"a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit"         (James 2:15-16 NKJV)

Nephilim

In the Torah and several non-canonical Jewish and early Christian writings, nephilim (Hebrew, הנּפלים, those causing others to fall) are a people created by the crossbreeding of the sons of God (b'nei elohim, בני האלהים) and the "daughters of men".[1] The word nephilim is loosely translated as giants (maybe intellectual and not in physical size) or titans in some translations of the Bible, and is left as nephilim in others:
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years." 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
Origin and interpretation
In Aramaic culture, the term Nephila specifically referred to the constellation of Orion, and thus Nephilim to Orion's semi-divine descendants (cf. Anakim from Anak);[3] the implication being that this also is the origin of the Biblical Nephilim. Some commentators[citation needed] have suggested that the nephilim were believed to have been fathered by members of a proto-Hebrew pantheon, and are a brief glimpse of early Hebrew religion, most of the details of which were later edited out from the Torah (or at least would have been edited out when, as some claim, it was redacted together), and that this passage may have offered monotheistic Hebrews a way to fit semi-divine pagan heroes into their cosmogony.
The idea that the Torah was somehow changed is not in keeping with traditional Hebrew practice, in which if even a single character is out of place in a parchment translation of the original Hebrew Torah, the entire parchment must be destroyed and replaced anew. However, there are several variations, some of great significance, between ancient manuscripts of the Torah, between Septuagint, Syriac Peshitta, Dead Sea Scrolls, masoretic text, Samaritan Pentateuch, and the versions in the Hexapla, as well as between various manuscripts within each of these groups.
The traditional Jewish view, deriving from the Book of Enoch, is that the fathers of the Nephilim were a particular class of angels - the Grigori (Watchers) - though there is some controversy on this point.[4]
Others, especially some Christians, suggest the "sons of God" were fully human. In addition to Enoch, the Book of Jubilees (7:21-25) also states that ridding the Earth of these Nephilim was one of God's purposes for flooding the Earth in Noah's time. The Biblical reference to Noah being "perfect in his generations" may have referred to his having a clean, Nephilim-free bloodline, although it may be inferred that there was more diversity among his three daughters-in law.
Despite the literal text of the Bible and its traditional interpretation, the idea that heavenly beings mated with humans is controversial, particularly among many Christians, who cite an interpretation of the teaching of Jesus in the Book of Matthew that Angels do not marry; however, they may take the verse in question out of context, because Jesus said that the resurrected do not marry in heaven, but are "as the angels". Others who find the idea of angels mating with humans distasteful have suggested more figurative interpretations of the nephilim, such as the idea that they were the offspring of men possessed by demons.
Still others, including the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Latter-day Saints, take the view of Genesis 6:1 that the reference is to certain human males from the lineage of Seth, who were called sons of God probably in reference to their being formerly in a covenantal relationship with Yahweh (cf. Deuteronomy 14:1; 32:5); according to these sources, these men had begun to pursue fleshly interests, and so took wives of the daughters of men, i.e., those who were descended from Cain. Not only is this unequivocally stated in Ethiopian Orthodox versions of I Enoch and Jubilees, but this is also the view presented in a few extra-Biblical, yet ancient works, particularly the Second Book of Adam and Eve. In these sources, these offspring of Seth were said to have disobeyed God, by breeding with the Cainites and producing wicked children "who were all unlike", thus angering God into bringing about the Deluge.
If one studies the root word (lpn, which is transliterated as naphal), nephilim could be read as "the fallen ones" or "those who were cast out" [2]. This fits in well with traditional beliefs that satan and his followers (fallen angels, or demons) were cast out of Heaven and were active on Earth. Therefore, these "sons of God" (fallen angels) were attempting to breed with human women.
