The Nephilim theories involve the following logic. Angels left their proper realm (the heavenly realm) to have sexual intercourse with human females, and that produced a race of giants which are called “Nephilim”. What could be wrong with this picture?
First, the angels are by definition spiritual beings which do not have physical bodies. Sexual intercourse requires physical reproductive organs which include the production of sperm, which spiritual beings do not possess. Human beings (and virtually all physical living creatures) are very uniquely designed to be capable of reproductive functions. It is an absurdity to even contemplate a purely spiritual creature being able to impregnate a physical creature – unless one purports that the spiritual creature has the creative powers, which according to the Bible only God has (as in the creation of Adam and Eve, and the supernatural impregnation of Mary with His only begotten son, Jesus). Thus, no matter what you call them, angels, Cherubs, or “sons of God”, or “fallen angels” or demons, or “Watchers”, it is absurd to contend that such purely spiritual beings could impregnate a human woman. [1]
Alberino actually acknowledges such arguments as the objections raised by theologians, which is certainly what the critical thinker should expect:
“The problem for theologians is that sensual impulses imply sexual organs and reproductive biology, which according to convention, angels must not have. In an effort to circumvent this problem, some researchers have suggested that the angels did not themselves have sex with women but instead possessed the bodies of men in order to perform the act or, alternatively, simply “incarnated” with male anatomy (which assigns to them the metamorphic powers previously mentioned). Others postulate that sexual intercourse never actually occurred and that the procreative procedure was accomplished through some form of genetic engineering. All of these theories, and indeed any that may be devised, fail to address the critical first cause—the children of heaven lusted after the daughters of men. How can spiritual beings, supposedly unequipped for sexual intercourse and incapable of reproduction, be subject to carnal passions and accomplish procreation? Do the sons of God even have seed to sow? Surely the fact that they impregnated women suggests that they do.” (Birthright, pp. 141-142, pp. 162-163 Kindle)
His answer is a classic example of simply avoiding the question and changing the subject with what actually is a non-sequitur with respect to the issue, followed up by circular reasoning. First, he attempts to brush aside this most critical question of “how it is possible for spirit beings to perform the physical functions of sexual intercourse without the necessary physical organs” by simply saying that “The methods by which the watchers accomplished the transgression are not as important as the motives.” (ibid). Having changed the subject to the motives, instead of the “method”, he avoids giving any rational explanation or even a theory about how such could be possible. Contrary to his incredibly absurd assertion, in fact the methods are the critical issue, the motives are relatively unimportant, tangential at best. This kind of logic should be the tip off to any thinking person with any degree of discernment that Alberino and anyone who is being influenced by his theories and theology or science should not be taken seriously. It is very mystical, magical, the stuff of myths, legends and comic books, entertaining for some, but not even good science fiction, let alone in any sense scientific, or biblical.
However, even if we ignore this giant leap in logic, one should just examine the sidestepping explanation he does give logically for any degree of rationality or reality. First, according to the Bible those spirit beings the Bible calls Angels, or Spirits, Alberino’s “watchers”, were created asexual, genderless – there are no female spirit beings. Jesus made that clear in rebuking the Sadducees, informing them that there is no such a thing as marital relationships in heaven (Matthew 22:30, Luke 20:34-36) – either for Angles, or even for those who have been resurrected from the dead. This alone precludes the notion of Angels having either a physiological or psychological basis for lusting sexually. God made man male and female such that the man needed the woman for both physiological (hormones) and psychological (sex drive) fulfillment, for the perpetuation of the species Homo sapien. Spirit beings, Angels, or resurrected human beings in their heavenly spiritual bodies, do not reproduce, but humans were made to. Furthermore, such spirit beings have no physical infrastructure or biochemical make up to produce orgasms, which is what gives rise to the psychological phenomenon we refer to as lusts.[2]
His final concluding argument which he makes, which is supposed to end the debate, is a classic example of what is known as the logic fallacy of “circular reasoning”. Instead of answering the critical questions he acknowledges are raised he simply answers “Surely the fact that they impregnated women suggests that they do.” Who can argue with that? It is biblical, is it not. The Bible says these “sons of God” impregnated women – end of debate. However, the circular reasoning is that his theories, that somehow these spirit beings just copulated with physical women must be substantiated by the fact that the Bible says it happened. But the fact that his theories about how this could happen are illogical and impossible are rendered irrelevant, since it did happen. Thus, his theories must be ipso facto true.
