Ken Ammi

"Now, let us get right down the specific claims about Nephilim and clowns—note that he also references jesters, 'the archetype of the jester is there to make you not take life so seriously and to go against the narrative of the norms in society…The jester was just seen as a projected symbol of the collective conscious…these are like projections of a collective humanity of something. These are actually real conscious separate entities from us with an agenda.'"

This is the daft version of a paper that was published under the title, "Why We Need Systematic Biblical Nephilology."

The reason for seeking to discern Systematic Biblical Nephilology is that Nephilology, especially at the pop level, typically consists of taking texts out of context to make pretexts for prooftexts so that it is hardly an ology at all-not strictly a study of.

Prof. Goeman's focus is to determine, “Goliath’s ancestry…although Goliath fought as a Philistine, the evidence suggests that he probably was of the Anakim, not a native Philistine” which seems misguided—as we shall see—but first note that the article’s title should send up red flags in terms of linguistics, “Goliath was a Nephilim of the Anakim.”

Ever since the historical timeframe of Numbers chap. 13, pop-Nephilology has literally been premised on post-flood Nephilim. Without it, Nephilology is just too boring, is it not? And boring, it does not sell.

Nephilim are mentioned in two of what we call verses in the Bible: Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33. Genesis 6:4 records a pre-flood timeframe and Numbers 13:33 records a post-flood timeframe. So, there you have it: biblical evidence of pre-and post-flood Nephilim. Believe it or not, that is exactly how pop-Nephilologists argue.

Ronald Hendel (Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of California, Berkeley who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University) wrote a book chapter titled, “The Landscape of Memory: Giants and the Conquest of Canaan” within the book, "Collective Identity and Collective Memory: Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History in Their Context."

The term sleep paralysis has been applied in order to, generally, denote experiencing what has been variously defined as a waking sleep: that is, being mentally alert and yet unable to move (or able to only make slight movements such as with the eyes and mouth, being able to look around and maybe able to speak).
Sleep paralysis has a very, very long history and thus many attempts have been made to explain it. In fact, so long is its history that we find various references to it within the Bible.

I was pleased to encounter Sorensen’s “Response to Ken Ammi’s review of my paper – ‘Were the Nephilim Genetically Psychopathic?’”  since I am always up for a discussion, always up for correction, and always up for sharpening iron with iron—even when it tends to lead to someone getting cut.

The Centar za Racionalnu Teologiju/Center for Rational Theology has produced some information regarding “Giants in the Bible” including that “Everybody knows about Goliath…And the enigmatic Nephilim” and that, additionally, “there are quite a few more giants and giant races mentioned in the Bible.”
They also elucidate “The name Nephilim” etymologically.
This review considers the claims and notes some basic yet fundamental level issues.

Richard B. Sorensen notes, "Nephilim were said to be a race or a group of people that had distinct physical characteristics of large size and great strength" and that "the psychological characteristics of the Nephilim are not specifically described in the Bible, they are generally pictured as being very proud, belligerent, sexually aggressive, and prone to conflict…The Nephilim are portrayed as men who were tall, strong, and belligerent…physically intimidating…Nephilic characteristics of height, musculature, and psychopathology."

Now, while "the psychological characteristics of the Nephilim are not specifically described in the Bible" neither is that they "had distinct physical characteristics of large size and great strength" nor that they were "generally pictured as being very proud, belligerent, sexually aggressive, and prone to conflict…tall, strong, and belligerent…physically intimidating…Nephilic characteristics of height, musculature, and psychopathology."

What we reliably know about them is, "Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown" (Genesis 6:1-4)-period (keep the "reliably" qualifier in mind).

Richard B. Sorensen wrote, “The Nephilim were said to be a race or a group that had distinct physical characteristics of large size and great strength…the psychological characteristics of the Nephilim are not specifically described in the Bible, they are generally pictured as being very tall, proud, belligerent, sexually aggressive, and prone to conflict.”

He also notes, “not specifically described in the Bible” is that “The Nephilim…had distinct physical characteristics of large size and great strength” nor anything else besides that their parents were sons of God and daughters of men and that they were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown (but not why) and that they were “on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men” which v. 1 tells us was “when mankind began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them.”

This paper gets to the issue of whether can know enough about Nephilim to answer if they were genetically psychopathic.

