Who exactly were these giants and where did they come from? - fundamental queries in any discussion of the subject.
     Let us make it clear that we are not discussing  here the monstrous beings that are frequently alluded to in such as Greek, Norse and other mythologies, where the giants are not only tall and powerful but usually have other characteristics as well that mark them off from normal humanity: more than one head, or many arms; and  often frightening to look at, because of their monstrosity. An exceptional "monstrous" being is the six-fingered and six-toed, otherwise normal giant, mentioned in the Bible, Samuel, 2.

HISTORICAL VALIDITY

     It is usually assumed that the giants, especially the ancient ones, were thoroughly evil and that it was because of this that God, commonly by means of human agency, in war, put an end to their existence.  That they were, as a race, criminal, is  however a calumny.  Many of them did good on the earth, as we shall see, and those who came to notice tended to do so because they simply fought back against God's chosen people - so naturally they got a bad press.  Of course, the story of their origin did not help with their image, which was believed to be sinful or at least unnatural: this was principally the Christian view. Dante (1265-1321), however, in his DIVINE COMEDY, writes of giants as natural beings, with their due place in history, and other early writers concurred with the viewpoint that giants were simply a variety of humanity.
     One school of thought holds (or held) the view that giants were "created" or let to exist by God, in order to punish the lesser mortals, ordinary men and women.  No doubt the giants  were overbearing, they could afford to be, and along with their physical prowess went pride, which itself was sinful in the eyes of the Lord. Therefore they had to be destroyed - eventually.  The point however is that for many, if not most, early Christian and Jewish writers, the biblical giants were true historical figures: they  had faced Moses, who had written about them in the Pentateuch. Tradition nevertheless suggested that the early giants were not fully human, partaking partly of animal nature, and consequently rather stupid.
     As stated, this opinion is not sustainable and is largely a theological perspective; that is to say, it has an axe to grind. Despite this view, giants for many medieval thinkers, were certainly not merely  symbolic of evil at large, but were real figures, so much so that a branch of learning, giantology, inquired into their every aspect.

Giants as symbols?

     Much, however, has been made of the symbolic nature of the biblical giants as representing the struggles the Israelites endured in reaching the Promised Land.  The writers of the Old Testament made no such suggestion.  It is clear they believed implicitly in the historicity of the many giant tribes, or races, they wrote about.  It is a much later perspective that views these giants as mere symbols.
     A truly momentous event occurred largely because of these giants - "symbols" would not have occasioned it!   This historic event was the Flood.  According to biblical history, the Deluge came about because God wished to destroy mankind, among whom were the giant beings. It seems, we are told, that much of the wickedness on earth  was occasioned by the depredations of the giants augmented  by the waywardness of "ordinary" humanity.  Much of this reprehensible behaviour was of a sexual nature, largely arising from congress between "the sons of God" and mortal women. Thus chapter  6 of Genesis, verses 5-7:
     "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth and that his thoughts were continually evil, so much so that the Lord regretted making man...so he said that he would blot out man from the face of the earth, man and beast...for He was sorry that He had made them."
     But as we are told, inimical giants were encountered AFTER the Flood - so some must have survived.  It is in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, that giants before the Flood, such as the Nephilim, are mentioned as a force to be reckoned with. In fact, most giants existed before the Flood. One of the most intriguing features of chapter 6 of Genesis is the inference that giant beings already existed on the earth soon after the Creation, but that more giants were born to mortal women subsequently.  Interpretation of the verses in chapter 6 has proved difficult - and tendentious - down the years. (More on this later)
     St Augustine, (354-430) one of the greatest early Christian writers, clearly believing in the existence of the giants, writes in his CITY OF GOD (15; 23) that they were created by God, so that "it might be shown that neither size nor strength are of much moment to the wise man whose blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal blessings..."

