Hope of Israel; Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH):

The Bible and Giants

The ABR Electronic Newsletter, January 2004

"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown" (Genesis 6:4, KJV).

In Genesis 6:5 (equivalent to 6:4 in other versions) of the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, we find the following:

"Now the giants were upon the earth in those days; and after that when the sons of God were wont to go in to the daughters of men, they bore children to them, those were the GIANTS of old, the men of renown."

Unfortunately, the word "GIANTS" in the last part of the above verse is a translation from the original Greek which, in turn, was a BAD translation from the Hebrew, and should read "mighty ones." There are TWO different Hebrew words involved here: The word "giants" in the first part of the verse is translated from the Hebrew word nephilim, while the word "GIANTS" in the last part of the verse comes from the Hebrew word gibbor -- meaning "mighty one," "valiant man," "warrior" or "tyrant."

Explains Kaiser, Davids, Bruce and Brauch --

"The word gibborim comes from gibbor, meaning 'a mighty man of valor, strength, wealth or power.' Nimrod, in Genesis 10:8, was such a gibbor. He also was clearly a king in the land of Shinar. Hence the meaning...is NOT 'giants,' but something more like 'princes,' 'aristocrats' or 'great men'" (Hard Sayings of the Bible, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. 1996, p. 108).

With this in mind, the above verse from the Septuagint should read:

"Now the giants [nephilim] were upon the earth in those days; and after that when the sons of God were wont to go in to the daughters of men, they bore children to them, those were the MIGHTY ONES [gibborim] of old, the men of renown."

So the offspring from the union between the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" were the mighty ones or men of valor -- NOT the nephilim giants!

While this verse in Genesis in the Bible introduces to us the existence of giants, the Hebrew term Nephilim used here can mean "prop., a feller, i.e. a bully or tyrant -- giant" according to The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (#5303).  However, the trait of huge size seems inextricably linked to the term. Present in the days of the antediluvians -- "in those days" hearkens back to Genesis 6:1, "when men began to multiply on the face of the earth" -- at first glance the expression "and also after that" may lead one to think they reappeared after the Flood.

This is by no means clear, however; the phrase may simply mean they continued to coexist with "normal" humans for an indeterminate period of time. The additional phrase that further describes them as "mighty men which were of old" implies they were no longer extant at the time Moses penned these words. The identity of the Nephilim is much debated by theologians and Bible students, with a key issue being the identification of the "sons of God" -- but that is a topic for another day! Let us press on... (See HOIM article, Did Angels Marry Women Before the Flood?)

Continuing through the Old Testament, one finds numerous further verses touching on the subject of giants. Other passages dealing with them include the following:

Numbers 13:32-33: "And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, 'The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.'"

Deuteronomy 1:28: "Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, 'The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.'"

Deuteronomy 3:11: "For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants. Indeed his bedstead was an iron bedstead...Nine cubits is its length and four cubits its width, according to the standard cubit."

Joshua 9:10: "...and all that He did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan -- to Sihon king of Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who was at Ashtaroth."

Joshua 11:21-22: "And at that time Joshua came and cut off the Anakim from the mountains: from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, from all the mountains of Israel; Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel; they remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod."

Joshua 12:4: "Og king of Bashan and his territory, who was of the remnant of the giants, who dwell at Ashtaroth and at Edrei..."

1 Samuel 17:4-7: "And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span [anywhere from 9ft 9in to 10ft 10in depending on the cubit used]. He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze [125.6 pounds]. And he had bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his iron spearhead weighed six hundred shekels [15 pounds]; and a shield-bearer went before him."

2 Samuel. 21:16: "Then Ishbi-Benob, who was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose bronze spear was three hundred shekels, who was bearing a new sword, thought he could kill David."

2 Samuel 21:20: "Yet again there was a battle in Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; and he also was born to the giant."

1 Chronicles 20:4-8: "Now it happened afterward that war broke out at Gezer with the Philistines, at which time Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Sippai, who was one of the sons of the giant. And they were subdued. Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. Yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, with twenty-four fingers and toes, six on each hand and six on each foot; and he also was born to the giant. So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him. These were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants."

As they undertook the conquest of the Promised Land under Joshua and continued to extend their dominion over it into the time of David, the Israelites reported a number of encounters with the enormous men known as the Rephaim and Anakim.

It should be noted that Numbers 13:33 reports the spies saying that "the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim," but this is likely nothing more than their personal opinion which Moses simply reports, rather than a statement of fact. Most Bible translations include this phrase as part of the spies' quoted words, not as a separate parenthetical observation by Moses; and further, the phrase is textually suspect, being absent from the Septuagint, and scholars such as Eryl Davies (commentary on Numbers in the New Century Bible Commentary) regard it as an explanatory scribal gloss rather than part of the original text. For these reasons, it is safest to understand Numbers 13:33 as simply expressing the opinion of some that the size of the sons of Anak brought the Nephilim to mind.

