Shortly after posting the, “Days of Noah” blog post, I was challenged on a couple points and clarification was sought. Specifically, I was asked, “Has it been conclusively proven that the “SARS-CoV-2 virus” was manufactured in the laboratory? Secondly, certain questions/concerns arose about the topic of fallen angels and their illegitimate activity with humans.
With respect to the deliberate manufacture of the SARS-CoV-2 virus; this has become much more of a partisan political question than a simple fact-based statement. A point of fact is that a great many intelligence and security experts have concluded the virus originated from a laboratory in Wuhan China. Further, a USA senate committee has been holding a investigation into “gain of function” studies conducted on this and other Corona viruses. This study received at least some of it’s funding from the NIH under Dr Fauchi’s directorship and the development appears to be a multi-national effort. There is evidence that China, the US, France and Canada (possibly more countries as well) all had some part in the study and development of this virus AND it would seem almost certain that the so called “Spike Protein” was synthetically developed and manufactured with patents in place for the “vaccine” even before the “pandemic” began. This statement is by no means fully conclusive because the investigations are ongoing at this point
Let us now move to the topic of the Nephilim and the possibility of them being the result of angels or divine beings having sexual relations with humans. In the post I mentioned 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6; Numbers 13:30-33 and Genesis 6:1-4 as examples of passages that make reference to the activity of these fallen beings and the resulting consequences and outcomes. Perhaps now would be a good time to look at these passages as well as any supporting texts in more detail.
Starting with Numbers 13:30-33 which reads:
“But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
The backstory to this passage is the story of the twelve spies sent by Moses to check out the land of Canaan – it is found in Numbers 13:17-29 and reads as follows:
“Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up into the Negeb and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds, and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes.
So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) And they came to the Valley of Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; they also brought some pomegranates and figs. That place was called the Valley of Eshcol,[a] because of the cluster that the people of Israel cut down from there.
At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.””
These passages give rise to several questions and comments with respect to the topic of the Nephilim?:
1. All twelve spies agreed the land was good, produced abundant food, crops and was a land flowing with milk and honey. So what was the “bad” report?
2. Verse 22 clearly states, “the descendants of Anak, were there” (this is stated as a matter of fact and is noted even before any reports were given). Later in verse 33 these descendants of Anak are mentioned again as part of the negative report, “there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim).” These are terms and tribes that seem to be already known of - and not made up words to describe very tall people...so, who was Anak?
3. Who were the Anakim?
With respect to the first question about the “bad report,” I am referencing the following article: https://images.shulcloud.com/618/uploads/PDFs/Divrei_Torah/170617-What-did-the-spies-do-wrong-Shlach-Lecha.pdf
“What did the spies do wrong?”
1. It’s not that they lied, rather their report was given with the intent to scare and demoralized the people.
“39 years later, Moses himself said the same to their children, as they were about to enter the Promised Land:
You will be coming to conquer nations that are greater and more powerful than you, with great cities, fortified to the skies. They are a great nation, as tall as giants... [Deut. 9:1-2]”
2. “They doubted God’s power. Their very mission implied doubt about the value of God’s gift and God's ability to deliver it. -God said "Send for yourself", meaning "I am not commanding you, but if
you wish, you may send." Indeed, the people had come to Moses asking for that. [Deut. 1:22]
-Talmud: God told Moses, "I told them that the land is good. By their lives! Now I will give them the opportunity to fall into error through the words of the spies, so that they will not inherit it.” [Sotah 34b, Midrash Tanchuma, Shlach 5]
-But spying for military preparations is OK. The Torah does not tell us to rely on miracles. It's the spies’ presentation that was not OK. [Ramban]”
3. Their lie was the twisting of facts and how they presented their opinion as a part of those facts. “...They did not report (or did not try to find out) what the inhabitants thought of them. Forty years later, Rahav in Jericho tells the spies sent by Joshua that the inhabitants feared the Jews:
I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that a great fear of you has fallen upon us. All the inhabitants of the land faint because of you... As soon as we heard [of the miracles God performed for you] our hearts melted, no courage remained in any man, because of you. [Joshua 2:9-11].