THE GENESIS ACCOUNT

     At this juncture it would be instructive to look more closely at the verses given in fragmented fashion in the opening paragraph.  The full version is as follows: (6; 1-3)
     "When men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair and they took to wife such of them as they chose. Then the Lord said, 'My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, and his days shall be a hundred and twenty years'."  (We have already mentioned the debate concerning the meaning of the expression "sons of God"; there is another one concerning the meaning or interpretation of the above mystifying words of the Lord.)  Ostensibly the meaning of the above is that God was angered by human evil generally but also by this unnatural sexual congress between the sons of God and the daughters of men.

Sons of God

     Among interpretations of "sons of God" pride of place must go to the generally accepted belief that they were "fallen angels" known commonly as the Watchers, who watched happenings upon earth.  Not only did they seduce mortal women but also taught them, as we have mentioned, much secret lore, enabling mortals to acquire forbidden knowledge, which fact also angered the Deity. Thus the fallen angels, according to this interpretation, became the begetters of the giants.  They were able to "beget" because it was believed that angels being polymorphous (capable of taking different shapes) assumed the bodies of human males.
     Not surprisingly, Catholic tradition, probably stemming from the opinions of Augustine, held that fallen  angels were not the begetters of the giants but that mortal men were the fathers, albeit contaminated in some way.  Consequently, giants were viewed by the Catholic church as a race of admittedly suprahuman beings, but because they did not have the demonic, fallen angel connection, they were not to be regarded as intrinsically evil.
     Another interpretation of sons of God, mentioned earlier,  is to be found in the equating of the expression with the descendants of the worthy Seth (a son of Adam) and the daughters of men with the descendants of Cain who had committed the first murder and whose lineage would be forever cursed.  John Cassian (360-435), one of the most influential  Catholic ascetics, expressed in his book COLLATIONES, agreeing with the opinion of Augustine, that angels (or demons) could not have been the begetters of giants. His thesis on this subject is that in the early days there were indeed two separate races: giants and normal men.
     According to Cassian, it was, however, the sons of Seth who were to blame for the mischief wrought by their children (giants) because they first indulged in sensuality and  miscegenation. He has an interesting passage in his book (section 240) where he writes:
      "The sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain engendered children even more evil than themselves, who were mighty hunters, most violent and ferocious men who because of the immensity of their bodies or of their cruelty and evil, were called giants.  They were the first among men to pillage their neighbours...insisting on living by booty rather than by toil... their crimes multiplied to such an extent that the world could not be purged except by the Flood."
     From this it is clear that Cassian believed that the giants' behaviour provoked the Lord's anger which led to the Flood. Naturally there was controversy over whether or not the giants were knowingly created by God.  That the giants came into existence as a result of some form of abberation largely as a consequence of unnatural behaviour did go some way towards relieving God of the responsibility for the existence of the giants.  Walter Stephens in his book, GIANTS IN THOSE DAYS, sums it up nicely: "Not only did Scripture seem to state that Giants had been born from miscegenation, but the identification of the filii Dei [sons of God] as filii Seth [sons of Seth] provided an appealingly dramatic, even 'realistic' or plausible origin for these disturbing hominids whose existence and evil character were also attested by European folklore and classical literature". (p. 84)

