The events of Genesis 6:1-4 have been enigmatic ever since they were recorded in Holy Scripture over 3,000 years ago. Attempts to explain the strange union of angelic beings with humanity have been many and varied. Perhaps the most famous (or is that infamous?) explanation came from the First Book of Enoch, a Jewish text drawing on centuries of Israelite tradition and written around the 3rd-2nd centuries BC.
The unknown author, representing himself as the ancient prophet and seventh patriarch Enoch, described events that Genesis does not preserve - how a group of high-ranking angelic beings made a pact to carry out an act of deliberate sin against God and man. They descended upon Mt. Hermon, in the northern region of Bashan (now southern Lebanon), and there began to commit an act of lustful selfishness that quickly turned into violent and systematic genocide against the human race.
But that’s just a story, right? A fanciful tale designed to offer an explanation for the state of the world in 3rd century BC Israel. It doesn’t need to be true to make a valid point, does it?
Or does it?!
A hundred years ago, archaeologists climbed to the summit of Mt. Hermon and made a terrifying discovery.
The Hermon Inscription is a stone marker featuring an engraved message. It preserves Ancient Greek text with peculiar features that date it to as far back as the 8th century BC.
That’s earlier than the Classical Greek poets.
Early efforts to translate the tablet were hindered by features that were at the time unattested previously, but since new evidence has come to light, fresh efforts to translate the full text have borne fruit.
The text reads as follows:
“According to the command of the Great Bull God of Bashan, those swearing an oath in this place go forth.”*
This is language from 500 years before 1 Enoch.
Although it comes much later than the historical date of the event that it records, the significance of this discovery remains undiminished. There is solid, archaeological evidence that the tradition of 1 Enoch had more behind it than just wild speculations based loosely on interpretations of Genesis 6.
THE BIBLE WAS TELLING THE TRUTH - LITERALLY.

* Translation based on that provided by researcher Douglas Hamp. 

The truth is out there.
- TJ Steadman

Recently I was going over my notes for an upcoming podcast episode. I was reviewing some material from a well-known scholar and as I read through his work, it occurred to me that I had seen some data from Scripture that I couldn't find in the work I was reading. He hadn't included it.

I double-checked. There were a number of occurrences of a word listed in his word study, which he claimed was exhaustive. When I checked his work, I found that there were a significant number of occurrences of this particular word that had not been incorporated into that study.

It soon became clear that there was a trend in the statistics. This particular scholar had a point to make, and he had simply used only the data that supported his premise, ignoring the information that challenged his conclusions. Checking his work took hours, and I'm sure he figured people just weren't going to take the trouble.

It would be nice to be able to say that this is uncommon, but unfortunately it isn't. All I can say is, don't just accept the information presented to you by your teachers. Test it honestly. If their work is consistent and uses all the available data, you can be confident you're not being misled. But when you get told, "This is all the data, and it says "X" every time," and then you find out there was other stuff that said "Y", it really tells you all you need to know about the integrity of that person as a source.

I'm not an academic or a member of clergy. I'm just a regular guy. I drive a forklift for a living and I do this stuff in my spare time. So if I'm picking up this kind of inconsistency in academic work, why aren't others? Where was the support of this scholar's peers, challenging him to be more transparent in his work?

I don't claim to be more intelligent, noble or informed than the guy in question. I'm just looking for sources I can trust. And I'm sure my readers are, too.

Test everything against Scripture.

​- T.J. Steadman

It's official. The Answers to Giant Questions Podcast is now available - and to get it first, you need to visit my good friends at the Raven Creek Social Club, who are hosting the show on my behalf.

The first episode is a long one, at roughly an hour and a quarter, because Kris and I took the time to introduce ourselves and the show and then we dived in to answer some of your questions. That's right - we are tackling the questions you submitted through the various avenues, right from the very first episode!

It might be as long as two weeks before you can find the show on your favourite pod catcher, since it's still very new. But that's why you need to follow the links here on this site, that will take you for a visit to Raven Creek. There, you'll find not only the brand new Answers to Giant Questions Podcast, but a whole swathe, a cache, nay, a trove! of really good podcasts done by some of my friends.

