The Nephilim before and after the flood

[Robert_Sock]

If God destroyed the inhabitants of the earth with the flood, why do the Nephilim exist after the flood?

Genesis 6:3-5 (New International Version) Before the flood

3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with[a] humans forever, for they are mortal**; their 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 humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

5 The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
*
Numbers 13:32-33 (New International Version) After the flood*

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.”**

 

[patrick457]

If God destroyed the inhabitants of the earth with the flood, why do the Nephilim exist after the flood?

Genesis 6:3-5 (New International Version) Before the flood

3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with[a] humans forever, for they are mortal**; their 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 humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

5 The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
*
Numbers 13:32-33 (New International Version) After the flood***

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.”

Well, the simplest explanation I’ve seen that the Israelite spies were simply connecting the Anakim they saw with the superhuman Nephilim of old. They were exaggerating for rhetorical effect: also note the use of them comparing themselves with mere “grasshoppers” (which could be a use of meiosis, a figure of speech that intentionally understates something or implies that it is lesser in significance or size than it really is to increase the size or importance of another). After all, the people would not known yet who the “sons of Anak” were (Numbers 13:22 is after all their first mention) but would likely have been familiar with the Nephilim from the tales of their forefathers. Now there are two ways to interpret the phrase “the sons of Anak came from the Nephilim:” it could be a later gloss inserted into the Hebrew text (it is missing in the Septuagint), or it could have even been the spies’ interpretation.

 

[Mystic_Banana]

The Nephilim are often considered to be supernatural beings - which presumably means that they would not neccesarily be part of ‘all the inhabitants on Earth’ destroyed in the flood. Or even if they were, it could be different Nephilim, since they may not come from the Earth, not an unreasonable possibility given their implied otherness

 

[AdriannaJean]

It’s well-accepted in current theology that there never was a flood that killed everything on Earth. A large flood in the biblical area, perhaps. This is just like the 6 day creation thing. We don’t need to interpret scripture literally.

 

[patrick457]

It’s well-accepted in current theology that there never was a flood that killed everything on Earth. A large flood in the biblical area, perhaps. This is just like the 6 day creation thing. We don’t need to interpret scripture literally.

That is one possibility which could be likely (then again we’ll never get a 100% certainty), but it also doesn’t mean a Catholic that firmly holds a six-day creation and a global flood is a bad one.

 

[Mystic_Banana]

That is one possibility which could be likely (then again we’ll never get a 100% certainty), but it also doesn’t mean a Catholic that firmly holds a six-day creation and a global flood is a bad one.

The fact that floods of stupefying extents appear likely to have occurred could be seen, I think, as encouraging at least of a semi-literal interpretation, I often think. Not that I hold the latest theories/scientific explanations to be of such a degree of reliability as to make much difference either way, especially at this degree of postdiction