Gen 6:1-4 KJV And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, (2) That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. (3) And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. (4) There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

In a modern translation:

Gen 6:1-4 ESV When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, (2) the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. (3) Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years." (4) The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Or in the often enlighting (and more often confusing) Young's Literal Translation:

Gen 6:1-5 YLT And it cometh to pass that mankind have begun to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters have been born to them, (2) and sons of God see the daughters of men that they are fair, and they take to themselves women of all whom they have chosen.
(3) And Jehovah saith, `My Spirit doth not strive in man--to the age; in their erring they are flesh:' and his days have been an hundred and twenty years.
(4) The fallen ones were in the earth in those days, and even afterwards when sons of God come in unto daughters of men, and they have borne to them--they are the heroes, who, from of old, are the men of name. (5) And Jehovah seeth that abundant is the wickedness of man in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil all the day;

Lots of fantasy includes a race that is partly descended from the supernatural, so we can discuss the significance of this scripture and how it effects our fantasy. (I, for example, have a race called Huri who descend from demons who kidnapped women to create a race of servants for themselves.

I'll weigh in later, and you may be surprised by how...not typical my opinion is.

Ooooh! Could you start this on the Historical Fiction side? I have stuff to say about this, but it's all Historical Fiction related... Thanks for starting this topic. I'm eager to see the discussion that's going to happen here.

*bangs head on keyboard*

This thread is perfect for historical fiction! Why didn't I think of that?

Maybe this will get some more active discussion going over there!

*adjusts glasses*

I'm not saying it's aliens... but it's aliens.

I don't actually have an opinion of them. I don't have enough evidence to reach a conclusion.

Though, I do have the Cabal be somewhat similar, I think, based on the one podcast. They set themselves up as deities to be worshiped and manipulate the worlds to prepare for an invasion by Malxor.

Since the Bible nowhere else indicates that angels or demons could have children with humans, I think the passage about Nephilim is too ambiguous to conclude that angels or demons had children with humans.

Agreed, except that I think that, when understood correctly, it's not really ambiguous, and clearly referring to descendants of Seth marrying descendants of Cain.

I have heard the Seth-Cain theory before, but that doesn't seem to explain why the offspring were noteworthy "Giants." And the reference to the Spirit is unexplained as well.
By the way, YLT was very neat. I should use that more often.

And I am curious... if it was between the descendents of Seth and Cain, why would one be called the sons of God, as opposed to the sons of man?

The idea, I think, is that Seth's descendants followed God, and Cain's didn't. The problem I have with the idea is that Seth's descendants aren't referred to as sons of God anywhere else. And it seems to me that there are clearer ways to say it. The other comment that I'd make is that while nowhere else suggests that angels can have children, it doesn't ever suggest they can't, either. In fact, the Bible doesn't really tell us much of anything about angels, anyway.

And, if you look over in Job, it says that:



Now check out another translation:



I'm not sure how accurate the NIV is, but it seems logical to say the sons of God are angels. Why else would Satan come with them? After all, he was an angel, too. It seems like he was part of the group, and the Bible just singles him out. If they weren't angels, who were they?

So if you take that into consideration, saying that sons of God were angels here, why wouldn't they be Angels in the other passage of scripture?

Also, it seems that angels can take the form of humans, if they aren't already in that form. Remember when the three men came to visit Abraham and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? Two of them are referred to as angels in the NASB, but it seems that they looked like human men.

Certainly the interbreeding of humans and angels would leave a lot of questions, and seems more than a bit iffy. I'm not sure I like your third option either, though. I mean, it works, and makes sense after a fashion, but... I don't know. Maybe the fantasy writer in me just thinks interbreeding angels are cooler.

Since this thread is the first place I've met that interpretation (and, unlike some other paradigm-shifting revelations I've come across in the last several years, it didn't make me say "Oh! Of course!"), it's not at all fair to say the phrase "clearly" means anything.

Madeline L'Engle's Many Waters has the Nephilim being fallen angels (which is to say demons, though I don't think she uses that term) who've (irrevocably) taken on flesh ("better to rule on earth than to serve in heaven" would be their motto, I suspect, though again she never makes it explicit)---and one of the purposes of the flood is to destroy them and their influence. That and the unicorns may be the two most plausible fantastical elements of the story.

