The Nephilim are the offspring of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" in Genesis 6:4, or giants who inhabitCanaan in Numbers 13:33. A similar biblical Hebrew word with different vowel-sounds is used in Ezekiel 32:27 to refer to dead Philistine warriors.
"Nephilim" probably derives from the Semitic root , "to fall" which also includes "to cause to fall" and "to kill, to ruin". The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon gives the meaning as "giants"Robert Baker Girdlestone argued the word comes from the Hiphil causative stem. Adam Clarke took it as passive, "fallen", "apostates". Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form "ones who have fallen", equivalent grammatically to paqid "one who is appointed" (i.e. overseer), asir, "one who is bound", (i.e. prisoner) etc.
he term "Nephilim" occurs just twice in the Hebrew Bible, both in the Torah. The first is Genesis 6:1-4, immediately before the story of Noah's ark:
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.
The second is Numbers 13:32-33, where The Twelve Spies report that they have seen fearsome giants in Canaan:
32. And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.
33. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."
The nature of the nephilim is complicated by the ambiguity of Genesis 6:4, "the sons of God joined with the daughters of mankind, who bore them children - they were the ancient warriors, the men of renown", which leaves it unclear whether they are the "sons of God" or their offspring who are the "ancient warriors". Richard Hess in The Anchor Bible Dictionary takes it as read that the nephilim are the offspring,as does P. W. Coxon in Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible.
There are effectively two views regarding the identity of the nephilim, which follow on from alternative views about the identity of the sons of God:
Offspring of Seth — The Qumran (Dead Sea Scroll) fragment 4Q417 (4QInstruction) contains the earliest known reference to the phrase "children of Seth", stating that God has condemned them for their rebellion. Other early references to the offspring of Seth rebelling from God and mingling with the daughters of Cain, are found in rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Augustine of Hippo, Julius Africanus, and theLetters attributed to St. Clement. It is also the view expressed in the modern canonical Amharic Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.
Offspring of angels — A number of early sources refer to the "sons of heaven" as "Angels". The earliest such references seem to be in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Greek, and Aramaic Enochic literature, and in certain Ge'ez manuscripts of 1 Enoch (mss A-Q) and Jubilees used by western scholars in modern editions of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Also some Christian apologists shared this opinion, like Tertullian and especially Lactantius. However, "angels" in this context has sometimes been considered to be a sarcastic epithet for the offspring of Seth who rebelled.The earliest statement in a secondary commentary explicitly interpreting this to mean that angelic beings mated with humans, can be traced to the rabbinical Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, and it has since become especially commonplace in modern-day Christian commentaries.
The fallen angels interpretation
The New American Bible commentary draws a parallel to the Epistle of Jude and the statements set forth in Genesis, suggesting that the Epistle refers implicitly to the paternity of nephilim as heavenly beings who came to earth and had sexual intercourse with women. The footnotes of the Jerusalem Bible suggest that the Biblical author intended the nephilim to be an "anecdote of a superhuman race".Genesis 6:4 implies that the nephilim have inhabited the earth in at least two different time periods—in antediluvian times "and afterward." If the nephilim were supernatural beings themselves, or at least the progeny of supernatural beings, there is a theory that the "giants of Canaan" in Numbers 13:33 were the direct descendants of the antediluvian nephilim, or were fathered by the same supernatural parents.
Some Christian commentators have argued against this view, citing Jesus' statement that angels do not marry.Others believe that Jesus was only referring to angels in heaven.
Evidence in favour of the "fallen angels" interpretation includes the fact that the phrase "the sons of God" (Hebrew, בְּנֵי הָֽאֱלֹהִים; literally "sons of the gods") is used just two times outside of Genesis chapter 6. In both instances (namely, Job 1:6 and Job 2:1) the phrase explicitly references angels. This is supported by the Septuagint version of the Codex Alexandrinus, which, in Genesis 6:2, renders the phrase "angels of God".
