Who Were the Nephilim?

In the Hebrew Bible, the Nephilim appear as mysterious figures of great size and strength. The name sits in two short scenes: Genesis 6, just before the flood, and Numbers 13, in the spies’ report from Canaan.

Who were the Nephilim? The Hebrew Bible never gives a full biography.

It places them on the earth “in those days, and also after that,” and links them with mighty men of old. Later, Israel’s spies name them beside the sons of Anak.

Ancient versions often render the word as “giants.” Hebrew etymology often hears “fallen ones.” Interpreters disagree on whether they are the sons of God, the offspring of that union, or a third group already present.

I lead with the Biblical text and the etymology because that is where the name sits. The Book of Watchers in 1 Enoch expands the story as a labeled extra-biblical tradition. Anakim and Canaan form a second Biblical layer. Then I open the paleo-contact and Atlantis lane in full: Atlantis-survivor, Anunnaki, and channeling readings, attributed and weighted, because that is how I use this trail in my research.

Biblical text and etymology

Genesis 6:1-4 is the core scene. When humans multiply, the “sons of God” take daughters of men. In Hebrew that phrase is bene ha-Elohim, “sons of the Elohim.”

The Nephilim are on the earth “in those days, and also afterward.” The same verse links them with “mighty men of old, men of renown.” Those mighty men are the gibborim: heroes or mighty warriors.

A JPS-style rendering of the verse reads:

The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

What the verse does not do is settle identity. It does not clearly say whether the Nephilim are the sons of God, their offspring, or a third group already on the earth. Hess, Coxon, and many readers take them as the offspring and the mighty men. I keep that openness. For me Genesis 6 already invites a paleo-contact reading of the sons of Elohim and the Nephilim, the kind of trail Biglino, Wallis, von Däniken, and Hancock also walk.

This same Genesis 6 frame, including the lifespan and flood setup, sits on my page Genesis 6.

Numbers 13

Numbers 13:32-33 is the second Biblical mention. The spies return from Canaan and report:

And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

Meaning: the post-flood tradition claims that Anak and the Anakim descend from the Nephilim, and it stresses great size. Some scholars treat the report as fear rhetoric rather than a census. For my research, the important point is the continuity claim itself: Nephilim memory surviving into the conquest story.

Etymology

Hebrew נְפִילִים Nephilim. Brown-Driver-Briggs glosses “giants,” and says the proposed etymologies are “all very precarious.”

The common link is the root n-p-l, “to fall.” That yields “fallen ones” or “ones who have fallen.” Ronald Hendel reads a passive form. Alternatives include “those who cause others to fall” (causative) and warriors who fell in battle.

Ancient versions already fork. The Septuagint (LXX) and most early translations render gigantes / “giants.” Symmachus has “violent ones.” Aquila has “fallen” or “ones falling upon” enemies.

Alongside that lexicon track, paleo-contact readers hear “those who have come down.” Prism of Lyra’s reading fits the paleo-contact lane I work in. BDB-style lexicon sits on one side. Paleo-contact descent language sits on the other. I give that descent reading real weight on this trail.

Peake’s Commentary notes an Aramaic Nephila / Orion trail in some popular summaries. Brown-Driver-Briggs marks an Orion-offspring etymology as precarious. I keep Peake as attributed commentary that strengthens a star-origin bridge later on this page, not as the dictionary entry itself.

I also keep two clear tracks for shem. Standard Hebrew shem means “name,” and by extension fame or renown in “men of renown.” Prism of Lyra and Tsarion read shem as airborne vehicle or rocketship, and Nephilim as “people from the rocket ships.” I explore that as paleo-contact etymology and quote it in full under how I use this trail.

Sons of God fork

Bene ha-Elohim means “sons of God” or “sons of the Elohim.” Interpreters disagree on who they are.

1. Divine / angelic beings. Job 1-2 uses the same phrase for heavenly court figures. Second Temple Enochic reading takes them as angels. Some Septuagint lines read “angels of God.”
2. Sethite line marrying Cainite women. This is a later Jewish and Christian reading. Ethiopian Orthodox tradition holds it in places.
3. Human rulers / elites. “Sons of the powerful” as a social class, not an angelic one.