This is one of those questions that I don't think we'll ever know the absolute answer to this side of heaven. But the thing to remember is that if/when we write about the Nephilim, we're speculating "what if they were...," not stating they were whatever. Now many people speculate from their beliefs, and that's perfectly ok. But I think it's fine to speculate about the Nephilim being human-angelic hybrids, even if you don't believe that's what they were.

I'm. So. Cheered!

Seriously, how do you come by these cheerful thoughts?

Even if the Nephilim were to "come back," I doubt we'd come to any certain, correct, and "absolute" conclusions as to their nature and origin, given our track record on some major points of doctrine ...

That's certainly a good point. And a lesson for us all, too.

Way to turn that cheerful thought into a teaching moment!

I would say that the most plausible explanation is that they are angels. The whole how can a spirit have a baby with a woman thing is kinda mute considering what Christ is and the fact that angels can take human form flesh and all.

The whole demons or sons of Demons thing is absolutely wrong as they are called "The Heroes of Old" by the bible.

"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

This does not suggest that Nephilim where anything but the Children of Angels.

In Ska'Lah'Seh I try to depict the Nephilim in a way I believe is fun and appropriate through the use of Mon'An.

Yet, at the time of the Nephilim, what would the majority of people have considered as heroes? Surely not what we consider as heroes today. It depends whether you interpret that as saying the Nephilim were heroes of their time or heroes of the writer's time.

That doesn't seem plausible to me ... since pretty much every indication we have is that angels do what God tells them to do and nothing else. And it also assumes that angels can become incarnate, which is certainly not a given (see below). In fact, if we assume that an angel could take on flesh, that would also entail that a demon (a rebellious angel) could ... and of the two, a demon would seem more likely to.


("Moot", not "mute".) But Jesus is God, not a mere spirit---the normal rules don't limit the Creator, while they do limit created beings. And the question of whether angels "can take human form flesh and all" is one of the points of strongest disagreement here ... angels routinely seem to have human form, but seeming is not necessarily reality.

The "angels" hypothesis also brings in another knotty issue that the others do not: I think it's fairly plain from Scripture that our tendency toward sin---our "sinful nature"---is inherited from our fathers. We are born spiritually dead because we are born "in Adam." But if a child is born of an angel and a human woman, that child wasn't "in Adam"---is he then initially as judicially innocent as Adam was?


It doesn't suggest that they were the children of angels, either ... what "the sons of God" means in this passage is the whole question we've been arguing around and around, and there is clearly no agreement on it. Astronomer makes a good point that "heroes" and "men of renown" do not necessarily have anything to do with virtue. They might have been the equivalent of today's movie and sports stars.

And we all know how perfect movie stars are.

The writer most likely as the majority of people at that time would have been dead. These things were also passed on more by oral tradition until finally written. And not to mention that God guides the hand of the writer to some extent.

Oral tradition is quite strong, and can preserve unusual terms---though this case is complicated by the incident at Babel. But other than that, since I seem to recall reading in some commentary or article that Noah was still alive at the time of Abraham, the first several generations of an even purely oral transmission don't seem to pose any difficulties for clear and accurate transmission.

Hmm ... I've just had a thought that "Nephilim" probably wasn't a common word in Exodus-era Hebrew (or at least in some era thereafter---whenever everything was organized and put into final form), or the text either wouldn't have included the mention at all (if it was common knowledge) or wouldn't have had to explain (and it's the explanation that we're having so much disagreement over).

But the mother was "in Adam"...I'm not sure you can argue that sinful nature comes more from one parent than another.
Regardless, you'd still have a situation where one parent has a sin nature and the other doesn't, and that's no less a sticky situation. You can't be half-fallen and half not.

Umm ... I've just done so ---or, rather, that the guilt part of it does. Like I said, that (unlike this question of what the "Nephilim" and "the sons of God" are in this passage) seems quite clear from Scripture. I am "in Adam" because my father was, and he is because his father was, and so on. Jesus, however, was not "in Adam," even though his mother was, because his Father is divine, not human. This doesn't address the "bent" towards sin that's most of what we mean when we say "sinful nature," but the guilt clearly passes down from father to child. (Not just "more from one parent," either---from the father and not the mother.)

