Giant People in the bible?

Eddy are you kidding?'n$y h-$m means "men of the name", which someone who knew Hebrew would understand as "men with (well-known) names" or "men of name" or "men of note" or "men of renown". Note 'n$y means "men" not people or religious groups as you fantasize on the text. Eddy are you kidding? Eddy are kidding?I've already mentioned the notion of eisegesis, ie reading meaning into text. What logical argument would ever make you conclude such unsubstantiable ideas? If you can actually come up with evidence, ie evidence recognizable by all, to justify such a reinterpretation of the text, I'm sure we'd all be interested. As things stand, you seem to be saying things that can have no serious support whatsoever. Eddy are you kidding?npl does come from the verb "to fall", but as a noun refers to that which falls, ie "fallen". It certainly does not mean "one who fells". How can you expect to get meaning out of a language when you don't understand how it works? Look at nplym in Josh 8:25. The text literally starts "And all the fallen (h-nplym) on that day, both men and women, were..."The usual understanding of these fallen ones is that it refers to the angels who fell from heaven, as recounted in detail in 1 Enoch 5 - 15, which tells of the fallen angels who had relations with the daughters of men.It seems to me that your fanciful analysis is totally without justification.

Eddy, I wish you'd stop wasting everyone's time and learn a little Hebrew. It will help you not to make the blunders that you have so far.A translator's goal is to understand to the fullest the content of the original text and to attempt to convey that meaning. You must have some of the skill necessary to work with the original language before you can dare to complain about someone's translation. Your approach is both disrespectful and ignorant.I have recommended to you the Briggs, Driver, Brown Lexicon of Hebrew, but you'd need to be able to read Hebrew and you simply can't do that.Would you normally dare to complain about a person's translation into English when the person was well versed in the foreign language and you had a Collins Gem dictionary of that language???The problem certainly is you. Linguistics requires training. Philology requires training. You need to know the languages you are dabbling in and you plain don't.Eddy, are you kidding?

Come on! You won't communicate to many if you did that. I'm sure people appreciate having someone who knows about the languages. Not everyone has some agenda that they want to push at the cost of the text.As long as our friend is kidding around, he's never going to understand much about the text, so stick to what you do and want to do. You'll enjoy it more and be helpful as well.

He mightn't know it, but he certainly is. To deal with linguistic data seriously you have to know what you are talking about. He certainly doesn't. He knows not a skerrick about Hebrew grammar, morphology, syntax or even word formation. He can't even look at the original text. The approach is like a historian who neither knows about historical methodology nor the events that happened in the past. There is no way of knowing anything useful about the original language if you are not prepared to learn some of it. He's just kidding and he's kidding himself.

Hey, Amlodhi!I also understand Arachnophilia's frustration and I guess I wasn't doing such a good job at saying that A. shouldn't be discouraged by someone who doesn't have the same preparation.All one needs to do with Eddy is laugh at his pitiful linguistic skills until he picks up his act and either learns some Hebrew or stops pretending to deal with the text.spin

Whoa thar, nelly!A reinterpretation?? The Enoch material provides the information that has been deliberately left out of the Genesis account. The much unstated material oozing behind the Genesis text says that there was more than meets the eye. People who heard would have known the extra material and the reader would have elaborated on it for his listening audience. What we have in Enoch is evidence for what that material was. Enoch's text, by putting the fundamental blame on the watchers, takes a different theological standpoint from the Adamant Eve story that we only have ourselves to blame. I would say that the Genesis material is a later development than that found in Enoch.

Enoch is actually a collection of books (a pentateuch in itself) written at different stages and edited and redited until the complex literary history has mainly been lost.The first book, the Book of the Watchers reflects an early 2nd c. BCE major redaction, but it points to many touches before then, so it points back into the 3rd c. BCE. The third book, the Astronomical Book also goes back to the 3rd c. BCE. The latest of the books in the collection is the second, the Parables and could be a 2nd c. CE work. Only four of the books were found at Qumran, the one missing naturally was the Parables.But back to the Book of the Watchers. There is no reason to suspect that this text was "heretical" in any way, but presents a view of the world which is fundamentally different from a world in which humans had fallen. The world's problems are from the intervention of the Watchers, not from humans. Between the theology of Enoch's Watchers and Genesis there has been a major change. It is inconceivable that the Watchers' theology was developed after that of the fall in Genesis. It's old view has been preserved from long before the fall in Genesis. If this is the case it is not strange for Enoch to contain clearer information about the giants than Genesis, as it would appear that Genesis is attempting to cover up the old theological view while obliged to include the story. That cover up was by reducing the report so much that it's significance was no longer apparent, thus removing the conflict with the new theology.

