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).
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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.
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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.