FOR ALIEN EYES ONLY

THE NEPHILIM

http://youtu.be/R4V6-D7OmaU

There are effectively two views^[13] regarding the identity of the nephilim, which follow on from alternative views about the identity of the sons of God (Bənê hāʼĕlōhîm):

• Offspring of Seth: The Qumran (Dead Sea Scroll) fragment 4Q417 (4QInstruction) contains the earliest known reference to the phrase "children of Seth", stating that God has condemned them for their rebellion. Other early references to the offspring of Seth rebelling from God and mingling with the daughters of Cain, are found in rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Augustine of Hippo, Julius Africanus, and the Letters attributed to St. Clement. It is also the view expressed in the modern canonical Amharic Ethiopian Orthodox Bible.

• Offspring of angels: A number of early sources refer to the "sons of heaven" as angels. The earliest such references^[14] seem to be in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Greek, and Aramaic Enochic literature, and in certain Ge'ez manuscripts of 1 Enoch (mss A–Q) and Jubilees^[15] used by western scholars in modern editions of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.^[16] Some Christian apologists, such as Tertullian and especially Lactantius, shared this opinion. The earliest statement in a secondary commentary explicitly interpreting this to mean that angelic beings mated with humans can be traced to the rabbinical Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and it has since become especially commonplace in modern-day Christian commentaries.