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The Nephilim
#1
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Hello,

Could anyone here please translate Gen 6 and the other places from the Aramaic where it talks about the 'Nephilim' in the Hebrew?

I am wondering what, if any difference the term has in the Aramaic. For instance does it mean 'Giants', or 'Fallen Ones' or something else.

The Targums go so far as to name these beings, Schamchazia & Uzziel in Gen 6 ...Im not sure where those names come from other than maybe the Book of Enoch...

Anyway, I am trying to find out if the Peshitta Old Testament can shed ony light on this.

Thanks,
Chuck

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#2
Thirdwoe Wrote:I am wondering what, if any difference the term has in the Aramaic. For instance does it mean 'Giants', or 'Fallen Ones' or something else.

Shlama Chuck,

In Aramaic it's the same root as in Hebrew....."N-P-L" is a verbal root meaning "to fall"....in Aramaic the word would be "nepele" (fallen ones) for the plural "nepilim" in Hebrew.
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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#3
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Thanks for that Paul, is there any reason why the Septuagint uses the word Gigantes/Giants for this Hebrew/Aramaic word or maybe their text did not have the same word as it does now, or maybe a later coruption?

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#4
Thirdwoe Wrote:...

Thanks for that Paul, is there any reason why the Septuagint uses the word Gigantes/Giants for this Hebrew/Aramaic word or maybe their text did not have the same word as it does now, or maybe a later coruption?

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Anytime, Chuck. I can only guess at the origin of the reading of the LXX...in that perhaps because great strength was attributed to them that this was a more liberal translation by the redactors of the LXX.

I am not aware of any meaning attached to that root in any of the Semitic languages with which I am familiar, that implies stature. The root of the name is verbal in nature and the noun is constructed in such a way that it is consistent with other Hebrew terms similarly derived. My translation would be "fallen [ones]".
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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#5
Shlama all--

If I may, the original Torah, which I did NOT write, identifies these "nephilim" as giants not from the root, which is indeed "fallen, to prostrate" but from the description of this group from the book of Numbers:


Nu 13:32
And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.
Nu 13:33
And there we saw the nephilim, the sons of Anak, which come of the nephilim: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

So the fallen ones are described as giants, but again the report of them is considered false or exaggerated, so whether they were really giants is open to interpretation. But at least we know where that idea comes from.

This analysis is copyright © 1425 BCE by the Moses Protection Project. Any use of Torah, in whole or in part, must be done by getting permission in writing from the Shekinah of Sinai. The use of this Torah for any purpose without the express written consent of its Creator, is prohibited by Law.
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
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#6
In Genesis 6:4 both the KJV from the Hebrew and Lamsa from the Aramaic Peshitta translate Nephilim as "giants".
I wonder why.

Otto
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#7
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Quote:In Genesis 6:4 both the KJV from the Hebrew and Lamsa from the Aramaic Peshitta translate Nephilim as "giants".
I wonder why.

Because, the KJV plagiarized the Septuagint & Lamsa plagiarized the KJV....silly.

Quote:This analysis is copyright © 1425 BCE by the Moses Protection Project. Any use of Torah, in whole or in part, must be done by getting permission in writing from the Shekinah of Sinai. The use of this Torah for any purpose without the express written consent of its Creator, is prohibited by Law.

Very funny Andrew...lol

Also remember Og, king of Bashan? He was said to descend from the Nephilim or rather Rephaim i.e. race of giants and his bed, or cript as it may be, is described to be around 13 1/2 feet long and 6 feet wide. So, that???s quite large indeed.

I saw David Robinson of the USA Basketball fame in a store once and he is 7' 1'' and he looked scary tall next to me. So, if Og were, say 11 or 12 feet tall or so, I at 5' 8'' would very much feel like a grasshopper in his sight!

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#8
Lamsa translated from the Peshitta Tenakh. However, it is true that he incorported KJV wordings if they were consistent with the Peshitta text. His rendition of Genesis 6:4 is very similar to the KJV, but does not match in the last phrase.

KJV: There were giants on 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 became mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

Lamsa: There were giants on the earth in those days; and also after that, for the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, and they became giants who in the olden days were mighty men of renown.
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#9
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Here is a bunch of comparisons for this verse....

Hebrew Masoretic:
KJV: There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

JPS 1917: 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.

Note: The Hebrew word is Nephil in the plural, Nephil-im and literally means a feller, or fellers. It has been interpreted, not literally translated as ???giants??? in the KJV and earlier 1560 Geneva version. Nephil comes from the root word Nephal, which means ???to fall??? and in the plural ???fallen???

Aramaic Peshitta:
Onkelos: Giants were in the earth in those days; and also when, after that the sons of the mighty had gone in unto the daughters of men, there were born from them giants who from of old were men of name.

Lamsa: There were giants on the earth in those days; and also after that, for the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, and they became giants who in the olden days were mighty men of renown.

Note: it is curious that Lamsa would go with ???Giants??? here and may have been influenced by the KJV rendering and the Septuagint and Vulgate.