The Raven Creek Social Club is home to the flagship podcast, "Faith and Other Oddities," a Bible study show with your hosts Nathan Underwood and Emily Dixon.
You'll also find "The Commentarians," a show about movies, with Joe Zaragoza (I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest on an episode; check it out!).
"Changed My Mind," with Luke T. Harrington, will get you thinking outside the box, and "Tending Our Nets" with Joshua Sherman is a great show that equips believers with what they need to know to be effective stewards of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And now you can add to all that, the Answers to Giant Questions Podcast; the show that tackles your giant questions about the Biblical Nephilim! Featuring of course, yours truly, and my good friend and co-host, Kris Bather. Stay tuned as we will be releasing weekly episodes, and special features every now and then. As I mentioned above, you may not find us on the pod catchers right away, but don't forget to subscribe when you do. It's going to be an enormously interesting show.

A big shout out to my band mates at Grave Forsaken, who obliged with permission for us to use some awesome metal tunes as supporting audio clips for the show.

So, wait no longer - head over to Raven Creek and dive into the most exciting new show on the interwebs - the Answers to Giant Questions Podcast.

- T.J. Steadman :)

What the ancient reader understood from reading Genesis 1-11, is that there was not one single event to which one can ascribe all the ills and maladies of the world. Typically, we are taught in church that the Fall of Man in Genesis 3 is the whole and sole reason for everything that’s wrong with mankind and the world around him. There’s an element of core truth there, but it is usually overstated. Because ancient readers of the Bible knew full well that it was a series of rebellions that resulted in the hopeless condition of the world and the depravity of everything in it.

Breaking down the Primeval History, we are able to discern three major events that contributed to the problem of this fallen world. Event number one was, of course, the Fall, where the serpent robbed God’s image-bearers of their good standing with God by introducing sin. Adam bears full responsibility for his sin (and so do we for ours, by extension), but certainly, the sin did not occur until it was instigated by the serpent.

The second fall was, as we have seen, the fall of the angels, who taught illicit arts to humans and had forbidden unions with women, resulting in the Nephilim and their defilement and destruction of the human race (thus, a human fall).
​
The third and final event was the fall of civilization, demonstrated not in the building of a city but in the desire of the humans to exceed their divine mandate. What do these three “falls” have in common?
In each fall, there is the desire on the part of man to acquire power and knowledge that is the exclusive domain of the gods. The promise of the serpent delivered only the insatiable hunger that comes from realizing how much you lack something you were otherwise happy without.
The “sons of God” delivered on knowledge and even god-like power but at the cost of the very essence of humanity and the ravenous appetites of the flesh that were but a mere irritation before. The result was the near-total destruction of the human capacity to bear God’s image.
​
Nimrod’s offer to the world was to merge the human and the divine and restore the glory days that the Greeks later called “the Golden Age.” Ironically, this resulted in a “Silver Age” that never quite matched the imagined “glory” of the days of Noah. But the significance of the Babel event was not limited to the destructive force of giants. It went so far as to pervert world religion by facilitating the worship of a pantheon of corrupt, lesser, deities. Put simply, Babel was a transformation of world allegiance. The focus of the powers of darkness had shifted away from man’s capacity to bear the divine image. Now, the target was the allegiance of man to His Creator – if nothing could stop man’s capacity to represent Yahweh, then something had to be done about his desire to represent Him. But Nimrod can’t be credited with such evil genius. He is only remembered as a failure, a broken image, a man who tried to rule the world. He aspired to be a god but came to nothing.

- Excerpt from “Answers to Giant Questions” by T.J. Steadman.

Exciting news - the Answers to Giant Questions Podcast is on its way! Today my good friend and co-host Kris Bather and I got stuck into recording the first two episodes of the show. They'll be in post-production for a while, so stay tuned and we'll let you know when it's live and ready to download.

The first episode is an introduction to myself and Kris, as well as an introduction to the podcast generally. We talk movies, prequels and comics, discussing how the Primeval History of the Bible functions as a prequel of sorts for the rest of the Bible.
We also tackle some Giant Questions submitted by readers and followers.

