Supernatural creature of the week: Nephilim

The very unloved children of angels and humans, Nephilims have a shady history where people can’t decide if their good or bad.

This episode of Supernatural didn’t have much going on outside of Jack and Lucifer’s former vessel. We learned a name this week that’s bound to come up later, Abraxas, who I’m saving for later. Right now I’m going to focus on Jack because 90% of the episode was about him and the downsides of being a graceless Nephilim.

Jack sounds nothing like the original Nephilim. They were wild giants similar to Neanderthals. In fact, there are a few theories that suggest Neanderthals were actually Nephilim early civilizations thought were giants.

Though a popular subject for entertainment, the existence of Nephilim in religion continues to be a topic of great discussion and a baffling one at that. For being the children of angels, they’re rarely mentioned. And their overall existence is extraordinarily vague. Some believe their angel/human hybrids, some believe they’re the offspring of God himself, and some believe them to be something entirely different (like Neanderthals).

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I feel like Nephilims were created as part of yet another abstinence lesson. Don’t have sex with angels or you’ll cause a mass flood or be like Kelly Kline and give birth to a giant baby that’ll practically explode from your womb. Nephilim, which means “fallen” were first mentioned in Genesis 6:1–4 as the offspring of “sons of God” and “daughters of Adam.”

These hybrid children were great warriors the size of giants.

"When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

No matter how you look at it though, the Nephilim are a result of rebellion and lust and are therefore symbols of such. Their origin story changes depending on the source, but they all come to the same conclusion; Nephilim are abominations who pretty much caused the flood.

Fallen Angels

Pop culture has pretty much firmly stated that Nephilim are the children of angels and humans; Supernatural, “The Mortal Instruments” and Shadowhunters, “Hush, Hush” series, The Prophecy films, etc. However, it’s shocking to find how many are unsatisfied with this simple explanation. Scholars have a hard time accepting the thought of angels just coming down to earth and mating with humans.

There had to be something different about the baby daddy angels. Why would they willingly mate with humans in the first place?

Because they’re called “fallen”, one theory is the Nephilim are not born from ordinary angels but fallen ones. The Nephilim are fathered by the “sons of God”, which some believe is proof that Nephilim come from disgraced angels. Angels are “sons of Heaven” and humans are “children of Adam”, who are these “sons of God” then? Could they be debunked angels?

In the Jewish Book of Enoch, Nephilim are believed to come from one fallen angel in particular. Samyaza, an angel of former high rank, led an army of angels down to earth to have sexual relations with human women as a form of rebellion. This forever cursed the Nephilim to be loathed by God and other angels.

Those who argue in favor of this theory, claim angels have been known to occasionally take human form. Those who argue against it, claim angels are incapable of having marital relations.

Lines of Seth and Cain

Everyone knows Cain and Abel, but the average non-Bible reader probably doesn’t know Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. Born after Abel’s death, Eve believed God granted them Seth as a replacement for Abel. There are several references in both Christian and Jewish literature that claim Cain and Seth’s bloodlines mingled together at one point and bred children. It’s also mentioned in the modern canonical Amharic Ethiopian Orthodox Bible: Henok 2:1–3

"“and the Offspring of Seth, who were upon the Holy Mount, saw them and loved them. And they told one another, ‘Come, let us choose for us daughters from Cain’s children; let us bear children for us.'”"

Weirdly enough, this is one of the more popular theories and is supposedly backed up with evidence. It’s been a long-held up belief that the “sons of God” were in fact the formerly righteous descendants of Seth. While the “daughters of men” were the sinning descendants of Cain. The two lines had a Game of Thrones moment and made babies, who became the Nephilim.

This theory dates back to first century AD in Jewish literature and around the third century in Christian literature.

This doesn’t explain why the Nephilim were giants though, but it was most likely a side effect of breeding with Cain’s line. According to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, mentioned in the Haile Selassie Bible, when the descendants of Seth bred with the cainites, the result of such an abomination were giants and God’s wrath was so great that he brought the flood.

"But many men say, that angels came down from heaven, and joined themselves to women, and had children by them. This cannot be true. But they were children of Seth, who were of the children of Adam, that dwelt on the mountain, high up, while they preserved their virginity, their innocence and their glory like angels; and were then called ‘angels of God.’But when they transgressed and mingled with the children of Cain, and begat children, ill-informed men said, that angels had come down from heaven, and mingled with the daughters of men, who bear them giants."

The flood

Nephilim have a negative reputation as they’re commonly linked to the great flood. It was once believed that the mating of angels and humans is what resulted in the flood. The birth of such a being tainted the earth and God had to wash it clean.

The fact that the Christian Nephilim narrative led directly into Genesis 6:5, where the flood was introduced, and that their name literally means “fallen”, inevitably connected the two events.

According to the Book of Jubilees, God’s only reason for bringing the flood was to wash away all the Nephilim, after which he made the 10% of those left to remain as demons.

All this sounds wildly complicated. The Seth/Cain theory would make a fantastic movie though. Supernatural pretty much ignores all the other Nephilim theories in favor of the more widely known one; the children of angels and humans. It’s a lot easier to work out than the other ones.

Don’t miss the next episode of Supernatural Thursday at 8:00 p.m. ET only on the CW.