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iants! The very stuff of myth and legend, giants live in the gray area between myth and history, flitting about on the periphery of human memory like the shades of departed spirits. Like the mysterious sea serpents, giants populate the myths and histories of peoples all over the world. However, unlike the mysterious sea serpents, giant sightings are now rarely reported, and the ancient stories of giants in the Earth — once prominent in human memory — on the great scales of human belief are quickly fading into the nether realm of myth.

However, this was not always the case. Prominent references in the Bible and numerous other religious and historical texts from around the world make prominent mention of a time in mankind's distant past wherein giants walked the Earth. At one time the belief in giants was as prevalent as the belief in angels, but now the belief in things unusual and supernatural in general seems to be increasingly falling prey to the relentless onslaught of the modern age of rationalism and almighty science. It appears it is now up to these shadowy beings to make themselves known once more, or else disappear forever into the ranks of myth and legend. Ironically, it may be science, that implacable enemy of myth, that may resurrect the very giants whose existence it had sought in vain to erase from the memory of man.

Conan The Barbarian: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Perfect listening while reading our articles on Giants! (Courtesy Amazon.com): Anvil of Crom Riddle of Steel/ Riders of Doom Gift of Fury Wheel of Pain Atlantean Sword

The ancient Near East, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia, and Europe in particular all have stories of abnormally large humans of various sizes. From tribes of unusually tall, strongly built men ranging anywhere from 8-12 feet in height to solitary giants towering several miles high, stories of giants are among the favorites of storytellers worldwide. However, whereas some giants are perceived as gentle and harmless, even beneficent, more often than not, giants were described as being possessed of wicked minds and insatiable appetites — engaging in unnatural acts shocking even to the modern mind. These wicked sons of Belial were known for their immense size, raging appetites, devious minds, aggressive behavior, technological sophistication and, above all, skill in the art of war.

All together, these features proved to be a deadly combination, and the giants conquerered and enslaved all but the strongest foes with ease. As a result, these wicked giants of old were usually to be found ruling over large masses of normal-sized human beings — whom we now know as homo sapiens — keeping them as slaves and, it is whispered, as fodder for various unsavory uses. Constantly at war with homo sapiens, whom the giants considered to be inferior due to their small size and moderate disposition, the giants constantly lived on the knife's edge of either absolute domination or total extermination — giving no quarter, and in turn, receiving none.

But where did this mysterious race of giants come from? Among those that believe in the existence of these ancient aberrations, there have been several explanations:

HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT:
Giants are a race of unusually tall people that came into being as a result of healthy living conditions and good nutrition. Homo sapiens today, for example, is taller than he has been for many centuries, if not thousands of years, due largely to good nutrition and dramatic improvements in living conditions worldwide;

SELECTIVE BREEDING:
Giants are the result of selective breeding over time to create a "worker class" from within the larger population. These larger, stronger people were intended to be used as warriors, heavy laborers, and in other positions that require great size and strength. This practice has been employed in various times and places in recorded history for this very same reason. This unusual size may have been supplemented by the consumption of hormonal or steroidal supplements, as has been done in modern times;

DIVINE INTERVENTION:
Giants are the result of interbreeding between humans and fallen angels, with the intent of creating a "master race". This master race, some believe, was intended to rule over the earth and over homo sapiens, eventually supplanting homo sapiens entirely.

Though the first two solutions are reasonable — and may also be part of the equation — by far the most commonly reported origin of the giants of old was that they were born of divine parentage. As we saw in Part II of our Atlantis series, many of the ancient texts of mankind tell of a time when divine beings came down to earth and, tempted by the beauty of human women, took wives from among them and sired offspring that grew to be gigantic in stature. As Larkin & Teale explain in their classic popular work on the subject, Giants,

Giants varied in size, but were certainly beyond classification by human standards both in terms of size and power. For example, the Book of Enoch relates that angels sent by God to guard the earth were seduced by the beauty of terrestrial women who subsequently gave birth to demoniacal sons 3,000 cubits [approx. 4,500 feet] high. Later, ancient historians tell us, Og, the King of Bashan, who lived three thousand years, escaped the Flood by wading only knee-deep beside the Ark. He was able to roast a freshly caught fish by holding it up to the sun. Upon his death, one of his bones was used as a bridge to span a river. Attempting to destroy an Israelite camp, mighty Og ripped up a mountain six miles long at its base and bore it on his head on the trek towards the camp. Fortunately Moses, a comparative sprat merely ten cubits tall, jumped high into the air to strike Og on his forty-five foot high ankle with a ten-cubit long axe, thus felling and ultimately slaying his foe.¹

Although the Jewish legendary material regarding the huge size of Og and Moses are clearly midrashic in nature, the Bible makes no bones about the existence of giants in the ancient world, both in the antediluvian world and afterwards. As Moses said in Genesis 6:4, "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also afterwards". Giants have plagued Earth since the very earliest times, and the earliest known records of giants in the Earth come from the land of the Bible: the ancient Near East.

A map of the ancient Near East. The ancient Near East was a culturally defined region roughly centered around the area between the rivers Nile and Euphrates, currently defined by the countries of Greece on the northwest, Iran (Persia) on the northeast, Saudi Arabia on the southeast, and Egypt on the southwest. Cultural references in the Bible also refer to lands as far north as Russia, as far south as Ethiopia, as far east as Afghanistan and as far west as Spain. Image from Studylight.org (Map 6a)

Save perhaps Plato's accounts of the titans — the giant sons of Poseidon who founded ancient Atlantis — the oldest known records of giants come from that region of the world known as the ancient Near East, generally considered to be the cradle of known civilization. The ancient Near East as we know it today encompassed a region that is generally centered around the area between the rivers Nile and Euphrates — the area that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants forever. (Gen. 15:18) — and stretches as far east as Afghanistan and as far west as Greece.

The earliest references to giants occur in the very earliest times in Earth's history, before even the time of Adam when, it was believed by some, a "pre-Adamic race" walked the Earth. This race, which was apparently gigantic in stature, was created by a mysterious group of divine beings who had come down from heaven and had artificially manipulated the genes of the various kinds of animal life that God had created in order to create a humanoid lifeform of gigantic stature that displayed numerous animal characteristics. These were the class of giants known as the "pre-Adamites".

As was discussed at length in Part III of our Atlantis series, the origins of man do not appear to be as clear-cut as some might want to believe. It is easy to say that Adam was the first human being, created by God, from whom the rest of mankind originated, and that's that — end of story. However, though no one disputes that God created Adam, the first homo sapiens, there is some dispute as to whether or not homo sapiens was in fact the first type of human on this planet. Significant evidence of the existence of a race before Adam, a

Adam and Eve tempted by "the serpent", typically characterized by artists as Satan in a semi-serpentine form. Some argue that "the serpent" was actually one of the fallen angels, or possibly even one of the pre-Adamic race that the fallen angels are believed to have created, and that "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" was actually symbolic of a strand of DNA, DNA that was unique to this pre-Adamic race. This interpretation is called "Temptation and Fall" Michelangelo's classic version of the fall of man taken from the Sistine Chapel. Image from University of Pennsylvania: The Temptation of Adam and Eve: Images

"pre-Adamic race", exists both in religious and historical texts and in the fossil record. In fact, numerous forms of proto-human have been discovered, including such notables as homo neanderthalis and homo erectus, each showing a small improvement over the previous form. And each of these races of proto humans appeared suddenly in the fossil record, almost as if they had been manufactured.