-And the Jews themselves knew that. Earlier, in their Song at the Sea, they had said:
The people of Canaan will melt away. Terror and dread will fall on them. [Ex. 15:15-16]
-The spies made unwarranted assumptions. They said: “In our eyes, we seemed like grasshoppers, and so were we in their eyes.” In Talmud, Rabbi Mesharsheya asks:
The spies were liars. As regards “In our eyes, we seemed like grasshoppers,” very well; but how could they know that “so were we in their eyes”? [Sotah 35a]
How did the spies know how the inhabitants saw the Jews?
Now to address questions #2 & 3 concerning Anak and Anakim. This page from Bible Hub.com is all about the Anakim complete with definitions descriptions and bible references: https://biblehub.com/topical/a/anakim.htm
In addition, https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1453-anakim gives a description as well as references to both Rabbinical and Hellenistic Literature: “According to rabbinical tradition (Gen. R. xxvi.), the Anakim are of the same Titanic race as the Rephaim, Nefilim, Gibborim, Zamzummim, and Emim.” Often these terms and descriptions are used in close relationship to each other or sometimes even interchangeably.
The link: https://www.compellingtruth.org/Rephaim.html provides a fairly full description of the Rephaim and where it is believed they came from. Quoting from this article:
“...The Rephaim were similar to the Anakim (Deuteronomy 2:20–21). The Rephaim are mentioned again in Exodus when the Israelites were trying to enter the Promised Land. The Rephaim were living in Canaan, and the Israelites were terrified of them—the Israelites didn't want to go into the Promised Land because it was inhabited with "giants" (Numbers 13:33), the sons of Anak. The spies came back to Israel and told the people that "The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them" (Numbers 13:32–33). The Promised Land, though beautiful (Numbers 13:27) was inhabited with giants—men so big that the Israelites felt like grasshoppers next to them. The Rephaim were of the same type.
Can this be taken literally? Who are the Nephilim? The Bible says that Og, king of Bashan (one of the last Rephaim) had a bed that was thirteen feet long (Deuteronomy 3:11). Was this just the grandiosity of a king, or did Og really need a bed that large? We know the ancient Jews believed them to be giants because the Greek word titanes, from which English derives the word titan, is used to translate the Hebrew word rephaim. Ancient folklore from many cultures features stories of giants. And there is biblical basis for their existence. The Nephilim (the word used synonymously with the Anakites) were the offspring of fallen angels and women (Genesis 6:1–4). How this is biologically possible we don't know, but the story is presented literally. The phrase used in the passage is "sons of God" who took "daughters of man" as their wives and bore children through them. The phrase "sons of God" is used exclusively elsewhere in Scripture to describe angelic beings.”
Looking now at 2 Peter 2:4 it says: “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell[a] and committed them to chains[b] of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.” Keeping this passage in mind, lets look at Jude 1:6 which says: “And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—” Both these passages refer to angels bound in gloomy darkness for their sin. These passages also beg the question, what was their sin(s)?
I think in this instance the passage from Jude helps make the reference in Peter much more clear. Looking at the passage in Jude a bit more carefully, verse 6 does not end as a complete sentence or thought but rather it ends with a dash and continues on into verse 7. Thus the thought conveyed here (in speaking of those angles reads, “...left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire...” In other words he is comparing the activity of those angles to the immorality and depravity that occurred in Sodom and Gomorrah.
In speaking of this verse, https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/jude-1-6 I found this supporting quote:
“The angels in this verse, "who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode," is speaking of those who rebelled with Satan and also sinned in Genesis 6, "when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them." Although all angels who chose to rebel with Satan lost their position in the holy, heavenly angelic realm... this group also abandoned their angelic form by taking on a human form in order to have sex with human women, which resulted in a hybrid offspring, described in Genesis as giants or Nephilim. However, the message to us from Jude is a warning to all who have a common faith with the apostle, against falling into apostasy.”
In my original post I made reference to several extra-Biblical texts including the book of Enoch. The passages here in 2 Peter and Jude both are quotes from Enoch. There are no other scriptural references to these angels being committed to chains and bound in gloomy darkness...when these two writers wrote, they were quoting from a know source and would have presumed those to whom they were writing would also have known and understood the reference.