In his various elucidations of issues related Nephilim, Dr. Michael Heiser has consistently failed to interact with the narrative of Numbers chapter 13 that is contextually relevant. This is a noteworthy oddity since Num 13:33 is the one and only post-flood Nephilim text and the second of only two texts (verse, actually) that reference Nephilim so that such an omission is quite fundamental. In 2019 he finally posted an article about the text which is reviewed herein.

Partially reviewing what the paper states about the Bible specifically.
We will find that the only reading of the Bible that results in tall tales about "giants" is not a literal one but one which I call a “theo-sci-fi” eisegetical (pseudo) hermeneutic.
We cannot really begin considering "giants" unless and until we define that vague, genetic, subjective term (and I can think of 5-6 definitions). Defining terms at the outset is key to any cogent consideration and yet, many people dive into such discussions midstream, in a manner of speaking, by discussing "giants" without defining that about which they are speaking.

The premise is that “the genealogy of Jesus…has some amazing features that link it with the expectation of a messianic reversal of the sin of the Watchers” wherein Watchers is a Second Temple Era (516 BC-70 AD) manner whereby to refer to Angels. Of “Tamar, Ruth, Bathsheba (‘the wife of Uriah’), and Rahab” the question posted is “Why are there four women, possibly all Gentiles, in the bloodline of Jesus?”
This is as proposed by Any Richter and approvingly employed by Michael Heiser.

H.G. Wells (1866-1946) authored a paper titled, “Is There Life on the Planets?” in 1888 which is considered the first draft of the 1893 paper “The Man of the Year Million” which, in turn, was later revised as “Of a Book Unwritten.” It set the stage for technology spiked evolution leading to the stereotypical "gray alien" visage.

The entire claim of the existence (in the past and/or present and/or future) of post-flood Nephilim is exclusively founded upon that one verse nay, on a portion of one verse.

Why think that there were post-flood Nephilim? Numbers 13:33.
Why think that Genesis 6:4’s “also after that” within the context of Nephilim refers to post-flood days? Numbers 13:33.
Why think that Anakim and thus, perhaps all Rephaim, were related to Nephilim (Anakim being a subgroup of Rephaim)? Numbers 13:33.
Why think that Joshua, et al., battled Nephilim? Numbers 13:33.
Why think that since Goliath and King Og were Rephaim they were, therefore, Nephilim? Numbers 13:33.
Why think that Nephilim were unusually tall? Numbers 13:33.
Round and round it goes, where it stops? Nobody knows—well, perhaps we will know by the conclusion of this paper.

Rev. Dr. Steven C. Brown wrote a paper (which he also terms a “study guide/commentary”) titled “‘The Giants of the Bible’ From Genesis to Goliath” (Pure Christianity Series: Volume #7, 2004 AD) which he ends by stating “I am truly looking forward to the responses from everyone who reads it” and since the au fond point is “We should be able to trace an ancestry of sorts from Goliath and his brothers, all the way back to the Nephilim in Gen. 6:2, 4” I thought to respond as it touches upon a
lot of subjects in which I share an interest.
Sine he references various biblical text, dictionaries, and other sources his paper is repetitive and so my response will likewise be—repetitive in terms of both of us going over the same, similar, and/or related issues time and again in a with a fine tooth comb manner.

Classical folklorist Adrienne Mayor wrote a paper titled “Giants in Ancient Warfare” wherein she notes, “David and Goliath ... Odysseus and the Cyclops ... Jack the Giant-Killer. Powerful stories, but aren’t they just symbolic fairy tales illustrating the triumph of the righteous underdog over towering evil?”
On the level of cultural anthropology, many references to giants are literally tall tales. Some are not even solely illustrations of the triumph of the righteous underdog over towering evil but manners whereby to exalt ones exploits.

There are certain things “we all know” about Angels: They are spirit beings, sort of ghost-like, they take on human form when interacting with us. The different kinds of Angels include Cherubim and Seraphim, they have wings, and Satan is a fallen Angel. The only problem with this common-knowledge view of Angels is that each point is un-biblical.

The title “Angels Unawares” derives from a text that will be quoted below and is also employed to denote that we are generally quite unaware of Angels.

