The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim (13 page)

The list of cross-cultural accounts of the flood and the giants could fill volumes of books, so I merely noted a handful to illustrate the point that nearly every culture has its own version of the Flood of Noah and the elements that brought on the great deluge. Again, the absence of recorded history becomes a near-irrelevancy when stacked against the innumerable cultural accounts that all seem to hail back to a singular common event. This is by no means the final word on the matter, but merely a start in sifting through the many mythological evidences that seem to point to a great historic event.

As mentioned, there are many cultural references to “giants” and “visitors from the sky,” whom most tales refer to as angels, demons, or spirit beings. These “spirits who descended” are found in nearly every account of the ancient deluge, and are found in innumerable ancient accounts such as the Anaaye (Diné/Navajo), the Nunhyunuwi
(Cherokee), the Cawr (Welsh), the Dev (Turkish), the Velikan (Russian), the Yak (Thai), the Rephaim (Hebrew), the Famangomadan (Spanish), the Wrnach (Welsh), Fomorians (Celtic), Dasa Maha Yodayo (Sri Lanka), the Puntan (Micronesia), the Azrail (Armenian), the Gigantes (Greek), and many, many others.

The notion that the accounts of the Nephilim reached every culture of the world is not as far-fetched as we might think. Though the story of the descent of the Watchers to the top of Mount Hermon is the Hebrew version, other cultural mythologies have their own variations on the tale. Whether borrowed and incorporated into their own mythologies and legends, or experienced firsthand by their own ancient inhabitants, it is clear that the Nephilim in one form or another affected the populations of nearly all ancient cultures, exponentially spreading around the globe.

But where did the Nephilim come from, in the first place?

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel…”

—The Creature, from Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein

“The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.”

—Francis Bacon

Enoch, a book found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, called them “The Watchers,” these non-earthly beings who seemed to hold some sort of superior capacity over the inhabitants of the earth. The writer of 1 Enoch even subtitles a section of the book, “The Book of the Watchers”: 1 Enoch 6-36. In the Aramaic the Watchers are the Irin, which is translated as “angel” (Greek
angelos;
Coptic
malah)
in the Greek and Ethiopian translations, although the commonly used Aramaic term for angel,
malakha
, never appears in the Book of Enoch, which is written in Aramaic. Irin is a word also found in the Old Testament’s historical/prophetic Book of Daniel, where three times throughout the book the author links them directly to God’s holy angels. It is in the Book of Daniel that the great Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar falls into a period of madness upon seeing a “Watcher, a holy one (singular) come down from heaven” and appear to him in a dream and prophesy. The singular form of the word in this context suggests that “a Watcher” and “a Holy One” are two different titles for the same entity or caste of entities.

In the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar goes on to describe the message delivered to him in his dream, wherein he is told that he will be reduced to madness and shall crawl upon the ground as a beast, eating grass, and that this divinely ordered punishment is “by the decree of the Watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones” in order that “the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men.” Nebuchadnezzar then falls into an undefined period of mental illness and temporal insanity after which, when he comes back to his full senses, he states:

“34 At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. 35 All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’ 36 At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. 37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”

(Daniel 4:34-37)

It appears that the Watchers had made their point. And it is also clearly indicated by this passage that the Watchers themselves existed long after the rebellion of Shamyaza and his followers on Mount Hermon, and were a caste who, in their non-rebellious station, were emissaries of God or of a much higher, superior being. If nothing else, it is abundantly clear that the Watchers are here in this passage again established as being part of a hierarchy who answered to a superior authority.

In the Book of Enoch, the Watchers are angels who have been dispatched or assigned to the earth to “watch over” its inhabitants, but in the process of conducting their duties, they become enamored with human women. The passage in Genesis says they “lusted” after the women of the earth, which results in one
en masse
act of rebellion in which they follow the prodding of their leader, Shamyaza, and illicitly instruct human beings in all types of arts and practices not yet naturally developed by humans. And they, of course, enter into intimate relations and sexual procreative activity with the inferior humans. The draw for these beings to interact and have intercourse with human women must have been either a very strong urge, if they indeed were angelic or superior in nature, or it was the act of beings who had a definitive purpose and goal of interbreeding.

Whether they were divinely appointed emissaries part of an orderly caste of angels that held responsibility over mankind, or a race of infiltrators perceived by the earth’s population as gods and spirit beings, they seemingly had the ability to choose and impregnate whomever they wished. And having had such ability clearly indicates that they were much higher on the cosmic food chain than the humans they were able to subjugate and influence at whim. The great theological question looms around whether or not they were part of the biblical accounts of fallen angels or only labeled as such in the perception of those who first beheld and intercoursed with them.

After their offspring, the Nephilim, are conceived, the Watchers carry on a systematic instruction of humans in the arts of herbology, cosmetics, mirrors, weaponry, sorcery, and other technical advances that would otherwise have taken a much longer period of time for humans to develop on their own. It gives humanity a foisted-upon boost that would not otherwise have happened in such a short period of time. This ongoing teaching was carried out by Shamyaza and the 200 Watchers who were there dwelling among the humans along with him.

There are 20 leaders of the Watchers mentioned in the Book of Enoch:

“7 And these are the names of their leaders: Samlazaz, their leader, Araklba, Rameel, Kokablel, Tamlel, Ramlel, Danel, Ezeqeel, Baraqijal, 8 Asael, Armaros, Batarel, Ananel, Zaqlel, Samsapeel, Satarel, Turel, Jomjael, Sariel. These are their chiefs of tens.”

(1 Enoch—The Book of the Watchers 6: 7-8

According to the Book of Enoch, the Watchers who took wives, had sexual intercourse with them, producing offspring, and taught forbidden knowledge became part of the caste of fallen angels. Enoch lists their leaders by specific names. And take specific note of how many of these beings bear the name of their maker, Elohim, denoted by the “El” at the end of the name (Other such great archangels who bore the name of God, ranking them as “Sons of God [bene haElohim] are Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, but they were not part of the fallen caste.):

“1 ‘And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them,
and they taught them charms 2 and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they 3 became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed 4 all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against 5 them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and 6 fish, and to devour one another’s flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.”

(1 Enoch 7:1-6)

So the Watchers, some 200 in number, swore an oath to one another on the slopes of Mount Hermon in northern Israel, making a pact to descend to the earth, take human form, and take wives from the daughters of men. Ignoring, for a moment, the obvious mythical, mystical aspect of angelic beings—and this seems such an inconsequential thing in current cultural mindset, where we no longer have great prohibitions against intermarriage among the races except in racially entrenched pockets of modern civilization—and one would think that this sort of inter-breeding on the part of (even mythological) characters is rather innocuous. There is almost a “who cares?” aura about it, until you consider the far reaching ramifications of the actions of the Watchers—especially if they are in any form true events that have been recorded. Just as we have “changed” the role of God as our civilized tendencies have evolved, we ascribe modern thinking to ancient prohibitions and deeds. Note what God said of himself to the prophet Amos in the pages of Old Testament scripture:

“7 This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord said to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A plumb line.’ Then the Lord said, ‘Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel;