Chapter 11: The Great Deluge
It is not difficult to believe Nephilim overreached in viewing themselves as earthly gods, given the great size and strength that these giants must have possessed, pitted against the average size of a man of that time, in addition to their immortal spirits. Nephilim were easily capable of dominating life at that time, and every form of cultural structure by force. Ergo, they became the leaders of the ancient world, systematically enslaving the peoples and imposing their wills and ways upon them, which would have included the introduction of new gods. These very large and powerful beings became the potentates of old. Their power and influence would so dominate the antediluvian period that as a consequence, the greatest catastrophe ever to strike the earth in that age would be poured out onto the earth. They were, according to the biblical scholar J. R. Porter, the “mighty men of old” that became the embodiment of “absolute power” of the ancient world. 21
Even though Baruch recorded this race of giants was skilled in the art of war and intimidation, as taught to them by Azazel, their fate was always sealed from the beginning. God did not choose this race for Himself, and therefore, He withheld the true ways of knowledge and wisdom from them. 22 The Nephilim had power deriving from their strength but not from their intelligence. They lacked the required wisdom and insight to avert catastrophe and rule wisely and justly. As a result, they were easily led into open rebellion against God by their procreators. Forbidden knowledge from the corrupted Cainites that collaborated with the Nephilim served only as an accelerator on their journey into destruction. Nephilim plunged headlong into destruction but did not have the wisdom to save themselves. The combined evil of their legacy, along with what Unger’s calls the unnatural union violating God’s divinely created natural orders of being, was of such shocking abnormality as to necessitate the worldwide divine judgment, remembered as the flood. 23
God, however, did not simply summarily judge and condemn those evil giants and all humankind. Through the righteousness of Noah, He delivered an olive branch to those demigods. As per the accounts of Josephus, Noah toiled to persuade those brutal potentates to change their ways and honor God as the true God of the universe. 24 The Qur’an records that Noah was sent as a messenger and a prophet of God to warn the antediluvians to worship only God and no other gods, to repent of their evils ways or a face the wrath and destruction of a fearsome day to come. 25 The interrelationship between Noah and the Nephilim is rich in its detail and intriguing in its nature.
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