What do you think the Nephilim were?

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One of the more intriguing passages in the Bible is Genesis 6:1-4. What do you think the ‘sons of God’ were?

Whilst the phrase ‘sons of God’ is used to refer to angels elsewhere, and all peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean believed that the heroes of old were demigods, I tend to believe that the Sons of God were highly advanced (by the standards of their day) humans, due to the fact that both the Sons of God, and the Sons of Lamech in Genesis 4 bear similarities to the Mesopotamian Apkallu. These humans were mistaken for gods, and worshipped as such.
 
Here’s what I came up with;

Genesis 6:4. There were giants 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.

N.K.J.V. Scholastic Commentary: The sons of God refer to a different group from either the men or their daughters. The phrase clearly means “angels.” Job 1:6 presents Satan and his angels coming into the presence of the LORD for an audience with His Majesty. Satan’s angels are there called “the sons of God,” with the suggestion that these angelic beings were ounce holy ones who served the Lord, but were now allied with the evil one. Genesis assumes the existence of the good angels of the Lord (see 3:24) and of Satan and his angels, it also assumes that the later are already fallen and under God’s judgment (see 1:2). In 3:1, the serpent (Satan) was already as the father of lies (John 8:44). Here it appears that some of Satan’s angels, spirit beings, took on human form (see 3:24) and, out of a perverted lust, seduced women. In response, God reserved these angels for special judgment (2 Pet 2:4; Jude 6) and cleansed the earth itself (with the Flood).
 
As a matter of interest I recently saw a program which showed a grave containing a lot of bodies which were all pointing towards one central skeleton, a Viking grave in the UK. The central skeleton was nine feet tall!

True.
 
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I believe they may be another tribe descended from one of Adam and Eve’s other children. That, or possibly a different subset of proto-humans.

I agree with (name removed by moderator). Angels do not have actual physical bodies, and therefore couldn’t mate.
 
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I’m sure there were. The tales about giants were probably inspired by such.

I don’t know about you but everywhere I go these days I’m dwarfed and I’m over six feet. When I was young people would admire ‘six footers’ these days six foot is nothing.
 
So that’s where NBA players come from 🙂 🏀🏀:basketball_man::basketball_woman:🗑️
 
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I agree they were probably human, but this is a weak argument, if angels can’t have sex, why did the angel have to blind the men of Sodom trying to rape him?
 
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Interestingly a ‘giant’ by the standards of the ancients needn’t be particularly big by our standards. I imagine 6-7 feet, not 9, 12 or larger.
 
Pardon my ignorance on Angelology, I never investigated it much when I was Jewish either…
When angels come to earth in the appearance of men as God’s messengers, wouldn’t they have been in a “fleshy” state and able to mate with women. They ate with them, correct? That certainly implies they could assume our physicality.
 
Jesus even said that the angels didn’t give themselves in marriage.
 
Ha! I’m 5’9” and female, born in 1952. When I graduated high school in 1970 I was the second tallest girl in a school of over 2000 students. I feel not only average now but sometimes like I’m below average in height to those in their teens and 20’s. Higher protein and good nutrition are da bomb!
 
I totally agree with this.

This is just my opinion, but when you look at the genealogy of Jesus as recorded in Luke chapter 3, the very last verse lists Adam as the Son of God. Now woman was created from man, so she would be known as a daughter of man.

So the sons of God could mean those descendant from Adam (who is called the son of God in Luke.) And the daughters of men would mean the women descendant from Eve.

So Men (the sons of God) took as their wives the daughters of men (the women descendant from Eve) … and they took anyone they chose–whether they followed God or not. This was not pleasing to the Lord.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Nephilim were a direct descendant of this union. It only says that they existed upon the earth.

The notion that angels mated with women and their offspring were giants, in reality, sounds absurd. To me it sounds like another “conspiracy theory” — way way out there from the Outer Limits of someone’s absurd imagination.
 
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