Who were the Nephilim in the Bible, Misinterpreted as Giants? Answered

True Christianity as God intended, not as people and churches evolved it.

A Bible scholar not associated with any church · Updated Mar 6 ·

Summary: The Nephilim were the "bad" descendants of Adam & Eve, before Noah’s flood, who lived to be 100s of years old and became cunningly powerful. They were not giants nor children of fallen angels (see explanation below), but were the ones who lived up to 900-something years old. They were crafty people bent on evil, who gained power and control after living so long. The "Nephilim" were mentioned in a few places in the Bible. But the misinterpretations came from a so called "Book of Enoch", which was not written by Enoch, was not included in the Bible, nor in the Jewish Torah.

Sharing my view on this subject. Also acknowledging that this is another subject that is not fully explained in the Bible. Which then leaves a lot of room for speculations and sensational misinterpretations that people love to hear, and book-sellers take advantage of.

Question: What would humans be like if they were bent on evil and also lived hundreds of years?

Answer: They would become experts at conning, swindling, becoming powerful rulers, and abusing their powers.

If such people can do this today in their few years of life, how much more if they lived to 900 years of age?

There are only two references about the Nephilim in the Bible. This is one of them. The other is further below:

Genesis 6:1-4 (NIV): [1] When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, [2] the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. [3] Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with 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.

In other words, sons of Adam & Eve found the daughters of other humans, that God created, beautiful and had children by them.

Remember that, as detailed in my other article on the children of Adam & Eve, the Genesis term “sons of God” means the sons of Adam & Eve.

The main biblical points supporting my interpretation:

The Nephilim were connivingly-powerful people who lived hundreds of years as in Verse 4 above - “the heroes of old, men of renown.”
All the descendants of Adam & Eve died in the flood. Except Noah from "the living" line of Seth - Luke 3:36-38: ...Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
Notice how the Bible described life-details and age of the ones in "the living" line, like Adam, Seth, ..., Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. But the rest of Adam & Eve's descendants, the Bible described in one word, "the Nephilim".
In the Genesis 6:1-4 scripture above, notice how in Verse 3 God said He’s no longer putting up with long age of people, and lowered the age limit to 120. The fact that He said it in the same paragraph as the Nephilim, supports this explanation.

The So-Called "Book of Enoch"

According to many internet sources (you can do a quick search for yourself), this ancient Hebrew book was written hundreds of years after Enoch was taken up to heaven. So it was not written by Enoch! And was rejected and excluded from both the Torah and the Bible.

From Wikipedia and many other internet sources: "The Book of Enoch was excluded from both the formal canon of the Tanakh and the Septuagint and therefore, also from the writings known today as the Deuterocanon. The main reason for Jewish rejection of the book is that it is inconsistent with the teachings of the Torah."

Note, although called the "Book of Enoch", it does not mean that Enoch wrote it! Obviously the people who compiled the Torah and the Old Testament, were guided by God, and saw that the contents of that book were inconsistent with the rest of the scripture. Yes Enoch was a man from that time, declared righteous by God, but no evidence that Enoch himself wrote this book!

Fallen Angels with Giant Children?!!!

They were not children of fallen angels; they were the children of the "bad" sons of Adam & Eve. They were not giants. They were the connivingly-powerful people who lived hundreds of years - “the heroes of old, men of renown.”

I did some research into the translation of the Nephilim verses from Hebrew. My findings:

The word "Nephilim" is an English word. It was not used in the original text language of neither the Torah nor the Bible.
What was used in the Torah & the Bible, was a term that can be translated to any combination of these: Tough men, powerful, renown, titans, aggressive, ungodly. Although "giants" can be used, it is completely out of context to mean “physical size”.

I know, people today just want to call it “giants” (as in the King James Bible translation; defending their church) and move on in life. Not me! I am wholeheartedly seeking God. And I see a more proper interpretation in line with the rest of the scripture.

If there were angelic beings or fallen angels having children with human daughters, why did they stop? Are today’s daughters of humans not beautiful?

The Spies in the Days of Moses

The men Moses sent ahead to spy the land, said they saw the Nephilim…

Numbers 13:32-33 (NIV): 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. 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.”

This was superstition talk from people who did not believe in God. How do I know this? They were the ones who refused to trust God and refused to go into the land and possess it as God instructed them. Instead, because they saw some people larger than usual, they followed their evil instincts. Which they likely got from the unbiblical “book of Enoch”.

Those Jewish spies were obviously overwhelmed and scared, and exaggerating everything out of fear.

The Anaks were not the Nephilim. Because the Nephilim died in the flood, and were not mentioned on Noah’s ark. The Anaks were just people who were larger in size than the average person. Possibly reached a height of 7′10″. Goliath was one of them, and his height was specified in the Bible. Extra tall, yes, but not the sci-fi giants described in books today. Actually this "extra tall" subject is still being researched by historians, archaeological experts, and Bible scholars. Scientific and archeological evidence seems to dispute the idea of any height above 7′10″. Example in this link.

In other words, the two terms - “tall people” and “the Nephilim”, are unrelated. They were falsely-connected by misinterpretations, speculations, and unbiblical books, not in the Bible.

Only Adam & Eve and Their Descendants (Before the Flood) Lived to Age 900+

As I recently studied this subject in more detail, and prayed about it, I have come to discover another likely explanation - That only the descendants of Adam and Eve (good or bad) lived to hundreds of years, because Adam & Eve ate from the tree of life. But the descendants of the other humans did not eat from the tree of life, and therefore did not live long. However, the marrying between them likely produced a variety of lifespans in those days before the flood. Which was likely one of the reasons God took the age-limiting action in Genesis 6:3.

According to this Genesis reference, Adam & Eve lived long years because they ate from the tree of life. Here is what God said when He banished them from the garden of Eden:

Genesis 3:21–23 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

We keep seeking God in the Bible. We never stop learning about Him. We never declare we know everything about God and attack anyone who points to Bible verses that contradict us! We keep studying and seeking Him.