I lead with the Bible’s own wording. Then I state the disagreement in one clear block. The term page for this phrase is Beni Elohim. The wider name trail sits on the 12 Elohim.

Ezekiel 32:27 has a disputed reading (gibborim nophlim versus Nephilim). Hendel and others hear an echo of Genesis 6 warriors in Sheol. That echo belongs nearby; the spine of this page stays on Genesis, Numbers, and the paleo-contact layer.

Book of Watchers (1 Enoch)

The Book of Watchers is 1 Enoch chapters 1-36. It is a Second Temple Jewish expansion, preserved in Ethiopic 1 Enoch, in Greek fragments, and in Aramaic at Qumran.

I label this layer extra-biblical. It is not Hebrew Bible canon for most Jewish and Protestant readers. Ethiopian Orthodox tradition includes Enoch.

Watchers here are angels, “the children of the heaven,” sent in the tradition to watch over humans. Two hundred of them descend, swear an oath on Mount Hermon, take wives, and beget children.

R. H. Charles’s 1917 English, the standard academic rendering I use, at 1 Enoch 6:1-6:

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’ … And they were in all two hundred; 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.

1 Enoch 7:1-5 then names the offspring as giants and describes their violence:

… And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, The giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another’s flesh, and drink the blood.

The height line needs a caveat. “Three thousand ells” is widely treated as a transmission problem. Greek tradition and Jubilees speak of giant races (Naphidim / Naphil / Eljo), not literal 450-foot beings. I do not present that height as sober history.

1 Enoch 9:6-9 adds that Azazel taught “eternal secrets… which men were striving to learn,” and that the women “have borne giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness.”

1 Enoch 10 adds a flood warning to Noah, the binding of the Watchers, the destruction of the Watchers’ children, and the healing of the earth.

The Book of Jubilees 7:21-25 is a parallel Second Temple tradition, not Bible. It treats the flood in part as ridding the earth of these giants.

How I use Enoch: as labeled extra-biblical expansion of the Genesis 6 scene, and as a descent-and-secrets frame that already sits close to the paleo-contact questions I ask later. The flood-survivor parallel after that motive sits on Ziusudra’s flood. Watchers and Nephilim anxiety around Noah’s birth also sit on my Genesis Apocryphon page.

Anakim and Canaan

Anakim are a people in the Hebrew Bible. They are described as descendants of Anak and as tall, formidable inhabitants of Canaan.

Numbers 13 ties the sons of Anak to the Nephilim. That is the spies’ claim in the text.

Deuteronomy 1-2 and Joshua describe campaigns against Anakim in the hill country and the Hebron area. I keep that trail short here so the page stays on the Nephilim name.

Related giant clans in the Torah include Rephaim, Emim, and Zamzummim (Deuteronomy 2). I mention them only as neighbors on the same conquest trail.

Egyptian Execration Texts name similar Anak / Canaan enemies. That is historical color around the same name cluster.

Meaning: the conquest narrative frames Israel as facing terrifying “giant” peoples. The spies’ continuity claim keeps Nephilim memory alive after the flood scene, which is why I keep Anakim on this page before the Atlantis and paleo-contact layer.

Related: The Ark of the Covenant.

How I use this in my research

After the Biblical text, the labeled Enoch layer, and the Anakim trail, I keep a longer interpretive layer. This is where channeling, paleo-contact etymology, and related research trails sit on this page.

This is where I take the Nephilim into paleo-contact and Atlantis research. Bashar, Prism of Lyra, Tsarion, and the sources below are how I connect them to flood survivors, culture-bringers, and Anunnaki / Orion trails.

Michael Tsarion and The Prism of Lyra

Michael Tsarion, in a live Names / rocket-ships line I keep on this trail, offers a paleo-contact reading of the Hebrew name:

Also referred to in the Hebrew as the, “People from the rocket ships.”

I use Tsarion’s line as paleo-contact etymology on this page. It sits beside the lexicon track, not instead of it.

