Inside the true story of the Nefilim (Part 1)
L M Leteane | Friday July 17, 2015 14:25
Reading from Genesis 6, Biblical students understand Nefilim to be a rebellious group of angels who lusted after the daughters of men and slept with them resulting in a race of wicked giants who fell from grace and helped God make up His mind to wipe out everyone, including these Nefilim, from the face of Earth in a Great Flood.
However, on close reading, Genesis does not directly accuse the Nefilim of anything, nor does it say they were giants. They are simply bundled with “men” as all being wicked. So how did the tradition arise that these offspring of man and angel were giants and that they were so wicked that it prompted God to unleash the Flood? Regarding their stature, the biblical tradition was that the Nefilim were wiped out in a Flood that only Noah and his family survived, hence the Israelites’ shock (Numbers 13:32-33) when a group sent out to spy on the indigenous Canaanites discovered that the Anakim, “the descendants of Anak” lived there (who, an evident redactor “clarifies” for us in verse 33, are part of the Nephilim” ) – even the Nefilim phemselves: “men of great size…and we were [like]grasshoppers in their sight”. From this, it is clear that they were indeed giants.
As for being particularly wicked, this comes from an apocryphal source – the Book of Enoch (7:2-6). The books states that as the numbers of the Nefilim increased “they devoured all that men could produce” and when it was not enough the giants began to devour mankind…“then the earth complained of the unjust ones” (which, supposedly, is why God intervened). Whatever the case, there is hardly a race of people in the world who do not have a legend of man-eating giants, so deeply etched in our collective memory was this traumatic episode before the Flood. But before we briefly delve into whether there was any truth to this, let us once again use Setswana as the linguistic compass to help us sort out the true original meanings of certain key words around the story of the Nefilim.
What is the term “Nefilim” based on? Actually, the more correct spelling is “Nephilim”. It shares the same root with “napalm” – a wartime gas much-used by America in the Vietnam War. It was dropped from the sky and quickly spread out to overwhelm the enemy. Knowing that l and r are often interchanged in Bantu languages, even from Setswana we can determine that “napalm” is made up of na means “towards” (as in nanabela : creep/sneak forward, and namela: move towards) and pharama (fall down untidily or all over the place). The f in Nefilim is the same Anglicization of ph that afflicts “pharaoh”, which is actually phara-aho (Great House). Indeed, the Sanskrit (proto-European) term param means “great” or “widespread” – just like bo-phara in Setswana; and both appropriately describe the Nephilim.
The Nephilim, therefore, were those that fell untidily (“were cast down”) onto Earth. Contrary to the assertions of, for example, researcher David Sielaff, “Nephilim” does indeed refer to “the sons of Heaven” or “sons of God” even as most translations put it – except that “Elohim” is a plural term that means “gods” instead of “God” – thus “sons of the gods”. The “gods” themselves were similarly called A.NU.NNA.KI by the Sumerians “Those Who from AN (the heavens) stayed (NNA) on Earth (Ki)”. Earth, I explained in more detail in many prior articles, is a surviving fragment of Tiamat, a watery planet that once orbited between Mars and Jupiter before part of it was pulverized into the Asteroid Belt in a catastrophic cosmic collision with a comet that sent this fragment hurtling into a new orbit – our present one. All life emanates from there. It is only that the elite of our human species had the wherewithal to escape this cataclysm and seek refuge in Mars (Na-Hibiru, the Reddish One) – only to later descend on Earth after Mars itself was devastated. Here, they found backward hominid species which hailed them as “gods” – creatures from the heavens.
“Anakim”, as such, is simply ma-AN-A-KI (“Heavenly Ones [now] of Earth”). In Hebrew syntax, as opposed to Bantu languages, the noun indicator mo/ma/me comes at the end rather than at the beginning. The term “angel”, as such, derives from AN.GAL, meaning “Shining One (galalela in Setswana) of Heaven (AN)”. What about the term “giant”, which term is also used to describe the Nephilim? It emanates from gigante (GIGI.AN.TE): gi! gi! refers to the sound of heavy footsteps; An is “heavens” and Ta/te is “come” in Setswana – thus: “those of heavy footsteps who came from heaven”. No wonder in Sumerian they were the I-gigi (n’gingi in Nguni languages: a giant). In Setswana, “giant” is dimo (literally: “He of above”, i.e. the heavens). Even the Greek term “Titan” is actually TII.TA.AN (Mighty One of Heaven; se-tii in Setswana means “one of great substance”). There is just no getting away from the ancient, knowledgeable association of giants with the skies/heavens!
Did giants really exist or is it just a “tall tale”? What is the scientific reason for their great height? Again, the Old Testament gets it wrong here: the “gods”, now the Illuminati, made sure of that. Actually, it is established fact that astronauts gain one inch of height for every four weeks they spend in the weightlessness of space. Consequently, should their sojourn in space extend to many years, they would end up as veritable giants. In fact, currently, scientists want to measure the height difference between the identical twin of a NASA astronaut heading for the international space station and the one remaining on Earth! Next week, we explore archaeological finds of giants and explain in more detail why, in Numbers 13, the Nephilim not only survived the Flood but were found in Canaan, the Holy Land – the “sacred” area, we saw in many articles, of the all-important shems (space rockets)!
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