I'd love to see anyone seriously try to date Genesis as we have it before the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls (even though I believe it was written before then).Try it. You'll be surprised at the lack of achievement.The best we can say is that it was basically complete by the time of the scrolls deposit, though there are a lot of lacunae in the various versions that were preserved, because of decay or later damage.So please, try to give a date to when Genesis was written. You'll find that you can't get beyond the fact that it was probably complete by the time of the DSS.Here's an interesting indicator: when Ben Sira wrote his book (we usually call it "Ecclesiasticus" or "Sirach") he wrote a section in praise of illustrious men in the form of a chronology talking about each. He started with Enoch. What happened to Adam? He got sandwiched in as an appendix. Starting with Enoch should tell you a few things: 1) Enoch was important enough to get the first mention and 2) Ben Sira mightn't have had a Genesis as we have it today to use for his illustrious men.This message has been edited by spin, 12-17-2004 02:24 AM

(Context: message 166) Yep. The Genesis version seems like a development of theology to me, hence probably after the theology preserved Enoch's Watchers. This is hindsight and need not reflect the mainstream of the era of the development of the theology preserved in the Watchers. I don't think we can use Genesis to dictate what the status quo ante was. If you're not sure then how can you argue from the notion that Genesis represents the status quo at the time of the development of the theology preserved in the Watchers? [qs]it could also be the case that enoch was written to further explain the genesis story, and is not directly linked to the older mythology.[qs] You're not following my logic at all. How can you explain the Watchers' theology if the Genesis theology already existed?? I say, you simply can't. I also say that the Genesis account of the giants is incoherent in that it lacks data for a reader to make sense of the actions. One needs a knowledge of the story (such as evinced in the Watchers) to understand the Genesis version of the giants. You are going beyond the evidence. I could say that they expound on the same material Genesis does, without saying anything less than you have. You have no way of knowing that Watchers, or Jubilees for that matter, has any direct relationship with Genesis. They could all be drawing on a developing Vorlage, where Watchers reflects one strand, Jubilees and the "Genesis Apocryphon" (not a reasonable name for this document) reflect another, and Genesis still another.You are too biased toward the status quo presentation of an ancient reality which has not yet been established.

Your dating is unsupportable rubbish. The best one can do is rely too heavily on interpretations of Josephus to get back before the time of Herod. Again, received stupidity. This is based on an ingenuous reading of the "Letter" of pseudo-Aristeas, a document which claims to be from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, but is clearly much later, being unaware that Demetrius Phalereus had been exiled and no longer had anything to do with the library at the time of Philadelphus. (Any scholarly editon will give you more background on Aristeas.) You'll have to do a lot better than that. Hope springs eternal. You have the Jews who were deported to Mesopotamia taking their records with them... what as tablets or scrolls? I always laugh at the thought of the nobles among the Jews, who were the ones deported, saying to their deporters, "hold on a second I have to get my records."So far you have fed me the babyfood variety of the situation. Is this some article of faith? You don't know when the tanakh was canonized other than the fact that the canon still wasn't closed until the discussions over Esther and Canticle in rabbincal times.I don't accept your date for the writing of Watchers. I have pointed out that it has a long history as seen in the internal problems in the text, yet its later layers seem to be dealing with priestly conflicts of the time you mention, ie before the Hellenistic crisis. You can see how important Enoch was by its representation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. No-one has been able to show that Enoch was related to a specific sect. The scrolls represent a good cross-section of religous literature, featuring various text traditions of texts which would become canonical, including Hebrew versions of what would become MT, LXX and Samaritan, as well as others. There are many copies of Enoch material from Qumran, so it's hard for anyone to claim on any evidence that it was a non-mainstream text. You have failed dismally with this unsupported claim.At Qumran the pentateuchal books were still mainly disseminated as individual works, so there was no Torah as you perceive it, when they were deposited.We are still stuck at the era of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the earliest evidence for the existence of the book of Genesis.This message has been edited by spin, 01-08-2005 05:35 AM