These races, all of which preceded or were contemporaneous with homo sapiens, we will therefore henceforth refer to generically as homo artificialis — genetically manufactured mankind. Artificialis, instead of being created out of whole cloth as was homo sapiens, appears to have been woven together through a process of genetic experimentation — patched together from various different pre-existing animal species.² The DNA of existing animal species was spliced together with that of other species by these divine beings in order to create a breed of human that possessed the specific characteristics that they desired. Meddling with God's Creation, these divine beings — whom we shall henceforth refer to as "fallen angels" — apparently created homo artificialis as a sort of "vehicle" through which they could operate in order to interact with the material world. Though these fallen angels had originally been sent to Earth merely to watch over the Creation, according to the Bible, the Book of Enoch and related texts, these angels fell from grace, disobeying their divinely mandated boundary of "look, don't touch", and got personally involved. Moreover, not only did they get involved in the world, they got very involved in the world, taking things into their own hands into order to reform God's Creation into a form that better suited their wishes, giving themselves physical means through which they could fashion earthly destinies for themselves contrary to what God had originally intended. Coming down to Earth, the fallen angels, led by the demons Semjaza and Azazel, divided up Earth amongst themselves, a rule that continues to this day.³

DNA: The Tree of Life? If so, this bit of information may revolutionize our understanding of Genesis 3, the Bible ... and human history. Image from Robert Finkbeiner Illustrations

In order to stop the despoilment of His creation by these rebellious "lesser gods", the fallen angels, YHWH created homo sapiens to supplant and eventually destroy their abhorrent offspring that were running rampant all over His Creation. YHWH, according to the book of Genesis, created perfect homo sapiens mankind in His own perfect image. He then placed Adam in a perfect environment — the "Garden of Eden". Adam had been specially designed for the Garden, and the Garden had been specially designed for Adam — both were designed to be in perfect shalom balance with the other. There Adam and his wife, Eve, had they remained loyal to YHWH, would have been fruitful, multiplied, and subdued the Earth, slowly but surely turning the whole Earth into an Edenic paradise. Moreover, in the process of slowly but surely subduing the Earth, they would also have slowly but surely supplanted and destroyed the accursed artificialis strains.

However, their perfect walk with God was stopped when a "serpent" tempted them to eat the "fruit" of a "tree" that had been forbidden to them. (Genesis 2-3) Though most interpreters believe that this tree was a literal tree and the sin of eating the fruit was simply the sin of disobeying God's directive, another more meaningful explanation is that the tree they were forbidden to eat from was in fact symbolic of a variant type of DNA. In this scenario, Adam and Eve as homo sapiens represented a pristine form of DNA, symbolized by the "Tree of Life", as opposed to the patchwork DNA of the pre-Adamites, homo artificialis, that was symbolized by the "Tree of Knowledge". "The Fall" then, was not just a breaking of trust with YHWH, though that was certainly part of it. The Fall was caused by the intermarriage between Adam and Eve and their descendants and the mysterious pre-Adamic race, the result being that the genetic purity of homo sapiens was compromised.

In short, the new homo sapiens, which had been intended to replace the old homo artificialis, instead of replacing it, instead merged with it and thus actually helped in its continuance. As a result, Adam and Eve's descendants — save a chosen few — lost their genetically pure status, becoming corrupted by the DNA of the giant artificialis that they were intended to replace, and YHWH's strategy of gradually phasing out the pre-Adamites was nullified. This was the first stage in the ongoing "genetic warfare" between YHWH and the rebels, a war by proxy that set the pattern for the rest of human history, where the genetic "seed of the woman" would constantly be battling the genetic "seed of the serpent" for dominion over Earth:

"And I will put enmity
between thee and the woman,
and between thy seed and her seed;
he shall crush thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel."
(Genesis 3:15)

In stage two of YHWH's genetic war against the giants, from Adam to Noah, "the seed of the woman" — homo sapiens — remained relatively pure for a time. However, after several generations had passed, it became increasingly compromised to the point where pure homo sapiens nearly became extinct. Homo artificialis with its superior size and technological sophistication, quickly gained an upper hand in the genetic "war between the seeds", with dire consequences for all mankind — and even Earth itself.⁴

Though the evidence for fallen angels interacting with God's Creation before the creation of Adam is still largely speculative from the theological perspective, the evidence for fallen angels tampering with man and his environment after the creation of Adam is fairly substantial. Numerous theologians have pondered over the enigmatic passage in Genesis 6, where a highly unusual and rather chilling event took place:

GENESIS 6:1-4:
¹ When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
² the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
³ Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his 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 men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

Whereas some source-critical scholars tend to dismiss Genesis 6 as "a fragment or motif taken from an ancient Near Eastern myth,"⁵ some even going as far as describing it as a "cracked, erratic boulder" that does not belong in what they perceive as an otherwise homogeneous storyline, others see it as an important stage in the underlying theme of the Old Testament, and perhaps of the entire Bible — that of the war between YHWH and the rebels, described in Genesis 6 as "the sons of God".

Azazel leading the rebel angels to the newly-formed Earth. Variously called "sons of God", "fallen angels", demons and devils, these beings appear to be a splinter faction from the heavenly host that, in the most ancient times, came to Earth to found kingdoms apart from the authority of YHWH. Image from Dore's Illustrations for "Paradise Lost" .

The identity of the "sons of God", mentioned in Genesis 6 as the progenitors of the giants, has been a subject of a significant amount of speculation. Scholars point out that the word "God" in the Old Testament is usually the Hebrew elohim, literally, "gods" in the plural. This has caused no small consternation among scholars who want to reconcile the aggressively monotheistic Yahwistic religion with the frequent usage in the Bible of a divine name that indicates that God is actually a plurality of deities. As Cooke explains, "Any serious investigation of conceptions of God in the Old Testament must deal with recurrent references which suggest a pluralistic conception of deity. Beings other than Yahweh are referred to variously as "sons" or as an "assembly", "council", etc. What do these references mean? Do they refer to divine or to human entities? How are they related to the God of Israel?"⁶

The arguments regarding the identity of these mysterious "sons of God" generally breaks down into three basic interpretations:

THE 'SONS OF GOD' ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF SETH:
The 'sons of God' are the Sethites (cf. 5:1-3), while the 'daughters of men' are from the Cainite line. In favor of this view is the division of the human race into two lines of descent in the previous chapters (4:17-5:32), but against it are the arguments that since 'man' (ha adam) is used in verse 1 of mankind generally, it is unlikely to mean only one section of humanity in verse 2 and that 'sons of God' does not appear as a collective term for the Sethites, either in these chapters or elsewhere.

