The Nephilim

It’s tempting during the global pandemic to limit Christian Bible reflection merely to matters to do with the virus, suffering and how God is involved with it and with us. That would be a mistake. God is speaking no less through everything else in his word than he does at any other time. So here is a virus-free post.

My personal Bible study at the moment is all in Genesis. It’s my “book of the year”. I think it is very common for us to read chapters 1-3 - the Creation through to the Fall - and then get to the genealogies from Cain and Seth, skip them and pass straight on to Noah in chapter 6, perhaps with a brief, bemused, glance at the Nephilim on the way. The more I read chapters 4 and 5 the more I think we need to pause over them.

From Genesis 3 onwards THE question that hangs over the rest of the book - indeed the whole of the rest of the Old Testament - is “who is going to be the promised offspring of the woman, the one who will finally crush the serpent?” The first candidate is Cain, quickly dismissed not only because of his murder of his brother, but because of his disregard for God. Cain’s and his descendants are, humanly-speaking, an impressive bunch. They build cities, they create technology, music and culture, and their daughters are renowned for their beauty. The penultimate member of the line, Lamech, is a powerful, violent and boastful man who introduces polygamy. Is there a sense that if Adam had a single helper in Eve, why would two Eves not be even better? Wherever the promised seed is going to come from, it clearly isn’t the line of Cain, but it doesn’t stop them trying to create man-centred alternatives.

Eve then gave birth to Seth. We aren’t told much about the character or achievements of people in his line, except for the notably godly Enoch and the penultimate person in the line, who is another Lamech. It’s easy to imagine they are all a bit jealous of the accomplishments of Cain’s descendants, not least because they name a number of their children after their cousins. Seth’s Lamech is still clearly hoping for the promised seed because he names his son Noah - comfort. He is looking for the consolation of God and desperately hoping that it might be his son. He isn’t, of course. The repeated refrain that haunts both lines and both chapters is “and he died”. Over and over again.

And then a great tragedy occurs. The lines intermingle. The sons of Seth go to the daughters of Cain because they are beautiful. The result is Nephilim - mighty heroes of old, people of renown. (I’m well aware of the alternative explanations for the Nephilim and don’t believe any of them make sense in context or from anywhere else in the Bible). Science fiction is full of stories of people trying to create humanity 2.0, some positive, others like Frankenstein’s creature horribly negative. The underlying reality started in Genesis 6 with the Nephilim, and what mighty figures they were. Thematically, they are the greatest human attempt so far to produce a human version of the promised, serpent-crushing seed. As people tried to recover, replicate, replace or improve on what was lost at the Fall, or to mitigate the judgement, they replaced God’s garden with a city, a single Eve with multiple ones and divine beauty and relationship with human culture. So now they try to replace the seed with mighty people of renown. The Nephilim are counterfeits of the promised seed, and very impressive-looking ones at that. Who now needs the promised redeemer from God when you can have these astonishing Nephilim?

The contrasts therefore shifts with the intermingling from the juxtaposition between the lines of Cain and Seth, to Nephilim directly juxtaposed with Noah. Mighty people of renown vs “a righteous man who walked with God”. In chapter 6:5 God’s verdict on humanity producing the Nephilim is that it is wickedness on a scale deserving of the judgement of The Flood.

However, we are told that the Nephilim are on the earth not only before the Flood but also afterwards (6:4). How they survive the Flood is interesting. My money is on the wife of Noah’s son Ham. After the Flood their grandson Nimrod sounds awfully Nephilim-ish, and he sets up Babylon and Assyria, forever after the great centres of power, culture and enmity towards the people of God.

The two most obvious post-Flood Nephilim narratives (apart from Nimrod) are when the leaders who are sent by Moses to survey the land report that they have encountered Nephilim in Numbers 13 and, almost certainly, Goliath. In both cases the people of God, like the line of Seth, seem like they don’t stand a chance (and believe that they haven’t got a chance) against the seemingly invincible humanity 2.0. It is not just that Goliath is a 9 feet tall human tank that makes them faint with fear, it is his challenge that they haven’t got a proper man to fight him. If your definition of a “proper man” is Nephilim, he is right. Ordinary people, however godly or numerous, don’t stand against Nephilim themselves. They always need a saviour from God who is able to defeat them.

Is it too much of a stretch to say that the fundamental conflict from Genesis 6 onwards is that between a world desperately seeking mighty human people and mighty human power, and “a righteous man who walked with God?” Nephilim-ishness vs godliness? Is it too far to say that human systems and structures and ingenuity that aim to save and glorify ourselves, whether obviously dubious (like totalitarian power, or ever more sophisticated weapons or the idea of complete self-definition of what it means for individuals to be human or Las Vegas) or far less obviously so (beautiful architecture, technology, art harnessed to the glorification of humanity), are Nephilim-culture? And, in some sense, perpetually at odds with the godly because their aim is to demonstrate that you don’t need God or the seed of the promise in order to maximise our potential and redeem ourselves. (I am not a strongly anti-culture type, but neither am I persuaded by some Christians initiatives that assume that culture is all redeemable to the glory of God. Some culture, at least, is deliberately an attempt to make God unnecessary).

In Mark 1:1 Jesus is introduced as the Christ, the Son of God. In Luke 3 Jesus is “the Son of Adam, the Son of God”. In Luke 22, before the Sanhedrin Jesus claims to be the Son of Man, the human figure of with divine authority in the book of Daniel, but also full of resonance of THE Son of Adam, ie the promised seed. The Sanhedrin immediately get the implication. In response to his claim to be the Son of Man they reply “are you the Son of God?” That is, are you claiming to be not only the promised seed of Adam, but a new Adam? (and by implication of that title, also the King of Israel and the World). When he agrees it is considered so blasphemous as to merit death.

Here, then, is the irony. Humanity producing counterfeit promised seeds in the Nephilim was what drew down the judgement of God and the death of humanity in the Flood. Whereas the true seed from God drew down the wrath of the mighty people of renown, both religious and secular power, and died himself. But he is the ultimate saviour from God, he is the promised seed, that is needed to rescue and redeem both from the judgement of death due to humanity for the Fall and from our attempts to mitigate it by gaining might and renown for ourselves. The judgement of God and the hubris of Mankind are both dealt with by the real Human 2.0, firstly by his humility on the cross, then by his resurrection that silences all human-centred pride and self-confidence. And, finally, by his triumph and ultimate victory at the end of time when he will defeat Babylon (Rev 19) and all Nephilim-like attempts to deify ourselves.