiracies about UFOs and alien abductions, which they believe are really cover for the creation of a new generation of nephilim by demons. I don’t believe that. At all. But I do believe that the conspiratorial thinking out there (not to mention flawed Bible interpretation) has a role to play — or would have a role if I were the intelligent evil mastermind tasked with an end times end game.
The Portent gave me the opportunity to put myself in that place. Frankly, intelligent evil is a whole lot smarter than the modern nephilim idea allows. I could come up with something much better, and I’d use the poor thinking of my targets to my advantage. Paraphrasing the villain in The Portent when he’s mocking the main character (Brian): “There are several ways we could accomplish the ends we want; this one is just the most interesting to me because it’s the one that makes you suffer the most.” The portents (omens – glimpses of things to come) I chose to make part of the book’s plotline were, as the villain says, the ones that seemed most interesting. There are other strategies, and maybe intelligent evil will go back to its bag of tricks in future books. I just wanted to build a rationale and plan that could actually play out in a world (like ours) where anything can be faked to move the herd in any direction. I wanted everything to already be real, or at least be on the drawing board in some think tank, university lab, or Black project. Sometimes the fakery that is the quietest and easy to miss is best, at other times more spectacular works better. The Portent uses both.
I used some role play when preparing to write The Portent, particularly when it came to thinking about what my end game would be and how I’d get there. Here’s an imaginary conversation that illustrates why the book doesn’t adopt the popular Christian conspiracy thinking about end times nephilim. The conversation isn’t part of the book (I write dialogue much better than this!) – it’s just an exercise / illustration.
NB = nephilim believer
MSH: yours truly
….
NB: Matthew 24 says that Jesus will return “as in the days of Noah,” and there were nephilim in those days. Daniel 2:43 prophesies that in the days when the kingdom of God comes, “they will mingle themselves with the seed of men.” The return of the nephilim are part of end times prophecy.
MSH: Let’s set aside the fact that nephilim aren’t mentioned in either of those verses for the moment, and that there are plenty of exegetical issues in them that don’t work for your interpretation — that in fact require its rejection. I just have one question for our chat: What’s the point of the idea?
NB: That’s obvious, Mike! The nephilim hybrids are servants of the devil and antichrist. They will help the antichrist deceive the multitudes, preventing them from believing in Jesus. The antichrist and his nephilim will try to destroy Israel, too.
MSH: I don’t see the deceptive power.
NB: What do you mean?
MSH: How would the appearance of modern nephilim deceive anyone?
NB: People will see them won’t they? They’ll know that the Bible is literally true and the word of God.
MSH: I think that’s my point — if this happens (and I’m just playing along, mind you) then people will know they should take the Bible for what it says — and what it says is that these guys are evil. They’ll also know if they keep reading the Bible, that they’re on the losing side — they’ll get stomped in the end. So why would anyone follow them? Where’s the power in this deception? Frankly, it doesn’t seem deceptive at all. It seems transparent.
NB: But they’ll help deceive the nations against Israel.
MSH: But why would people not think, “Hey, there really were — and now are — nephilim. They opposed God’s people in the Old Testament and got destroyed. There’s no way I want to get destroyed with them! And since I know now that the Bible’s true because I’ve seen nephilim, I’d better be on Jesus’ side.”
NB: You make the new nephilim sound like tools for evangelism.
MSH: No, it’s your idea that leads me to that conclusion. But let’s get back to the question — where is the deceptive power?
NB: That’s what demons do! They deceive, so the nephilim have to part of Satan’s plan of deception. There’s no other reason they’d be here.
MSH: I’d agree there – I don’t see any reason for them to be in the picture, either.
NB: Wait – maybe there’s another reason they’re going to be part of end times.
MSH: What’s that?
NB: To kill believers! And Jews, too.
MSH: Are the enemies of Christ and anti-Semites having a difficult time doing that now?
NB: No – but demons like to do that, too. Maybe the nephilim will put unbelievers in a rage to kill all the Christians and Jews they can.
MSH: I’ll ask again – how is that any different than today? Christians are being killed for being Christians all over the world, even as we speak. Israel is constantly under threat. Why do we need nephilim for that?
NB: They’ll accelerate things.
MSH: And we know that because …
NB: Because that’s what Satan wants!
MSH: Okay – back to my earlier question: Is Satan not getting what he wants now?
NB: He wants more dead!