THE 'SONS OF GOD' ARE HEAVENLY BEINGS:
The 'sons of God' are heavenly beings, who mate with earthly women. In favour of this interpretation is the regular use of the term 'sons of God' for the heavenly court that surrounds Yahweh (e.g., Ps. 29:1, 89:7; Job 1:6). There is a prima facie case for supposing both the nephilim and gibborim of verse 4) are to be regarded as the offspring of such unions, though it has been argued that the structure of verse 4 deliberately affirms the existence of the Nephilim before the unions of verse 2). We may leave aside, however, the problem of origin of the Nephilim, and note that the majority of scholarly opinion supports the identification of the 'sons of God' as heavenly beings.

THE 'SONS OF GOD' ARE TOTALITARIAN DESPOTS:
The 'sons of God' are dynastic rulers who, as oriental despots, established royal harems by force or practiced indiscriminate rape. This view has the merit of taking seriously the phrase 'they took for themselves wives from all whom they chose'.... Nevertheless, the identification of the 'sons of God' simply as human rulers has the weakness that it is rarely if ever attested in the ancient Near East as a term for kings in general.⁷

Michael and the loyal angels defeating "the dragon" Satan and the rebel angels and casting them down from heaven to Earth. Image from Gustave Dore's "A Crowned Virgin: A Vision of John" (Rev. 12) in The Dore Bible Illustrations.

Though the other theories have their merits, the clear answer is that the sons of God were (and are) heavenly beings. Theologians are generally in agreement that YHWH is presented in the Bible as the chief God of a pantheon of lesser deities, generically termed "the sons of God". Though most of these divine beings, typically referred to as "angels" in the Bible, remained loyal to YHWH, some opted to rebel against Him and His divine directives. Though it is not clear as to exactly how many of this heavenly host rebelled against YHWH, some speculate, based upon Revelation 12:3-4, that as many as one-third of the angels — described symbolically as "stars" in the text — followed Semjaza, Azazel and a group of other powerful angels into rebellion against YHWH: "Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth." These "fallen stars" are generally considered by theologians to be fallen angels — the same fallen angels who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden, and have continued to have a malificent effect on mankind ever since.

The "intermarriage" between these fallen angels and the giants continued on unabated thoughout the antediluvian period. Without having given any thought to the consequences such actions might have on YHWH's well-ordered Creation, the fallen angels continued to visit and genetically modify their horrid creations, making improvements in their physical and mental capabilities as well as giving them knowledge and gifts of technology that they could use in their quest to rule the world. These "gifts" included such skills as the ability to develop tools and weapons, read the signs and seasons in the stars, distill medicines from plants, and even use cosmetics to enhance beauty. However, instead of improving the lot of mankind, the fallen angels' worthless gifts of technology actually had the effect of making things worse. As it is described in the Book of Enoch,

And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all coloring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjaza taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armaros the resolving of enchantments, Baraqijal taught astrology, Kokabel the constellations, Ezeqeel the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiel the signs of the earth, Shamsiel the signs of the sun, and Sariel the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven.... (1 Enoch 8:1-4)⁸

The effect of giving mankind technology and methods of manipulating matter, what we now know as "the sciences", merely allowed the wicked giants of old greater ability to further disrupt the shalom of YHWH's formerly well-ordered cosmos. Moreover, the inherent danger of the intermarriage between the human and the divine is that it would result in the creation of a "master race" of super beings with a practically limitless lifespan and superior capabilities that could be used to conquer not only Earth, but possibly even heaven itself. As van Gemeren explains,

The perverted nature of man's thoughts (6:5) may be inferred from (6:3). Being under God's judgment since the Fall, man made an attempt to circumvent God's plan by being enticed to the Satanic scheme of intermarriage with demonic beings with the hope of ultimate prolongation of life. The resultant super-race, produced by the intermarriage of 'the sons of God' and the daughters of men, is in God's judgment still basar ('characterized by flesh', verse 3). Hence it is also observed that the super-race of the nephilim-gibborim was characterized as belonging to the Earth. To crush the attempt of introducing man into the realms of the divine, God sovereignly and justly judged man to death in the Flood.⁹

"The Giants Attacking Heaven" by Bernard Picart (1673-1733). In the Greek myths, Zeus and other children of the Titans made war on their Titan forebears, who had been ruling unjustly in a battle known as the Titanomachy. Though Zeus and co. overthrew the titans, the titaness Gaia gave birth to the giants in order to take revenge. The giants made war on Zeus and the heavenly gods in a battle known as the gigantomachy, in which the giants were utterly defeated. The Nephilim giants of the Bible may have attempted to overthrow heaven as well. Image from Greek Mythology Link: Giants

homo artificialis nephili
It is here in Genesis 6 that the giants are first given a name: the nephilim. From the Hebrew root n f l, "to fall", "to come down", or "to be thrown down" depending on the tense of the verb, the word "Nephilim" means, literally, the ones who came down — in this case, to Earth. As Birney explains, "The word "nephilim" occurs only here and in Numbers 13:33. In Numbers it is used of the Anakim, who were of great stature. The LXX translates "giants" [gigantes], and other old Greek versions translate "assailants" or "violent men". Various ideas have been tied to the root NPL, to fall, e.g., to fall from heaven (fallen angels)."⁹

The Nephilim were the gigantic offspring that resulted from the union of the fallen angels and "the daughters of men", that grew to be of a tremendous stature and possessed of a titanic arrogance and will-to-power that rivaled that of their Satanic fathers. As Stephen Quayle explains in his seminal work, Genesis 6 Giants,

The Nephilim that were produced by the angel/mankind marriage were much different from either of their parents. This, too, went against God's plan for the Earth in which each animal and human being was to reproduce "after its own kind". [Genesis 1:24] This is perhaps the best demonstration that the parents of these creatures were not simply descendants of Cain and Seth. Had they been, they would have produced human offspring, rather than the Nephilim. The Nephilim were more than simply large beings or giants in the way giants are normally thought of today. When the Greek Septuagint was created, the Hebrew word Nephilim was translated into Greek as gegenes. This is the same word used in Greek mythology for the "Titans", creatures created through the interbreeding of the Greek gods and human beings. The English words "genes" and "genetics" are built around the same root word as gegenes; genea meaning "breed" or "kind". Thus, the choice of this word again suggests a genetic component to the creation of these giants.¹⁰

Though Quayle appears to promote the idea that the Nephilim were actually formed by combining the DNA of the fallen angels and human women, since angels are spirit and thus do not have DNA, we hold to the thesis that the Nephilim were genetically manufactured beings created from the genetic material of various pre-existing animal species. Thus, to fit them into our scientific paradigm, we should officially term the Nephilim as a subclass of homo artificialis: homo artificialis nephili.

