© Jeannie St. John Taylor
“When men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. . . . The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.” Genesis 6: 1, 4
Who were the mysterious Nephilim of Genesis six? Who were the sons of God? Who were the mighty men of old? Theories abound on the topic. One such theory holds that the “mighty men of renown” refers to the beings who the Greeks, Romans and Norse revered as gods.
Only a couple of things are certain.
- Since the Bible, which is the inspired Word of God, says those creatures walked the earth before the Flood, they did. They actually existed even if they feel like fantasy to us.
- The word for Nephilim means “bully” or “tyrant.” So life on earth couldn’t have been very pleasant with them taking any woman that caught their fancy.
For purposes of this work of fiction, I gleaned additional details from the Book of Enoch which was written many years before Jesus walked the earth. New Testament writers seem to believe the book accurate. We know that because several NT writers refer to it and Jude 14 – 16 even quotes from the book when he says, “It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied . . . ”
Enoch adds details that fill in the gaps in the Genesis account, making the pre-Flood world easier to understand. John Klein and Adam Spears do a good job of summarizing Enoch’s main points in their book Lost in Translation, Discovering the Hebrew Roots of Our Faith. “A group of 200 of Satan’s fallen angels, led by one Samyaza, made a pact whereby they took on human form, seduced the daughters of men, and produced giant offspring, a hybrid of devils and humans called nephilim. One of these creatures, in the singular, would be a nephal.. . . And they did produce offspring that were not created by God.”
Additionally, Enoch says
- This race of giants, because it was not created by God, was to blame for much of the evil that forced God to destroy the world.
- These beings taught humans things they were never supposed to know – sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees.
- After the giants ate all the food produced by humans, they consumed human beings.
- Since the Flood destroyed their flesh, the giants now roam the earth as evil spirits.
I simplified my novel by referring to the sons of God as “Nephilim” and to their offspring as “giants,” the uncreated beings who walk the earth as evil spirits today. You can download the Book of Enoch from the Internet and read it for yourself, though it can be a little difficult to muddle through in places.