In the second episode, we take a tour of the ancient near east and examine excerpts of creation stories from Egypt, Akkad, Babylon and Canaan. We discuss how understanding these examples of ancient literature can inform our understanding of Genesis One - as an ancient source document perfectly at home in its own cultural context.
We also hit some more Giant Questions submitted by readers, and we get into Giant Warfare with some advice on correctly engaging with ancient worldviews that still exist in indigenous cultures today.

All that, and we're only two episodes in, with much, much more to come. Stick around, folks, because this is going to be a show you don't want to miss. Details about the release will be forthcoming.

​- T.J. Steadman

1 Peter 3:18-22 "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him."

​As Christians all over the world remember, celebrate and participate with Jesus Christ in His death, resurrection and ascension, I invite you to take a moment to consider what was going on behind the scenes.
Jesus' final moments of earthly life were excruciating. He had endured more than any ordinary man could take. Beaten, whipped until His bones were visible, a tangled wreath of vicious thorns pressed into His head, torn flesh no longer recognisable, He was forced to drag a heavy wooden cross beam up a long hill to the place where they eventually nailed Him to it. The hateful mockery of a Roman coronation being completed, they nailed the King of the Jews to the timbers and hoisted Him aloft.
Psalm 22 makes allusions to the crucifixion scene and reveals to us that Jesus was tormented not only by cruel human adversaries but supernatural ones as well. Surrounded by the "bulls of Bashan," the demons of the old Rephaim, Jesus gave his final breath on the very spot rumoured to be the last resting place of the severed head of Goliath the Philistine giant.
It seemed apparent to all, living and dead, that the Messiah had failed.

And yet, in the unseen world, things were working out quite differently. The moment that Jesus died, the pits of Hell were being overturned. Thousands of graves throughout the land burst open, and resurrected believers rose bodily, going throughout the town and proclaiming Christ's victory. This phenomenon was witnessed publicly by all in Jerusalem at the time.
Jesus Himself had a proclamation to make as well - to the powers of darkness in the underworld. While He was bodily dead, He descended into the deepest, darkest hole in Hell, known as Tartarus to the Greeks. It was a place so bad that it was said to be as far below the earth as the earth is below Heaven. Jesus went and searched out the wicked, rebellious sons of God that had tried to destroy humanity in the days of Noah - and He had a message for them.

Peter doesn't tell us what that message was. Evidently, he seems to expect that we know already. And that is not an unreasonable assumption to make of his original audience. Back in the first century, most Jews would have been aware of a popular text known as the Apocalypse of Enoch (or 1 Enoch as we know it today).
Peter makes allusions to that text throughout his writings, as does the apostle Jude. In fact, every New Testament author uses ideas from 1 Enoch in their work, so it's not surprising. It's not a text incorporated into most Christian Bibles, but it doesn't need to be. The New Testament authors were inspired to refer to it, and that's sufficient to tell us that it's worth reading just to get in the authors' minds and know what they were alluding to.

The author of 1 Enoch tells a story of how the ancient sage and prophet Enoch, who lived during the age of the Nephilim, was contacted by the fallen sons of God. They pleaded with Enoch to go before Yahweh Elohim and intercede on their behalf, that they might be released from imprisonment. God had restrained them in the underworld for the crime of corrupting God's image bearers with forbidden arts and sexual abominations.
Enoch returned to them with a message from God. To put it simply, God says no. You're staying put and you will see the final judgment long after your ill-conceived giant offspring perish before your eyes. The Nephilim are all going to die and you'll still be here, rotting in Hell while you wait.

We shouldn't be surprised then, to find that Peter has cast Jesus as a second type of Enoch figure. Jesus goes to the underworld, finds the Watchers and tells them: You're still here? Oh, that's too bad. Bet you never thought you'd see me here. Well, don't get used to it, because I'm outta here.
And you're not. See you at the final judgment!

And with that, Jesus took the keys of Death and Hell, and walked bodily out of His tomb. Now we who believe in Him and are faithful to Him even though we suffer, are likewise destined to live forever with Him.

Christ is risen!

- T.J. Steadman.