Thus, the fallen angels did not personally interbreed with the daughters of men, but used their godlike intellect to delve into the secrets of YHWH's Creation and manipulate it to their own purposes. And the key to creating or recreating man, as we have (re)discovered in the twentieth century, is the human genome — DNA. Quayle points out that the Greek antecedent of the word "giants" is the word gegenes, from which was derived the Greek word gigantes (Genesis 6:4, LXX), from which we in turn derive the English word "giant". Moreover, gegenes, besides being the root of the word "giant", is also the root of the words "genes", "genetics", "geneology", and so forth. Thus, the concept of genetic manipulation was "spliced in" to the ancient conception of giants. Quayle's extensive research on the subject also has unearthed some frightening scientific statistics:

While modern ethics has prevented scientists from pursuing eugenics (the creation of more perfect "supermen" by modifying human genetic components), it is completely possible that modifications in human genetic components might create a very different being from human DNA. A hint of what might result from such a modification was seen in April 1997, when scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore revealed that they had discovered a gene in mice which they called growth/differentiation factor-8 (GDF-8). When mice cells were altered genetically to delete this gene, the creatures that were conceived from these altered eggs grew enormous muscles, becoming "super mice" for all practical purposes. The scientists wrote in the science journal Nature, "We disrupted the GDF-8 gene by gene targeting in mice. [Mice lacking the gene] are significantly larger than wild-type animals and show a large and widespread increase in skeletal muscle mass. Individual muscles of mutant animals weigh two to three times more than those of wild-type animals." Now notice that this again goes well beyond what would be seen if the animals were simply given a growth hormone. These animals, with the GDF-8 gene, were not only stronger, they were two to three times larger. In other words, the super mice were stronger and considerably larger than their natural brothers and sisters having an unaltered genetic makeup. Imagine a human being so altered, who is stronger and two or three times larger than an average person, and you'll see the modern equivalent of the ancient giants, the "mighty men" of the biblical accounts.¹¹

Quayle also points out that the giants did not suffer from a hormonal imbalance, commonly known today as "gigantism", as those who suffer from gigantism usually suffer from a number of debilitative diseases that make movement for them difficult and painful. This is quite different from the powerful, proportionally built, athletically superb warriors portrayed in the Bible and other ancient texts. So, according to Quayle, there is definitive proof that genetic manipulation can in fact result in the development of a gigantic version of a particular species — in this case, mice. But can the same thing be done with humans? We may know soon.

The rabbinic literature also confirms that the Nephilim were indeed a giant, wicked species of early mankind that had existed before the Flood, and also afterward, during the time of Moses. Newman explains,

Regarding the "Nephilim", the rabbis apparently used Num 13:33, where the term is associated with the Anakim at the time of the Exodus. With this hint and the aid of Deut. 2:10-11, 20-21, they obtained five other names for the Nephilim by which to describe them using etymological word-play. Two of these are rather supernatural sounding: "Gibborim: ... the marrow of each one's thigh bone was eighteen cubits long"; "Anakim: ... their necks reached the globe of the sun." The term "Nephilim" is understood as teaching that "they hurled (haphilu) the world down, themselves fell (nephelu) from the world, and filled the world with abortions (nephilim) through their immorality.¹²

As Newman points out, several subclasses of Nephilim appear to have existed before the Flood, and also afterwards. One of those that existed before the Flood were the "Gibborim", the "mighty men of old".

An archetypal antediluvian ruler. Image from Conan the Barbarian, © 1981 Universal Pictures.

homo artificialis nephilim gibbori
The "Gibborim" were the "heroes of old, men of renown" mentioned in Genesis 6, who were the offspring of the Nephilim. As Newman explains, "In Gen 6:4 nephilim is translated gigantes without textual variation. The Greek word, usually rendered "giant", indicates a warrior of large stature and translates gibbor in Gen 10:8, 9".¹³ The Nephilim, as well as being genetically modified by the fallen angels, apparently procreated amongst themselves at the same time, as well as procreating with homo sapiens, resulting in the creation of a subclass of giants known as the gibborim. Not quite as tall as the Nephilim — who were likely giants among giants, dozens, perhaps hundreds of feet tall, if the midrash are to be believed — the Gibborim were probably more the size of Goliath, in the 8-12 feet tall range. To aid in differentiating the various different types of giants mentioned in the Bible, we will classify this type of homo artificialis nephili / homo sapiens hybrid as homo artificialis nephilim gibbori, "Gibborim" for short.

The intermarriage between the semi-divine Nephilim, the Cainites and, eventually even the Sethites led to the near-extinction of the pure Adamic line of homo sapiens, where all but a few living on Earth near the end of the antediluvian period were actually this mixed-breed of Gibborim. As DeLoach explains in his classic, Giants: A Reference Guide from History, the Bible, and Recorded Legend,

Right down to the first day of the deluge, the fallen angels in evolved human flesh, whom Moses called "the Nephilim", kept on marrying the comely daughters descended from Adam. These unlawful unions, having grown exceedingly common, now posed the gravest threat to God's plan for the redemption of His people. The situation was this: by absolute necessity, the Almighty Angel of the Lord who promised to come and redeem the fallen Adamic family had to be born from pure stock. But over the centuries the two races had so completely integrated that Nephilim blood now "polluted" virtually all Adam's offspring. In Noah's time, the condition reached the crisis stage, as commentator H.B. Pratt explains, "There are, for example, those who suppose here, just as in the case of the wife of Cain, that there were two distinct races of men in the world, the Adamic and the Pre-Adamic — a race perhaps half bestial; the mixture of which two races caused the moral desolations that are mentioned; and that when the Hebrew text says ... that 'Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations', [it means] that he was of pure stock and uncontaminated."¹⁴

Though the mixed-breed Gibborim were superior in most every way to homo sapiens, superior ability breeds superior ambition.¹⁵ A world full of Alexanders, Hitlers, and Genghis Khans, all of whom were physically superior to Arnold Schwartzenegger, intellectually superior to Albert Einstein, and more Machiavellian than Machiavelli, will not stay peaceful for long. The intermarriage between the Nephilim, the Cainites and, eventually even the Sethites led to an extreme condition of lawlessness and ungodliness in the world which YHWH found intolerable. DeLoach continues,

Besides mongrelizing Adam's family, the intermarriages boded another great ill. For the more the two races commingled the more Adam's children fell under the Nephilim's bad influences. They not only adopted the riotous ways of these rebels against heaven, but they likewise gave themselves over to their own carnal appetites and pursued worldly pleasures without restraint. And so it happened that most humans still sank to the depths of moral and spiritual depravity. But those few who deplored what the world was coming to had not seen the worst yet. For when these created and evolved peoples copulated, many of the children born to them grew to astonishing sizes. Having bodies that were part animal and part man, these insolent, boastful fellows exhibited far greater physical strength than other mortals. Thus endowed, war naturally became their main occupation and plundering their neighbors a way of life. As exceedingly evil as their Nephilim fathers were, the Gibborim easily surpassed them. Indeed, with the appearance of these ungodly, gigantic beings, wickedness and violence in the earth brimmed over. Because of them, moreover, the whole order of the creation was rapidly being subverted.¹⁵

