I’ve added an archive page devoted to the nephilim discussion to try and arrange those items. It includes comment material.
Brief Nephilim Note
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I’ve added an archive page devoted to the nephilim discussion to try and arrange those items. It includes comment material.
This seems as good a place as any for this question.
If you don’t mind getting into it, what is going on with 2 Sam 21:19 & 1 Chron 20:5?
My NIV notes that “the brother of” is not present in 2 Samuel. The explanation I have seen is that the 2 Sam 21:19 copyist made a mistake or two. Do you think so? What type of mistakes?
See
http://biblestudymagazine.com/interactive/goliath/
Let me know if that covers it for you.
Perfect! Thank you. That was incredibly helpful.
Would you consider adding your understanding of Nephilim to the wikipedia article on Nephilim?
Dave Lewis
I wouldn’t consider doing anything on Wikipedia. All I needed to know to distrust Wikipedia is the fact that they wouldn’t allow me to make corrections on the entry for me that someone else had created. (I got a nasty email from one of their zealots about bias – I’m sorry, but I really am an authority on ME). That was years ago, and taught me a good lesson about (any) contributor websites.
I asked this on another post, but it disappeared. Glitches happen I suppose.
Anyway, it’s a simple question. Does the bible state, in no uncertain terms, that the nephilim and all their descendants were destroyed utterly?
That is its implication. There’s no “verse” for that. Goliath and his brothers, residents of the Philistine cities, where the Anakim/Nephilim remnant went after the conquest, are killed off in David’s era. (However, the LXX may have them around near the time of the exile).
I don’t know. You usually have a really solid denunciation of and idea. It seems to me that one of the reasons the Israelites got in trouble was due to failing to finish the job.There’s also the escape of a whole Amorite city. It may be really weird to consider that some of those lines still exist, but I think we would be remiss to reject the idea completely.
We could speculate that the “giants” were infertile, and thus goliath and his brothers never left any little whippersnappers, but that would be speculation.
As to what that would mean regarding “modern nephilim,” well, probably nothing. It is really easy to point to the populace and show that nothing really stands out. I mean, if some lines survived, then they must be so watered down that they are indistinguishable at this point (to speculate more).
This has nothing to do with modern nephilim, as you note. I can’t recall specifically what you’re responding to, either. Frankly, I don’t see any deficiency in my response to this nonsense.
To me, the deficiency is that you are relying on subjective implication to reject the idea that descendants of the nephilim live among people today.
Who knows what such a thing might mean, or how it might be used to deceive others. I believe in a spiritual war Dr. Heiser, I prefer not to assume I have the enemy all figured out.
spiritual war is, well, spiritual. From all we know from the biblical text (that thing I am guessing you believe is inspired), the nephilim bloodlines died out in OT times (which was God’s goal – is God failing after all these millennia?)
Well, implied in the text, right? There is no direct statement as to their dying out. Actually, there is suggestion to the opposite. We know the Israelites never finished the task of cleaning out Canaan for one. We know that a whole City of Amorites (who are associated with the Rephaim) escaped Joshua. I guess I don’t see the implication. It seems to me that for the implication to work, we must assume that the giants in Canaan such as Og, the Anakim, Goliath, were all infertile or by some other way never had any children.
There is no text that suggests giant clan population after David (in MT). Joshua 11:21-22 makes the point that the vestiges of the Anakim settle in the Philistine cities, and that’s precisely what group (the Philistines) that they are later associated with in the monarchy (David’s era). The Davidide history makes it clear that Goliath had brothers and they were all killed. There is nothing beyond that point (again, in MT).
There is no textual evidence that has them around after David, unless one adopts the LXX, where the “Enakim” (LXX Greek spelling) are mentioned in (LXX) Jer 29:5 and 30:20. Those readings may be manuscript errors (or not). Jer. 29:5 LXX = “Baldness has come upon Gaza; Ascalon was cast away, and the remaining Enakim.” The verse can be read two ways: (1) as a look back at the past, in which case the Enakim were destroyed, or as an impending event. Jer 30:20 is only present in some LXX MSS and is even more obscure.
In short, there is zero *clear* textual-biblical evidence for giant clan survivors after the time of David. Only Jer 29:5 possibly extends that, but even that means they are long gone (exilic era).