Finally, I want to include excerpts from a Catholic scholar, Dr Taylor Marshall’s article, “Angels having Relations with Humans within Jude and 2 Peter and 1 Enoch” He writes:
“Genesis 6 has a confusing reference to “when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them” and how this occurrence led to Yahweh flooding the earth. What does this mean?
Sometime around the 200s BC a Jewish document called “Book of Enoch” or 1 Enoch was produced. It gives all the details on how angelic beings copulated with human women and created a cosmic mess before the Flood. And here’s the interesting problem we have:
Saint Jude (Jude 1:14-15) directly quotes this non-biblical document known as “Book of Enoch” or 1 Enoch:
It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying:“Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
Compare with:
1 Enoch 1:9
Behold, he comes with ten thousand saints to execute judgment upon all, and he will destroy all the ungodly and convict all flesh of all the deeds of their ungodliness that they have ungodly committed in an ungodly way, and of all the arrogant and hard words which sinners have spoken against him.
It’s not only this direct quotation of 1 Enoch by Jude, but Jude (and 2 Peter) allude to the fantastical events of 1 Enoch, namely the sexual encounters of fallen angels with human women, which gives birth to the nephilim or “giants.” The birth of the giants, according to 1 Enoch, is the reason for the Noah’s Flood.
And this belief is also found in the canonical book of Wisdom:
“And from the beginning also when the proud giants (γιγάντων) perished, the hope of the world fleeing to a vessel, which was governed by thy hand, left to the world seed of generation.” (Wisdom 14:6)
The author of Wisdom clearly associates the flood to a divine genocide of the race of the giants (γιγάντων) to leave the world a “seed of generation.” (Saint Paul quotes from Wisdom about 7 times – so Saint Paul also likely hold this belief.)
In 1 Enoch, Yahweh sends 200 angels to guide and instruct humanity. These 200 angels are called “Irin” in Aramaic and “Egregoroi” in Greek. Both words mean “Watchers.” These Watchers corrupt humanity by teaching them evil arts such as cosmetology (sorry ladies), sorcery, astrology, and the arts of war.
These angels also seduce human women and copulate with them. The women give birth to nephilim or giants. God causes these giants to fight and die. Then the souls of the giants turn into demons that haunt and tempt humans for the rest of time.
So Yahweh binds these 200 evil angelic Watchers into “Tartarus.”
What is Tartarus? In the Homer’s Iliad, Zeus teaches that Tartarus is “as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth.” Tartarus is the deepest part of the underworld, far below Hades.
It’s noteworthy that the term “tartarus” is used by Enoch and 2 Peter. This signals the blending of Hebrew history with Greek mythology since Greek myth depict Zeus (after 10 years of battle or titanomachy) sending the older primordial deities called Titans into the deep dungeon abyss of “tartarus.”
Notably 2 Peter explicitly uses Enoch’s word “Tartarus” for the condemnation of fallen “angels.” Jude and 2 Peter use almost the same words, but 2 Peter uses “Tartarus”:
Jude 6
And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day.
Compare with:
2 Peter 2:4a
For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartaros and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment;
“And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamored of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.” (1 Enoch 7:2)
The resulting children are called nephilim in Hebrew or gigantes (giants) in Latin and Greek. In 1 Enoch, the historical Enoch goes to God and seeks to make intercession for the forgiveness of the giants. God refuses and the giants are condemned. This part of the story is referred to in Sirach:
“He was not propitiated for the ancient giants who revolted in their might.” (Sirach 16:7)
The Dead Sea Scrolls contain 10 copies (!) of the Book of Giants – a work that describes in detail the conception of giants in Genesis 6 from the union of women and angelic watchers. The giants were warriors and cannibals. This theology was an important part of the theology of Second Temple Judaism.”
I just want to make it clear as I close; the book of Enoch is not part of the scripture nor do I think it needs to be. I see it as a part of a body of literature containing stories from the past that perhaps were passed down orally before being written out sometime during the second temple period. These were the accounts of history which most of the Jewish historians, scholars, and religious people of the day were aware of. The stories and accounts were broadly enough known of that references to them were often made without need for further explanation.
It is not necessary to accept the ideas here presented, I have only put this together to facilitate further understanding of some of the things I wrote in my earlier essay.