The shalom peaceful balance of the Garden of Eden was destroyed by the tyrannical and warlike methods employed by the Nephilim. Instead of wealth earned by honest toil, the Nephilim, and their horrid children, the Gibborim, plundered the wealth of others and heaped it up in vast hordes for the purposes of conspicuous consumption, gorging while others starved. Despising hard work and God's institution of marriage life, the Gibborim sought only for temporary pleasures, achieving their goals through merciless murder, plunder and rapine. Instead of loving their neighbors and working together with them for the common good, they instead sought to enslave them if they were of use to them, or destroy them if they were not. In these ways, the Nephilim echoed in their Godless actions their divine parents' rejection of YHWH's ordinances. As Kline explains, "Within this succession of the bene elohim, the marriage ordinance was desecrated and the extension of dominion was sought by violence rather than through godly labor".¹⁶ The Gibborim created no wealth, and added no value to the natural equation. They were simply giant parasites living off of the work of others, and off of nature itself. Moreover, by taking any wives they chose from both artificialis and sapiens, creating vast harems of women that bore only their children, they reduced the ability of Godly men — whose presence was beneficial to Earth — to procreate and continue. In this way the Gibborim multiplied like a virus at the expense of the host: wasting resources, killing off healthy cells, and spreading poisons all over the face of Earth. In the end, using their techniques of murder, plunder, and rapine, homo artificialis systematically subverted and destroyed homo sapiens.

Though on the face of it it might seem that homo artificialis had won the genetic "arms race" and thus proved themselves the superior species, had the Gibborim won and wiped out homo sapiens forever, they would have eventually disappeared as well. Without homo sapiens to exploit, they would have quickly turned on and destroyed each other, destroying all life on Earth in the process. Their need to dominate and destroy came out of the essential emptiness of their souls, which they sought in vain to fill with earthly pleasures. However, the more they stole, the emptier their souls became, and they had to conquer and plunder more and more to fill the emptiness inside them until all life on Earth was in peril of being destroyed. And even if they had conquered the whole world, they still would have lost their souls. Clines aptly describes this hyperaggressive tendency of the Gibborim as "an insane acceleration of the Fall; it is self-affirmation to the point of destruction."¹⁷ Without the stable, productive presence of homo sapiens, the Gibborim would have had no one to plunder and enslave. Without the preservative, "salt and light" influence of God's people, the Gibborim would have flown into a frenzy of conquest and destruction (which, just before the Flood, is exactly what they did). Thus, by systematically eliminating homo sapiens, homo artificialis guaranteed its own extinction — proving that it was, in fact, inferior.

A representation of a black hole in the process of devouring a star. The black hole is a tiny singularity perhaps no larger than the size of a grapefruit, the remnant of a burned out star whose gravity was so great that it collapsed in on itself. Now, it continues its existence devouring other stars, making a spectacular show at the expense of destroying something useful. The light you see here is the remains of a star that the black hole is devouring, swirling around the powerful gravity of the black hole that sits at the center, giving the illusion that the black hole is giving off light, whereas it actually devouring it. All in all, the black hole is a fitting metaphor for the fallen angels and their worthless offspring, the Nephilim. Image from NASA's Starchild page. Click here to view the video.

The worthless Gibborim created nothing of value, and destroyed everything of value that they touched. Like black holes devouring light-giving stars, these living dead devoured all life and light wherever they went, consuming everything and returning nothing. Well did Jude describe them and their latter-day relations when he described them as "shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted — twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever." (Jude 1:12-13)

The main reason homo artificialis failed and had to be destroyed was that it was out of balance with its environment. The appetites of the giants were so immense that in order to feed themselves and satisfy their lusts they were forced to conquer and plunder others, and in the process they destroyed the people and infrastructure required to create these resources. Moreover, they paid no attention to their environment, cutting down whole forests, exhausting Earth's natural resources, and polluting the lakes, rivers, and even the genes of men and animals in order to accomplish their pointless goal of dominating Earth. But of what use is Earth if, in the process of conquering it, you have destroyed it? In contrast, homo sapiens had been created to fit into the Earthly environment, to reap and sow according to the seasons, to acquire wealth through hard work, and not plunder — to maintain a harmonious balance with nature, taking only as much as he needed, and returning the rest. Had Adam and his progeny continued on with this strategy, the entire Earth would have eventually been turned into an Edenic paradise. However, by rejecting YHWH and His shalom strategy of gradually reproducing and slowly but surely subduing Earth, instead being tempted into following the vainglorious conquest strategy taught by the Nephilim, Adam and Eve also became subject to the same natural laws that the Nephilim had broken. By going for the short term gains brought by the methods used by the Nephilim, mankind upset the delicate balance with Earth that was necessary to be truly successful over the long term. As a result, mankind was punished by the very Earth that they had set out to conquer, as Earth rebalanced itself, and vomited them out — with the Flood. (Cf. Leviticus 18:24-28) As Hendel explains,

Gen 6:1-4 presents a mixing of categories — of gods and mortals — and the procreation of a hybrid category of demigods which it is in the nature of the myth to suppress. Mary Douglas has pointed out the preoccupation of ancient Israelite thought with the suppression of anomaly in dietary laws and in the laws of kinship. These "purity laws", as she calls them, serve to keep "distinct the categories of creation." The same tendency is at work in Genesis 6:1-4. The sexual mingling of the sons of God and the daughters of men creates an imbalance and a confusion in the cosmic order. The birth of the demigods threatens the fabric of the cosmos.... The natural conclusion of Gen 6:1-4, according to the logic of the myth, is the deluge — the destruction of humanity and the concomitant annihilation of the disorder. The cosmic imbalance is resolved by a great destruction, out of which a new order arises.¹⁸

LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT ON a starr'd night Prince Lucifer uprose. Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend Above the rolling ball in cloud part screen'd, Where sinners hugg'd their spectre of repose. Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those. And now upon his western wing he lean'd, Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careen'd, Now the black planet shadow'd Arctic snows. Soaring through wider zones that prick'd his scars With memory of the old revolt from Awe, He reach'd a middle height, and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he look'd, and sank. Around the ancient track march'd, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law. George Meredith (1829-1909) Image adapted from "Fall of Day", by William Rimmer from the Museum of Fine Arts: Boston.

In conclusion, in stage two of the genetic "proxy" warfare between YHWH and the rebels, from Adam to Noah, the rebels won the battles, but lost the war. In order to destroy the Nephilim and the accursed Gibborim and restore the shalom natural balance between God, man, and Earth, God sent the Great Flood to wipe the slate clean. In order to restore the balance, YHWH was forced to destroy all life on Earth, most of which had become either genetically tainted, polluted, or otherwise rendered unusable. As a result of the Flood, all of the work the fallen angels had done to either corrupt or destroy homo sapiens had been rendered useless, and their vain attempt to raise an army in order to storm heaven was thwarted. But all was not lost. YHWH had saved one genetically pure man of the line of Seth, Noah, along with his three sons and their wives, and a sampling of untainted animal species. (Genesis 6:9-9:17) In effect, though the sons of Seth had lost the battles, YHWH had won the war. Fulfilling the prophecy of Genesis 3:15, the heel of the man had been bruised, but the head of the serpent had been crushed.