This is still unsupported (if you don't like "rubbish", use something else that indicates "totally unjustified"). You haven't attempted to face the problems of dating LXX, so come back on it when you want to talk about evidence. Your Hebrew prof probably needs to be put out to pasture. Friedman for me is ultra-conservative. I can see no possibility that anything was written down and survived from the time before or during the exile. Were scribes taken into exile?? They aren't noble and there's no reason to deport them. They didn't have any political clout. Who did the writing? Remember learning to write was a long process in those days. Courts had schools to teach people.I think the exodus story came from the exilic contact of the Jews with the Egyptian from the time of the exile and the Egyptians equated the Jews with the Hyksos, as can be seen in the reports preserved in Josephus' Contra Apion. And when do you propose Deut 28:68 was written (ships back to Egypt, slaves)? And doesn't it sound like vaticinium ex eventu? At least two parts of Genesis have been seen in a Greek context, the table of nations and the Joseph novella.One last Genesis item: the time from when Noah went into the ark till the flood had dried up in Jubilees was exactly a year (=364 days), but in Genesis it was a year and ten days, ie the 364 day year was converted into a 354 day year and had ten days left over. And in an earlier layer of the same story, 5 months from when Noah entered the ark till the rain stopped was five months, which was equalled to 150 days, ie 5 30-day months, which is the Persian calendar. Not only does the Noah story contain two traditions the 40 days v. 150 days of rain, but there are also three calendrical layers starting with the earliest Persian calendar, moving to the 364-day calendar and then changed to accomodate the Pharisaic/rabbinical use of the 354-calendar. Enoch's Astronomical book starts with the 360-day calendar and then is rewritten to accomodate 364 days. On that score that part of Enoch was finished before the relevant part of Genesis. I don't mind the piecemeal idea. It's the conjecture about when which is nothing more than an uneducated guess. You haven't even attempted a serious dating for the LXX and you expect to be taken as making meaningful noises? Remember for example that Josephus in his intro to AJ claims to have translated the histories for his account himself, which suggests that at his time of writing at least those texts hadn't been translated into Greek. If Aristeas is a 1st c. BCE effort then when were the pentateuchal books translated? You can't say. We are still at the time of the DSS. Why are you avoiding the early theology of the Watchers? It is in conflict with Genesis and nothing suggests that the text was sectarian, so when could such a theology have been produced? Before the shift to putting the blame on the weakness of humans. What on earth are you talking about? You know nothing about what books the Essenes had, unless you are joining the idiot brigade which cannot but see Essenes at Qumran. The leaders of the Qumran community were the sons of Zadok, hereditary family in charge of the Jerusalem temple, not elected celibate Essenes. If you think about it a bit, you'd find that the priesthood by necessity separated itself from the general population because they couldn't afford the loss of purity, so you can meaningdfully say that the priesthood was obsessed with ritual cleanliness.So what have the Essenes got to do with anything we are discussing? Put like an article of faith. You need to demonstrate what you are saying. Empty claims are just that, empty. The start, long enough after the sons of Zadok emigrated to Egypt for them to lose the use of Hebrew, say two generations, so circa 120 BCE. Process still in operation when Josephus was writing.

Evidence for any of this?? Evidence for this claim? None. Where's the pantheon in Genesis? In the prophets, in the Psalms, even in the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy, but then these texts, including -- as you've noted -- Genesis, were piecemeal. The best you can do are the sons of God in the parallel to the Watchers story -- sons of God, going in to the daughters of men, ie the watchers. Sorry, we already have angels doing things in Genesis, helping Lot, being seen by Jacob on the ladder. And we've got the "fallen ones" (ie nephilim npl = "fall") in Gen 6:4. Enoch actually says what happened, making the cryptic Gen account seem like it has been bowdlerized. But Enoch goes against the Genesis theology by doing so. This non-Genesis theology of a fall through angelic intervention is prior to the Genesis theology about the fall of humanity. You attempt doesn't take into account that Enoch's theology is in conflict with Genesis and therefore needs more than modern parallels with secular literature such as Milton's to justify it. The easiest way to do so is that that theology developed prior to that of Genesis, explaining why Enoch fell by the way in Jewish religious literature. If Enoch had been written after Genesis it would have to be seen as heretical, but its presence among the DSS in high numbers doesn't support that notion. There it seems just like another book. If you actually read the text, you'll see that the nephilim don't actually do anything: they are just mysteriously there for no apparent reason. This is part of the problem I was hinting at. What exactly do you imagine Enoch confuses? A reference or two to illuminate what you are saying might be useful as well. Evidence? None. Having looked at what can be compared of the three texts Gen, Jub & GA, the GA tends to agree more with Jub than with Gen, so I don't believe you. Could you give some evidence to support your claim so I can see what it is you're talking about? Genesis has the most developed form of the table of nations, the other two seem sparse in comparison. The Genesis account of Melkizedek seems like it has been lifted from the GA: while GA is quite happy to use el elyon, it appears nowhere else in Gen except the Melkizedek story. The Melkizedek story is missing in Jubilees. I see nothing obvious about it. Genesis knows a lot more than what it actually says. We find a lot more in Enoch on the subject. What Genesis has left out is what Enoch draws upon. What were the nephilim mentioned for? Who are the sons of God? Who are the mighty which the Greeks call giants? Why are they apparently age-old/eternal [Heb: m:`wlm Grk: aiwnos]? (Edited transcription because the online editor got confused with the notation.) I did not say that. I said that it dealt with material that Genesis left out. And I don't think you are doing justice tyo the problems of the Gen 6 text. I have argued that Genesis shares a source with other literature rather than that it was the source of the other literature. I have said that Genesis omits material in the case of the watchers story. I've also posited it gets its Melkizedek story from GA or from GA's source. (If I remember correctly beside the Genesis story there are only two other examples of el elyon in the Hebrew bible. GA uses el elyon as its normal means of referring to God and suddenly it appears four times in Gen 14:17-22.)And I return to Ben Sira and its evidence about Adam being inserted as an afterthought, while starting with Enoch. How could that have happened? Didn't Adam hold the place of being there first, when Ben Sira wrote? Why start with Enoch?This message has been edited by spin, 01-09-2005 03:39 AM

The Hebrew text doesn't say anything about giants. It says nephilim, ie "fallen ones". Dinosaurs are a fantastication on a translation based on the LXX.