The Prism of Lyra expands the same paleo-contact etymology. It reads Nefilim as “those who have come down,” and it re-reads shem as airborne vehicle rather than “name” or renown:

These Lyrans, as well as others, have been known by the Hebrew term “Nefilim,” erroneously translated as “giants.” Nefilim literally means “those who have come down.” Genesis 6:4 states: “The Nefilim were on the earth in those days — and also afterward — when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” The original Hebrew term translated as “renown” is “shem,” which literally means airborne vehicle, possibly rocketship.

Prism of Lyra’s “those who have come down” reading fits the paleo-contact lane I work in. Standard dictionaries still gloss shem as “name” / renown. I keep that brief lexicon note, then lean into Prism of Lyra as a serious paleo-contact gloss of Genesis 6:4.

Bashar: Atlanteans that survived as Nephilim

Bashar channeling, as preserved on this trail, identifies Atlantean flood survivors with Anunnaki lineage as the Biblical Nephilim. I keep the blocks verbatim. Bashar’s Atlantean-survivor reading is how I connect Nephilim to Atlantis research.

These Atlanteans that survived, that had a lot of the lineage of the Anunnaki, a lot of the blue blood, also, again, some of them quite tall, seven feet, eight feet was not unusual, because, again, they had a lot of Anunnaki genetics, who were themselves quite tall and blue-skinned in terms of the tint that their blood gave them.

But these Atlanteans that survived, that were tall and considered the demigods, considered the idea of the union between the gods and man, these that were, as your Bible says, the heroes of old, the heroes of renown in the olden days, the giants that walked the Earth at that time, and that did boost the various human civilizations around them—being human themselves but also again mixed very strongly with extraterrestrial Anunnaki blood and genetics, did seek to preserve and over time became blended more and more through procreation into human society, creating different bloodlines, some of which contain more or less Anunnaki genetics.

But these Atlanteans became what you now know in your biblical nomenclature as the Nephilim.

These are the Nephilim. The Atlanteans that survived. The Atlanteans that preserved their knowledge. That spread around the world, boosting different civilizations to a new level, a new height. New training with new technology in agriculture, in science, in many different areas. Leaving these artifacts, these edifices, as a preservation of knowledge. As a preservation of what came before the deluge. Came before the impact of the comet in the Atlantic Ocean that wiped their civilization out.

But in starting over, and the bloodline being dispersed among different tribes around your planet, the Nephilim did guide, to some degree, some of these bloodlines, along with cooperation from extraterrestrial sources, to make sure that the bloodlines did not die out.

Meaning for my research: Bashar supplies the bridge from flood survivors and culture-bringers to the Biblical giants of renown. This strengthens the Atlantis / paleo-contact trail I follow after Genesis and Enoch. I present it as Bashar’s claim with full weight.

Past-life regression: A hypnotist’s journey to Avalon

A past-life regression published as A hypnotist’s journey to Avalon places the Nephilim as giants from the Orion Nebula, distinct from the Anunnaki. Here is that exchange on this trail:

The Nephilim are an ancient race, giants who once walked the earth. Their intentions towards humanity were far from benevolent —they sought power, dominance, and control. In time, they left this planet, though remnants of their presence still exist. There are chambers where some have been kept in stasis, hidden away from the world. Their energy lingers in those places, a shadow of what once was.

S: Are they different from the Anunnaki?

A: Yes, they are distinct. The Nephilim came from the Orion Nebula, a different origin than the Anunnaki. Some of the bones of giants that have been found are the remains of these beings. But there are higher intergalactic collectives that act as protectors of Earth. You may know them as the White Brotherhood —this name has nothing to do with race, but with frequency. They, along with the Galactic Council of Light and positive extraterrestrial races, intervened to prevent the Nephilim from enacting their will on this planet. Faced with this opposition, the Nephilim had two choices: leave or be destroyed. They chose to depart.

This trail diverges from Bashar’s Atlantean-survivor reading. Both stay on the page as separate sources. The Orion origin line sits beside Peake and Kabamur later on this page.