Not that any of this is relevant to this discussion if, as I contended in the paragraph before the one you quoted, humans are the only spiritual beings who can have bodies under normal circumstances (as Screwtape said, we're "amphibians"), and the Incarnation was a singular miracle possible only because the usual rules don't necessarily apply to God.

That is my belief. God has the power to have a Son of Man; angels and demons do not appear to have been given a similar ability.

Much of the difficulty about Original Sin goes away if you don't believe in inherited guilt...

Well, I don't much like that take on it myself, but that's complicated and not necessarily for this topic. I would say, though, that most any take (that I know of, anyway) on the Nephilim that has them descended from angels will have said angels actually being demons, so it's not like they'd really be lacking a sin nature, would they? Especially not once they're done being raised...

Time for me to weigh in, like I promised.

Alfred Edersheim makes a pretty compelling argument that the "sons of God" refers to the God-fearing descendents of Seth. This is how that argument progresses.

1. Under the assumption that the Biblical narrative is a history of the faith (which is one completely valid way of reading the Bible), the pre-Flood narrative is the history of the descendents of Seth, who were God-fearing.
1a. We are giving genealogies of the main line of Seth and the main line of Cain. Seth's genealogy emphasizes the good, while Cain's genealogy emphasizes the bad.
1b. Seth is born to replace Abel, indicating that Seth represents the church, while Cain represents the world.

2. The word "Nephilim" can be translated to something along the lines of "snatchers" and "murderers". Interestingly, the passage that reads "Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord" uses the same "mighty" as in "mighty men", and the word for "hunter" is related to the word "Nephilim". In other words, Nimrod was a man-slayer. So, while "Nephilim" can be translated as
"giants", it does make some sense to translate it as "murderers".

3. Taking these two things together, this throws some light on why the Flood was necessary: not only did God's people mix with unbelievers, corrupting the faith, but the product of their union was a group of men so vile they were renowned for their murders.

I have to quickly make a comment on the statement about the Book of Enoch. Have you ever read it? There is a reason it's not canonical: it's clearly corrupted by Greek mythology, directly contradicts much of the Bible, and includes some extremely esoteric mystical babble sounds.

Additionally, unlike the Torah, which was carefully kept and preserved, without more than the slightest spelling errors, by Jewish scribes, the Book of Enoch was preserved by Jewish believers in Alexandria and written in Greek. Additionally, the two current theories on the accuracy of the Greek translation have that a) the book was translated into Greek badly, and that additionally the Greek used is pretty poor, or b) the book was handed down orally, and not actually written down in Greek until much later. This makes both the accuracy of the translation and the authenticity of the document itself suspect. Even the Jews don't accept it as an authentic document.

Anyway, simplest explanation is best, right? Well, we all know that men and women have babies. We don't know that demons and women have babies, which also raises some theological puzzles about the spiritual condition and potential of the babies. Simplest explanation: mighty men, renowned for their wickedness, fathered by human men.



In addition to these arguments, I would add that no where in the Bible are demons with bodies encountered. If they could do it before the Flood, certainly they would be able to do it afterward. The fact that they can't, makes me suspect that they never could.

Wow, this is even better than the vampire discussion. (Those of you who missed it missed a great discussion.)

However, the terminology of 'sons of God' isn't used elsewhere to refer to the descendants of Seth, and I really can't see any reason why that intermarrying would result in people that would be notably evil (in comparison to the descendants of Cain, anyway), or why they would be called mighty men or men of renown. Further, keep in mind that the Nephilim are actually mentioned after the flood as well. Or at least people called the same thing, which would suggest that there was at least some connection, and they are specifically said to be giants. (The Anakim, who are also said to be Rephaim, which suggests that the Rephaim are also Nephilim.)

Your comment about demons and bodies is interesting, but I don't think it answers all that much. Angels can have bodies, and as far as we know demons are simply fallen angels, which would leave one to wonder why they can't use bodies. Perhaps they simply don't like to, perhaps God has prohibited it, or maybe they could but can't anymore. I don't know, and I'm not sure any of the options particularly stand out or have much of any support.

One last thing, in Jude 1:6, it mentions "angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling". What exactly that means I'm not sure, but I've wondered if it's connected to the Nephilim.

One theory is that Nephilim is just a misspelling of necromancers and they were really just people who ran around making zombies.

Wow Seer. That's great.

