Caleb Vigilant (Chronicles of the Nephilim)
Page 1
Other books by the Author
Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films
with Wisdom and Discernment (InterVarsity Press)
Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story and Imagination (InterVarsity Press)
Myth Became Fact: Storytelling, Imagination
& Apologetics in the Bible
Chronicles of the Nephilim
Noah Primeval
Enoch Primordial
Gilgamesh Immortal
Abraham Allegiant
Joshua Valiant
Caleb Vigilant
David Ascendant
Jesus Triumphant
When Giants Were Upon the Earth:
The Watchers, Nephilim, & the Biblical Cosmic War of the Seed
For more information and products by the author,
see the back pages of this book or go to:
www.ChroniclesOfTheNephilim.com
www.godawa.com
Caleb Vigilant
Chronicles of the Nephilim
Book Six By Brian Godawa
Copyright ©2013 Brian Godawa
All rights reserved.
Embedded Pictures Publishing
Los Angeles, California
310.948.0224
www.embeddedpictures.com
The Tabernacle, and The Israelite Encampment. Logos Bible Software. www.logos.com
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001.
Dedicated to
The memory of Caleb ben Jephunneh
A man of faith
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to my Rahab, Kimberly. And to Michael Gavlak for his important story feedback, and his Caleb friendship (Or really, his Joshua friendship since I’m the old man). Thanks to Don Enevoldsen and Blake Samuels for their story feedback and encouragement. Shari Risoff, my sister-in-law did a wonderful job of editing these two volumes.
Thank you, Yahweh Elohim.
NoteS to the Reader
For those who are new to the series and have not read previous volumes, there is much imagination in this novel and its companion volume, Joshua Valiant, that may freak out Christians who are unfamiliar with the ancient Near Eastern worldview and mindset within which the writers of Scripture themselves lived and wrote.
Within these pages one will read of fantasy creatures like Leviathan the sea dragon of chaos, Satyrs with the torso of men and the lower legs of a goat, and other phantasmagorical images. It may shock the reader to discover that all these monsters are mentioned in the Bible in one form or another, often with reference to the paganism of Canaan.
When the Biblical writers engage in this kind of referencing, they are often using well known images and myths of their day to attack with polemical force. Thus, the satyrs that pagans worship are considered goat demons (Lev. 17:7; 2Chron. 11:15; Deut. 32:17). What I decided to do was to literalize the metaphors and bring these demonic creatures to life in all their spiritual imagination, thus embedding historical story with theological meaning. This is just what the Bible writers did for example when describing Yahweh crushing the heads of Leviathan when Moses crossed the Red Sea (Psa. 74:12-17), or describing the destruction of a nation in terms of the collapse of the universe (Judg. 5:19-20; Isa. 13:10; 24:1-23). So I have shown the actual activity of Yahweh through his angels fighting the sea dragon to put down evil, as well as the true demonic reality behind pagan religion.
In this sense, the Chronicles are not an attempt to reimagine history but rather to imbue it with theological meaning. But despite this use of imagination, everything that occurs in the novels, every monster, every fictional character, is based on real Biblical and ancient historical and mythological research. If the reader has difficulty fully embracing this before reading, perhaps it would be helpful to first read the Appendices I have at the back of each novel before reading the novel. In those Appendices I reveal a bit of the research into the ancient Near Eastern worldview that goes behind the fiction.
I have made up far less material than you may realize.
In these novels you will also see angels that are very physical beings (with extra-physical and preternatural abilities) who fight with swords and cannot fly. It is important to remember that the modern notions of angels as immaterial spirit beings who fly with wings is a medieval construct not a Biblical description.
In the Bible angels may mysteriously appear and disappear, but they never have wings, they are not depicted as flying, and they are very physical creatures who eat food (Gen. 18:8), can have sex with humans (Gen. 6:1-4), and sometimes have swords as weapons (Josh. 5:13). Their flesh is a different kind of flesh than human flesh, but it is physical (1Cor. 15:39-40). I would contend that my view is actually closer to the Biblical picture than the conventional wisdom of winged spirit beings without physicality.