THE FLOOD AND THE GIANTS

     What is perplexing in all this is something we have glanced at earlier: the existence in postdiluvian times of giants (Og, Goliath and others) whose ancestors presumably had all been destroyed by the Flood; at least that was God's purpose. What therefore was the point of the elaborate origin stories in Genesis? (which approximately covers mankind's first one thousand five hundred years - from about 4000 BC to 2500). Were the giants  therefore different from the rest of mankind? This problem of the giants' survival assumed for centuries great moment in the eyes of the Christian church as it was one of several serious difficulties encountered in the biblical account of the Deluge.  Did the giants somehow arise again naturally in postdiluvian times?  Or, how did they survive?
     The giant King Og is a key player in the argument.  In Deut 3;11, we are told that Og of Bashan was the last survivor of the giants.  But it is not clear how HE survived the Flood. Presumably he began a line of similar beings to himself after the Flood.  For the early churchmen it was important to consider the giants seriously and literally in order to understand  their significace.  The problem exercised the intellect of St Augustine: interpret the troublesome lines as meaning "already" there were giants on the earth in those days; suggest that the giants were just very large people and that in any case the human race was naturally declining in stature from  very early days. However the notion of a race of giants persisted for centuries after Augustine's death.
     There is an extensive literature, ancient and modern,  which testifies to the truth of the existence of giants.  Probably the earliest is Philo of Alexandria (about 10 BC -50 AD) whose central thesis was that the the antediluvian giants were by no means mythical beings.  Other influential and scholarly works aimed  to prove that the Scriptural giants existed  of which Augustin Calmet's (1672-1757) treatise ON GIANTS is one of the most important. Calmet asserts that in ancient times there were many giants, but that then they were not regarded as monstrous. With Augustine, Calmet does not accept that the giants arose from miscegnation.  He is also intrigued by the old question  as to why the giants survived the Flood meant to destroy them; he appears to be able to justify why God might permit evil individuals to exist, but the concept of whole races, he acknowledges, is a different matter.

THE ISRAELITES AND THE GIANTS

     As distinct from an evil race, is the ancient Hebrew people, the chosen ones of God. Abraham is revered in the Bible as their father (about 2000-1650 BC), and is reputed to have lived among the giant Anakim for some time in Canaan.  The original settlers of this land, as Elmer Gould points out in his ESSENTIALS OF BIBLE HISTORY, were indeed people of gigantic stature, Anakim, Rephaim, Emim.  In east Jordan, in Bashan, there dwelt the people of king Og; central Canaan was the land of the Rephaim, in which is (or was) to be found a Valley of the Rephaim. We know that in Moses' day, at the time of the Exodus, a large army did not dare to attack the giant warriors of Arba/ Hebron. Similarly in Abraham's day, so many giants dwelt in Bashan that it was known as "the land of Rephaim" (Deut. 3; 13)
     We also gather  that soon after their surrender to king Chedorlaomer, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah  entered into an alliance with giant tribes/races in Jordan, who occupied Bashan, Gilead and Edom.  Discovering this, Chedorlaomer decided to attempt to cut off the aid received from the giant tribes, but not before he had drafted many giants into his own ranks.  Giants, it seems, were indeed plentiful on earth in those days.  Achieving success, Chedorlaomer fell next upon the massive Zamzummim people at Ham, and isolated the army of the ferocious Emim.
     That these giant peoples were not only huge but warlike cannot be doubted; that they were also part-animal, part-humanm as some writers state, is very much open to debate.  No doubt their reputation, particularly the Anakim, as fierce, half-wild people gave rise to this description. They are named in Egyptian texts of about 2000 BC as being formidable foes, thus corroborating the biblical evidence as to their existence and strength. The Jewish historian of the first century AD, Josephus, writes in his ANTIQUITIES of huge human bones being dug up belonging to the Anakim.

Nephilim and humanity

     However, it was the Nephilim as Moses called them, who mingling  with Adam's children,  acted increasingly as a bad influence: humans sank into depravity. The ensuing copulation of created and evolved beings resulted, as we have seen, in offspring of gigantic stature, only partly human (as some claim) especially their descendants, the ungodly Gibborim. As we see in the Bible, these violent people were not ALL wiped out by the Deluge.
     Indeed, at the time of the Israelite occupation of the Promised Land, Canaan, were not only dwelling there the mentioned giants but also the Amorites, another people of near giant stature, probably as a result of interbreeding with the Rephaim and Anakim.
     As we know, the Israelite forces had great success on the battlefield, demolishing cities and killing their giant inhabitant, including the Rephaim and the monstrous Avvim, before capturing Jerusalem.   Joshua, Moses' successor, spoke of the Anakim as occupying "all the hill country of Israel" (Josh. 11; 21) Complaining about land allocation, the sons of Joseph were told to clear land in the possession of the Rephaim; this they did by driving out the giants. However the Anakim came back and engaged Caleb and his forces who faced, according to Josephus, "a race of giants, who had bodies so large and countenances so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight and terrible to the hearing.  The bones of these men are still shown to this very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men". (Antiquities, Bk 5;chap. 2; verse 3)  Caleb retook Hebron and Israel's long seven year war against the giants of Canaan ended. Too few giants actually survived Joshua's campaigns to pose a threat again to the Israelites.  We read in Joshua (11; 12), that he
"cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir...Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. There were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath and in Ashdod some remained".