As world war raged across the planet, the Nephilim masters and their Gibborim armies fighting the final battles against each other to decide who would finally rule Earth, Noah obeyed YHWH and shut the doors on the antediluvian world. Soon thereafter, the world that was, died. However, though the Flood wiped out all of the Nephilim and Gibborim, their progenitors — the fallen angels who cannot die — watched and waited for the time when they could start the next phase of the great genetic war again.

Though the giants of old had been destroyed, their fathers, the fallen angels, had not. As a result, as soon as the waters receded, the "mystery of iniquity" began once more. Phase three of the war between YHWH and the rebels actually began just after Noah and his family left the ark, in a controversial event that resulted in the cursing of the line of Canaan, one of the sons of Ham, the son of Noah. (Genesis 9:18-27) In this event, Noah, who had been drinking wine from his vineyard in an apparent attempt to help fulfill YHWH's command to repopulate Earth, passed out in his tent in an unseemly position. Ham, one of Noah's three sons, saw his father's nakedness, and apparently handled the situation quite inappropriately. So inappropriately, in fact, that Noah laid a curse on Ham's son Canaan, setting up what some scholars refer to as "the Canaanite theme" — a theme that was to play an important role in the rest of the Old Testament.

Scholars are greatly divided on this issue, though it appears that all agree that the action was sexual in nature. Allen P. Ross in his article, "The Curse of Canaan" points out that "Ham, represented most clearly to Israel by the Egyptians and Canaanites, acted wrongly in violating sexual customs regarded as sacred and a result had one line of his descendants cursed with subjugation." Ham and his son, Canaan, were labeled with the brand of "pervert" and were utilized in the narrative of Genesis to show that the Canaanites were sexual perverts from the very beginning and thus deserved to be destroyed.¹⁹

"Noah Cursing Canaan" (Gen. 9:18-27) by Gustave Dore. From The Dore Bible Illustrations.

The Canaanites, along with the Egyptians and, generally speaking, all of the descendants of Ham (Genesis 10:6-20) were portrayed throughout the Bible as being morally and ethically wicked. The Canaanites, however, were described as being particularly wicked, as Noah had foreseen when he laid the curse specifically on Canaan. And as history unfolds, it becomes clear that Noah's curse had been correct, as Canaan's line became the line through whom the fallen angels would once again work their iniquity. As a result of this wickedness, the Canaanites, who inhabited "the land of Canaan" on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, were painted in the Bible as being irretrievably corrupt and marked for destruction.

YHWH knew that it was only a matter of time until Canaan's wickedness would need to be dealt with, and this turned out to be true. After the time of the Flood (ca. 10,000 b.c.), the mystery of iniquity worked for 8,000 years, bringing Earth to the point where conditions once again had begun to resemble those that had led to the need for the Great Flood. In order to put an end to the mystery of iniquity, YHWH raised up Abraham, a pure descendant of righteous Shem. Abraham was YHWH's special representative, whom he would use to destroy the wicked descendants of Canaan, giving to Abraham's descendants the land of Canaan as their special inheritance:

¹³And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; ¹⁴And also that nation [Egypt], whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. ¹⁵And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again [back to the land of Canaan]: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. ¹⁷And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. ¹⁸In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates (Genesis 15:13-18)

But why did YHWH plan to destroy the Canaanites and give their land to Abraham's descendants? Because the fallen angels were once again at work on Earth, using the Canaanites to breed a whole new generation of Nephilim and Gibborim giants. And the fallen angels, like YHWH, also had their own special representative — Amor, a descendant of Canaan. Amor, the father of the "Amorites", became the most wicked of all, the line though whom the fallen angels had begun recreating the dreaded Nephilim in the land of Canaan. Thus, while YHWH was breeding men of the line of Shem that were more and more righteous, the fallen angels were breeding men of the line of Ham that were more and more wicked — just as they had before the Flood. For this reason YHWH forbad Abraham to tarry in Canaan, instead planning for his descendants to sojourn in Egypt for 400 years. This allowed the "iniquity of the Amorites" to come to its full, rotten ripeness while Abraham's descendants grew strong and numerous in a safer, healthier environment away from Canaan.

The fallen angels were busily at work creating all new armies of wicked giants that they would once again use to try to conquer the world. And though their extreme moral decline was only in its infant stages during the time of Abraham, it was just a matter of time until this "iniquity of the Amorites" would come to the full.

Phase three of the war between YHWH and the rebels, which began soon after Noah and his family left the ark, ca. 10,000 b.c., did not come to fruition until the time of Abraham, ca. 2000 b.c. Though some commentators believe that Nimrod, one of the descendants of Ham, (Gen. 10:8-12) was a giant, giants do not make a significant appearance in the Bible again until Genesis 14, during the time of Abraham's sojourn in Canaan. Genesis 14 describes a major regional conflict between the king of Elam and five of his vassals who lived in the land of Canaan, a war in which Abraham played a small part. Chedorlaomer, the king of Elam, had gathered together three of his allies and gone to war with this confederation of five Canaanite kings who had refused to pay tribute any longer:

¹And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations; ²That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. ³All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea. ⁴Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. ⁵And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim, ⁶And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness. ⁷And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar. ⁸And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim; ⁹With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five. ¹⁰And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain. ¹¹And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. (Genesis 14:1-11)

Though the theme of the passage is a familiar one, war, some of the participants in that war were not. Though the war was initially supposed to be against the five kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar, instead of taking these kings head-on, the Elamites and their allies instead began their attack far to the northeast, in the region of Bashan, and then worked their way down the east side of the Jordan, systematically destroying a heretofore unknown group of peoples called the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, and Horim. They then turned to attack the Amalekites and Amorites, finally heading towards their initial target, the five kings of the five cities of the plain in southern Canaan. Hamilton explains,

The names of other peoples whom the Elamites and their allies subdued — Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, Horim, Amalekites, Amorites — would indicate that the uprising of the five southern kinglets was but one part of a massive effort to resist continued Mesopotamian control in Transjordan. The invading kings repress such attempted revolts in grandiose and unmitigated style. Nobody can stand before them, even though the defeated Rephaim, Zuzim, and Emim are themselves imposing threats, people of giant stature. (Deut. 2:10-12, 20-23)²⁰

The distribution of Rephaim and Gibborim-type giant subclasses in Canaan, ca. 2000 b.c. Though the distribution of the various giant classes and exact territorial limits are unknown, general areas of inhabitation can be derived from Genesis 14 and Deuteronomy 2-3. The Rephaim dominated most of south, central and northern Palestine, but the Zuzim dominated the region south of the Rephaim capitol Ashteroth Karnaim, with the Emim east of the Dead Sea and the Horim south of the Emim and east of the Vale of Siddim. Moses also mentions the "Avvim" that were centered around Gaza, southwest of Palestine, but there is no record of an Elamite attack on the Avvim. Chedorlaomer first attacked Ashteroth-Karnaim, the stronghold of the Rephaim, then proceeded to defeat the Zuzim at Ham, the Emim at Shaveh-Kiriathaim, and the Horim in their mountain strongholds scattered throughout Seir. They then subdued the Amalekites just south of Palestine, defeated the Amorite armies in Hazazon-Tamar, and destroyed the confederation of the five kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar at the Vale of Siddim, south of the Dead Sea. Having thus subdued the entire country, the Elamites then plundered all of the five cities in succession, taking away a very large amount of booty. Click here to view a larger image.