@Neil: I do have a question. How would the descendants of Seth be different from the descendants of Cain? They were both fallen humans, born into the curse of Adam. So what makes them different?

Also, I'm wondering. Can you give a specific verse that refers to Seth's descendents as the Sons of God? Because the only references I've seen are to angels, including fallen ones, because the reference includes Satan, who is most definitely a fallen angel.

I hadn't realized there were so many theories on this subject before!

This is one of those "Oh! Of course! How can I have missed that?!" moments. I am still not convinced that "sons of God" clearly means "descendants of Seth" here, but this insight makes it seem (to me) far more likely.


I don't know Hebrew (aside from a few words and phrases here and there), so I can't comment on this, other than to say "interesting, and supportive of this argument, if true."


OK, yes, that's certainly a valid reading.


Other things being equal (if they ever are ... ), yes. However, as the debate in this thread has shown, it is not at all clear that this is actually the simplest explanation.


Not that this is even remotely conclusive, but Luke's genealogy of Jesus ends with "... the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God."


Sin and corruption are weakening tendencies; if the "descendants of Seth" view is correct, a child of a father from the line of Seth and a mother from the line of Cain would inherit the father's strength but inherit the lawlessness of the mother (or be taught it by her).

Really? I've seen that asserted a couple of times in the thread, but I can't recall ever encountering such a reference ... so ... verses?

Now, admittedly I don't know the first few books of the Bible as well as I should, but that ("The Anakim ... are also said to be Rephaim which suggests that the Rephaim are also Nephilim") doesn't seem to follow.


And, as I've said repeatedly, this is not a given in the least.


At first glance that would seem to refer to the angels who followed Satan in his fall ...


Of course, not all theories have the slightest shred of plausibility ...


Tendencies toward specific patterns of behavior (sin or virtue) are often passed down within families. (The most obvious example in our own era is alcoholism.) So the descendants of Cain spent their strength in inventing new kinds of evil (a la Romans 1), while the line of Seth was preserved by following God.

All of kingjon's responses were very adequate, so I won't ruin them by repeating them.

As far as the sons of God not being used to refer to the descendents of Seth, I have to say that as far as I recall, the descendents of Seth aren't referred to as such anywhere else in the Bible. Not to say that they aren't, but that such instances are very rare. So it's not really fair to presuppose that we know how the descendents of Seth are referred to. Just like it's not fair to presuppose that sons of God equals the descendents of Seth in this passage.

Of course, presuppositions are never fair. Perhaps that's why we should avoid them.

Another theory is that Nephilim was a poor translation of an ancient word for "Mr. Squishy".

* laughs *

Nephilim is not actually 'mentioned' at all in the Bible, at least not in KJV. It is translated as 'giants'. The same word is translated as giants later in the Bible in Numbers 13:33: And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

When Sodom was destroyed, two angels took human form to see the city and bring Lot out of it. They had enough of a body to take Lot and his family's hands and drag them out of the city. I don't have time to think of any more references...

I suppose, although that seems iffy to me. But even so, that wouldn't make them stronger than the descendants of Seth, just more evil, right?


The Anakim are referred to as being Nephilim, or at least the same word used for the Nephilim. The Anakim are also said to be giants. And the Anakim are said to be of the Rephaim, who are mentioned more frequently, which would suggest that the Rephaim are at the very least connected to the Nephilim. Also, a specific Rephaim, Og the king of Bashan, is said to have had an enormous bed made of iron (9 cubits by 4 cubits), which I assume means that he was big enough to need it. Not necessarily conclusive, I suppose, but there's at least some connection between Nephilim, Rephaim, and giants.


*shrugs* I personally see no difference when you can't tell the difference between them. Angels can appear to have bodies, and they can use them like bodies. (They must be able to eat; Hebrews talks about people entertaining angels without knowing, and I'm sure that involved feeding them.)


Well the full passage is this:

So it doesn't look to me like it can be all the angels who followed Satan, since they don't really seem to be in that position. Possible, I suppose, but it doesn't seem likely to me.