Regardless of whether the Anakim were actually related to the Nephilim, it is obvious that the Israelites were dealing with giants. If our understanding is correct that a cubit was approximately 18 inches, then Goliath, at "six cubits and a span," was somewhat over 9 feet tall. Og, the King of Bashan whose bed is described in Deuteronomy 3:11 as being about 14 feet long by 6 feet wide, was thought to be 10 to 12 feet tall.

As difficult as it may be for us to imagine such huge people today -- Shaquille O'Neal is a mere stripling compared to them! -- the clear impression one receives from these reports is that they record factual information, not mere legend. If we consider for a moment that from dogs we can breed not only toy poodles but also mastiffs, we ought to keep an open mind to the size possibilities incorporated by the Creator into the genes of the earliest humans.

But the skeptic has a right to ask: lf the Bible is true, where is the EVIDENCE for these huge beings? Where are the displays in the museums? Where are the archaeological reports that record the discovery of their remains? This is a fair question. lf one goes to any of the major museums, you will not find any exhibits of giant human beings. Search the Smithsonian galleries, for example, and you will see not a single giant bone or footprint cast on display. The clear impression given is that evidence of giants has never been found, and, intentionally or not, this tends to cast the Biblical record in an unfavorable light.

Yet concluding such evidence does not exist at all would be quite wrong! Reputable reports, found in the pages of older newspapers and magazines and given by credible witnesses, of the discovery of such remains HAVE come to light from time to time. The problem is, there is a reigning paradigm within the enclave of professional anthropologists which spills over into our museums, and which allows no place for such "anomalous artifacts." The gatekeepers of our major museums adhere to an orthodoxy which mandates that such oddities as giant skulls be kept under wraps, reserved for the eyes of insiders only, presumably lest the unsophisticated begin to doubt the officially-sanctioned history of humanity. As Joseph R. Jochmans has written (Strange Relics from the Depths of the Earth),

"lt is becoming increasingly apparent that not all facts from the past find their 'proper' place. Other discoveries have been made that [compellingly] contradict the accepted model. Yet these discoveries are largely ignored, since it is far easier for the majority of scientists and historians to uphold what is 'established,' than to try to build a new model based on the ‘exceptions.'"

lt is not unlike the end of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. Having recovered the Ark of the Covenant from the clutches of the Nazis, lndy finds himself compelled in the end to leave it in the hands of the authorities, who promise to "take care of it." And what is the outcome? We find the Ark packed up in a nondescript crate and spirited away to disappear into the bowels of an endless warehouse, conveniently taking along with it all of the uncomfortable questions it might raise. Many feel that this is exactly what has happened to most of the giant artifacts dug up by past generations, and why newer discoveries receive no notice.

Contrary to the impression given by the museums, however, we HAVE discovered evidence that "there were giants in the earth." Space precludes listing more than a few mentioned in Jochmans' article:

Eureka, NV, 1877: "...the prospector was surprised to find a human leg bone and knee cap sticking out of solid rock....When the surrounding stone was carefully chipped away, the specimen was found to be composed of a leg bone broken off four inches above the knee, the knee cap and joint, the lower leg bones, and the complete bones of the foot. Several medical doctors examined the remains, and were convinced that anatomically they had indeed once belonged to a human being, and a very modern-looking one. But an intriguing aspect of the bones was their size; from knee to heel they measured 39 inches. Their owner in life had thus stood over 12 feet tall" (Jochmans. p. 4).

Carson City, NV, 1882: "...several human tracks were found. The tracks were in six series, each with alternate right and left tracks. The stride was from two and a half to over three feet, and the individual prints were from 18 to 20 inches in length -- that of a giant. The straddle -- the distance between the left and right prints -- was 18 to 19 inches" (Jochmans, p. 5).

Carrizo \/alley, OK, 1970s: "The shoe prints...reveal their wearers to have been above normal size with the imprints averaging 20 inches long and 8 inches across the ball of the foot [suggesting a height of roughly 12 feet]" (Jochmans, p. 7).

Anthropologist Georges Vacher de Lapouge turned up a surprise in 1890: While excavating a Bronze Age cemetery at Castelnau, near Montpellier, France, he discovered three apparently human bones of gigantic size, indicating that the individual would have stood between 10 and 11 feet tall. "There has been an old tradition among the peasants of the vicinity that a cavern in the valley was, in olden times, occupied by a giant," noted Popular Science News. "It would be curious if the discovery of M. Lapouge should show it to be founded on fact."

Interestingly, the bones of further French giants were reported to have turned up near the same location a few years later. From the Princeton Union, October 11, 1894: "In a prehistoric cemetery recently uncovered at Montpellier, France, while workmen were excavating a waterworks reservoir, human skulls were found measuring 28, 31, and 32 inches in circumference. The bones which were found with the skulls were also of gigantic proportions. These relics were sent to the Paris academy, and a learned 'savant' who lectured on the find says that they belonged to a race of men between ten and fifteen feet in height."

In the 1920s, the island of Catalina in California was owned by the Wrigley Chewing gum family, who hired Prof. Ralph Glidden to conduct a series of digs on the island under the direction of the Catalina Museum. What they found made headlines around the world, only to be written out of the history books less than 10 years later. In short, Glidden and his team exhumed the remains of 3,781 skeletons of a race of blond-haired giants. The tallest was believed to be a king who measured 9’2” tall and the average height of the skeletons was reported to be around 7 feet. In addition, the team found the remains of a megalithic “Stonehenge-era” temple. Later radio-carbon dating revealed that some of the skeletons unearthed were 7,000 years old. For over 50 years the proofs pertaining to these discoveries were vigorously denied by the University of California and The Smithsonian, but in 2011 it was finally admitted that the evidence for these finds had been locked away from the public in the restricted-access evidence rooms of the Smithsonian, along with detailed field reports and hundreds of photos.

In one notable case, it was reported that an 8-foot tall giant was unearthed near Pelican Lake in Michigan, while in another report from Westport, giant burials were found in association with ten-pound axes and an eight-foot high wall, which was 15-feet thick and ran across a river embankment for 1500 feet. It was noted that the wall was made from hard red bricks, some of an immense size. In the woods nearby the shore, a mound was opened which contained a giant buried with several rolls of textiles and a finely-finished grooved stone axe.

I recently received a copy of an e-mail about a living missionary who, prior to becoming a Christian, was an anthropologist. It includes the following fascinating information, which I have not yet been able to verify firsthand, but has the ring of truth about it. (Not having been able to confirm the details, I am leaving out the missionary's name.)

"She was privy to things that they don't let the public readily see. They display anomalies for study. They don't prohibit people from seeing them, but they do keep it real quiet and pretty much among themselves....The thing l remember most out of the dozens of examples she gave, was that she professed to have seen and held in her hands, a DOZEN human skulls that were T\/VICE the size of a normal human skull. That would make a 12ft tall man, who might weigh over 1000 pounds.

"She testified that when she was being witnessed to by the person who eventually led her to Christ, she was encouraged to read the Bible. She finally started to do just that, and opened a Bible to the beginning and started reading. She didn't get six chapters into the book when she came across Gen 6:4 -- 'There were giants in the earth in those days...'

"She said a chill went down her spine, because she knew she had handled evidence that this verse was true. She knew that this was exactly the kind of thing the Bible is mocked for except in this case, she knew the Bible was right. This gave her confidence that she could trust the Bible and doubt the skeptics, instead of the other way around. Shortly afterward she got saved, and the rest is history."

The Smithsonian Institution is continually linked to giant skeletons, or at least the lack of them. Most of the reports end in something like this: “The bones were shipped to the Smithsonian Institution for further study.” This ongoing problem of the “missing bones” has become a matter of legend, as there are dozens of reports of the Smithsonian receiving artifacts and giant skeletons. Today, however, they deny their existence, and we have to conclude that a cover-up may have been instigated in the late 1800s because it did not fit in with their new ideologies of "Manifest Destiny" and "Evolution." Although the giants were sidelined in the early stages of scientific discovery, they were, thanks to earlier explorers of America, already in the written record.

I think it would be an enormous help in setting the record straight if archaeological work could be done at Biblical sites mentioned in Scripture as being the home of giants. lf remains of some of the Anakim or Rephaim were freshly unearthed by professionals who are not married to the reigning paradigm, this could go a long way toward getting the other skeletons out of the closet! Possible locations for such work include the sites mentioned in the Biblical passages alluded to earlier -- Hebron, Debir, Gaza, Gath, Ashdod, Ashtaroth, and Edrei, among others.

Unfortunately, the continuing unrest in most of these areas makes formal research infeasible right now. But one way or another, hopefully the day will soon come when the wraps will be removed from this hidden facet of human history, and our museums will pull out of mothballs the "anomalous" remains that have long been kept hidden.

In summary, there are giants in the earth...and some have been excavated, but not put on display for the public to see. I, for one, want to see them with my own eyes, for they are part of the ancient history of this world which the Bible so faithfully records, as it does all the matters of our fact-based faith in the Living God.

-- Edited by John D. Keyser