EVIDENCE

     Incontrovertible evidence for the origin of the giants which convinces everone has not been found.  The Fallen Angels and the daughters of men explanation has  probably the most credence. There are others, (which may be called extra-biblical), most notably theories involving the gravitational pull of a satellite, notably the moon, (or extra-terrestial visitation). To examine these we need  to explore the work of Saurat, Bellamy and Hoerbiger, seminal thinkers about the earth and its development.

     In his 1957 book, ATLANTIS AND THE GIANTS, Denis Saurat's theory about why giant beings existed at all, is encapsulated.  He  writes in a chapter called "The Moon and History" of the planet earth and its satellite, the moon, revolving together until the eventual fall of the satellite (explained in detail in a later section of this book). I shall not attempt to paraphrase him.  This is what he says:
     "During these long periods [when the satellite circles the earth] before the fixation [into mutual  gravitational pulls] during and after it, the weight of all objects...is greatly diminished, since gravitation  towards the moon draws them upward and the accelerated rotation of the earth throws them outward.  Gravitation is what gives us our height: we grow to the stature and weight we can carry.  Therefore during those periods of the proximity of the moon all organisms grew much taller. Giants are produced...but when the moon has crashed, their weight no longer reduced by upward gravitation...becomes a handicap...they degenerate and disappear."

Age and gigantism

     The Old Testament makes many references to the great ages attained by some of its major figures.  Probably there is, claims Saurat, a connection between gigantism and longevity, though this is nowhere linked in the Scriptures. The lessening of gravitation allows gigantic growth but allows at the same time a longer life period because physiological wearing away of tissue, the normal reason for the shortness of life, is connected with the weight of the body.   A lighter body, subject to less heavy strains, lives longer than a heavier body of the same volume. (p 39)
     Before that, says Saurat, when smaller men emerged on this planet, the giants, living on, civilised these smaller men; ancient mythology from virtually all over the world testifies that men have been "civilised" by giants and gods. Thus, claims Saurat, the first reign of the giants was benevolent: this was the golden age ubiquitously mentioned.  Giants, in many accounts, were by no means always hostile.  Much later on, as we have pointed out, they began to deteriorate.

     According to Cruden's famous Concordance (to the Bible), it is probable that the first men were of a strength and stature much superior to those of mankind at present ...they lived a long time...and had a strong constitution.  That formerly "there were men of a stature much above that of common men  cannot be denied, at least not without contradicting the holy Scriptures...These sorts of giants were still common in Joshua's and David's time  when the life of men was already so much shortened and the size and strength of  human bodies were very much diminished".  (p. 189) The Concordance points out that there is much corroboration from other sources as to the existence of giants; they are mentioned in the works of such eminent  ancient historians as Herodotus, Pliny, Homer and Plutarch. In these sources they are mostly referred to as simply "giants" whereas, as we know, a variety of names is given in the Bible, of which it seems, Rephaim is generic, although specifically Anakim is used more often.
     Chedorlaomer beat the Rephaim (or giants) at Ashteroth (Gen. 14; 5); the Emims, ancient inhabitants of the land of Moab were of a gigantic stature and were of the number of the Rephaim (Deut. 2; 10-11); the Rephaim and the Perrizites are joined together as old inhabitants of the land of Canaan (Gen. 15; 20): these are but some of the references to the Rephaim in the Scriptures.  Summing up, therefore, it is generally believed that  the Rephaim were giants and were Canaanites. Others however, such as Marie Corbaux, have tried to show that they were neither. (A full discussion of this topic appears in her book, THE REPHAIM AND THEIR CONNEXION WITH EGYPT.)  The main thesis of this valuable book is summed up in a paragraph at the end of her chapter on The Rephaim (chap. 111; p 19) where she writes: [by the foregoing] "some idea may be formed of the immense extension of power achieved by this ambitious race...in which Egyptian records supply the political, religious and personal details that abundantly fill out the rapid outline of their condition and destiny afforded by the the patriarchal records of Moses".