But why did they make the strategic decision of attacking these unknown peoples before approaching their main target? DeLoach explains, "Somehow, perhaps from spies, Chedorlaomer learned of the miliary alliance that the five cities had made with the giants who occupied Bashan, Gilead, and Edom. He thus chose not to strike the first blow at Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, or Bela, but moved instead to cut off help from their Rephaim neighbors".²¹ The giants were powerful warriors, and had to be divided and conquered, as a combined army of giants and men would have sorely pressed even the superb Elamite forces. If they had attacked the five kings directly, they would have been surrounded on all sides by armies of giants, which might have led to their complete annihilation. Instead, they wisely pursued a "divide and conquer" strategy, starting with the Rephaim in the north, and working their way down to the Horim in the south:

Sweeping down the valley, his army quickly laid siege to Ashteroth Karnaim. This chief city of the Rephaim lay in the district of Bashan, about six miles northwest of Edrei. These giants worshipped Astarte, the goddess of the crested moon. They were greatly decimated. Continuing along what the ancients called the King's Highway, a trade route that ran the entire length of the Trans-jordanian plateau to the Gulf of Aqabah, Chedorlaomer and his confederate kings next fell upon the enormous Zamzummim people of Ham. Some archaeologists identify this city with modern Ham, which is located in eastern Gilead, about four miles south of Irbid. After this, the kings from Elam and Mesopotamia attacked and cut off the terrible Emim giants at nearby Shaveh Kiriathaim. These people, described as "great and many and tall", occupied the land that the Moabites later took.²²

The mysterious Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim and Horim were, in fact, giants. Giants were again on Earth in the time of Abraham, and YHWH was waging war upon them once more, using the Elamites — like Abraham, descendants of Shem — to destroy them. These mysterious giant races are described in much more detail than the Nephilim and Gibborim of the antediluvian world were, and are even given race-specific names, as follows:

homo artificialis rephi
The Rephaim were the next generation of giants, the "new Nephilim", and were of Amorite descent. The fallen angels had chosen one of the line of Canaan, Amor, to use as the line through which they would once again begin to genetically modify mankind towards the creation of a new race of supermen. However, whereas nephilim, the term used to describe the half-divine, half-human demigods of the antediluvian world, straightforwardly translates into "those who came down", the exact meaning of the term rephaim is not as clear, as the term is used for a variety of purposes, both in the Bible and in related texts. L'Heureux gives an excellent summary of the state of the debate in his excellent monograph, Rank among the Canaanite Gods: El, Ba'al and the Rephaim:

The relevant data are the following: the occurrence of 1) rephaim, meaning the shades of the dead; the occurrence of 2) rephaim, referring to a gigantic race which inhabited parts of Palestine and Jordan before Israelite times; references to yelidiy ha-raphah (with variants) who are usually understood as descendants of Raphah, who would be the ancestor of the Rephaim; a geographical name, "Valley of the Rephaim;" personal names containing the element rapha or raphah,. In addition to the above, there are related matters which might be relevant: references to the Anaqim who, like Rephaim, were thought to be a prehistoric race of gigantic stature; appearing only twice are the Emim, apparently a special designation for the Rephaim of the territory later occupied by the Moabites; similarly the Zamzummim are the Rephaim of the Ammonite area; finally, the word Nephilim is also used for the giants of old.²³

In the Ras Shamra texts found in the Canaanite city-state of Ugarit, the Rephaim are described as being simultaneously divine beings, human beings, cultic functionaries of the Amorite god Ba'al, mighty warriors, riders of chariots, and healers, or "ones who are healed". Some scholars also believe that that they were part of an aristocracy. The Amorites, who worshiped the god Ba'al, also believed that Ba'al was gigantic in stature: "Ba'lu the Saviour, was extremely tall. An Ugaritic myth tells us that when another god tried to sit on the throne of Ba'lu 'his feet did not reach the foot-stool, his head did not reach the top of the back.'"²⁴

Ba'al was the Amorite/Canaanite war, storm and fertility god, whom they believed made his presence known in, among other things, the yearly rains that came and made the fields bring forth their bounty each year. When the rains ended at the end of the rainy season, it was thought that Ba'al had died and gone down to the underworld, not to return again until the rainy season in the following year. During the intervening time, he remained in the underworld, among the spirits of the dead. The Rephaim were believed by the Amorites to be Ba'als acolytes, accompanying him both in the storm and into his journey into the underworld after the rains ceased. As a result, "since these minor deities follow Ba'al in his descent to the underworld, they later became identified with the shades of the dead, as in Biblical Hebrew and in Phoenician."²⁵ L'Heureux points out that, since greater gods in the Canaanite pantheon are described with the singular term rapha, then the term rephaim most likely refers to an assembly of lesser gods. This concept compares favorably with the Hebrew conception of elohim which most believe is meant to indicate an assembly of divine beings, or angels, in contrast to the singular El, which is used exclusively of YHWH, the head of the divine assembly. In short, Rapha is to rephaim as El is to elohim.²⁶

However, unlike the heavenly deities of the court of YHWH, the court of Ba'al is instead an assembly of underworld deities, what the Israelites would have considered demonic spirits, or fallen angels. The Amorites worshiped these underworld deities as the departed spirits of their ancestors, and their funerary rituals were also acts of worship that included such activities as extreme drunkenness, riotous acts, cannibalism and worse.²⁷ The spirits of the dead that were most worshiped were those of ancient kings and heroes: "within the framework of the Baalistic cult sacrificial meals with the spirits of the dead took place ... the ghosts are called metim "dead" or shedim "genii". One of the more interesting features of the text is that the rephaim seem to be a special class of spirits: kings, heroes, warriors, rulers."²⁸ Concerning the meaning of rapha and how it fits into the concept of underworld deity, Gray believes that the basic meaning of rapha is "to heal" or, more likely, to be healed.²⁹ However, since it has to do with the dead rephaim, and since these dead rephaim are, along with Ba'al, resurrected at the beginning of each rainy season, I suggest that the Rephaim are not merely healed but, along with Ba'al, resurrected, and the fertility of the land resurrected with them. Thus the basic concept behind the word rephaim is "those who have been resurrected".