Here is part 1 of a two part (at least) post that provides the evidence for and details of my interpretation of the "Nephilim." Note that I am not arguing that this is the only possible valid explanation. I do, however, believe it to be the most likely explanation. For the purposes of this post I have used the King James Version, for a number of reasons.
_________________________________
1. Analysis of the Word "Nephilim" and its Biblical Use

a. Occurences in the Bible

(Gen 6:4 KJV) There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

(Num 13:33 KJV) And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

All three occurences of "giants" in these verses are occurences of the Hebrew word H5303 (Nephilim) in the Hebrew text. These are the only occurences of this word in the entire Bible

b. Definitions According to Strong's Hebrew Dictionary

Strong's renders the word as
nephı̂yl nephil
nef-eel', nef-eel'

"From H5307; properly, a feller, that is, a bully or tyrant: - giant."

Strong's renders the word H5307 as

nâphal
naw-fal'

"A primitive root; to fall...rot, slay, smite out....throw down."

c. Interpretation by the Scholars

Excerpt from Alfred Edersheim's Bible History: Old Testament.

"The corruption of mankind reached its higest point when even the difference between the Sethites and the Cainites became obliterated by intermariages between the two parties, and that from sensual motives. We read that "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." At that time the earth must have been in a great measure peopled, and its state is thus described, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." This means more than the total corruption of our nature, as we should now describe it, and refers to the universal prevalence of open, daring sin, and rebellion against God, brought about when the seperation between the Sethites and the Cainites ceased. With the exception of Noah there was none in that generation "to call upon the name of Jehovah." "In those days there were 'giants' (in Hebrew: Nephilim) in the earth....the same were the mighty men (or heroes) which were of old, the men of renown." Properly speaking, these Nephilim were "men of violence" or tyrants, as Luther [Neil's Note: Martin Luther] renders it, the root of the word meaning, "to fall upon." In short, it was a period of violence, of might against right, of raping, lust, and universal unbelief of the promise. With the virtual extinction of the Sethite faith and worship no further hope remained, and that generation required to be wholly swept away in judgment." (Edersheim 27)

d. Relevant Ancedotes

Gen 10:8-9 KJV And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. (9) He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.

"Altogether this "mighty one in the earth," who founded the first world-empire, reminds us of Cain and of his descendant Lamech....boastful violence and rebellion certainly constitute the characteristics of his history. Most strangely have the Assyrian tablets of the royal successors of Nimrod been made to furnish an explanation of his description as "a mighty hunter"--For this title is given in them to the great conquering warrior-monarchs, as "hunting the people." Thus we gather the full meaning of the expression, "he began to be a mighty one in the earth." (Edersheim 42)

Both the word "mighty" from Genesis 6:4 and the word "mighty" from Genesis 10:9 comes from the hebrew word H1368

gibbôr gibbôr
ghib-bore', ghib-bore'

"Intensive from the same as H1397; powerful; by implication warrior, tyrant: - champion, chief, X excel, giant, man, mighty, strong, valiant man."

e. Conclusions

From this we see that, while it is conceivable to interpret "Nephilim" as "giants", the body of evidence strongly points to the idea that the "Nephilim" were merely men, and murderers, bullies, and tyrants, so much so that they became "men of renown," in the same vein as Nimrod, the "hunter of the people."

As for the occurrence of the word in reference to the sons of Anak, I offer the words of Alfred Edersheim, which are more eloquent than my own.

"The word Nephilim occurs once again in Num. 13:33, in the report of the men of gigantic stature, whome the spies saw in Canaan. But though the Nephilim in those days may have been men of gigantic proportions, it does not follow that Nephilim means "giants." Lastly, there is nothing in the text that shows they were exclusively the offspring of the sons of God." (Edersheim 27)

While men of gigantic stature often abused their strength to be murders and tyrants, and therefore Nephilim, that does not mean that all Nephilim were giants.

While the evidence does not indicate that one interpretation is "definitely" correct and that others are not, it does support this interpretation as being by far the most likely.

This is especially clear when taken with the additional explanation of what is meant by "sons of God" and "daughters of men", and why their intermarriage necessitated the complete destruction of mankind. I will elaborate on that topic in another post, due to the topic's lengthy nature.

f. Sources

1. The King James Version of the Bible.

2. Strong's Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries

3. Bible History: Old Testament by Alfred Edersheim, the ninth printing of the Hendrickson Publishers edition. (This information is necessary to find my references on the correct page, as page numbers very between editions and printings.)