In Second Temple Judais Main articles: Book of Enoch, Book of Jubilees, and Watcher (angel)
The story of the nephilim is further elaborated in the Book of Enoch. The Greek, Aramaic, and main Ge'ez manuscripts of 1 Enoch andJubilees obtained in the 19th century and held in the British Museum and Vatican Library, connect the origin of the nephilim with the fallen angels, and in particular with the egrḗgoroi (watchers). Samyaza, an angel of high rank, is described as leading a rebel sect of angels in a descent to earth to have sexual intercourse with human females:
And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.' And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.' Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it...
According to these texts, the fallen angels who begat the nephilim were cast into Tartarus (Greek Enoch 20:2), 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 until the final Judgment.
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. These works describe the nephilim as being evil giants.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan identifies the nephilim as Shemihaza and the angels in the name list from 1 Enoch. b Yoma 67, PRE22 and 1 QapGen ar ii 1 also identify the nephilim as the angels that fell.
There are also allusions to these descendants in the deuterocanonical books of Judith, Sirach 16:7, Baruch 3:26–28, and Wisdom of Solomon 14:6, and in the non-deuterocanonical 3 Maccabees 2:4.
In the New Testament Epistle of Jude 14-15 cites from 1 Enoch 1:9, which many scholars believe is based on Deuteronomy 33:2.To most commentators this confirms that the author of Jude regarded the Enochic interpretations of Genesis 6 as correct, however others have questioned this.
The descendants of Seth and Cain interpretation
Orthodox Judaism has always taken a consistent line against the idea that Genesis 6 refers to angels or that angels could intermarry with men. Shimon bar Yochai pronounced a curse on anyone teaching this idea. Rashi and Nachmanides followed this. Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 3:1-3 may also imply that the "sons of God" were human.Consequently, most Jewish commentaries and translations describe the Nephilim as being from the offspring of "sons of nobles", rather than from "sons of God" or "sons of angels". This is also the rendering suggested in the Targum Onqelos, Symmachus and the Samaritan Targum which read "sons of the rulers", where Targum Neophyti reads "sons of the judges".
Likewise, a long-held view among some Christians is that the "sons of God" who fathered the nephilim spoken of in the text, were in fact the formerly righteous descendants of Seth who rebelled, while the "daughters of men" were the unrighteous descendants of Cain, and the nephilim the offspring of their union. This view dates to at least the 3rd century AD, with references throughout the Clementine literature,as well as in Sextus Julius Africanus, Ephrem the Syrian and others (see below, "In other texts"). Holders of this view have looked for support in Jesus' statement that "in the days before the flood they (humans) were marrying and giving in marriage"
Some individuals and groups, including St. Augustine, John Chrysostom, and John Calvin, take the view of Genesis 6:2 that the "Angels" who fathered the nephilim referred 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 bodily interests, and so took wives of the daughters of men, e.g., those who were descended from Cain or from any people who did not worship God.
This also is the view of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church,supported by their own Ge'ez manuscripts and Amharic translation of the Haile Selassie Bible - where the canonical books of 1 Enoch and Jubilees differ from western academic editions. The "Sons of Seth view" is also the view presented in a few extra-Biblical, yet ancient works, including Clementine literature, the 3rd century Cave of Treasures, and the ca. 6th Century Ge'ez work The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan. 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, as in the Conflict:
Certain wise men of old wrote concerning them, and say in their [sacred] books, that angels came down from heaven, and mingled with the daughters of Cain, who bare unto them these giants. But these [wise men] err in what they say. God forbid such a thing, that angels who are spirits, should be found committing sin with human beings. Never, that cannot be. And if such a thing were of the nature of angels, or Satans, that fell, they would not leave one woman on earth, undefiled... But many men say, that angels came down from heaven, and joined themselves to women, and had children by them. This cannot be true. But they were children of Seth, who were of the children of Adam, that dwelt on the mountain, high up, while they preserved their virginity, their innocence and their glory like angels; and were then called 'angels of God.' But when they transgressed and mingled with the children of Cain, and begat children, ill-informed men said, that angels had come down from heaven, and mingled with the daughters of men, who bear them giants.
