by Brian Godawa
[23] Judd H. Burton, Interview With the Giant: Ethnohistorical Notes on the Nephilim (Burton Beyond Press, 2009) 20.
[24] James H. Charlesworth, vol. 2, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament, Volume 2: Expansions of the "Old Testament" and Legends, Wisdom, and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms and Odes, Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works, 111 (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1985).
[25] Michael S. Heiser The Myth That is True, p 186. Available online at www.michaelsheiser.com [26] Van Dorn, Douglas (2013-01-21). Giants: Sons of the Gods (Kindle Locations 3074-3076). Waters of Creation. Kindle Edition.
[27] Anthony Aveni and Yonathan Mizrachi, “The Geometry and Astronomy of Rujm el-Hiri, a Megalithic Site in the Southern Levant,” Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 475-496.
[28] Timothy R. Ashley, The Book of Numbers, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993), 404–405.
[29] Jacob Milgrom, Numbers, The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 459.
[30] Karen Randolph Joines, “The Bronze Serpent in the Israelite Cult,” Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 87, No. 3 (Sep., 1968), 251.
[31] Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 2000), 977. Wilhelm Gesenius and Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2003), 795. See also, James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).
[32] “This final clause uses the name Rahab (51:9; Job 9:13; 26:12; Ps 87:4; 89:11), the great sea monster from ancient Near Eastern legends, as a symbol for Egypt. The final cryptic clause, “Rahab the Do-Nothing” (NIV), interprets “Do-Nothing” as a sarcastic name for this supposedly powerful monster. Beuken prefers to interpret this as Rahab “who sits still,” meaning that Egypt will not come to assist Judah in her conflict with Assyria.133 Another possible translation is Rahab the dead one. All these warnings argue for a policy that does not depend on Egypt. It makes no sense to trust in a political policy that is sure to fail. It is futile to follow a plan that God opposes.” Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1–39, ed. E. Ray Clendenen, The New American Commentary (Nashville: B & H Publishing Group, 2007), 513.
[33] Hans Wildberger, A Continental Commentary: Isaiah 28-39 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002), 136. Quoting from James Bennett Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East an Anthology of Texts and Pictures, 3rd ed. with Supplement (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 292.
[34] Herodotus, Herodotus, With an English Translation by A. D. Godley, ed. A. D. Godley (Medford, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920) Histories 2:75.1-76.3. Thanks to my editor, Don Enevoldsen, for this reference.
[35] Scholars who acknowledge the evidence for mythical flying serpents, but argue against it: Wilhelm Gesenius and Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2003), 796; R. Laird Harris, “2292 שָׂרַף,” ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 884.
[36] K. van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter Willem van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible DDD, 2nd extensively rev. ed., 162 (Leiden; Boston; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999).
[37] “Bashan,” DDD, p 161-162. “According to KTU 1.108:1–3, the abode of the dead and deified king, and his place of enthronement as [Rephaim] was in [Ashtarot and Edrei], in amazing correspondence with the Biblical tradition about the seat of king Og of Bashan, “one of the survivors of the Rephaim, who lived in Ashtarot and Edrei” (Josh 12:4).”
[38] The non-canonical book of Enoch supports this same interpretation: “Enoch 6:6 And they were in all two hundred [sons of God]; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.”
[39] William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, The Context of Scripture, (Leiden; New York: Brill, 1997-) 356-58.
[40] Baruch A. Levine and Jean-Michel de Tarragon, “Dead Kings and Rephaim: The Patrons of the Ugaritic Dynasty,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 104, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1984), pp. 649-659
[41] Michael S. Heiser The Myth That is True, p 169. Available online at www.michaelsheiser.com.
[42] b. Yoma 10A - Jacob Neusner, The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary, vol. 5a (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2011), 31.
[43] in Num. R. xvi. and Tan., Shelaḥ, 7, ed. Buber, 11 — Isidore Singer, ed., The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, 12 Volumes (New York; London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901–1906), 552.
[44] b. Yoma 1:1, III.20.C-E: “C. Ahiman: the most skilled among the brothers. D. Sheshai: for he made the ground on which he walked into pits. E.Talmai: he made the ground full of ridges.”
[45] Some interpreters take the obviously poetic phrase of the giants being “the height of the cedars” quite literally (Amos 2:9), and claim some giants could have been thirty six feet high or so. This kind of literalistic interpretation is naïve.
[46] 1Sam 17:4. Some scholars point out that the Septuagint (LXX), Dead Sea Scrolls and Josephus after them describe Goliath at only four cubits and a span, which would make him more like six feet six inches tall. But scholar Clyde Billington has pointed out that the DSS and Josephus took their cue from the LXX, which was written in Egypt, whose royal cubit was consistently at 20.65 inches. The result would then be over 9 feet tall. So rather than the Bible exaggerating for mythic effect, the later translators adjusted numbers to fit their local Egyptian measurements. Clyde E. Billington, “Goliath and The Exodus Giants: How Tall Were They?” JETS, 50/3 (September 2007) 489-508.
[47] Deut. 3:11.
[48] 1Chron. 11:23.
[49] John H. Walton, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (Old Testament): Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009), 347.
[50] Conservative scholars claim that Moses wrote the Pentateuch during the time of the Exodus, so that would most likely mean that the older longer cubit was used in those texts. Critical scholars claim that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, but that it was mostly written and/or compiled during the time of the Exile which would mean they most likely used the newer shorter cubit in the Pentateuch, but then made some reference to that older cubit in Chronicles and Ezekiel to remind their readers of the changeover.
[51] If this is the case, then the Septuagint translators misunderstood the cubit of the Hebrew text as being the smaller cubit, when in fact it was the larger Egyptian cubit. They would then be translating the number incorrectly downward.
[52] Edward Frank Wente and Edmund S. Meltzer, vol. 1, Letters from Ancient Egypt, Writings from the Ancient World, 108 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990). This measurement assumes that longer Egyptian cubit.
[53] Antiquities 5.125. Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987).
[54] Josephus, Antiquities 18.4.5.
[55] Pliny the Elder, The Natural History 7.16, ed. John Bostock (Medford, MA: Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, 1855), 2157.
[56] Herodotus (ca. 430 B.C.) The Histories 1.67–68. Quoted in Mayor, Adrienne (2011-07-27). The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times (New in Paper) (Kindle Locations 4672-4678). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.
[57] Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 8.29.1-4 referenced in Mayor, Adrienne (2011-07-27). The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and
Myth in Greek and Roman Times (New in Paper) (Kindle Locations 4770-4778). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.