Leviathan represents both the chaotic individualism of self-determination and the unity found in a common enemy since he and all associated with him are at war with God. There is abundant Biblical evidence for the idea that a single entity can represent many spirits. To explore this phenomenon, we’ll look at some examples, starting with perhaps the most striking instance - the exorcism of Legion. As we study this narrative, we will see some parallels with the entity of Leviathan:
Mark 5:1-13 “And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.”
Some observations here: Firstly, the initial language used is singular. Mark presents one man and one unclean spirit (Matthew has two men, so apparently there was more than one man, but both Mark and Luke refer only to the one that spoke to Jesus).
Then we note the shift in reference from the singular to the plural, which begins at the point where Jesus speaks to the unclean spirit. Jesus refers to the spirit as singular, and the reply comes back in the plural. After Jesus has dealt with the unclean spirit, the entities separate, leaving the man and finding embodiment in about two thousand separate beasts.
The name “Legion” is important. Everyone knows the term “legion” refers to a large group of Roman soldiers. We usually just consider the name in terms of quantity, because we know that there were many spirits within this man. But why use a military term? Why not some other word that implies a large group or gathering? It is because the military aspect is important. A legion is comprised of soldiers. Soldiers are a hostile force of strong men, mighty warriors. In Hebrew, they would be “gibborim.” In Canaanite tradition, another term might have been more appropriate. The spiritual warriors were the Rephaim.
The idea of chains being unable to restrain the man is an interesting one. While Peter and Jude drew on 1 Enoch’s text to present the fallen angels in chains, none of these authors present the unclean spirits as restrained at all. However, Jesus mastered them by His authority.
The power of Yahweh is what scattered the entities, just as at Babel Yahweh dispersed the people under the dominion of separate “sons of God,” and also as Leviathan was defeated (but not yet utterly destroyed). Note the plurality in use:
Job 26:12 “He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud [Rahab, or Leviathan].”
Psalm 74:13-15 “Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness [Amorites]. Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou driedst up mighty rivers.”
Isaiah 51:9 “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?”
Ezekiel 29:4-5 “But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.”
The location of this encounter with the demoniac is significant. The region of the Gadarenes was outside the border of Judah, on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, in Dan’s tribal allotment. That area is old Bashan, the ancient land of the Rephaim. Note also that the demons, having been permitted to enter the pigs (unclean beasts), rushed immediately down a steep decline into the sea. The sea is the cosmological (not literal) home of Leviathan, and the descent of the swine indicates the idea of a fall. We are getting hints here from the author to connect this event with the Nephilim, the Rephaim and Leviathan.
Even the storm on the sea ties into this whole concept. The storm preceded the encounter with Legion. It was an attempt to kill the Messiah before he could displace the power of Leviathan in Bashan. Although Leviathan’s storm-bringing power was able to devastate Job’s family by killing all of Job’s offspring, it was futile against the pre-eminent Son of God.
Jesus simply rebuked the wind and sea. The Hebrew term for “tempest” is related to the term for “multitude.” The “sea” as we know is connected to the personified force of chaos. Both terms describe perfectly the nature of Leviathan and the situation of the man demonized. This perfectly matches the prophecy of the psalmist:
Psalm 89:9-10 “Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm.”
​
- Excerpt from “Answers to Giant Questions,” by TJ Steadman.

Acts 17:22-31 "Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”"

Why did Paul begin his speech about temples, idols and other objects of worship, by talking about creation?
What made Paul shift from creation to make a cluster of allusions to the Tower of Babel event in Genesis 11?
What are the "appointed times" he refers to? How were they supposed to point the way for the people of the nations, to return to God?
What does Paul mean by "repent" in the light of his words about idols and image?

These questions and many more will be answered in fascinating detail in the forthcoming "Answers to Giant Questions Podcast," coming soon to a pod catcher near you. Join me as we unlock the mysteries of Holy Scripture and reveal even more amazing insights about the Lord Jesus Christ and His mission to once and for all break the hold of the fallen sons of God upon humanity, God's true children.