Arguments from culture and mythology
In Aramaic culture, the term niyphelah refers to the Constellation of Orion, and nephilim to the offspring of Orion in mythology. However the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon notes this as a "dubious etymology" and "all very precarious".
J. C. Greenfield mentions that "it has been proposed that the tale of the Nephilim, alluded to in Genesis 6 is based on some of the negative aspects of the apkallu tradition". The apkallu in Sumerian mythology were seven legendary culture heros from before the Flood, of human descent, but possessing extraordinary wisdom from the gods, and one of the seven apkallu, Adapa, was therefore called "son of Ea", despite his human origin.
Ezekiel's "mighty fallen": nephilim as ancient warrior
Ezekiel 32:27 speaks of "the fallen mighty (gibborim nophlim, גִּבֹּורִים נֹפְלִים) of the uncircumcised, which are gone down (yardu, יָרְדֽוּ) to the grave with their weapons of war"; a change to the vowels would produce the reading gibborim nephilim.
In the Hebrew Bible, there are a number of other words that, like "Nephilim", are sometimes translated as "giants":
Emim — the fearful ones
Rephaim — the dead ones
Anakim — the [long]-necked ones
Anakim (or Anakites) are the descendants of Anak, and dwelt in the south of Canaan, in the neighbourhood of Hebron. In the days ofAbraham, they inhabited the region later 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 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
Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, is known in Modern Hebrew translation as Mered HaNephilim (מרד הנפילים, literally: the revolt/rebellion of the Nephilim)
In the film The Devil's Tomb, Nephilim are portrayed as corrupted, fallen angels.
The Nephilim figure prominently in the Madeleine L'Engle novel Many Waters, primarily in an antagonistic role.
The Nephilim are featured in the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices book series by Cassandra Clare as the offspring of angels and humans also known as "shadowhunters".
In Tom Egeland's book Gospel of Lucifer, Nephilim are referred to as mysterious extraterrestrials who came to the earth over 5000 years ago, to help us advance as societies by teaching us maths, physics and technology.
Author Richard Kadrey's "Sandman Slim" series feature a main character by the name of Stark (aka Sandman Slim) who discovers his magic and healing ability are the result of being a Nephilim.
In the video game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, the Nephilim are depicted as semi-humanoid, blob-like creatures that enjoy frolicking through the Tower of Babel. This belies their true nature, as the Nephilim are slowly consuming one another, growing more monstrous and threatening to consume the world. Enoch, the main character, must return the creatures to oblivion by purifying the souls of the Fallen Angels that parented them.
In the novel Angelology by Danielle Trussoni, Nephilim appear as the antagonists to a group of Angelologists, people who study angels, and the battle between the two groups is to gain control of a powerful, sacred object.
In the Fallen novels by Lauren Kate, a Nephilim is any person with angel DNA. The Nephilim featured in the novels attend Shoreline school near Mendocino, California, and have not yet made their final choice between good and evil.
In the post-apocalyptic video game Darksiders, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (referred to as War, Death, Fury, and Strife) are shown to be Nephilim and are the last of their kind after the Nephilim suffered devastating casualties during a war between Heaven and Hell centuries prior to the main storyline. The Nephilim are portrayed as tall, muscular demigods capable of incredible power, such as shapeshifting into giant demons and possessing incredible advanced weaponry.
In the books by Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush, Crescendo and Silence, fallen angels, Nephils and Nephilim are mentioned, as the main characters and conflicts form around these terms.
In Thomas Sniegoski's book series The Fallen and the mini-series based on the books, Nephilim are referred to as the children of fallen angels and human women, who are eventually responsible for protecting the world from impending darkness.
The second and third Prophecy movies deal with fallen angels and one of the Nephilim.
In the video game Diablo III, the term Nephalem is used to describe the extremely powerful offspring of commingling Angels and Demons, who created the world as a sanctuary from the Eternal Conflict.
In Bryan Davis's novel series Dragons in Our Midst and Oracles of Fire, the Nephillim were offspring of fallen angels, known as Watchers, and human women. They were large in stature and evil in nature.
