Post-Diluvian Nephilim?

Discussion in 'Comparative Religion' started by one_raven, Mar 27, 2016.

  1. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    If God killed off everyone but Noah's family and the seven pairs of all animals in the flood, how did the Nephilim come back later (in Isaiah, for example)?
     
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  3. mathman Valued Senior Member

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    Different people - same name?
     
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  5. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    They're probably from the same tribe of people that Adam & Eve's children's partners came from.
     
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  7. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    They hid out on top of an even taller mountain. So did the hippos and lamas Noah never heard of.
     
  8. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

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    In Jewish folklore, aren't they semidivine beings? So they're presumably hardier and more survivable than man, and just tough through the flood. They're demigods, not exactly mortal. It's like all the various monsters in Greek myth--they all survive the flood of Deucalion because they're not merely mortal.
     
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  9. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    It all depends how big was the world then We don't know if Europa and America Asia and Oceania was in their frame world.
     
  10. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think that we should think of Genesis as actual history. It's a recounting of ancient Hebrew myth, or at least the version of ancient Hebrew myth that the writers and the later redactors of the texts favored.

    We shouldn't even expect the ancient Hebrew scriptures to be entirely consistent, since they seemingly incorporate many elements absorbed from the preexisting mythology of the people around them. The flood itself seems to be an example of that. The 'nephilim' are very likely another.

    So I don't think that it's very useful or enlightening to invent all kinds of fanciful scenarios at this late date in hopes of harmonizing all of it into one consistent whole. It probably wasn't all that consistent to begin with, due to its being derived at different times from different sources.
     
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  11. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    It's recounting an ancient Mesopotamian myth, probably from Ur, that's way older than any Hebrews. They just picked it up in their herding migrations and wrote it down much later, after they settled down to farming.
    Incidentally, every culture that was established alongside rivers - which is to say, almost every culture in the world - has a flood story. Guess why!
     
  12. PaulJames Banned Banned

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    Aren't they green...?
     
  13. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    I am not sure that you should all story that are in Genesis as a myth. I will agree that Some event are written years later when writing was learned . Even in some present cultures events are passed down to the children and grandchildren by the parents specially in the less developed culture. So I think it is wring to brush out all that is written in Genesis.
     
  14. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Of all of the books of the bible, genesis is obviously the most likely to be 100% myth. Just because it is a myth it does not mean there is nothing to be learned from it. The purpose of fables and myths is to teach a lesson or principle.
     
  15. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    Regardless whether any of it is "true" it was written for a reason. The reasons behind sacred texts are endlessly fascinating to me.
     
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  16. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    It's a mistake to think of "the Nephilim" as a particular group. More likely the term is generic and applies to different groups of "giants" or "great men" at different times.
     
  17. einsteinagogo Registered Member

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    The historicity of genesis is almost non existent. Written down hundreds of years later. Chinese whispers and typos and religious dogma changing over time. The epic of gilgamesh and other tablets found had passages almost identical to genesis. Flood myths talking about "the world" were surely only talking about their sphere of the world. A small part of the middle east at best and a few cities or towns flooded at worst? Folk tales passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation is hardly the most convincing for me. Eye witness testimony in modern times has been repeatedly shown to be not credible. Multiple people who see the same event even describe wildly different and conflicting testimony. Now imagine how that effect would be magnified over time and generations in oral traditions before it was scripted, then recopied. I believe nephilim to be a poor translation anyway. More likely great men rather than giants or semi divine
     
  18. river

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    The Nephilim were observers of the flood . From the outside . From above .
     
  19. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    How tall were the Nephilims ?
     
  20. mathman Valued Senior Member

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    The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea circa 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus Strait. The hypothesis was headlined when The New York Times published it in December 1996, shortly before it was published in an academic journal.[67] While it is agreed that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over the suddenness, dating and magnitude of the events. Relevant to the hypothesis is that its description has led some to connect this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths.[68]
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    The above is from wikipedia. The authors of the original paper thought it might be the origin of Noah's flood story.
     
  21. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    check this out for additional information on floods
     
  22. river

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    7 to 10 ft . If not more .
     
  23. EgalitarianJay Registered Senior Member

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    I downloaded The Book of Enoch from Amazon to learn more about the Nephilim. I also have a book on mythological creatures that says that the Nephilim were a hybrid race of giants descended from fallen angels who had sex with human women. They possessed superhuman strength and were naturally more aggressive and bloodthirsty than humans. They were known as heroes in ancient times and contributed to the wickedness of man which was one of the reasons why God sent the flood in the first place. There is an outside possibility that Noah's bloodline was still tainted by Nephilim ancestry but surely an all-knowing God would be aware of this as the whole point of choosing Noah to repopulate the Earth with the seed of a good man and his family (but why are so many humans still evil?). I find this subject interesting because the Nephilim are a major part of the latest story line in the TV series Supernatural where their conception is considered to be an abomination by God and they are known to be extremely powerful. Season 13 of Supernatural starts next week. The show takes a lot of inspiration from Christian Mythology and the Nephilim are interesting and mysterious creatures that are finding their way in to entertainment lately.
     

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