MSH: So, why doesn’t he just inspired terrorists to steal nuclear or biological weapons? Those sorts of attacks could kill on a massive scale — must faster than nephilim running around with clubs and swords or guns. And if nephilim were on TV telling people to take up arms against Jews and Christians, we’re back to the part about why people would want to be on their side — they’re going to lose, big time.
NB: Maybe they’ll influence people secretly, or by mind control. We know demons can do that.
MSH: Well, we actually don’t know that at, at least if we care to look at the Bible for information. But your answer doesn’t make sense — how secretive could a nephilim giant be? Disguises aren’t going to work when you’re 8-10 feet tall.
NB: Well, I think Satan will just blind people to everything.
MSH: So, the masses of the world will be able to see clearly that the nephilim have returned, but won’t be able to discern anything else — when it’s all from the Bible?
NB: Blind is blind.
MSH: Actually, in your scenario, it isn’t. You have unbelievers being selectively blind.
NB: Satan will make sure the unbelievers stay blind to all he needs them to be blind to.
MSH: Like the gospel?
NB: Right.
MSH: Then who are the 144,000 witnesses witnessing to?
NB: You’re confusing me now. Maybe they aren’t witnesses, smart guy. Revelation 7 just has 144,000 Jews sealed – 12,000 from each tribe. It doesn’t say they’re witnesses, so that’s your answer. 144,000 people are sealed and saved.
MSH: So the only people who are saved when all this happens is 144,000 Jews? No Gentiles? No one else?
NB: I guess that’s what the Bible says.
MSH: I don’t think it does, but I’ll keep playing. If there are only 144,000 that are saved and the others are blinded by Satan from being saved, why does Satan need nephilim to do that? If he can blind people now, what does he need all the help for?
NB: He just does. Like I said before, he wants it that way.
MSH: Is he sovereign?
NB: Knock it off.
MSH: Okay; that was a cheap shot – though I still think it’s a good question. You do realize that later in Revelation 7 after the 144,000 are sealed, that the apostle John sees a multitude *from every nation* – so they aren’t Jews – worshipping the Lamb, who is Jesus, having come out of the great tribulation. So it seems that there are a lot of people believing in Jesus at this time besides the 144,000. So your answer doesn’t work.
NB: Okay, I guess not. But the nephilim are still a big part of this. You’ll see!
MSH: So will a lot of other people in your scenario — and know exactly what they’re looking at, which strips this idea of any deceptive power, period. If I were an supernatural evil mastermind, I could do better than this and actually leave a breadcrumb trail for people to follow so they’d know it was real — but not know it wasn’t. I’d want them to believe they were believing the right way and the right thing, and use their belief against them. I’d use what they want to believe to move them to believe what they’d never want to believe.
Fiction is so much fun. You get to invent reality. And faction is the best kind of fiction.
One thing I have noticed about the book of Revelation is the fact that the Antichrist is not mentioned once. The one who is mentioned repeatedly is the False Prophet (Revelation 16:13, 19:20, 20:10). So either when Christ comes back He doesn’t destroy the Antichrist or else the Antichrist is also the False Prophet.
My personal view is the False Prophet is Islam, which was started by the False Prophet. Its message is Antichrist and has setup on the Temple of Yahweh blasphemous words against the Father and Son written on the walls on the Dome of the Rock. I interpret that as a reference to 2 Thessalonians 2:4. I also recognise that this “man” can also be a reference to Satan himself who is called a man (Ezekiel 28:9) and exalts himself above God (Ezekiel 28:2; Isaiah 14:14).
The early Protestant reformers viewed the Papacy and the Turk as the two horns of the Antichrist and the locusts of Revelation as the military hordes of Islam.
What’s interesting with Islam is that it is a Political system dressed up as a religion. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. If there was ever a make with all the views of the Antichrist I don’t see any better representation and fulfilment of it than Islam.
You don’t need to have a physical man on the earth as the Antichrist to fulfil the Apocalyptic view of the Bible.
ISIS is not at the Golan Heights. The Antichrist is at the gates of north of Israel. Armageddon anyone?
I like it! A series of these covering a plethora of different misguided ideas would make for wonderful reading.
You could call it Fictional Fireside Chats, with Mike Heiser. Picture a fireplace with a large winged back leather chair, with you in a smoking coat holding a book in one hand and a pipe in the other. 😀
Matt 24:24 – even the elect are in danger of believing the deception. Our BS detectors will need to be at full power.
Good example of how the nephilim “revival” utterly lacks deceptive power. Thanks.
