|
"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.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
