The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim (9 page)

It is vital to establish exactly what it is that Moses would have experienced during those first 40 years of his life in order to have an understanding of what influenced him when he became the leader of the wilderness-wandering nation of Israel later in life. The culture, education, and religion of Egypt would have had an intensely engraining influence on the man, despite the Bible telling us that he made a conscious choice to identify himself with his own people—which alone tells us that he was being raised as an Egyptian, living as part of the royal family of 18th Dynasty Egypt in Thebes, near Luxor, roughly 400 miles up the Nile, south of present-day Cairo. Moses was less Hebrew than he was Egyptian, so for him to make a cognitive choice to identify himself with his slave people of origin, was nothing less than altruistic. Perhaps even heroic.

But was his identification with the Hebrews an “act of faith” on his part, as the New Testament Book of Hebrews tells us, or was it in an attempt to look for opportunities to
rule
them?

There is a traditional tale in Jewish mishnah that speaks of Moses leading an army, under orders of the Pharaoh, to quell a rebellion in Nubia. Once the rebellion is squashed, and thousands of rebels are
dead, Moses takes the throne for his very own, much to the chagrin of the ruling family in Nubia. Word gets back to the Pharaoh, who hastily reprimands Moses, telling him to relinquish the throne to the vassal ruling family, and to get himself and his army back to Egypt. Moses, of course, abdicates the short-lived monarchy, and returns to the courts of the Pharaoh.

Desiring a position as the ruler of a people was in Moses’ blood. He was raised as a prince, and his Egyptian queen step-mother raised him to be the next Pharaoh.

I cannot emphasize enough how utterly important it is, in dissecting the story of the Watchers descent to Mount Hermon and their offspring the Nephilim—to have an understanding of what Moses would have been exposed to in the royal tutilage and religious philosophies of 18th Dynasty Egypt.

Moses was born a slave, but adopted by a queen of Egypt, where he grew up as a palace kid, enjoying an upbringing that afforded him a royal education and lifestyle. What we know from the biblical account is that as he grew older, he began to identify himself more and more with his own people, and arrogantly saw himself, from his lofty position in the royal courts of Egypt, as the prophesied deliverer of the Hebrew people from bondage. Taking matters into his own hands, he murdered an Egyptian taskmaster and fled for his life from the wrath of the Pharaoh. He spent the next 40 years as a shepherd in the land of Midian, where he married the daughter of Jethro, the high priest of Midian, and lived to the age of 80 as a sort of outback, off-the-grid shepherd.

It was at the age of 80 that he saw a miraculous vision of God in the form of a burning bush, and was called out to return to Egypt and lead the Hebrews out of slavery. Moses balked and attempted to get out of any task that would bring him back to the land where he had spent the first half of his life and where he was wanted for murder. But God assured him that those who sought his life were long since dead and his
crimes forgotten. Moses returned, and, in a series of coercive plagues leveled against the land of Egypt, finally convinced the pharaoh to set the Hebrews free after the plague of the firstborn took the life of the Pharaoh’s son. Under Moses’ leadership, the Hebrews left Egypt
en masse
overnight in an event called the Great Exodus, which has been celebrated ever since at the Jewish Passover.

The Pharaoh, of course, has second thoughts and mounts his armies to pursue the escaping Hebrew slaves, only to have them destroyed in one of the Bible’s greatest, single mythically miraculous events: the parting of the Red Sea. Once completely free of the Pharaoh and his armies, Moses leads the Hebrews to the Holy Mountain of God—some say it is Sinai, other writings place it at Jabal Musa in Saudi Arabia. It is here that Moses climbs to the top and meets God face-to-face, and God sends him back down 40 days later with the tablets of the Law inscribed (by God’s own hand) with the Ten Commandments. Upon Moses’ descent, he finds the people worshipping a golden calf and partying like an Egyptian. He breaks the tablets and imposes punishment for the idolatrous worship, then returns to the mountaintop, where God inscribes a new set of stone texts for him.

The Hebrews make their way to the Land of Cana’an, only to have their spies return with reports of giant Nephilim dwelling in the land. In fear, the people tell Moses that they are unwilling to enter Cana’an and conquer it, even though it was promised them by God because it was their ancestral homeland. So Moses leads them back out to the wilderness where they wander as a nomadic tribe for 40 years. In the process of their wilderness sojourn, Moses, in an angry response to the complaints of the people, commits the sinful act of pride by equating himself with God, and is then told by God that for his punishment, he could see the promised land, but not enter it. As the Hebrews march into the land of Cana’an, Moses ascends the slope of Mount Nebo, where he gazes into the land of God’s promise, and dies. His body is never found.

In the entire account of the life and deeds of Moses as written in the Old Testament, we are never given the names of the historical kings of Egypt with whom Moses lived and against whom he stood in conflict
in his return to lead the Hebrews out of captivity. They are referred to only as “Pharaoh” or “the king of Egypt.”