I think your imagined adversary is a bit of a novice and oversimplified. The intellectually honest of the folks I speak with, who tend toward the Modern day Nephilim, are not saying they would look or even act as such. Deception to me means, someone being able to use someone else’s beliefs against them, probably because they are not properly grounded in that faith to begin with(politicians are quite skilled at this sort of thing.)I tend more toward a possibility of ‘little grey men’ deception or even a “God is the real devil” type of thing “Lucifer wants to give you TRUE freedom” deception. I think the Nephilim were a historical fact but I see nothing that necessarily says that will be what will happen again. I tend to agree with you but I think you could have made your imaginary adversary a bit more convincing.
It’s an exercise (I’ve actually heard the things “NB” says).
I would agree that this could be used against Christians – in terms of gullibility. That is, concocting a deception that uses this errant idea. I play with that trajectory in the book.
Thanks for this.
When I first came to Christ a few years back I found myself swamped with this stuff, trying to come to terms with my new found faith. I suppose it is just a symptom of the internet age, and some pretty poor discernment on my own part.
Certain people seem to want things to be more and more fantastical to the point where we are waiting for giants to come and get us. As if the Bible isn’t extraordinary enough without adding Ray Harryhausen effects to the picture.
yes – “as if the Bible isn’t extraordinary enough” – and it is.
Great stuff, Mike. You have captured Paul’s subtle tone of satirical sarcasm of superficial Corinthian thinking.
You do realize the vast majority of end time commentators and authors would not know Lotan from a Nimrodian Nephilim if they were in the same room?
Loved your imaginary dialogue about GMOs: Genetically Modified Ogres.
Who needs nephilim when unfettered human depravity is so readily available. Think of the savings in lab costs alone!
Loved the Lotan line. And I’d concede the point.
This may be oversimplified, but it’s just an observation… Whether its the creationist vs the evolutionist, calvinism vs armenianism, catholicism vs the entire world, prerapture vs post- mid- whatever, or ‘nephilim-r-real’ vs the alternative, it surely does seem that the argument itself may be a tool of the ‘the great architect’ [freemasonry foolishnesssss intended]. The great debates seem to have a way of puffing up everyone’s pride, keeping them in disagreement while refocusing attention away from the person of Jesus Christ… although, I like good debate!
I will say this though: at the VERY LEAST, when the mother ship shows up and Nancy Pelosi gets out hand-in-hand with ET, no matter what they REALLY are and who is really behind them, right or wrong, the great debates allow the Fox Mulders and the ‘I-want-to-believers’ of the world to have a paradigm in which to fit it. And maybe that’s the end goal… the faction in the fiction… one of the many dead ends for the sheople. I’m sure we’ll find out one way or another.
In any case, while I certainly do not rule out an ET PHONE HOME disclosure or Genetic Nephilim, at the moment I’m much more afraid of being beheaded by ISIL than getting beamed up by Scotty 🙂
You’ll love The Portent.
Mike, I received The Portent! Thanks so much for that. I will get on to reading it as soon as I can.
Now to this post. I’ve come off the Nephilimania in terms of End Times Return of the Nephilim idea since it’s not really founded Biblically.
However, to play the devil’s advocate, or in this case, the NB advocate, as far as I understand, the return of the Nephilim idea promoted by some in this niche is that they will pose as the Aliens, our space brothers. And thus, the “deception” will not be so much of a “We are the Nephilim! We are back! Side with us because…you know…we gotta seek revenge on the God who killed us in the flood!”…but rather more of a…”We are your space brothers. We are here to enhance and evolve you humans. Come with us and be like gods!”…or something along those lines. So what do you say to that idea other than the obvious response of “The deception can happen without it being nephilim”?
And if, like some folks have (I don’t necessarily buy this, I’m curious what your thoughts are though), we redefine Nephilim from the title given to a race of hybrid giants in Genesis 6, to a broader conceptual application of “anything that is abominable to God because it did not reproduce after its kind,” ranging from goat-frog hybrids all the way to angel-human hybrids, then could the advent of transhumanism and the promise of folks like Dr. Nick Bostrom who tout the idea of infusing plant, animal, and synthetics forms of DNA with human DNA to “enhance” ourselves be considered a quasi “return of the Nephilim”?
I’m almost certain how you will respond, but I want to provide a few more bullets in the barrel for our fictional NB character.
nice word – nephilimania!
Are the nephilim posing as tiny grays (think about the incoherence there). I’ve never heard of giant aliens before (in the UFO literature), so that must be it. That’s simply incoherent. The nephilim also weren’t demons; they were giants. In the 2nd temple literature, their *disembodied* spirits were called demons – those disembodied spirits didn’t assume little bodies that made them look like gray prunes with spindly limbs and black eyes. The point is that this presumption leads to incoherence with both the ancient literature AND the UFO literature.
On what biblical merit to we redefine biblical terms to fit a paradigm we like? I guess that sums up my response to that part.
For transhumanism to apply *biologically* you’d have to actually have non-human DNA from an angel. In other words, talking about such hybrids isn’t evidence for such hybrids. A hypothesis isn’t data that supports a hypothesis. Shorter: a hypothesis isn’t data.
When you talk synthetic biology, none of the nephilim discussion even matters. Synthetic biology (I use that in The Portent) is about manufacturing new life forms from the atom on up. You don’t need real “nephilim DNA”. You could produce something and call it that, but that wouldn’t make it what you’re calling it, either.
This whole alien hybrid discussion (baptized as it is by Christians to the nephilim hybrid discussion) is DOA without actual DNA.
“Is he sovereign?”
HA! Very droll.
BTW – just purchased DDD on Amazon based on your recommendation, and I am reading the portent in between my studies. It’s a great read, and I cannot wait to write my Amazon review. Thanks!
Cheers!
J
cool – thanks! And DDD is a great resource.
Dr Heiser I think you’re doing an awesome job, many of your lectures online I’ve watched and re-watched. The insight is great and I appreciate it and many others do too. To give NB another line though, where you mentioned about the giant aliens, I recalled reading a long time ago about a strange encounter in Russia, although the one I saw had long golden haired Viking-like giants in it. Here is a link I think it is the same report. Possibly propaganda or other things.
http://www.ufocasebook.com/Voronezh.html
The reason I get a bit interested in these things is because of the disjoint between foundational views I had grown up with and what I watched on television. They contradicted each other. (certainly scared my sister and I hah!) When I looked at this supposed phenomenon of close encounters or UFOs, I concluded based on what well informed people thought that 99% of it is just wind. But the 1% bothers me. And some early researchers seemed to conclude that rather than an alien being from outside of planet earth phenomenon being the cause, it was of a more dimensional or spiritual nature. My jury is still out, scratching my head.
God bless you and your ministry and I will buy your fiction books! The Façade first!
I would be with you here, in that I don’t think all such reports are hoaxes or BS. I’m not sure I’d agree that episodes that don’t fall into those categories is as high as 1% though, but that’s beside the point. To assign a physical interpretation to the 1% requires physical evidence. Anecdotes are not physical evidence. My aim in saying that is not to “deny” the claim, but to ask for something very reasonable given the potentially anomalous nature of such a (counter) reality: physical evidence. Folks might think I’m a stick in the mud (which is fine with me), but my request is not at all unreasonable. My preference (in the absence of such evidence, and assuming our hypothetical case is real) would be a spiritual / dimensional explanation. But if, when we use such terms, we are thinking of the spiritual realm described in Scripture, the issue still isn’t another life form (as that would normally be defined). Rather, the issue to my mind becomes the spiritual/theological/religious messaging. This is actually where scholars of alternative religions (be they Gnostics or polytheists) are at on these issues (if they do not reject them out of hand). They view encounters as evidence of a non-materialistic world/realm that proposes truth claims counter to theism (all forms of it). Since I believe in intelligent evil, it seems quite possible to me that the anomalous event is created or produced as a spiritual distraction or counter-claim.
But none of the above legitimizes the goofiness we see in the Christian realm regarding modern nephilim. Matthew 24 and other passages casts an eschatological deception that would “deceive even the elect.” I don’t see how in the world any modern nephilim would deceive anyone who takes the Bible seriously. I think it would make more unbelievers take it seriously — the precise opposite of what those who are spreading the idea are saying.
It just has no coherence to me — and that’s aside from the fact that it has no exegetical support at all.
Gosh Mike
No disrespect mean but you do sound like an anti-supernaturalist, and on this subject, reading the Scripture with hard eyes, as the author Marilynne Robinson said, instead of with love.
As I’m quite sure you are very much aware, not everything in the Bible can be picked apart and dissected with academic tweezers with rationalism.
Honestly though,wasn’t this piece of yours just a matter of setting up all those straw men and then very conveniently knocking them all down, and, I might add, not quite Scripturally?