The reality is that what he is proposing as the interpretation or explanation of this biblical text regarding the lust issue, does not come from the Bible, but actually comes from the extrabiblical pseudepigraphical source which he relies upon heavily as his authoritative source, the Book of Enoch – specifically Enoch 1, the Book of the Watchers chapters 6-8. It is the 6th chapter of that book which informs him that these “Angels … lusted after them”, not the Bible in Genesis 6. As addressed in the chapter “The Book of Enoch”, there are many problems with that source and the claims that it is inspired truth, or credible even as a source of truth, which is why it is not included in the Canon of scripture (which Alberino blows off as irrelevant). It was rejected by our early church fathers for many very good reasons (and not because the Jews rejected what it says about Jesus – which is what he claims – it was obviously not the unsaved unbelieving Jews which decided what to include in the Canon of inspired scripture). The fact that one verse in Genesis 6 tells us that these fallen angels did procreate with women, which is alluded to briefly in Jude 6-8 and 2 Peter 2:4, cited only as an example of God’s judgment, does not begin to support his theoretical explanations (or lack thereof) and implications drawn from it – a virtual complete revision of our Judeo-Christian theology.
However, the passages of scripture which are their primary texts, Genesis 6:3-4 combined with Jude 6-7, does indeed tell us that before Noah’s flood there were angels “who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling place,…” who “indulged in sexual perversion and went after strange flesh…”. The only rational explanation[3] for this would, the one Alberino admits the theologians accept, have to be that these fallen angels actually entered into and possessed human men, as we see numerous instances of recorded in scripture – such as the demoniac Legion of Luke 8:27-30, and the demon possessed of Matthew 4:24 and 8:16-17 (In the passage in Luke such demons even entered into and possessed a herd of pigs). Without a human body with the organs and functions which can produce an orgasm no sexual intercourse is possible, nor is there any rational basis for sexual lusts. But, what goes on in the mind of a person is actually spiritual in nature. Thus, a spiritual being can apparently share in that immaterial spiritual experience, which in part may explain demon possession. [4]
It is very interesting that Alberino himself gives other possible explanations for why these Angels would want to impregnate human women, other than the sexual lusts theory – possibly because at some level he himself is not really so sure such about the credibility of such an illogical explanation. His other explanations are in fact quite rational, and much more believable, perhaps even probable:
“Why did they do it? Aside from the primal urge for sexual intercourse, they seem to have been consumed with another carnal impulse—envy. The watchers were envious of mankind. Specifically, there are three things they coveted: 1. Wives Mankind was granted a special privilege that was not afforded to the sons of God: a female counterpart, a wife. The watchers envied men for their wives… 2. Offspring Because men had female counterparts, they could procreate offspring. The watchers wanted to beget their own children and have families, like the sons of Adam. 3. Dominion Mankind was given dominion of Planet Earth. The watchers coveted man’s dominion and plotted to usurp it by producing their own human-hybrid sons. This is perhaps the most important, and most overlooked, aspect of their transgression.
The defection of the watchers, though provoked by lust, was not entirely impulsive. They had a plan. By copulating with the women of Earth, they could produce their own offspring, who might be human enough to inherit Adam’s birthright. The half-breed sons of the watchers, inexorably superior to their human cousins in every way, would seize the thrones of men and establish their own kingdoms, which their fathers would rule by proxy.” (ibid, pp. 142-143, pp. 163-164 Kindle)
The reality is that such explanations make his original primary theory about the angels lusting after sexual encounters with women look untenable, given its inexplicable and illogical nature. Even the first two, about the watchers being envious of wives, or the desire to beget their own children, are very speculative at best. However, the “Dominion” explanation does make sense and would seem to be the most likely.
Then we have the issue of the offspring (erroneously called “Nephilim” – a misreading of Genesis 6:4) of this unnatural union between the spiritual beings and physical women. While the fallen angels, or demons, do not have DNA or Genes, the men they would have possessed do. Thus, their offspring could not be any more or less than that which was in their Gene pool when combined with the mother’s Gene pool. This means that such offspring could not be anything more than human – the product of the physical conception process. They can’t be some kind of supernatural creatures, both divine like God or Angels, and human, as in the demigods of Greek mythology (such as a Hercules). However, that is exactly what such would be theologians as Alberino, and his favorite theologian, claim to be truth. And to compound their error they call them the “Nephilim”.
That key passage in Genesis, 6:4, does say the following:
“4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of mankind, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”
While it is debatable and debated as to what that last phrase is referring to, whether “those … mighty men” refers back to the first subject noun “Nephilim”, or the “children” of the immediately preceding phrase, it is not significantly consequential. First, the Nephilim, which is just a transliteration of the Hebrew word for “Giants” (when translated into English), were likely the mighty men of old – just as postdiluvian giants such as Goliath and his brother, possibly Nimrod, or even present-day giants could be described. As this verse so clearly states, those Giants, or Nephilim existed before the “sons of God came into the daughters of men and … bore children to them,”, and also after this ignominious event. In reality, if “those …mighty men” just refers back to the Giants, or Nephilim, which were in the land “at that time”, then the whole case being made for this Nephilim conspiracy disappears like an ill-conceived mirage. It would just be saying that the mighty men of old were the giants who were in the land, already, when this encounter between the angels and the women occurred.