Another element of the storyline is a certain reality to the pagan gods of the world. They exist as supernatural beings with divine powers. But they are not actual gods as the pagans understand them, but rather demonic fallen “Watchers” or “sons of God” from God’s heavenly host, who are masquerading as gods in order to draw worship away from Yahweh. This too is not entirely manufactured on my part, but rather an application of Biblical verses that hint at the demonic reality behind Canaanite deities.
Psalm 106:36-38
36 They served their idols, which became a snare to them. 37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; 38 they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
Deuteronomy 32:16-17
16 They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger. 17 They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.
In Genesis 6:1-4 we read that these fallen Sons of Gods or Watchers came to earth and mated with human woman in order to corrupt the human bloodline that would bring forth Messiah. The fruit of that unholy forbidden union were the Nephilim, or giants of old. Though God destroyed this abomination with the Flood, the genetic corruption of the giants continued on into the seedline of Canaan, so that when Joshua entered Canaan, it was filled with giant clans who traced their descendants back to the Nephilim before the Flood (Num. 13:32-33). Some of these giant clans were the Rephaim, the Anakim, the Emim and Zamzummim (Deut. 2:10-23) and others who show up in the Chronicles of the Nephilim.
Then a strange thing happened at the Tower of Babel incident. When God separated the nations in their rebellion, he placed them under the authority of the fallen Sons of God or Watchers. God allotted the territories of nations to those Watchers as their own property (Deut. 32:8-9). God gave them over to their abominations. But then, when Israel would enter into the land of Canaan to claim it for their own, God would disinherit those principalities and powers and give that land to Jacob, the Seed of Abraham.
I have already explained in more detail the Biblical proof of these elements in previous Chronicles, so if the reader wants to understand it more fully, I recommend starting with Noah Primeval and read the appendices and the novels from there.
Another element of Joshua Valiant and Caleb Vigilant that may cause some concern with religious believers in the Bible is my census of about six thousand warriors and seventy thousand Hebrews in the exodus. For those acquainted with the English translations, it seems that the Bible says there were six hundred thousand warriors and by implication, about two and a half to three million Hebrews in the exodus (Num. 1:46). This is not an attempt to deny or cha
nge holy writ. The fact of the matter is that the consensus of both liberal and conservative scholarship is that the English translation of “six hundred thousand” warriors cannot possibly be literally accurate.
Most importantly, it would make the Bible contradict itself, because in Deuteronomy 7:1 and 7, God states that the seven nations of Canaan were “more numerous and mightier” than Israel, who were “the fewest of all peoples.” But in fact, during this time of the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, there were less than one million inhabitants of Canaan.[1] That would make Israel more numerous and mightier by a figure of three times the whole of Canaan and as much as ten times the size of any singular people group. Secondly, if there were two and a half million Israelites, then the average Israelite mother would have had about one hundred children each, another absurdity. Worse yet, for the peoples of Canaan to be more numerous and mightier than two or three million Israelites, there would have to be over twenty million Canaanites in the land. That is demonstrably false by archeological and historical evidence.[2]
I do not have the room to explain the details here, but I have included on the ChroniclesoftheNephilim.com website under the “Links” page, several articles that address possible interpretations of the numbers that would maintain the accuracy of Scripture. Scholar David Fouts presents a strong case for the numbers being symbolic, a common technique used throughout the entire Bible. But I have used J.W. Wenham’s thesis that the Hebrew word for thousand is ‘lep, which is a word that can mean military units of troops. Since Hebrew numbers were not numerical like ours, but words, the number “six hundred and three thousand” would actually translate as “six hundred and three military units” which would be more like six thousand troops in a population of about seventy thousand Israelites.
One last note of importance: The saga Chronicles of the Nephilim employs an ancient technique of changing names of both people and places from novel to novel and sometimes within the same novel. This peculiar technique was universally engaged in by all ancient Near Eastern writing including the Bible because in that world, names were not merely arbitrary sign references. Names reflected the essential purpose, meaning, or achievement of people or places. Thus, when people experienced significant changes in their lives, they might also change their name or the name of a location where it occurred. Or when one nation adopted another nation’s deity, it would give it their own name.
Even the God of the Bible uses different names for himself in different instances to communicate his different attributes. While this is not familiar to modern readers and can cause difficulty in keeping all the names and identities straight, I have chosen to employ that peculiar technique as a way of incarnating the ancient worldview and mindset. So reader be warned to watch names carefully and expect them to be changing on you even when you are not looking.
