Who are the Nephilim?
BY GINA DETWILER
If you’ve read any of the Forlorn books, you know that Jared is descended from the Nephilim in the Bible. You might have lots of questions, like, how did that happen? And, who are the Nephilim? Were they really giants? Why isn’t Jared a giant? Can he be saved? And so forth. I will try to answer some of these questions while opening quite a few cans of worms, no doubt.
Who Are the Nephilim?
The Nephilim first appear in the Bible in Genesis 6.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. Genesis 6:4
Yes, you read that right. Angels, “sons of God,” mated with human women. That’s what it says. The word Nephilim means “giants.” Some translate it “fallen ones,” but this is probably incorrect. The Nephilim were not fallen, like the fallen angels who fathered them. Genesis refers to the Nephilim as “mighty men, men of renown.” They were the superheroes of their time, similar to demigods like Hercules. Nothing in this passage indicates that they were necessarily bad guys.
Yet shortly after their appearance, at least in the biblical timeline of Genesis, God sent the Great Flood to wipe out all of mankind. The Bible doesn’t say it was because of the Nephilim, only that man’s wickedness had become very great, but the two passages are so closely aligned that it seems hardly a coincidence. The Book of Enoch adds this detail:
And the women conceiving brought forth giants, “Whose stature was each three hundred cubits. These devoured all which the labor of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them; When they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them; And began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood. Their flesh one after another.”
Gross.
The Bible also says that the Nephilim came back in some form or other after the Flood. See the “and also afterward” part of the Genesis 6 quote? There were several giant tribes inhabiting Canaan from the Conquest until the time of David: the “Sons of Anak” (Anakim), the Amorites, the Zumin (or Zamzummin), the Emim, and the Rephaim. In Numbers, the spies sent to check out the Promised Land were so afraid of the giants that they advised against proceeding with the invasion, which led to the Israelites being stuck in the desert for forty years. King Og of Bashan—an Amorite king conquered by Moses— had a bed that was thirteen feet long, making him around ten or eleven feet tall. He’s described in Deuteronomy as the “last of the Rephaim.” Goliath, the huge warrior killed by David, was from Gath, a known giant outpost.
Why weren’t the giants wiped out in the Flood?
Why these giants didn’t get wiped out in the Flood is a matter of some conjecture. My theory is that someone on the Ark was a “carrier” of the Nephilim gene, most likely Ham’s wife, the mother of Canaan. There’s another theory that the angels returned and committed their sins again after the Flood (but how could they if they were already imprisoned?) The other possibility is that the Flood was not worldwide, and some people survived—giants would probably fare better in a flood than regular people, after all. Though the Bible clearly states that the Flood was worldwide, some biblical scholars believe it was a local event.
How Could Jared Be a Nephilim? Why Isn’t He a Giant?
To create a modern-day Nephilim character, I had to explain some things. One, how could this character—Jared—live so long? After the Nephilim appeared, God limited the lifespan of humans to one hundred and twenty years. Before that, people lived a lot longer, and Nephilim could almost live forever since they were part angels. I decided that Jared grew and developed very slowly—that one year for him would be like ten human years. This is why he is over one hundred and fifty years old yet still looks like a teenager when Forlorn begins.
I also had to explain why he looked like a normal human, except for a few strange qualities like glowing eyes and superhuman strength. I decided my Nephilim not only grow very slowly, but they also don’t develop their full Nephilim characteristics until they’ve reached a certain age and sexual development—kind of a Nephilim puberty. Jared stays below the threshold because he remains sexually pure, though he starts to show signs of changing in the newest book, Forbidden. Some fully mature (and quite ancient) Nephilim show up in the third book, Forgiven, so if you read that, you can see what Jared will eventually turn into. It’s not pretty. This is in keeping with my reading of Genesis—how the Nephilim were mighty men of renown until they became corrupt and bloodthirsty and started to destroy the world.
Jared’s emergence—as the first full-blooded Nephilim in a thousand years—also had to be explained. I used the model of “autosomal recessive disorders,” which occurs when both parents are carriers —they carry the gene even though they are not affected by the disease themselves. Examples are Cystic Fibrosis and Sickle-Cell Anemia. These disorders are “recessive” because the child has a one in four chance of receiving both genes and therefore getting the disease.
I imagined that the “Nephilim gene” (passed down from the fallen angel Azazel) had been lurking in particular family lines for thousands of years. Jared’s family had, up until his birth, been cautious to avoid any problematic unions, as I explain more fully in Before: Jared’s Story. Once Jared was born, older family members wanted him destroyed, knowing full well what he would eventually become.
Can the Nephilim Be Saved?
Will Jared be forever cursed? You’ll have to read Forbidden to find out!
Gina Detwiler’s newest installment of the Forlorn series, Forbidden, will be released March 29! Pre-order your copy on Amazon today!