Our initial focus on the show will be an exploration of the Primeval History (Genesis 1-11), as well as taking time to answer your questions and learn about Biblical spiritual warfare. You can submit questions to be answered on the show - just use the "Email" links on this page. We'll be examining pop culture as well, so if you're curious about how your comic book heroes or cinematic mythology fits with the Bible, you're going to enjoy the show.

Stay tuned for details!

- T.J. Steadman

“They are banded together and at the side of Tiamat they advance;
They are furious, they devise mischief without resting night and day.
They prepare for battle, fuming and raging;
They have joined their forces and are making war.
Ummu-Hubur, who formed all things,
Hath made in addition weapons invincible; she hath spawned monster-serpents,
Sharp of tooth, and merciless of fang.
With poison, instead of blood, she hath filled their bodies.
Fierce monster-vipers she hath clothed with terror,
With splendor she hath decked them; she hath made them of lofty stature.
Whoever beholdeth them is overcome by terror,
Their bodies rear up and none can withstand their attack.
She hath set up vipers, and dragons, and the monster Lahamu,
And hurricanes and raging hounds, and scorpion-men,
And mighty tempests, and fish-men and rams;
They bear cruel weapons, without fear of the fight.
Her commands are mighty; none can resist them;
After this fashion, huge of stature, hath she made eleven monsters.
Among the gods who are her sons, inasmuch as he hath given her support,
She hath exalted Kingu; in their midst she hath raised him to power.”

- Excerpt from ENUMA ELISH
THE EPIC OF CREATION (Tablet One)
L.W. King, Translator
(from The Seven Tablets of Creation, London 1902).

The failure of modern scholars to recognise the many cycles of the Primeval History in both Biblical and Babylonian sacred texts has led them to believe that the creatures described above cannot be identified with the Biblical Nephilim.
Things are never that simple.
When we recognise that creation stories in the ancient near eastern world are usually national foundation stories and not concerned with the universal origins of material existence, we see that it makes sense to find that the giants of the ancient world were a part of every ancient culture, not just an imaginative storytelling device employed in Hebrew literature. The giants belong in our history because they were part of our past. And even the Akkadians, who preceded the Babylonians, believed they had a role to play in our future...

- T.J. Steadman

“The Bible affirms that the Rephaim tribes were physical giants, who originated from within groups of Amorite humans, their demonic spirits having “come out of the (dead) Nephilim,” and that as such there were people groups which featured “Rephaim” as their tribal designation. There were also other tribes of Rephaim giants under different names.
There are places named after the Rephaim, particularly the region of Bashan (“the land of the Rephaim” which can also be legitimately translated as “the hell of the dead”!) and a valley in Israel (“the Valley of Rephaim” or “Pit of Death”). The term is usually translated as “giants.”
The Rephaim giants were named after the spirits within them, the very same spirits that had previously walked the earth in the Nephilim of the pre-Flood world. The physical size of the Rephaim was due to the change brought about by the corruption and defilement of the human host, a leftover trait of the Nephilim.
The Rephaim spirit within a person served as an influencer, additional to that person’s own human spirit, thus creating a kind of duality. When the spirits separated at death, the human spirit was believed to reside with the body, while the Rephaim spirit departed and was released upon the earth. These were subsequently referred to as “unclean spirits,” a term sometimes translated in the NT as “demons.”
The Rephaim gods or Biblical shêdîm (devils) being by nature territorial, often controlled earthly kings in order to take advantage of their sphere of influence. Thus, they are often associated with dead kings, and the living kings claimed connection to them through ancestral or royal heritage and occultic spiritual influence. These Rephaim gods ranged in rank from minor to supreme deities in Canaanite religion.
Because some Rephaim spirits are spirits of the dead (in the case of deified kings), they are frequently connected with the underworld, despite the fact that they are not confined to that world but are free to trespass into ours.
The Rephaim were always regarded as evil, unholy and unclean to Israelites, despite the belief of apostates that the Rephaim had healing powers. The Scriptures tell us that they have a tendency to congregate together.”
Proverbs 21:16 “The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the Rephaim.”

Excerpt from T.J. Steadman, “Answers to Giant Questions.” For a much more detailed breakdown of everything discussed here, please consult the book!