Greek Septuagint:
Brenton: Now the giants were upon the earth in those days; and after that when the sons of God were wont to go in to the daughters of men, they bore children to them, those were the giants of old, the men of renown.

Vanderpool: And the giants were upon the earth in those days. And after that, the sons of God continually entered to the daughters of men and procreated for themselves. Those were the giants, the ones from the eon, the renowned men.

Thomson: Now there were giants on the earth in those days, after the sons of God went in unto the daughters of men, and they bore [offspring] to them. These were the giants of old, the men of renown.

Hiebert: Now the giants were on the earth in those days and afterward. When the sons of God used to go in to the daughters of humans, then they produced offspring for themselves. Those were the giants that were of old, the renowned humans.

Note: The Septuagint has the word ???gigantes??? in the text, which is why it has to be translated as ???giants.??? The question is, what did the Hebrew translators see in the Hebrew text that they had when translating this verse? Does the MT contain the same word now, as it did then? Sadly there is no text for this verse that survived in the Qumran Scrolls. I am not sure what the Samaritan version reads here.

Latin Vulgate:
Douay: Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown.

Conte: Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they conceived, these became the powerful ones of ancient times, men of renown.

Note: The Vulgate used the Septuagint and so it would read ???giants??? here.

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#10
Shlama,

it appears that the Greek translators went with what is called dynamic equivalence, instead of literal. apparently, they took the idea of the b'ney haElohim -- "the sons of Elohim" who took for themselves daughters of men as wives that are also spoken of in the context of the passage, as literally being angels cohabiting with humans, and so produced nephilim -- "fallen ones." the idea of their progeny being "nephilim" was dynamically translated into the Greek understanding of "gigantes," which is not necessarily to convey the idea of "giants," per se, as it is to reference children begotten by the mixed union of supernatural and natural parents.

this appears to be how the Greek translators were working. whether one believes the above scenario recorded in Scripture is translated correctly is not important to the question, it just helps to see how they seem to have looked at the text and understand why they translated such an easy-to-translate word into a totally different idea.

the Peshitta wasn't a translation into a language with a completely different set of ancient traditions, like what was happening in the Greek, so no dynamic equivalence was necessary for the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew. nepele would sufficiently convey the idea of the Hebrew without interjecting any targumic ideas into the text. a much purer translation effort than the Greek, by all means.


Chayim b'Moshiach,
Jeremy
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#11
Shlama Akhay,

My apologies, it pays to check the actual Peshitta OT text before I speak. While the Aramaic "Nepele" is indeed the cognate of the Hebrew "Nephilim" (for "fallen ones"), the Peshitta OT (and the Targums Onkelos, Neofiti, Yonathan) use the word "Ganbare~Gaybare" instead - which means "strong men."

The "giant" reading in Lamsa is faithful to the Peshitta text, which is as much a liberal translation as the Greek "gigantes."
+Shamasha Paul bar-Shimun de'Beth-Younan
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#12
Shlama akhi Paul,

so this translation is arising from the Hebrew hagibborim of 6:4? if so, the Peshitta A"NK is still following an idea presented in the Hebrew text, just applying it back to the "Nephilim" instead of leaving "fallen ones" in the text.

okay, so there is some targumic leaning there! <!-- sBlush --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/blush.gif" alt="Blush" title="Blush" /><!-- sBlush -->


Chayim b'Moshiach,
Jeremy
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#13
Shlama kulkoon

Michael S Hieser says the root is not NPL, to fall, but NPYL: giant.
he says that it cannot be taken as fallen ones, or it would have been spelled ???????????? (nephulim), in Genesis 6 the spelling is ?????????? and it could be vowel pointed in different ways, but is spelled elsewhere in the OT as ???????????? (numbers 13:33) and lets us know the true spelling of the word as the yod acts as the vowel, thus showing the root to be ???????? and not ??????

C.A.L under ????????

npyl n.m. giant

1 giant Jud.
2 constellation JLAtg.
3 Orion Qum, LJLA.

You can watch his presentation here, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKjOOtPvV6c&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKjOOtPv ... re=related</a><!-- m -->
its worth searching goolge video for more of his presentations by the way

Perhaps this is an example of what we have seen in the NT, that sometime they "targummed" the text for clarification, so they substituted Nephilim with Gabare on purpose to make sure people knew it was giants, not fallen ones. And as Paul says, we now have the LXX and Peshitta in agreement with the meaning of this word.

If this is correct, then it demonstrates again the great value of the Peshitta ANK in giving us the interpretation of the Hebrew OT. It is like a handbook to understanding the Old Testament. The more I see things like this the more I wonder if this great work was started by Ezra.

Sami
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#14
Interesting discussion. From the WL Codex,

n':phiy:liym "giants" is used in Gn 6:4 and twice in Nu 13:33 (2 of the 3 usages are defective spellings(minus the first yod))

n'oph:liym "fallen-ones" is used numerous times elsewhere, usually to describe those slain in battle.
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