If you had spent over 40 years reading just the bible itself, certain things tend to pop up in ways which could never otherwise be seen there, which could explain why the Nephilim gets away with their deception and that quite easily:2 Thess. 2:11 “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they may believe THE Lie. What lie is that: the preciously mentioned deceptiveness of Satan and his cohorts who have been thrown down to earth.
And if the Nephilim ( which are still at this time immortal) don’t inject their own DNA in humans as some kind of infernal mark of the Beast, then please explain Revelations 9:6 “And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.”
In this ninth chapter as well as the previous one, the Apostle was reporting to us what he himself saw in the Holy video which was that real human beings could not die!
And wouldn’t this mean that they have somehow been disqualifed as bonified humans and thus forfeited any chance at eternal life? And why would HaSatan even bother, if it weren’t for the fact that God’s intention was to replace that lost third of the number of fallen angels missing in Heaven, with an equal number of humans?
Which I think is there in the criptic words at the tail end of the verse in chapter 6: 11…”that should be killed as they were, should be fullfilled.
If you know your Hebrew, then you could see that this is about keeping a tally and that by the mathematical angel Palmoni of Daniel 8: 13 called in Hebrew in this text, “the wonderful numberer!”
And he’s the same one who’s doing the counting of all those little less than 800,000 wives and children who will be sealed along with the 144,000 male heads of households.
If you know your Koine Greek, then you know that its most peculiar that its most emphatic they are only men, as the Greek nearly shouts “no women!” Along with the rest of the entire bible in which only the men are counted from Genesis to Revelations or even addressed, except in rare passages where women are, but only for “the house of their fathers”.
But as for HaSatan, he has every reason to prevent that specific number ever being reached because, as Revelations tells us, because he knows he has but a short time.
Bacl in the age of Noah, the Nephilim made their almost successful attempt to prevent the Son of God’s incarnation by totally degrading the human DNA, with only 8 souls saved.
With their otherworldly brillance and highly skilled acumen far superior to we humans, do you think they would hesitate for a minute to again pollute the DNA of as many humans as possible to prevent God replacing them with humans…this time around?
Just saying…
Phillip
A couple of thoughts. Supernaturalism isn’t about being irrational, nor is it about embracing bad Bible interpretation. The modern nephilim trajectory crosses both of those lines. In other words, if our supernaturalism is to be biblical, it needs to be supported by sound exegesis, not our speculations about what intelligent evil is doing or going to do.
150 human animal hybrids grown in UK labs: Embryos have been produced secretively for the past three years
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2017818/Embryos-involving-genes-animals-mixed-humans-produced-secretively-past-years.html
They aren’t “hybrids” – that is a loaded term, and you know it. There’s no proof here that such an embryo would live or even come to term. The purpose (other than being simply unethical) is noted in the article – to develop embryonic stem cells (which is always the excuse it seems).
And just so we’re clear, the nephilim clans in the Bible we not in part animal. They are referred to as humans several times, with both (Hebrew) ish and adam.
Mike, I have a question. For all practical purposes in your opinion, could one define the term ‘supernaturalism’ as the addition of information at a fundamental level from an outside source? I ask because it seems from my perspective that the supernatural, miracles, and such are ‘injections’ of info from outside of our dimensionality. OR would you define Supernaturalism as the coming together of two or more different dimensions. I’m trying to get this as straight as I can in my brain so I can understand as clearly as possible…
Captain Obvious
While I don’t like the word “supernatural” (it has logical problems – e.g., even “supernatural” beings were created in biblical theology), it’s a word people understand as referring to that which doesn’t derive from / isn’t part of the natural world. For everyday discourse, that’s good enough.
1.Modern giant searcher’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSk7vcP70t8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlVB9j1k1EA
2.“hybrids”
The Book of Jasher (mentioned in Joshua 10/13; 2 Samuel 1/18) confirms that the Watchers took wives by force from the “daughters of men”. Jasher tells us that the animals were also deliberately corrupted at that time in direct rebellion against God:
And the sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order therewith to provoke the Lord; and God saw the whole earth and it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon earth, all men and all animals. (Jasher 4/18-19)
Modern giant searchers have found zero ancient giants. Maybe you can tell me where the physical evidence is. None of the giant researchers I’ve encountered over the years has been able to.
There is no book of Jasher that we can read today that is the one referred to in the OT. The one that people like to quote comes from the 18th century (AD) and is not an ancient book. It’s time to stop quoting an 18th century forgery as though it’s Scripture. See the link below.
https://drmsh.com/JASHAR.pdf
Are you an evolutionist?
I believe in a single Creator.
Through eon’s?
not following.