Nephilim in ancient texts outside the Torah
Several ancient works, including Enoch and Jubilees, expand on the narrative in the Torah, connecting the origin of the Nephilim with the fallen angels, and in particular with the Grigori (watchers). Samyaza, an angel of high rank, is described as leading a rebel sect of angels in a descent to earth to instruct humans in righteousness. The tutelage went on for a few centuries, but soon the angels pined for the human females and began to instruct the women in magic and conjuring. The angels consummated their lust, and as a result produced hybrid offspring: the Nephilim.
According to these texts, the fallen angels who begat the Nephilim were cast into Tartarus/Gehenna, a place of 'total darkness'. However, Jubilees also states that God granted ten percent of the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim to remain after the flood, as demons, to try to lead the human race astray (through idolatry, the occult, etc.) until the final Judgement.
These works describe the Nephilim as being gigantic in stature, with prodigious strength and immense appetites. Supposedly, upon devouring all of humankind's resources, the Nephilim had begun to consume humans themselves, and attacked and oppressed them, becoming the cause of massive destruction on the earth.
Other Hebrew words sometimes interpreted as Giants
In the Hebrew Old Testament, there are a number of other words that, like Nephilim, are sometimes translated as giants:
• Emim (Hebrew for the fearful ones)
• Rephaim (Hebrew for the dead ones)
• Anakim (Hebrew for the [long]-necked ones).
This has led to a great deal of confusion, even to the point of medieval legends recounted in the Talmud of a giant stowing away on Noah's Ark. It is possible that these names in the Torah were not meant to signify any antediluvian race that survived the Great Flood, but were simply denotations for particular groups of Canaanites, or other ordinary ethnicities.
Rephaim
Rephaim is a general title that the Book of Joshua states was given to the aborigines who were afterwards conquered and dispossessed by the Canaanite tribes).[5] The text states that a few Rephaim had survived, one of them being Og, the king of Bashan. Og of Bashan is recorded as having a 13-ft long bed.
Deut 3:11 11(Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaites. His bed was made of iron and was more than thirteen feet long and six feet wide. It is still in Rabbah of the Ammonites.) NIV
The Rephaim may have been the same Canaanite group known to the Moabites as Emim,[6] i.e., fearful, and to the Ammonites as Zamzummim. The second of the Books of Samuel states that some of them found refuge among the Philistines, and were still existing in the days of David. Nothing is known of their origin, nor of anything specifically connecting them with Nephilim, though the connection is made by Jewish tradition.
Anakim
In the Torah, the Anakim are the descendants of Anak, and dwelt in the south of Canaan, in the neighbourhood of Hebron. In the days of Abraham, they inhabited the region afterwards known as Edom and Moab, east of the Jordan river. They are mentioned during the report of the spies about the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. The book of Joshua states that Joshua finally expelled them from the land, excepting a remnant that found a refuge in the cities of Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod. The Philistine giant Goliath, whom David, or Elhanan,[7] later encountered, was supposedly a descendant of the Anakim.
"The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them." (Numbers 13:32-33, English Standard Version)
The Sumerians called their gods the Anunnaki; Abraham, being the son of an idol manufacturer in the Sumerian city of Ur, could reasonably be expected to have known about these gods. This argument is made in a Midrash [3]. Whether via the knowledge of a historical Abraham, or via folk memory that passed down to the Yahwist, the words Anak and its plural (Anakim) could simply be bastardized versions of Anunnaki; this would equate the Nephilim with the Sumerian demigods such as Gilgamesh.
Note that it is more commonly suggested by traditional Jewish sources (such as the Midrash) that the spies saw large and powerful inhabitants in Canaan and because of their own fears, cowardice, and inadequate faith in Yahweh, saw themselves as grasshoppers in the eyes of the Canaanites, whether they were actual 'giants' or not.
Nephilim in other works
The story of the Nephilim is chronicled more fully in the Book of Enoch (part of Ethiopian biblical canon).
There are also allusions to these descendants in the deuterocanonical books of Judith, Sirach, Baruch, 3 Maccabees, and Wisdom of Solomon.
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