The rephaim deities of the Ugaritic texts, then, were seen as the resurrected spirits of ancient warrior kings. But resurrected into what? And how does this apply to the Rephaim giants? The Rephaim were seen by the Amorites as both divine and human, as human incarnations of the divine rephaim, just as the Amorite king was considered to be the incarnation of their state god, Ba'al.³⁰ These "Rephaim of Earth" were believed to be the earthly incarnations of the divine (or fallen) Rephaim of the underworld. Moreover, since these were the spirits of ancient warriors, kings and heroes from ancient times, it was probable, since the Rephaim giants were specifically noted by Moses as being the return of the antediluvian Nephilim, that the Rephaim were in fact the reincarnations of the demonic spirits of the Nephilim giants who had been destroyed in the Flood. Thus, inherent in the very name "Rephaim" was the confirmation that the Rephaim were indeed the return of the Nephilim. As such, we have given them their own scientific classification to identify the Rephaim as the next generation that succeeded the Nephilim breed of giants: homo artificialis rephi.

In sum, then, according to the Bible and related texts, the Rephaim were a giant, human/divine hybrid race that formed an aristocratic warrior class known for their use of chariots in battle, a "master race" of giant warrior-kings that were worshiped as the reincarnated spirits of the giant antediluvian god-kings, the Nephilim.³¹ They served the Amorite king who was considered the incarnation of the Amorite high god Ba'al, who was also gigantic in stature, probably larger than the rest. This king likely ruled from Ashteroth-Karnaim, in the region of Bashan, in northeastern Canaan. These giant god-kings ruled over a mass of homo sapiens, whom the fallen angels were systematically altering into another class of Gibborim "storm troopers" in order to, once again, attempt to exterminate the "inferior" homo sapiens and rule the world. These Gibborim even had specific names: the Zuzim, the Emim, the Horim, and the Avvim.

homo artificialis rephaim zuzi
The Zuzim were a Gibborim subclass of the Rephaim, the result of interbreeding between the Rephaim and homo sapiens. The resultant "Zuzim" (Gen. 14:5) were probably 8-10 feet tall on average, a few feet shorter than the Rephaim, some of whom probably approached 12 feet in height or more. Moses described the Zuzim as "Zamzummims" Deut. 2:19-21 that had once lived east of the Jordan River. They had been seriously depopulated by Chedorlaomer around 2000 b.c., but had been exterminated by the Ammonites somewhere betweeen 2000-1300 b.c. "Zamzummim" can mean either "murmurers" or "stammerers", and seems to indicate that they may have been involved in some sort of necromantic activity. Pope explains, "The designation Zamzummim is probably to be related to Arabic zamzam which is used onomatopoetically of buzzing or humming noise but also for a troop of people, both senses being appropriate to the dead, the not-so-silent majority who chirp, mutter and whisper from the dust (Isaiah 8:19, 29:4).³² L'Heureux links the name zamzummim to the Hebrew zamam, "to murmur".³³ Graves and Patai in Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis translate zamzummim as "achievers", probably in the sense that they were exceptionally strong and athletic, but do not give the provenance of this translation.³⁴ DeLoach suggests that the translation "stammerers" should be understood as "speakers of a barbarous tongue".³⁵ However, we believe the necromantic concept is best here because, as we have seen, the Rephaim considered themselves to be the reincarnated spirits of ancient heroes. Moreover, the Amorites were known for their worship of the dead,³⁶ even speaking to them in "peeps" and "mutters". Therefore, the name "Zuzim" or "Zamzummim" should be understood as "mutterers" in the sense of communicating with the dead. Interestingly, some have proposed that the term "Zamzummim" should be understood as "Ham-Zuzim", i.e., "the Zuzim from Ham", their capitol city. Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary also has the cryptic entry, "Zamzummims, projects of crimes; enormous crimes".³⁷

homo artificialis rephaim emi
The Emim were another Gibborim subclass that lived just south of the Zuzim and east of the Dead Sea. They are mentioned twice in the Bible, first in Gen. 14:5 and, like the Zuzim, recounted by Moses in Deut. 2:10-11. Like the Zuzim, they had been seriously depopulated by Chedorlaomer around 2000 b.c., but had been exterminated by the Moabites somewhere betweeen 2000-1300 b.c., who settled just south of their Ammonite cousins. "Emim" is variously translated as "fearsome ones" (Pope), "awesome ones" (Wenham)³⁸ "dreadful ones" (DeLoach) and "Terrors" (Graves and Patai).

homo artificialis rephaim hori
The Horim were yet another Gibborim subclass that lived just south of the Emim and east of the Vale of Siddim, in the mountains of Seir. They are mentioned three times in the Bible, first in Gen. 14:5-6 and, like the Zuzim and Emim, recounted by Moses in Deut. 2:12 and Deut. 2:22. They too had been seriously depopulated by Chedorlaomer around 2000 b.c., but had been exterminated by the descendants of Esau somewhere betweeen 2000-1300 b.c. Not much is known about them, except that they were cave-dwellers in the mountains of Seir, south of the Emim area. Smith's Bible Dictionary suggests that the name "Horim" was taken from the term "cave-dweller".³⁹

homo artificialis rephaim avvi
The Avvim are the final Gibborim subclass mentioned in the Bible that existed during the time of Abraham. They lived in southwestern Palestine, in the area around Gaza. They are explicitly mentioned only once in the Bible, in Deut. 2:23. They apparently had not been affected by Chedorlaomer, but had been exterminated by the Caphtorites, another descendant of Ham, somewhere betweeen 2000-1300 b.c. However, according to Josh. 13:3, some may have still existed in that region for some time afterwards. Like the Horim, not much is written about the Avvim. Graves and Patai translate their name as "Devastators" or "Serpents". The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia equates them with the Hivites,⁴⁰ which means that some must have survived the Caphtorite onslaught, as the Hivites are listed as those among the Canaanites that had to be destroyed during the time of Moses Ex. 23:23.

Lot and family fleeing Sodom. The brother of Abraham, Lot's descendants later finished off the Zuzim and Emim. Image from Art Passions.

In Phase 3 of YHWH's war against the rebels, YHWH had used one of the descendants of Shem — Chedorlaomer, king of Elam — to bring together a confederation of kings and cripple the growing Rephaim giant threat. YHWH was taking no chances and nipped the activity of the fallen angels in the bud before it got out of control. YHWH's war against the giants during the time of Abraham, however, did not officially end in the text until after the "two angels" destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Though it was not specifically mentioned, Sodom and Gomorrah were likely major strongholds of the Rephaim, and their destruction directly by angels — instead of through human intermediaries such as Chedorlaomer — indicates that it had contained the wickedest Rephaim and Gibborim that then existed on Earth. (Gen. 19) In the process, the angels also saved Lot and his daughters, who would give birth to the Ammonites and Moabites that were destined by God to finish off the Zuzim (Deut. 2:19-20) and Emim (Deut. 2:9-11). Some Rephaim and Gibborim, however, were still left in the land, even after the conquests by the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites, all of whom were also descendants of Shem. For this reason, YHWH raised up the descendants of Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob, as an army to finish off the giants in the land of Canaan. And, after 400 years of captivity in the land of Egypt, Israel was about to complete Phase 4 of YHWH's war against the rebels, using Moses as the next earthly leader of His divine army.

Phase 4 of YHWH's genetic war against the rebels began when Abraham's wife, Sarah, gave birth to Isaac, though she was over 90 years old.