The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim (26 page)

This reminds me of a true story I heard in my youth, as told by the head of Baptist Mid-Missions. A group of missionaries set up a bush hospital to help the population of several small villages in west Africa. As their medical outpost became established, the missionaries had to work very diplomatically with the tribal “witch doctor,” who saw the influence of modern medicine as a threat to his craft and sway over the locals. There had been an outbreak of disease in which it was found that certain bacteria were the cause of the illness, though the witch doctor had insisted it was demonic in nature. By invite, the tribal shaman came to the mission hospital and was shown a microscope, through which he could actually see the living bacteria and what it did to human cells to cause the illness that had been plaguing the villagers. The witch doctor left the meeting disgruntled and angry. Late that same night, the mission hospital was broken into by the witch doctor and his minions. They stole the microscope, took it to the village center, and smashed it to pieces. When he was confronted by the mission staff and asked why he did such a thing to such an expensive and valuable piece of medical equipment, the shaman smiled, with a bit of a twinkle in his eye, and said very softly, “Now there are no more bacteria.”

Just because we can’t see or ignore the evidence does not render it nonexistent. These pages, along with the writings of many others, simply stand as a microscope to point out the facts, whether scientific, religious, spiritual, archaeological, or any other method incorporated to establish the whos, whats, wheres, and whys of the Nephilim, their progenitors, and the historical ramifications. Destroying or diminishing the vehicle of scripture or mythology cannot undo what exists.

“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the Sons of God [the bene ha’Elohim] descended to the daughters of human beings [Adam] and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”

(Genesis 6:4)

When I was a young child attending Sunday School at the local church in our neighborhood, I was taught about the story of Noah and the Ark. According to the storyboard felt cloth cut-outs, Noah was a man who wore a robe and had a white beard. God had told him to build an enormous boat, and to take two of every kind of animal on board, for there was going to be a Great Flood coming that would destroy the entire earth. The reason for the Flood, we were taught, was that God had become angry with humans due to their sin and wickedness, and in his utter holiness, he needed to destroy every living thing and start all over, relaunching the human race with Noah and his sons and their wives, the only righteous people left on the earth untainted by the wickedness of the rest of mankind. I heard this tale repeated many times as I was growing up, and saw many variations of illustrated children’s books, toys, puppets, and even cartoons and movies depicting the tale. But never, in all of those tellings and retellings of the story, did I once hear about the Nephilim. At least not until I was much older, attending Bible College and seminary.

When thinking about the deliberate omission on the part of my various Sunday School teachers of one of the most important features of the story of Noah and the Ark, I wondered if it was, perhaps, due to the fact that the entire story hinges on sexual acts—perhaps even rapes—perpetrated against human women by divine beings. These would certainly be things that most child-conscious church lay workers would hold as being too graphic for the minds of children. Yet these sexual events are vital to understanding the entire passage and the much deeper implications of why the flood took place.

“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[b]; 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. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the LORD said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.’”

(Genesis 6:1-8)

“1 And it came to pass when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the Sons of God saw them on a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look upon; and they took themselves wives of all whom they 2 chose, and they bore unto them sons and they were giants. And lawlessness increased on the earth and all flesh corrupted its way, alike men and cattle and beasts and birds and everything that walks on the earth—all of them corrupted their ways and their orders, and they began to devour each other, and lawlessness increased on the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of all men 3 (was) thus evil continually….”

(Jubilees 5:1-3)
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The entire account of the Nephilim, as we have already seen, was the preamble to the Genesis account of the Flood of Noah, and when reading it in its context it renders a greater, deeper meaning to the understanding of the rest of the Genesis Flood story—a meaning that has apparently been kept from most faithful church attendees and congregations, and avoided by most ministers for centuries. It is one of those taboo topics that requires a much greater understanding of the scripture and why it was written, and therefore gets summarily skipped over or avoided for fear of opening up a can of worms that is either beyond the scholarship of the practitioners teaching it, or outside the realm of what they want their congregations to understand. Nor does a traditional telling of the story of Noah and the Ark, and the destruction of the earth at the mercy of a great deluge sent by God, fit comfortably into the picture of salvation and faith that most Christian teachers want to ascribe to the meaning of the passage.

The reason for these omissions and ignoring of the mention of the Nephilim in the passage becomes overtly clear when one takes a step back from the biblical scriptures and begins to understand the account of the Flood of Noah and the Nephilim as part of a much greater story, with far deeper implications—and even more so when it is found to be so incredibly comparable to many other myths and legends found in other cultures. In that light, the biblical account begins to take on the form of simply
one version
of an event that is mirrored in many other religious writings and what seem on the surface to be allegorical mythologies from nearly every culture of the ancient world.

