The Nephilim, born of the Son’s of God and the daughter’s of men, giants in our history, fallen angels who suffered the wrath of The Almighty in the Great Flood; were the Nephilim a race of archangels, intent on mixing their seed with the lines of God’s children?
Some would have you believe just that, though I choose to believe differently.
Genesis 6:1-7
1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal ; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” 4 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. 5 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” NIV
Essentially, the above verse is an explanation of how the “Sons of God�?, believed to be fallen angels, bred themselves into the race of men, creating superhuman giants known as the Nephilim. Many have accepted the idea that the “Sons of God�? were fallen angels, though in a time when spiritual faith is faltering, some are looking for alternate explanations of this fantastic tale.
The Nephilim seem to be presented in a somewhat matter-of-fact way, they are mentioned as a species by name in the above verse, and their presence is identified in several other Biblical verses, such as:
Numbers 13:31-33 (Originally and incorrectly cited as Deuteronomy)
31 But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. 32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. 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.
The Nephilim themselves are an interesting study, and discoveries have been made in modern time, which point to the truth of their existence. For instance; in the late 1950’s, during road construction in the Euphrates Valley of south-east Turkey, many tombs containing the remains of giants were uncovered. At the sites the leg bones were measured to be 120 cms (47.24 inches). Joe Taylor, Director of Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum, was commissioned to sculpt the human femur. This giant stood some 14-16 ft tall. In his book Fossils Facts & Fantasies, Joe Taylor cites several accounts of giant human skeletons or depictions being discovered, from Egypt, Italy, Patagonia in Argentina, and the western US.
In spite of the compelling and growing body of evidence to support the existence of the Nephilim, I remain more interested in their origins than their presence. The details of the Biblical account resemble stories of extraterrestrial crossbreeding and abduction. They resemble whispers of government conspiracies involving cover-up and DNA modification. They resemble the popular fear of Alien interbreeding as a form of invasion.
While I’m not prone to such fear tactics normally, the similarity to the core principals of the story is striking. The “Sons of God�?, bred themselves freely with human women, and ultimately created a new race of enormous, superhuman beings, and the question burns, who, or what, were the Sons of God?
The very idea that the writers of these Biblical verses, recognised the danger in interbreeding between humans and the mystery beings, insofar as they incorporated an ultimate punishment for the invasion, is astonishing. Not surprisingly, I do not accept the wrath of God explanation, but I see through the metaphor and call to your attention to the fact that once the interbreeding began, the Sons of God were not mentioned again, much the same way as our own encounters with extraterrestrials remain shrouded in mystery and conspiracy.
The very metaphor involved in the term Sons of God, immediately suggests that these beings were not of this world, and the writers were aware enough to know that they came from the heavens, or what we now know to be outer space. The fact that they were attributed as a relation to God may denote that they possessed abilities or qualities, which were deemed to be godlike, quite possibly the result of technological advancement, or even biological qualities that were unique to their species.
The result of their mingling with humanity, the Nephilim, seems to suggest an intent, a desire to create a stronger, possibly better form of life. Though one could argue that the Nephilim were hardly better, since there is no trace of their genetic influence now…or is there?
I will leave you with the notion that roughly 97% of the human genome is unidentified, and in an interbreeding program, only a small fraction of parent DNA need be passed along in order for significant changes to begin taking effect in the population at large.
To learn more about the Nephilim and the biblical history behind their story, buy a copy of The Lost Book of Enochfrom our Recommended Reading section (all transactions are safe and secure through Amazon.com)