It should be noted here that contrary to the common interpretation of that verse, the flood of Noah is actually not being mentioned or alluded to in that verse. It is not saying the Nephilim were on the earth at the time of the flood and after the flood, as Alberino and others are making it say. True it is in the context of what a few verses later is the flood of Noah, and these first 4 verses of that 6th chapter are describing the setting in which the flood was to occur, and why it was to occur. But the before and “after” in that 4th verse are with respect only to the unacceptable egregious behavior of those fallen angels addressed in that verse. It is telling us in plain language that there were those giants in the land already when this happened, and they were there after it happened – seemingly as if to preclude the very interpretation that these men have made of it .
When these men try to interpret it as in reference to the flood, they introduce another set of problems with regard to both scripture and logic. If these giants were just the offspring of those fallen angels before the flood, they all would have been eliminated, drowned in the flood, according to scripture. This leads to ad hoc theories according to which not everyone and everything died in the flood, such as the local flood theory (held by Heiser and others) which blatantly contradicts explicit scripture (but is consistent with and informed by many pagan myths and legends), or Alberino’s Younger Dryas Impact theory which is inconsistent with the scriptural account and widely rejected and debunked by scientist. Alternatively, some simply theorize that there was another rebellion of fallen angels doing the same thing again after the flood, for which there is no biblical or any other kind of evidence – pure imaginary speculation. That theory also contradicts what scripture clearly tells us about what happened to these rebellious fallen angels, who are being “kept in eternal restraints under darkness for the judgment of the great day… [and] are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 6-8), and according to Peter have been “cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, held for judgment;” (2 Peter 2:4). To get around these contradictions a distinction is made that its not the bodies of these Nephilim which survived the flood but their spirits that are still with us today, though some how they are still physically present as giants – which makes no sense at all.
However, even if reference were being made there in Genesis 6 to the offspring of the sexual encounter between fallen angels or demons and women as the Nephilim, the rational basis for the Nephilim conspiracy claims is unsubstantiated. As discussed above, such would only be possible by such spiritual beings possessing and controlling a human subject, meaning that the offspring would have to be purely human. If that offspring were what became the “mighty men who were of old, men of renown”, which does sound like possibly the Giants such as Goliath, or men like Nimrod (“the mighty hunter”), or the Anakim or the Rephaim, they were no more or less than the product of the human father’s and human mother’s gene pool. But that said, it seems very likely that one of those human genetic donors would have themselves been giants (i.e. Nephilim). Following that line of reasoning, it also seems reasonable that when these fallen angels picked which human beings they wanted to indwell and possess they would be not only the pagan heathens, but the relatively super men of the day, such as those from a human family of giants (like the postdiluvian Rephaim or Anakim). Thus, the offspring would have also been giants, but nothing more than human beings, of which some still exist today (see: “15 Real Life Giants That Exist Today” (https://youtu.be/sPHD98Q9BaY?si=VWdxzDCPzHGnrewk).
It should be noted that “giants” are not so much a biological race[5], but come in families, such as the sons of Rapha (1Chronicles 20:6-8 BSB or Interlinear) known as the Rephaim, and the sons of Anak known as the Anakim (Numbers 13:33, Deuteronomy 9:2 Interlinear). Giantism, also known as gigantism, does run in families, and is to some extent known to be genetic.[i] Giants have always existed, both before and after the flood. According to Numbers 13:33, the giants that the spies sent by Joshua saw in the land of Canaan, which there are called “Nephilim”, were the ancestors of the Anakim. The remains of thousands have been found in America, which are only identifiable racially as American Indians,[6] Native or Indigenous Americans (though the definitions of race versus ethnicity are not well defined), primarily of Asian descent.
Thus, in conclusion, the whole concept and premise of what I am calling the Nephilim Conspiracy, is fatally flawed not only from a scriptural basis (verbally inspired scripture), but from the standpoint of logic and pure reason. Incorporeal entities (angels or spirits) engaging in the physical act of sexual intercourse with corporeal entities (physical, material human beings) is as absurd and irrational as absurd can be – an impossibility. It is also a case of very flawed exegesis, rearranging the wording and mistranslating the key words of the key text, which amounts to eisegesis, the opposite of exegesis.