ALSO READ http://ultparanormal.blogspot.com/2012/06/anunnaki.html
"Nephilim" probably derives from the Semitic root , "to fall" which also includes "to cause to fall" and "to kill, to ruin". The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon gives the meaning as "giants"Robert Baker Girdlestone argued the word comes from the Hiphil causative stem. Adam Clarke took it as passive, "fallen", "apostates". Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form "ones who have fallen", equivalent grammatically to paqid "one who is appointed" (i.e. overseer), asir, "one who is bound", (i.e. prisoner) etc.
he term "Nephilim" occurs just twice in the Hebrew Bible, both in the Torah. The first is Genesis 6:1-4, immediately before the story of Noah's ark:
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.
The second is Numbers 13:32-33, where The Twelve Spies report that they have seen fearsome giants in Canaan:
32. And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.
33. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."
The nature of the nephilim is complicated by the ambiguity of Genesis 6:4, "the sons of God joined with the daughters of mankind, who bore them children - they were the ancient warriors, the men of renown", which leaves it unclear whether they are the "sons of God" or their offspring who are the "ancient warriors". Richard Hess in The Anchor Bible Dictionary takes it as read that the nephilim are the offspring,as does P. W. Coxon in Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible.
There are effectively two views regarding the identity of the nephilim, which follow on from alternative views about the identity of the sons of God:
Offspring of Seth — The Qumran (Dead Sea Scroll) fragment 4Q417 (4QInstruction) contains the earliest known reference to the phrase "children of Seth", stating that God has condemned them for their rebellion. Other early references to the offspring of Seth rebelling from God and mingling with the daughters of Cain, are found in rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Augustine of Hippo, Julius Africanus, and theLetters attributed to St. Clement. It is also the view expressed in the modern canonical Amharic Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.
Offspring of angels — A number of early sources refer to the "sons of heaven" as "Angels". The earliest such references seem to be in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Greek, and Aramaic Enochic literature, and in certain Ge'ez manuscripts of 1 Enoch (mss A-Q) and Jubilees used by western scholars in modern editions of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Also some Christian apologists shared this opinion, like Tertullian and especially Lactantius. However, "angels" in this context has sometimes been considered to be a sarcastic epithet for the offspring of Seth who rebelled.The earliest statement in a secondary commentary explicitly interpreting this to mean that angelic beings mated with humans, can be traced to the rabbinical Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, and it has since become especially commonplace in modern-day Christian commentaries.
The fallen angels interpretation
The New American Bible commentary draws a parallel to the Epistle of Jude and the statements set forth in Genesis, suggesting that the Epistle refers implicitly to the paternity of nephilim as heavenly beings who came to earth and had sexual intercourse with women. The footnotes of the Jerusalem Bible suggest that the Biblical author intended the nephilim to be an "anecdote of a superhuman race".Genesis 6:4 implies that the nephilim have inhabited the earth in at least two different time periods—in antediluvian times "and afterward." If the nephilim were supernatural beings themselves, or at least the progeny of supernatural beings, there is a theory that the "giants of Canaan" in Numbers 13:33 were the direct descendants of the antediluvian nephilim, or were fathered by the same supernatural parents.
Some Christian commentators have argued against this view, citing Jesus' statement that angels do not marry.Others believe that Jesus was only referring to angels in heaven.
Evidence in favour of the "fallen angels" interpretation includes the fact that the phrase "the sons of God" (Hebrew, בְּנֵי הָֽאֱלֹהִים; literally "sons of the gods") is used just two times outside of Genesis chapter 6. In both instances (namely, Job 1:6 and Job 2:1) the phrase explicitly references angels. This is supported by the Septuagint version of the Codex Alexandrinus, which, in Genesis 6:2, renders the phrase "angels of God".