PHILISTINES, REPHAIM AND ANAKIM

      All the biblical indications, she maintains, are that the early Philistines were themselves only a junior branch of the powerful tribe of Rephaim called Anakim.  Philistine champions were called Rephaim because the Philistines really were Rephaim by descent.  From the military detail in the Old Testament (of which there is a great deal) it seems therefore that the Philistines were at first a sub-tribe of the children of Anak and thus Rephaim by descent; who when they had grown numerous and powerful formed an independent settlement on the sea coast at the expense of their weaker neighbours. A crucial sentence reads, "the very name of Rephaim borne by the Mizraimites [ a tribe of Egypt] bears witness to an Egyptian origin". (p 21)
     From Moses' words to his people in the desert (in Deut. 3; 19-21), it is however presumed that the Rephaim were destroyed and replaced by the Ammonites.  We recall what he said: "the land...the Rephaim formerly settled there, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim...like the Anakim; but the Lord destroyed them [the Rephaim]  from before them,[the Ammonites]  and now they [the Ammonites] dwell in their [Rephaims] place". Some of their descendants lived on however.  With the Egyptian domination of Palestine the "tribes of Rapha" as they became known joined the rest of the nation against Egypt but appear to have been singled out for special persecution.  After the conquests of Rameses 111, as Corbaux points out, none of these people are ever mentioned again as enemies of Egypt. The true Canaanites began their inroads into the land formerly ruled by the Rephaim after "the war of extermination waged against them by Egypt". (p. 28)

Emim

That other tribe, frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, the Emim, are also  identified by Corbaux as deriving from, if not actually identical with, a notable warlike tribe from Egypt, the Shetta.  (The proof of this may be seen in her chapter 1X, pp 1-13.)  Like their close relatives the Rephaim, the Emim also became very involved in the Hebrew nation's struggle against the Egyptians.  The domination of Egypt was not to be shaken off, however, and  the Emim forces were defeated.  The remnant of the tribe withdrew to the mountains where eventually they were outnumbered by the indigenous Moabites, finally assimilated  and ceased to exist as a separate nation (or tribe)
.
Anakim

     Of all the great, fierce and giant tribes of the Rephaim nation mentioned in the Bible, the most prominent are the Anakim: as Moses said  to his people: "Who can stand before the children of Anak!" (Deut. 9; 1,2)
     The Anakim were co-residents of the Amorites in southern Judea, who fought on the side of the Rephaim nation, the Emim and the Anakim notably, in the struggle against Egypt.  For the moment, the Rephaim nation (of giants) lorded it over the land belonging to the aboriginal population, the Canaanites.  The Amorites also fought for the  Philistines, another race reputedly of giant stature (Goliath of Gath was one).  Both the Anakim and the Philistines are mentioned in Egyptian records where the term "Temaru" frequently occurs - the Egyptian equivalent of "Rephaim": giants or etymologically, "healers" in the sense of people of special lineage, people who (try to) restore to a former state.  (See comments in my Chapter 1.) It is worth emphasising that the Philistines were brothers-in-arms of the Anakim in the struggle against Egypt, as many Egyptian  memorials of victory testify.  Eventually these three Rapha nations (as we shall call them), the Rephaim, Emim and the Anakim, succumbed to their overlords, the Egyptians.
     It is accepted therefore that remnants of a giant race lived near Hebron, (near the Dead Sea), about 1500 BC, who co-existed with the Amorites, a greater and taller race than the Israelites.  Deuteronomy makes several references to giant races, as we have seen.  Moses speaks of a "land of giants...the Ammonites call them Zamzummim,"  part of the Rephaim (2; 20-21).  "Zamzummim" means those who speak a strange, half inarticulate language, indicating they had their own distinctive speech.
     In about 2000 BC, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is clear that giants existed over much of the biblical lands. They were still there, but greatly reduced, some five hundred years later.