Behold, I shew you a mystery; … .” Thus wrote the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:51, and it is the view of what this mystery is which fuels the alleged Serpent Seed of Satan Theory.
It fuels both its identification and revelation for “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter” (Proverbs 25:2, KJV). Serpent Seed of Satan Theorists are keen to promulgate something they consider to be a secret that actually has been “hidden in plain sight” since the beginning.
Other appeals to this word mystery come in the form of references to 1 Corinthians 13:2—which mentions the gift of being able to “understand all mysteries …” and Matthew 13:11— where Christ tells the Apostles that they are given the ability “to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven …”
Yet, of course, just because there are mysteries and revelations does not necessarily mean the Serpent Seed of Satan Theory is one of these revealed mysteries or even true for that matter. This is a claim built upon the blank spaces of Scripture, and it gives its adherents a false feeling they know deeper things of God that others do not know.
But, perhaps we have gotten ahead of ourselves. For those who are unfamiliar with the Serpent Seed Doctrine, a brief explanation is in order. The basic claim is that Eve had sexual relations with the serpent in the Garden, and Cain is the result of that union—the seed of the serpent.
Our focus will be the theory itself and not its history nor its proponents.[1]
The Serpent Seed of Satan (hereinafter SSS) Theory proper, begins with The Fall into sin at Genesis three, and it is here we are told where the first mystery resides. The theory asserts the text of Genesis three is highly symbolic; historical and grammatical understanding is abandoned and is replaced with a mystical, mythical hermeneutic—a new template—whereby to interpret the rest of the Bible clear through to Jesus’ parables.

An online search for “Nephilim” just yielded “About 20,900,000 results” so the Bible must be saturated with references to them: here is every biblical reference to Nephilim:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown (Genesis 6:4 NASB).
There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight (Numbers 13:33 NASB).
That’s all folks!
Nephilim have been a subject of fascination for millennia partly because of their brief mention. Authors of apocrypha, historical fictions, folklore, and modern day hoaxers love to make much ado about not very much so as to fill in the Bible’s gaps. Subsequently, if the Bible only tells us two things about Nephilim, that leaves a lot of room for speculative accretion—to the point that many neo-“ministries” are literally established upon the issue of Nephilim.

The concept of “ex machina” refers to something that “appears as if out of nowhere, in a mechanical manner.” Such is how demons appear in the text of the Bible since it is not an everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-demons text; hence, they are only touched upon.

The question at hand is: “What are demons?”

The two basic answers are: 1) Demons are fallen Angels; 2) Demons are not fallen Angels. Why think they are not fallen Angels? Because demons and Angels exhibit different characteristics. If they are not, then what are they?

In this article, the focus is on the terms heaven and hell, both of which are generically employed in certain English Bible versions as catch-all terms that covereth a multitude of theology—or rather, superumology (the study of heaven) and infernology (the study of hell).[1]
Basic-level theological terms regarding eternal destinations are either heaven or hell; and yet, there is a bit more than that along the way.
The following is a bottom-line conclusion as to the various terms we encounter in Hebrew and Greek (as well as English renderings), namely: Sheol, gehenna, Hades, Abyss, bottomless pit, Tartarus, lake of fire, second death, heaven (intermediate heaven and eternal heaven proper), Abraham’s bosom, paradise, Kingdom of Heaven/God, New Heavens, and New Earth. Rendering all of these as either heaven or hell causes confusion and is vague.

Many people dive into discussions about giants without defining the key term: Just what is a giant? The definition is not as simple as it may seem, since some may employ it metaphorically such as referring to a giant of industry. Sometimes, it is used to describe someone who is a foot taller than average; other times, it refers to someone who is many feet taller, an entire body length taller, or, perhaps, various body lengths taller. So, just what is a giant?
When it comes to the biblical context, there are at least four issues to consider:
Some English versions translate two Hebrew words by using the one vague, generic, subjective, and, I submit to you, un-biblical term giants.
The Bible only specifies the heights of two people.
The Bible refers to people who are (generically) tall, (generically) very tall, or (generically) of great stature.
The Bible provides us with some similes pertaining to height.

Cooper notes that Heiser, “uses a more restrictive sense of the word Angel because he believes Angel is more of a job description: he says the Seraphim, for example, are not Angels.” Well, Seraphim are not Angels because Seraphim are Seraphim and Angels are Angels. Some will dismiss that common sense bifurcation by merely asserting that Seraphim are a kind of Angel but there is zero indication of any such thing and that is merely a man-made tradition.
Angels, Seraphim, and Cherubim are different categories of being:
1) they have different job titles, 2) they have different job functions, and 3) they have different morphologies.