@Kabamur_Taygeta

@Kabamur_Taygeta offers another alternate extraterrestrial reading. On this trail the Nephilim name itself is framed as a cabal cover story:

“Nephilim” was a cabal lie to conceal a greater truth. There were various extraterrestrials visiting Earth in ancient times, and some were peaceful giants. There were also evil, mindless giants created by Pidkozox and Oppisheklio (anunnaki) who constructed megalithic structures like Stonehenge to bait and kill humans. The elites worshiping them didn’t want us to know about inhabited worlds beyond Earth, so they invented a story about angels mating with humans. It’s not possible for humans and non-humans to “mate”.

I keep Kabamur as labeled channeling / ET commentary on the same paleo-contact map. It is not Biblical exegesis. It is another voice I weigh when the Nephilim name gets used as cover language for ancient visitation.

Peake’s Orion note and Zimbabwe rock-art captions

Peake’s Commentary, in a popular Orion trail I keep soft-labeled, notes that in ancient Aram, Orion was known as Nephila and its descendants as Nephilim. Brown-Driver-Briggs marks an Orion-offspring etymology as precarious. I attribute the Peake claim and use it as a star-origin bridge beside the Avalon and Kabamur Orion lines.

Site captions on Zimbabwe rock-art panels (Diana’s Vow / Lake Chivero) identify figures as Nephilim giants, Igigi, Afro-Atlanteans, Lemurian Race, and Anunnaki DNA / “Slave Race.” Those are site interpretive captions on the paleo-contact trail I explore here.

Soft deluge and Atlantis links

The bridge I use is deluge survivors, culture-bringers, and Elohim / Anunnaki name trails. Flood and moral-decline parallels sit on the destruction of Atlantis described in the deluge legends.

Some scholars (for example Greenfield) compare negative aspects of the Mesopotamian Apkallu culture-hero tradition to Nephilim lore. The Apkallu are antediluvian sages praised for wisdom, sometimes called sons of Ea. That is a useful Ancient Near Eastern parallel beside the Anunnaki name trail, not a collapse of the two names into one.

Nephites contrast (name confusion only)

Nephites are a people in the Book of Mormon, a nineteenth-century Latter Day Saint scripture. They are said to descend from Nephi, who the book places leaving Jerusalem for the Americas around 600 BC.

Nephilim and Nephites are easy to confuse in a search box. They are separate scriptures, separate centuries, and separate geographies. I keep this contrast brief so the names do not collapse.

FAQ

Who were the Nephilim?
Enigmatic figures in Genesis 6 and Numbers 13, associated with mighty or giant stature and the sons-of-God episode. The verse does not settle whether they are the sons of God, the offspring, or a third group already present. Exact identity is debated. I also explore paleo-contact and Atlantis-survivor readings of the same trail.

Giants or fallen ones?
Ancient versions usually say giants (gigantes). The Hebrew root n-p-l is often read as “fallen ones.” Both senses appear in tradition. Brown-Driver-Briggs calls the etymologies precarious. Paleo-contact readers, including Prism of Lyra, also hear “those who have come down.”

How does 1 Enoch differ from the Bible?
The Hebrew Bible is brief. 1 Enoch expands Watchers, hybrid giants, secret arts, and a flood motive as labeled extra-biblical tradition. It is Second Temple expansion, not Hebrew Bible canon for most Jewish and Protestant readers.

What is the link to the Anakim?
Numbers 13 claims that Anak’s descendants come from the Nephilim. Deuteronomy and Joshua then place Anakim in Canaan’s hill country. That continuity is the spies’ claim in the Biblical conquest story.

How does this help Atlantis research?
I use the trail as a paleo-contact bridge to flood survivors and culture-bringers, beside Elohim and deluge pages. Bashar’s Atlantean-survivor reading, with Anunnaki lineage as the Nephilim of biblical nomenclature, is central to how I connect the layers. I keep the full quotes from Bashar, Prism of Lyra, Tsarion, Avalon regression, and Kabamur, attributed and weighted.

Related on this site

1. Genesis 6: Same Genesis 6:1-4 frame and lifespan / flood setup.
2. Beni Elohim: “Sons of Elohim” term page; Nephilim offspring trail.
3. The 12 Elohim: Elohim name and council layer.
4. Ziusudra’s flood: Flood survivor parallel after the Enoch flood motive.
5. The destruction of Atlantis described in the deluge legends: Deluge / moral-decline parallel for labeled Atlantis use.