Rephaim - a generic term?

     We have mentioned the difficulty in translating or understanding the meaning of the term, Rephaim.  One of the problems thrown up by the Bible when it alludes to this name is the fact that sometimes the reference is clearly to giant beings of pre-Christian Palestine  but sometimes it seems the reference is to the long dead of the remote past.  Some interpretations give the meaning to Rephaim of "sunken ones" (see Isaiah, 14;9 and Psalm 88; verse 10) - an interesting reading, which links with the theory that the giants came from the sunken continent of Atlantis - which we shall examine in chapter 9.  What is deducible from all the references to the ancient giants is that there was something ineluctable about them; that they possessed some secret or strange power, some hidden wisdom  that marked them off from other men - and made them feared.
     Indeed, some writers have stated that the giants had received secret knowledge from the Sons of God, their fathers. This secret knowledge may have come down to the Canaanite giants through Shem, a son of Noah,  who had been initiated into magic arts by these selfsame Sons of God.  It is possible that the Anakim race and the Amorites of which we read so much, are one and the same people. The Amorites emigrated from Arabia to Babylonia about 2000 BC when they began to speak Semitic. Around 3000 BC there were the two languages (around Mesopotamia): the Semitic language and the non-Semitic Sumerian.

Sumerian influence

The first intelligible writing appeared among the Sumerians about 3500 BC along with the appearance of many other civilised skills. Clearly the Sumerians reached the full flowering of their civilisation soon after 3000 BC - a remarkably short time you may think - in terms of man's evolution.  So remarkable that some writers have suggested the Sumerians may have had a helping hand.  Was this hand that of the giants?

GREAT LANDMARKS

     Two landmarks in biblical history are the Flood and the Tower of Babel. If we could date them with any accuracy, much of our speculation regarding the arrival of the giants in Babylonia would be solved.  Flood stories are well nigh universal in all historical chronicles.  Fortunately we have one account of a great flood in the the Epic of Gilgamesh, written in the language of Akkad (a kingdom of Iraq near by the Euphrates)  originally written about 1500 BC.   It speaks of a flood that dates from about 4000 BC.  Therefore Moses' biblical account was of an event that happened some 2500 years previously.  If the catastrophe was indeed world-wide, the only event that would fit  is the end of the last Ice Age in about
11000 BC. If the flood was confined to the Babylonian area  it may be deduced that the giants appeared in the Mediterranian area soon after the 4000 BC flood.
     The giants were said to come from the west, which would mean Egypt for one, (which recalls the Corbaux account) and the Atlantic coast (which revives the Atlantis theory,) The problem is we know little of Egytian history before 5000 BC.  However if the giant races did come from sunken Atlantis, they could have entered what is now known as South America - and the many similarities there, especially in construction work, buildings, statues, tunnels, to those of the Middle  East could be given an exciting explanation.   There are numerous constructions that could be associated with giants; in Peru, Chile, Ecuador,  Mexico; in north Africa, and in France, Britain, Easter Island: these are only some of them.

Ancient Egyptians

     There is no doubt that the ancient Egyptians possessed a knowledge and indeed a wisdom from very early times. The most recent research indicates a probable start to their enlightment in about 10,000 BC.  Their KNOWN history goes back to circa 5000 BC. The question is still asked; how did they build the Pyramids? There are many other unanswered questions about the achievements of the ancient Egyptians.  Were they (along with others) helped by giants? If so, they were, as Norvill states in his book GIANTS (p. 129), "...highly intelligent. Tracking them back into their land of birth is  no easy task, for the road they travelled is long.  It winds back over twelve thousand years, or more ..."
 