Num chap 13 has 12 men being sent into the land of Canaan to reconnoiter it. Upon their return, a report is presented that is accepted as is. A division occurs when Caleb, one of the 12, encourages the people while the 10 discourage them (and with Joshua siding with Caleb, as is seen in chap 14).
Since the discouragement was not enough, we are then told that the 10 presented an evil report and it is therein where they make five assertions that are not supported by even one single over verse in the entire Bible. They also contradict Moses, Caleb, Joshua, God, and the rest of the whole Bible.

Zen Garcia claims, “The recreation of Adam and Eve into flesh bodies happens on the eighth day and is described in the Nag Hammadi codices as the elevation of the third creation of eighth-day dust Adam and Eve” and, “the Genesis 3 Adam is a whole different being from the Genesis 2 creature molded by the Elohim prior to humanity’s recreation on the eighth day as cited in the Nag Hammadi codices.”

The focus of the review will be the segments that specifically pertain to the subject title's reference to "Giants."
Now, noah begins by quoting Gen 6:4 thusly, "The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown."
Note that the subject pertains to, "Giants" but the quotations pertain to, "Nephilim": more on this to come. Thus, we may conclude that by the vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage modern English word, "Giants," noah is referring exclusively to, "Nephilim."

Lorehaven asks, “Why Are Some Christians So Curious About Nephilim?” and replied as per, “this giant controversy about these ‘monsters’” followed by a common parlance play off of a memeish slant on the Ancient Aliens show with, “I’m not saying our next monster for Monster Month was nephilim, but it was nephilim.”

Hereinafter is specifically a review of the paper Lee Anderson, Jr.’s paper “Is “Sons of God” in Genesis 6 Adapted Pagan Mythology?” that was published in the Answers Research Journal, 8 (2015): 261–271. My focus will be on that which Anderson has to say about Angelology and Nephilology and not necessarily the issue of Pagan adaptations or not.

Ordained Presbyterian Elder Jack Kettler notes:

They were fallen angels or demons…has a long history of support for the position. However, in light of Christ’s teaching on marriage, and others it is becoming increasingly problematic.
For example, Jesus says, “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). The text from Matthew seemingly rules out the first view, because angels are spiritual beings (Hebrews 1:13-14) and this is problematic for reproduction with humans. To support this problem for the first view, we know that God is a spirit and does not have a body. See John 4:24 and Luke 24:39. Hence, angels, spiritual beings do not have bodies of flesh and bones although at times they have appeared in human form. See (Gen. 19:1-22).

We are told, “Nephilim are giants of biblical mythology” which is followed up a few sentences
later by the question, “Are they giants?” (since they did not make it past the flood, it should be
“were” nor “are”), and Reich asked, “Nephilim: Who are the giants of the Bible, Jewish lore?” in
the title itself.
Well, we cannot really accept being told that they are giants nor answer whether they were until
we are told by Reich what he means by the vague, generic, subjective, and multi-usage word
giants.
Now, since the title jumps from the specific ancient Hebrew word Nephilim to the undefined
modern English word giants I infer that by giants he is merely doing that which some English
Bibles do: he is merely rendering (not translating) the word Nephilim as giants.

Mariottini is specific enough to qualify that, “After the people of Israel left Egypt, they came to the borders of Canaan, the land that Yahweh their God had promised to them. Before they entered the land they asked Moses to send twelve spies,” total, “to investigate the land and its people (Numbers 13:1–33). With the exception of Joshua and Caleb, the spies brought back a very pessimistic report of their survey of Canaan.”

AISH styles itself, "the largest Jewish learning site" and published an article by Dovid Rosenfeld tiled, "Nephilim-Giants in the Torah" (May 6, 2022). Coming from a Jewish, Hebrew, perspective-as both Rosenfeld and I do-I looked forward to more than the typical pop-research based neo-theo-sci-fi about Nephilim.

Nephilim have been a topic of fascination for millennia. Their humble Ancient Near East beginnings are two verses in the Tanakh from which spawned folklore that turned them into something quite un-humble. Under consideration is an elucidation of that which the Tanakh tells us about them, how some attempt to plump up the precious little it tells us about them, how to navigate related issues-such as much talk of giants-and how they are presented to us in various forms of folkloric tall tales. We will conclude that the folklorists (ancient and modern), unrestrained by history or theology, created monsters which haunt us to this day even when history and theology tell us that they are long defeated foes.