In Second Temple Judais Main articles: Book of Enoch, Book of Jubilees, and Watcher (angel)
The story of the nephilim is further elaborated in the Book of Enoch. The Greek, Aramaic, and main Ge'ez manuscripts of 1 Enoch andJubilees obtained in the 19th century and held in the British Museum and Vatican Library, connect the origin of the nephilim with the fallen angels, and in particular with the egrḗgoroi (watchers). Samyaza, an angel of high rank, is described as leading a rebel sect of angels in a descent to earth to have sexual intercourse with human females:
And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.' And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.' Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it...
According to these texts, the fallen angels who begat the nephilim were cast into Tartarus (Greek Enoch 20:2), 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 until the final Judgment.
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. These works describe the nephilim as being evil giants.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan identifies the nephilim as Shemihaza and the angels in the name list from 1 Enoch. b Yoma 67, PRE22 and 1 QapGen ar ii 1 also identify the nephilim as the angels that fell.
There are also allusions to these descendants in the deuterocanonical books of Judith, Sirach 16:7, Baruch 3:26–28, and Wisdom of Solomon 14:6, and in the non-deuterocanonical 3 Maccabees 2:4.
In the New Testament Epistle of Jude 14-15 cites from 1 Enoch 1:9, which many scholars believe is based on Deuteronomy 33:2.To most commentators this confirms that the author of Jude regarded the Enochic interpretations of Genesis 6 as correct, however others have questioned this.
The descendants of Seth and Cain interpretation
Orthodox Judaism has always taken a consistent line against the idea that Genesis 6 refers to angels or that angels could intermarry with men. Shimon bar Yochai pronounced a curse on anyone teaching this idea. Rashi and Nachmanides followed this. Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 3:1-3 may also imply that the "sons of God" were human.Consequently, most Jewish commentaries and translations describe the Nephilim as being from the offspring of "sons of nobles", rather than from "sons of God" or "sons of angels". This is also the rendering suggested in the Targum Onqelos, Symmachus and the Samaritan Targum which read "sons of the rulers", where Targum Neophyti reads "sons of the judges".
Likewise, a long-held view among some Christians is that the "sons of God" who fathered the nephilim spoken of in the text, were in fact the formerly righteous descendants of Seth who rebelled, while the "daughters of men" were the unrighteous descendants of Cain, and the nephilim the offspring of their union. This view dates to at least the 3rd century AD, with references throughout the Clementine literature,as well as in Sextus Julius Africanus, Ephrem the Syrian and others (see below, "In other texts"). Holders of this view have looked for support in Jesus' statement that "in the days before the flood they (humans) were marrying and giving in marriage"
Some individuals and groups, including St. Augustine, John Chrysostom, and John Calvin, take the view of Genesis 6:2 that the "Angels" who fathered the nephilim referred 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 bodily interests, and so took wives of the daughters of men, e.g., those who were descended from Cain or from any people who did not worship God.
This also is the view of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church,supported by their own Ge'ez manuscripts and Amharic translation of the Haile Selassie Bible - where the canonical books of 1 Enoch and Jubilees differ from western academic editions. The "Sons of Seth view" is also the view presented in a few extra-Biblical, yet ancient works, including Clementine literature, the 3rd century Cave of Treasures, and the ca. 6th Century Ge'ez work The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan. 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, as in the Conflict:
Certain wise men of old wrote concerning them, and say in their [sacred] books, that angels came down from heaven, and mingled with the daughters of Cain, who bare unto them these giants. But these [wise men] err in what they say. God forbid such a thing, that angels who are spirits, should be found committing sin with human beings. Never, that cannot be. And if such a thing were of the nature of angels, or Satans, that fell, they would not leave one woman on earth, undefiled... But many men say, that angels came down from heaven, and joined themselves to women, and had children by them. This cannot be true. But they were children of Seth, who were of the children of Adam, that dwelt on the mountain, high up, while they preserved their virginity, their innocence and their glory like angels; and were then called 'angels of God.' But when they transgressed and mingled with the children of Cain, and begat children, ill-informed men said, that angels had come down from heaven, and mingled with the daughters of men, who bear them giants.
Arguments from culture and mythology
In Aramaic culture, the term niyphelah refers to the Constellation of Orion, and nephilim to the offspring of Orion in mythology. However the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon notes this as a "dubious etymology" and "all very precarious".