Book of Enoch

     Light is thrown on the origin of the giants in the important Book of Enoch ( not accepted in the "Canon" - the usual books of the Bible) which will be discussed in a later section, especially in the episode where he describes a vision in which he heard a voice berating the "guardians" - the angels designated to watch over the earth. As Norvill says, the giants evolved as progeny of semi-spiritual beings; not the giants only, but all Mankind.  "The Sons of God, and the Angels of the Bible; the 'Guardians' of the Book of Enoch are the same.  While enjoying the sensations of the mortal form, they procreated with mortal women to produce the giants who were mighty men..." (p. 151)
     The concept of suprahunan beings as mighty men, WHO DID GOOD, is buried in the deepest psyche of mankind.  The usual idea is of a race, largely benevolent, who looked after and shaped the earth and its immense buildings, possessing therefore a true physical presence but having also a mysterious almost supernatural ability.

THE GOLDEN AGE

This was in the "Golden Age" of the hunan race.  The savagery often associated with these giants is a much later ascription. The ancient, early giants possess cultural traits, arcane knowledge of particularly building skills, and military affairs. It is indeed hard to explain some of the monstrous constructions on the face of the earth as due to primitive man - primitive in the sense of lacking technology.
     If giants resulted from the sexual congress between fallen angels and mortal women all this happened in the Golden Age when the resultant offspring instructed humanity in several arts and sciences.  They were considered to have power over forces of nature and have an affinity with the stars from which they derived, partly, their strange energy.  (See the later chapter on the ideas of Sitchin and others.)  Memories of a lost ideal age are to be found for example in the works of the profound ancient Greek  thinkers and writers.  The corollary of all this of course is that a deterioration befell the giants, a sort of degeneracy which also involved normal humanity.
     Enoch speaks of "the Grigori [breaking] their vows...with the daughters of men..." (Chapter 18, of the Book of Enoch).  The Grigori were entrusted with being the guardians of the world; the name means "the watchers". As Anthony Roberts sums up: "The Grigori or fallen angels, the sons of God, are variously interpreted as giants, supernatural elementals, visitors from another solar system, or...as rebels from heaven, the legions of mighty Satan himse|f. Whoever they were, they certainly initiated a terrific upheaval on this planet...taking the indigenous culture by the neck...reorganising its rationale.  This is really the essence of all the legends..." (SOWERS OF THUNDER, p. 23)

A Distorted Image

     It has to be said that a distorted image of giant beings as ignorant, malicious brutes has been handed down from times immemorial, mainly as a deliberate policy on the part of certain historians, chiefly ecclesiastical. There is now no doubt that from the times of the earliest "modern" man  in the Paleolithic era ( the late Stone Age)  to about 1000 BC, cultures existed in Britain and elsewhere, that were based on a thorough knowledge of geomancy (a type of knowledge about the immediate and distant future by means of lines, - ley-lines? - and by figures on the earth). Considering the Paleolithic period, even the late period of Cro-Magnon man, was  about one million years ago, it is clear we are talking about  the most distant of times.

     Distance of time is indeed the besetting problem for biblical scholars, exegetes as they are called, who try to arrive at interpretations of phrases or sentences in the light of modern knowledge.  There are bound to be accretions over many years, mistranslations and perhaps deliberate changes of emphasis by the many redactors or editors who have revised, rearranged, edited and translated the Scriptures  for two millenia or more.  Many of these people had (or have) an axe to grind, endeavouring  to put their own particular gloss on meanings or events.  We shall look at some of the questions (and distortions) in respect of our subject, giants, in the following chapter. For example: who decided the so-called "Canon"?  And why?  What reasons lay behind the exclusion or glossing-over of references to giants, "Watchers", and fallen angels? and other unpalatable facts? Most important of all - have attempts been made to conceal the truth  from us in scriptural writings?

© A.B. Finlay Ph.D