Were the "Angels' that visited Joseph Smith Nephilim?

[Berlin.Gambolputty]

Then there were no Nephil survivors, so how could any of them have visited Joseph Smith?

There were supposedly more waves of Nephilim after the flood. Some say that the Philistines were Nephilim, or at least Goliath. Angels are also spiritual beings; they don't drown in floods. Of course, we don't know if any of their children had with humans would be able to survive.

I also learned about Nephilim being found in America but I'm not too sure about that.

 

[Berlin.Gambolputty]

Well I respect your opinion. However I have recieved a witness from the Holy Spririt that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet of God and those things he revealled are true.

Dispite the thread about DNA vs the Book of Mormon I still haven't seen any DNA evidence that disproves the Book of Mormon. Of course any continuation of this discussion should be carried out in that thread rather than take this thread off topic.

How could there possibly be DNA evidence disproving the Book of Mormon? Also, did you see an angel? Or... o_o nephilim... **gosh so terrifying!**

 

[Muffled]

Well I respect your opinion. However I have recieved a witness from the Holy Spririt that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet of God and those things he revealled are true.

Dispite the thread about DNA vs the Book of Mormon I still haven't seen any DNA evidence that disproves the Book of Mormon. Of course any continuation of this discussion should be carried out in that thread rather than take this thread off topic.

The Holy Spirit told me that the angel Moroni was a demon.

It doesn't matter that the author used the Bible as his source for names because the BOM still remains a work of fiction.

 

[Muffled]

There were supposedly more waves of Nephilim after the flood. Some say that the Philistines were Nephilim, or at least Goliath. Angels are also spiritual beings; they don't drown in floods. Of course, we don't know if any of their children had with humans would be able to survive.

I also learned about Nephilim being found in America but I'm not too sure about that.

Since it is quite possible that the flood was local rather than global, there could have been many survivors. I believe the Philistines are referred to as Castorim and descended from Noah.

Evidently the Nephilim were not men created from the earth but it appears they were not gods either. If there were a race of giants it appears not to be local to mesopotamia because Norse myths tell of frost giants. Since the giants are not listed as members of the ET group they would have to be viewed as indigenous. ONe may wonder how much bigger they were. Parhaps they weren't more than seven feet tall which appears pretty big to people who don't usually get over six feet tall. Are the dwarfs really that small or do they come in at around five feet?

 

[David69]

there are many fossils of dinosors but not one of a nephilim! they didnt exist imo

 

[Levite]

It recently occured to me that since the LDS believe that the Nephites had originally came to America from the biblical lands, there should be some similarity between names from the Book of Mormon and the Bible. The similarity of Nephi and Nephilim came to mind so I googled it and lo!....the following came up.

THE ETYMOLOGY OF NEPHI AND NEPHILIM
One of the claims of this site is that there is a direct link between the Mormon "Nephi" and the "Nephilim" (wrongly translated as "giants" in the KJV) in Genesis 6 which states that rebellious angels came to the earth, married the daughters of men, and created a race of "nephilim". So corrupt did the earth become not only morally but genetically that Yahweh was forced to intervene and destroy the anti-Diluvian culture with a universal flood.
Not unsurprisingly we have received alot of angry letters from Mormons claiming that we are ignorant of Hebrew and that there is no relationship between "Nephi" and "Nephilim". The typical argument runs something like this:
I read the article. Being a fluent speaker of Hebrew, I hate to burst the author's bubble, but there are two mistakes. Nephelim (plural of nephel) means "rejects" and not giants. Also, plurals in Hebrew are designated by "im" if masculine, and "ot" if feminine. The Hebrew plural for Nephites would be "Nephi'im" and not "nephelim".

Interestingly, other fluent Hebrew speakers take a different view. A Bible scholar and Israeli, who has some knowledge of Mormonism, wrote the following to me:
'Nephilim' means "fallen ones" or "fellers [of men]" (i.e., those who cause men to fall).
"Nephi" would also be "a feller of men" (men are symbolized as trees in scripture). Recall how he made Laban and Lemuel fall with "the power of God". Hebrew names are often characteristic of the person possessing the name.
Regarding 'plurals': With Hebrew one little letter often does little to change the meaning of the word. "Nephil" or "Nephi" could easily mean the same thing.