Moses had particular reasons for writing these accounts the way he did, the first of which was a demonstration of just how unimportant the names of these great rulers were to the story of the deliverance of his people. Examining the life of Moses and the dating of his exploits will bring a much greater understanding of the texts he authored and subsequently his handling of the topic of the Nephilim in his Book of Genesis.

It is extremely important to have an understanding of the historical data surrounding these people and events, for without that information we are left to dangle at the end of the rope of mythology and legend. Seeking out and ascribing solid dates and historical facts is nothing short of throwing wide the door of illumination on the dark room of ignorance and speculative conjecture. Of course, there are many who will say that these very facts presented here are nothing but subjective hypothesis, yet out of all the systems and theories set in place to establish the historical life of Moses, this is the one that makes the most sense by the current facts as they exist—at least when one makes an attempt to ensure the facts as presented in the Bible concur as closely as possible to the historical record.

And before you walk away from this chapter wondering what the historical story of Moses has to do with the Sons of God and the Nephilim, consider this: The man who wrote about them in the Book of Genesis experienced an upbringing, education, and lifestyle in the courts of the Egyptian royalty. Being one of the progeny of the Pharaoh, who was considered to be a god, Moses was indeed himself, a literal “son of god” in the eyes of the Egyptian people. Moses’ notions of the creation of the world and the birth of humanity were greatly influenced by the religion of the Egyptian culture that was all around him during his first 40 years of life.

According to the Book of Exodus, Moses stepped out and chose to be identified with his own people, the Hebrew slaves, but at the same time, he did not relinquish his position in the royal family of Egypt. It is plainly evident in the passages of biblical text that he saw this identification with the Hebrews as a way to set himself up as their promised deliverer. In a very real sense, there was an undercurrent of political opportunism in Moses that he could not simply allow to pass by. He may have had a faith that he was the promised deliverer, as the New Testament Book of Hebrews tells us, but that faith seems to be something applied to his acts by the foundational apologists for the Christian faith, as opposed to the literal moral motivation on the part of Moses. It is clear in the Exodus text that he saw himself as greater than those around him—a thing not at all out of place for someone raised in a family of monarchs who held an iron-fisted rule over Egypt.

The Barque shrine relief (highlighted area) at Medinat Habu, “House of Millions of Years.” Located at the upper western end of the lower portion of the north interior wall of the second courtyard, the “Festival Hall,” northwestern quadrant. Moses would have seen this wall many times during his youth in Egypt
.
Photos courtesy of Dr. John T. Ward and Dr. Maria Nilsson, The Sirius Project copyright 2011. Used with permission.

And make no mistake about it: Moses was Hebrew in name only during his first 40 years of life. Moses was an Egyptian through and through, as most of his writings, philosophies, adjudication of laws, and building of religious ceremonial objects implies. Even the ark of the covenant, which Moses, as the voice of God, gave instruction to build, resembles so closely the relief paintings of Egyptian barque shrines of worship, that the roots of influence are undeniable.

There is a hardcore, undisputed historical date in the Old Testament on which we can hang our hat when determining the dating of the events of Moses’ life. Once this date is established, the rest of the mystery surrounding Moses’ life unravels.

In 966
BCE
, in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon, the son of David, as king of Israel, the first Jewish temple built in Jerusalem (known historically and archaeologically as “Temple”) was dedicated.
³
This is an iron-clad date in history, disputed only by a number of three to five years in either direction by Jewish, Christian, and historical scholars alike.

“In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the LORD.”

(1 Kings 6:1)

And there you have it. Although even the existence of kings David and Solomon is still in raging dispute among archaeologists, scholars, and biblical minimalists, the temple in Jerusalem was dedicated in 966
BCE
, and the date is non-disputed. This brings us to the dating of the Exodus. According to the aforementioned passage from 1 Kings,
the temple was dedicated in the 480th year after the Hebrews were led out of their Egyptian captivity. This would make the year of the great Exodus under the leadership of Moses, the first Passover of the Jewish religion, 1446
BCE
. And if Moses was 80 years old at the time of the Exodus, he would have been born in 1526
BCE
during the reign of Thutmoses I.

“8 Then a new king… came to power in Egypt. 9 ‘Look,’ he said to his people, ‘the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.’ 11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.”

(Exodus 1:8-14)

In accordance with the dateline we hinge on the dating of Solomon’s Temple, Moses was born in 1526
BCE
, during the first year of the reign of Thutmoses I, the son of Hebrew slaves Amram and Jocabel. Thutmoses I ruled Egypt from 1526 to 1513
BCE
, and it was during his reign, the Bible tells us, that the Pharaoh of Egypt issued a decree that all Hebrew male children below the age of 2 years be slain and cast into the Nile River.

“15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 ‘When you are helping
the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.’ 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, ‘Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?’ 19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, ‘Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.’ 20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. 22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: ‘Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.’”