(January 1, 2014 at 2:59 am)Minimalist Wrote: Xtians have lots of "traditions." Most of them they seem to have pulled out of their asses. So what?
Wrong is wrong.
I don't think that the traditional interpretation is irrelevant in this context. Nephilim is an unusual word. The etymology appears to go back to a verb meaning "fall", but we only have two uses of the term in Hebrew writings predating the Hellenistic period that have survived to the present day. From both of them, the term appears to apply to a mythological set of half human beings, kind of like the Greek demigods. If the understanding of people as early as the author of Numbers is that the beings referred to were giants, then there's a good chance that was an original part of the mythology about them.
At any rate, within a few centuries of the emergence of that tradition (which was probably an oral legend long before it was recorded in the written record), the ancient Hebrews believed that there were giants. Josephus, in the first century, noted that the bones of giants slain by the ancient Hebrews could still be found on display in Hebron, and that they were terrifying and "entirely unlike other men". More likely than not, he was referring to uncovered fossil remains, and these remains had inspired original legends of giants which are recorded in the Biblical text.