Thus the plural of 'Nephi/Nephil' could as well be 'Nephim', 'Nephi'im', 'Nephiyim' / 'Nephilim', &c.
The only other instance where 'Nephi' appears in antiquity is in a mistranslation of the Greek 'nephthai' which translates our English, 'naptha', an error of the KJV translators of 2 Maccabees 1:36. Some critics of Mormonism allege that Joseph Smith borrowed the word 'Nephi' from here, the text reading:
And Neemias called this thing Naphthar, which is as much to say, a cleansing: but many men call it Nephi (2 Macc.1:36, KJV)

Since Mormons have never satisfactority proposed an etymology of 'Nephi' (other than to propose parallels with the young Egyptian pagan corn god, 'Nepi' or 'Nepri' [Hugh B. Nibley, Mormon scholar] - not a very likely choice for a son's name by a supposedly devout Hebrew, Lehi) I believe the Nephi/Nephilim connection proposed by the New Covenant Church of God is the strongest one. Names throughout history are known to expand and contract as, for example, 'Jehoshua' to 'Joshua'.
Thus it is by no means unreasonable or inconceivable that 'Nephi' and 'Nephil' are but variants of the same name, with 'Nephi'im', 'Nephim' or 'Nephilim' being possible plurals.

Sorry, but as a newbie, I can't post URL links yet, please PM me if you would like them.

Although I do side with your source who says that a fair rendering of Nefilim could be "fallen ones," (I might render it "The Downfallen"), I must disagree with the notion that Nephi could be a contraction of Nefil. In such a word, the lamed would be the final letter of the root. Usually when letters were dropped in classical Hebrew, they were not only internal letters, but letters easily elided or present largely for indicators of pronunciation in pre-Masoretic spelling. The letters heh, vav, yod, and alef are the most common such letters; other letters were usually only dropped in the case of grammatical repetitions, of the kind that necessitated the Masoretic invention of the dagesh diacritical marking to indicate the intensive emphasis of a single letter where classical grammar would indicate the need for two letters. It seems unlikely in the extreme that a word or name such as Nefil would be shortened to Nefi, unlike, for example, names like Yehonatan or Yehoram being shortened to Yonatan and Yoram, where the heh was clearly simply elided out of existence from the midst of the word.

In any case, when I read the Book of Mormon, it seemed quite clear to me that, wherever Joseph Smith got his nomenclature from, it was not Hebrew, as his names generally seem to have no meaning in Hebrew, unless on occasion one might construct some sort of elaborate linguistic apologetic for why Smith wrote it this way and not some other more logical way. I have always simply assumed that he made up names that sounded to him like the Latinized Hebrew transliterations of the King James Bible.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Thank you Levite, I respect your scholarship and am happy to defer to your assessment.

 

[Levite]

Thank you Levite, I respect your scholarship and am happy to defer to your assessment.

Wow! Boy, that is extremely high praise! Thank you!

 

[Katzpur]

In any case, when I read the Book of Mormon, it seemed quite clear to me that, wherever Joseph Smith got his nomenclature from, it was not Hebrew, as his names generally seem to have no meaning in Hebrew, unless on occasion one might construct some sort of elaborate linguistic apologetic for why Smith wrote it this way and not some other more logical way. I have always simply assumed that he made up names that sounded to him like the Latinized Hebrew transliterations of the King James Bible.

I believe you're wrong. I could give examples, but I don't want to derail this thread. Maybe another time.

 

[Muffled]

Well I respect your opinion. However I have recieved a witness from the Holy Spririt that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet of God and those things he revealled are true.

Dispite the thread about DNA vs the Book of Mormon I still haven't seen any DNA evidence that disproves the Book of Mormon. Of course any continuation of this discussion should be carried out in that thread rather than take this thread off topic.

The Holy Spirit has told me that the book of Mormon is a work of fiction. Until there is actually evidence, the chances are just as good that I heard from the Holy Spirit as they are that you heard from the Holy Spirit, except that you probably have an a priori outlook whereas I simply asked God to find out what He would have to say, since I had no opinion on the matter.

He went on to tell me that the book was written by a contemporary of Joseph Smith. He also told me that the angel Moroni wa a demon.

 

[Muffled]

there are many fossils of dinosors but not one of a nephilim! they didnt exist imo

I suppose one would have to burrow into the silt in the gulf of Aquaba and get lucky. Lack of evidence never proves anything.

 

[David69]

I suppose one would have to burrow into the silt in the gulf of Aquaba and get lucky. Lack of evidence never proves anything.

lol, says the christian

 

[sojourner]

Were the "Angels' that visited Joseph Smith Nephilim?

They were G-men.