In the interest of aiding the reader in managing the name changes in the series up to this point, and including Caleb Vigilant, I have included the following charts that illustrate some of the more significant name changes.
Creator
Zaqiel
Azazel
Gadreel
Gilgamesh
Enoch Primordial
(Sumer)
Elohim
Utu
Inanna
__
__
Noah Primeval
(Sumer)
Elohim,
Yahweh
Utu
Inanna
__
__
Gilgamesh Immortal
(Sumer)
Elohim
Shamash
Ishtar
Ninurta
Gilgamesh
Abraham Allegiant
(Babylon)
El Shaddai
Shamash
Ishtar
Marduk
Nimrod
Abraham Allegiant
(Canaan)
El Elyon
Chemosh
Ashtart
Ba’al
Amraphel
Caleb Vigilant
(Canaan)
Yahweh
Chemosh
Ashtart
Ashtoreth
Ba’al
__
Divine attribute
Creator
Almighty
Most High
Sun god
Goddess of sex & war
God of
vegetation & storm
A Nephilim
Creator God
Nachash
Giant Clans
Sons of God
The World Tree
Other Names
Yahweh Elohim
The Serpent
Nephilim
Bene ha Elohim
Mother Earth Goddess
Yahweh
The satan
Rephaim
Watchers
Great Goddess
Elohim
Mastema
Emim
gods
Gaia
El Shaddai
A Seraphim
Caphtorim
Heavenly Host
Angel of Yahweh
Shining One
Zamzummim
(Zuzim)
Divine Council
Son of Man
Adversary
Anakim
Shining Ones
El Elyon
Avvim
Holy Ones
Horim
Anunnaki
True Heaven
Canaanite Pantheon
Mesopotamian
Heavens and Earth
Hierarchy
Yahweh Elohim
El
Yahweh Elohim’s throne
Angel of Yahweh
Ba’al (rises to primacy)
The waters above the heavens
Seraphim
Asherah (El’s wife)
The firmament
Cherubim
Anat (Ba’al’s sister)
The heavens
Sons of God
“Watchers”
Ashtart
Earth
Archangels
Dagon, Molech, Chemosh
The Abyss
Angels
Pillars of the earth
Sheol
This book continues the story begun in Joshua Valiant.
Numbers 13:32-33
So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
Deuteronomy 9:1-2
“Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’”
Joshua 15:13-15
According to the commandment of the Lord to Joshua, he gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh a portion among the people of Judah, Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron (Arba was the father of Anak). And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the descendants of Anak.
Chapter 30
(Continuing from the last chapter of Joshua Valiant)
The two men that entered the tavern to eat their afternoon meal looked suspicious to Rahab. She had been an innkeeper in Jericho long enough to be able to spot real danger amidst the rowdies, roughnecks, and rabble-rousers who frequented her establishment.
These two were clearly foreigners. They kept to themselves in the corner and seemed to have the disciplined posture and movements of mercenaries. They were not very good at hiding it.
But they were both rather intriguin
g.
And she was not very good at hiding her fascination with them. They quickly noticed her observation and waved her over to them.
She swallowed and patted her dress to make sure her secret dagger was available.
She strode over, swaying her hips and playing the seductress. It always helped to distract even those with nefarious intentions. It gave her the advantage—over swine.
The younger more handsome one with a ruddy complexion watched her like a puppy in her hand. But the other one, the older one with intense eyes, glanced away as if he were fighting his desires. Or maybe he had unnatural lust for men. That would be more difficult for her to work with.
“How can I help you, travelers?” she said. “Are you looking for some pleasure? Women? Men? I do not do children here, or animals.”
The handsome one spoke. Obviously doing the bidding of the older one, the real leader. “Are you Rahab, the innkeeper?”
She looked suspiciously at them. “Who wants to know?”
They looked at each other. The older one nodded.
The younger one spoke, “I am Salmon and this is Caleb. We seek information and were told this was the place for it.”
They took a chance. They told her their real names. They knew that if they wanted to gain her trust, they would have to risk being vulnerable.
She looked closely at them. They were telling the truth. She could spot a liar across the room through just his eyes. And most all men were liars.
Then she said with a touch of surprise, “Semitic names. Are you Habiru, from across the river?”