Furthermore, it is all primarily based on the authority of a book, which is one of many nonbiblical books, in this case pseudepigraphic, the book of Enoch (but only book 1 and for some book 2, out of the 5 books are accepted as factual or reliable). While ostensibly referred to by some early church fathers, it was rejected by the majority by the early 4th century (AD 303) as being considered canonical – the texts inspired by God, because it did not meet the objective criteria for canonicity. Indeed, an objective evaluation reveals very good reasons why it should not be considered “inspired by God”, or canonical, as discussed in the chapter about the Book of Enoch.
[1] When Michael Knowles asked Timothy Alberino about this twice in one YouTube interview (“The Book of Enoch: Atlantis, Nephilim & Giants | Michael Knowles & Tim Alberino Pt 1 (https://youtu.be/7PKZLCwzPak?si=ovQyjPAkZhjyOe83) Alberino never actually answers the question, but changes the subject, or gives an answer which makes no sense at all. He diverts to an explanation which he calls “going back to the first cause” about the angels lusting after women – which is equally as absurd since only a person with a physical body can experience an orgasm, which is what sexual lust is all about.
[2] Many men, and some women, become addicted to autoeroticism or homosexual lust which does not even require the physical interaction with the opposite sex, but is driven by the desire for the sensual pleasure of the orgasm. Without the orgasmic aspect of the experience such lusts do not arise. Without the physiology of the human body such orgasms are impossible. Suggesting that sexual lusts could be the experience of purely spirit beings, like angels, or even demons, is completely absurd.
[3] Another explanation given by some, also alluded to by Alberino, that these fallen angels engaged in genetic engineering, is also not credible unless one believes that these spirit beings had the ability to create, which biblically only God has. Those theories mostly amount to nothing more than what we know of as selective breeding, which is completely natural, nothing men didn’t already know about (such as Jacob in breeding his preferred varieties of sheep (Genesis 30:25-43)). Such practices require an already existing gene pool, which do include a lot of variety, including in some humans the characteristics of giantism and dwarfism. There is no rational, or scientific explanation as to how these spirit beings could change the DNA or genes, especially the reproductive genes of a human being, without creative power. Modern science has discovered that genetic mutations do occur as a result of losses of genetic information only, and some giantism may be related to such mutations – but adding such genetic information is creative, which only the one creator God can do – not Satan or any of his angels/demons. Alberino is scientifically correct in discounting this view, even though some claim it is implied by the Book of Enoch, or in the Book of Giants, based on a few Dead Sea Scroll fragments such as 1Q23 (according to Ken Johnson, Bible Facts, “Nephilim in the Dead Sea Scrolls”) (https://www.youtube.com/live/bcMTUkLXTqw?si=2dt0Q18Zyo9P-6Y-)
[4] Some, such as Michael Heiser, try to make distinctions between demons and fallen angels, based on his whole extrabiblical theoretical theology, the “Deuteronomy 32 Worldview”. This is little more that a modern version of Gnosticism, featuring a few cherry-picked and misinterpreted passages of scripture, and a great deal of Pagan (such as Ugaritic texts and the Epic of Gilgamesh), Pseudographical and Apocryphal sources (primarily the Book of Enoch), which he then uses to interpret, and correct the select scriptural passages in our current Bibles.
[5] The American Heritage Dictionary defines a race as “1. A group of people identified as distinct from other groups because of supposed physical or genetic traits shared by the group. Most biologists and anthropologists do not recognize race as a biologically valid classification, in part because there is more genetic variation within groups than between them.”
[6] “Since the 1700s there have been over 3,000 giant skeletons reported in America by 1,194 individuals in 885 reports around the Nation. The Native Americans reported giant histories to Europeans since first contact centuries ago.” (“The Nephilim – Was There a Giant Problem in America?” (https://youtu.be/FlxROOvmNuk?si=F2XrzqfNS9_nncTw))
[i] As a 2022 review Trusted Source notes, gigantism can run in families. Some genetic disorders that can cause gigantism include:
neurofibromatosis 1
McCune-Albright syndrome
multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1
Carney complex
3PA association
isolated familial somatotropinomas
X-linked acrogigantism
(Medical News Today, “What to Know About Gigantism” (Gigantism)
“Gigantism is abnormal growth due to an excess of growth hormone (GH) during childhood.
Causes
Gigantism is very rare. The most common cause of too much GH release is a noncancerous (benign) tumor of the pituitary gland. Other causes include:
Genetic disease that affects the skin color (pigmentation) and causes benign tumors of the skin, heart, and endocrine (hormone) system (Carney complex)
Genetic disease that affects the bones and skin pigmentation (McCune-Albright syndrome)
Genetic disease in which one or more of the endocrine glands are overactive or form a tumor (multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1) or type 4
Genetic disease that forms pituitary tumors
Disease in which tumors form on the nerves of the brain and spine (neurofibromatosis)
(”Gigantism”, Mount Sinai Health System – New York City, (https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/diseases-conditions/gigantism)
end times revisited 