J. C. Greenfield mentions that "it has been proposed that the tale of the Nephilim, alluded to in Genesis 6 is based on some of the negative aspects of the apkallu tradition". The apkallu in Sumerian mythology were seven legendary culture heros from before the Flood, of human descent, but possessing extraordinary wisdom from the gods, and one of the seven apkallu, Adapa, was therefore called "son of Ea", despite his human origin.
Ezekiel's "mighty fallen": nephilim as ancient warrior
Ezekiel 32:27 speaks of "the fallen mighty (gibborim nophlim, גִּבֹּורִים נֹפְלִים) of the uncircumcised, which are gone down (yardu, יָרְדֽוּ) to the grave with their weapons of war"; a change to the vowels would produce the reading gibborim nephilim.
In the Hebrew Bible, there are a number of other words that, like "Nephilim", are sometimes translated as "giants":
Emim — the fearful ones
Rephaim — the dead ones
Anakim — the [long]-necked ones
Anakim (or Anakites) are the descendants of Anak, and dwelt in the south of Canaan, in the neighbourhood of Hebron. In the days ofAbraham, they inhabited the region later 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 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
Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, is known in Modern Hebrew translation as Mered HaNephilim (מרד הנפילים, literally: the revolt/rebellion of the Nephilim)
In the film The Devil's Tomb, Nephilim are portrayed as corrupted, fallen angels.
The Nephilim figure prominently in the Madeleine L'Engle novel Many Waters, primarily in an antagonistic role.
The Nephilim are featured in the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices book series by Cassandra Clare as the offspring of angels and humans also known as "shadowhunters".
In Tom Egeland's book Gospel of Lucifer, Nephilim are referred to as mysterious extraterrestrials who came to the earth over 5000 years ago, to help us advance as societies by teaching us maths, physics and technology.
Author Richard Kadrey's "Sandman Slim" series feature a main character by the name of Stark (aka Sandman Slim) who discovers his magic and healing ability are the result of being a Nephilim.
In the video game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, the Nephilim are depicted as semi-humanoid, blob-like creatures that enjoy frolicking through the Tower of Babel. This belies their true nature, as the Nephilim are slowly consuming one another, growing more monstrous and threatening to consume the world. Enoch, the main character, must return the creatures to oblivion by purifying the souls of the Fallen Angels that parented them.
In the novel Angelology by Danielle Trussoni, Nephilim appear as the antagonists to a group of Angelologists, people who study angels, and the battle between the two groups is to gain control of a powerful, sacred object.
In the Fallen novels by Lauren Kate, a Nephilim is any person with angel DNA. The Nephilim featured in the novels attend Shoreline school near Mendocino, California, and have not yet made their final choice between good and evil.
In the post-apocalyptic video game Darksiders, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (referred to as War, Death, Fury, and Strife) are shown to be Nephilim and are the last of their kind after the Nephilim suffered devastating casualties during a war between Heaven and Hell centuries prior to the main storyline. The Nephilim are portrayed as tall, muscular demigods capable of incredible power, such as shapeshifting into giant demons and possessing incredible advanced weaponry.
In the books by Becca Fitzpatrick, Hush, Hush, Crescendo and Silence, fallen angels, Nephils and Nephilim are mentioned, as the main characters and conflicts form around these terms.
In Thomas Sniegoski's book series The Fallen and the mini-series based on the books, Nephilim are referred to as the children of fallen angels and human women, who are eventually responsible for protecting the world from impending darkness.
The second and third Prophecy movies deal with fallen angels and one of the Nephilim.
In the video game Diablo III, the term Nephalem is used to describe the extremely powerful offspring of commingling Angels and Demons, who created the world as a sanctuary from the Eternal Conflict.
In Bryan Davis's novel series Dragons in Our Midst and Oracles of Fire, the Nephillim were offspring of fallen angels, known as Watchers, and human women. They were large in stature and evil in nature.
ALSO READ http://ultparanormal.blogspot.com/2012/06/anunnaki.html
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