The trappings of heaven sink into deeper and darker mystery every time I stare into their depths. The more I think back on my days growing up in the Christian church, the less I understand the superficialities of God and His angels that I learned while there. The concept of the Assembly of the Gods or the Divine Council that was comprised of the lesser Gods beneath the rule of Yahweh goes all the way back to the pantheon of the Sumerians, once believed to be the world’s most
ancient civilization, but looking relatively young in comparison to new discoveries of places such as Gobekli Tepe, the circular temple complexes dating back some 8,000 years further than Sumerian civilization.

A carved pillar at the Gobekli Tepe temple near Danliurfa, Turkey, the oldest known temple in the world, dating to 12,000
BCE
.
Photo courtesy of Berthold Steinhilber.

The concept of the Divine Council was universally shared by the Semitic religious traditions of the ancient Near East that came after the Sumerians. The Sumerian god An and his wife Ninhursag created or gave birth to the other gods in the Sumerian pantheon. This divine couple generally remained aloof from human affairs, residing beyond the sky and allowing their children, the lesser gods, to create the first man and woman and all of humankind as a race of subservient beings. These lesser gods also became the patrons of the various city-states of Sumer.

These lesser gods formed an Assembly of the Gods, known as the Annunaki, in the language of Sumer, which was presided over by Enlil, their god-king. Each of these lesser gods of the Assembly represented or controlled major forces that affected the lives of their human servants. Enlil’s wife, Ninlil, was also known as The Maiden, who ruled over human fertility. Inanna, the Queen of Heaven, was both the goddess of passion and of warfare. It was Enki, the god of wisdom, who was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Cana’anites, Hittites, and Hurrians, who crafted the world-platter that floats on the great abyss of the primeval waters.
²

There has been some controversy over interpretation of the Annunaki in modern times. You can chalk this up to the “spiritual drift” of humanity, in that people are constantly seeking answers beyond the traditions they have held firm for so many hundreds and thousands of years. As I have said many times, man is a beast of discovery, wanting always to know more, experience the limits, and expand knowledge. After all, even in the Book of Genesis when Eve succumbed to the seductions of the serpent, wasn’t it because she was curious and wanted to know and experience more? These things of the Watchers, Nephilim, Divine Council of the gods—these are all the stuff of new discovery, despite their ancient nature and the fact that we’ve known about them all along.

But we want to know
more
.

So we read and write books such as these to find ways to expand our knowledge. In those attempts to find the undiscovered country, we continually throw out new thoughts, new ideas, new theories. One of the latest developments—on the grand scale of history, that is—has been the advent of the “Ancient Astronaut/Ancient Alien” twist on history and traditional religion. One could chalk this up to man’s desire to gain knowledge; others may consider it the “turning away” from truth in order to find answers that do not require an adherence to the strictures of religion. Whichever it is, it has uncovered theories that challenge the nomenclature of religious history and even faith itself.

One of the earliest pioneers in the Ancient Astronaut culture has been Erich von Däniken, who wrote his
Chariots of the Gods
series of books in the early 1970s. Another is the late Zecharia Sitchin and his near-religious writings of
The 12th Planet
and subsequent books. His ideas surged the Annunaki into popular culture in the ufological community and stirred up a simmering pot of home-brewed controversy on the topic. I grew up in the 1970s, and thoroughly enjoyed and became deeply intrigued by the writings of von Däniken, and I still enjoy him today in his many appearances on various documentaries revolving around the Ancient Alien theorist culture. He is a pioneer who paved the way. Yet, although both of these respected, highly popular research authors have made great strides, forging the path for countless other theorists on the subject, elements of their work remain questionable, some revealing false findings and a severe lack of understanding and comprehension of the history and linguistics of the cultures they examine. Sitchin, especially, while claiming to be a specialist in the ancient Sumerian language, makes exponential stretches in the definition of certain words that he uses to lay the foundational cornerstones of his Ancient Alien platform, completely mistranslating words and seemingly not comprehending the language that he purported to know so well. Sitchin’s hypotheses have never been accepted by scientists and academic peers, who dismiss his work as pseudo-science and pseudo-history.
³
Sitchin’s work has been criticized for flawed methodology and mistranslations
⁴
of ancient texts as well as for incorrect astronomical and scientific claims.

One of the foremost respected scholars in ancient languages, Micheal S. Heiser, even says of Sitchin:

“As I noted in my open letter to Zecharia Sitchin, I have challenged him and other ancient astronaut researchers to produce one line of one cuneiform text that demonstrates his ideas about the Anunnaki are really in the Sumerian texts. I want to see one line of one text that says things like the Anunnaki inhabit a planet or inhabit Nibiru, or that the term ‘Anunnaki’ means ‘people of the fiery rockets, that sort of thing.’”
⁵