4. The formatting of this document vaguely resembles MLA but is intended only to make it easy to access, rather than properly formatted to the MLA.

Wow, I'm not going to read all of that (shocker, I know, since I read everything around here). But, I did want to drop in and say that there is a Holy Worlds Podcast which talks about this subject, and it was really very interesting. Just something for those interested in the topic to listen to.

That is probably actually a good idea. If I hadn't started this thread, I wouldn't be reading either.

OK, everyone, after posting that incredibly long and well-researched (sarcasm at my own expense) post, something else (and less research intensive) just occurred to me while looking at the YLT (Young's Literal Translation).

Gen 6:4-5 YLT The fallen ones were in the earth in those days, and even afterwards when sons of God come in unto daughters of men, and they have borne to them--they are the heroes, who, from of old, are the men of name. (5) And Jehovah seeth that abundant is the wickedness of man in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil all the day;

Here, rather than "giants" or "Nephilim" young has "the fallen ones". This makes sense if you remember that "Nephilim" comes from a root meaning "to fall" (explained in my previous post). "to fall"+"ones" and you get "fallen ones". In other words, the sons of God (humans who worshiped the Lord) and the daughters of men (who did not worship the Lord) intermarried, and their children were "fallen" or unbelieving. So, at the point, the faith of the Sethites has been effectively wiped out, as they have failed to pass it on to the next generation. Thus, "Jehovah seeth that abundant is the wickedness of man in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil all the day" and therefore determines to destroy the earth.

So, both "fallen ones" and "murders" would be reasonable, and neither would mean that Nephilim were giants or had demonic fathers.

However, both of those premises operate under the assumption that "sons of God" refers to the Sethites. So I'll still have to expand on that in a later post.

Good. More fascinating posts on this thread.

But that's sufficient to demonstrate the point. So yes, angels at least sometimes have something at least functionally equivalent to a body. The question of the possibility of intermarriage with humans is still Not Proven (and I'd add Matthew 22:30 as another piece of evidence of arguable relevance), but now that you bring that up I'll readily concede that angels can have a human-looking body, rather than just appearing to.


Most likely not ... but genetics is not my forte


As Neil (I think) pointed out, "giants" in that passage is how some translations rendered "Nephilim." But it's inarguable that at least some of the Anakim ("sons (i.e. descendants) of Anak") were giants, since their heights were given in the text. (Goliath, for example, I think.)


... That's just repeating the assertion that I quoted, and it still doesn't seem to me to follow. (If someone with a comprehensive Bible dictionary and the requisite knowledge wants to use it, an explanation of what "Rephaim" means from its roots would be helpful; Wikipedia says it means "the dead ones.")


(The grammarian in me winces ... I know very little about Hebrew vocabulary or grammar, but one of the few things I do know is that Hebrew words ending -im are generally, and perhaps almost always, plural.)


"Nephilim" is translated "giants" in some translations; quite possibly "Rephaim" is as well, though I don't know.


I don't really see any other possible interpretation (though "the angels who ..." does not necessarily refer to every individual in the class it describes) that doesn't require a great deal of baseless speculation. (Though there is always the possibility that I'm missing something obvious, of course.)


Thank you; that's quite persuasive, from my perspective.


I'm curious as to what those are. (I suspect one is that that's what your sources use, but beyond that?)

Thank you. It was a good learning experience (and fun, for me) writing that, and I'm glad that people have appreciated it.



Well, the primary source, Edersheim, uses his own personal translations.

I mostly used it because it reduces the likelihood of somebody complaining about which translation I used.

The truth is that I believe the King James has a number of significant flaws (not the least of which was a vested political interest) and I believe that other translation have been made by greater scholars.

*hopes that nobody is offended by that statement*

For an accurate, actually literal translation, I prefer Young's Literal Translation. For an easy to read translation, I prefer the NASB or ESV.

From someone who believes that KJV is the only completely pure English version of the word of God...no, I wasn't offended.

I was aware of your views. I always used KJV when talking about the Bible with Jay.

Glad you weren't offended!

*cannot help but like you more, Jordan, since I struggle with the KJV due to its political associations, amongst other things *

I like the KJV, and use it, but I think it has a lot of flaws also, so this was somewhat encouraging to read this morning since most people know very little about translations.

I am also encouraged by your post!

*chuckles * Well good!