S2 E1 Dinosaurs, Dragons & the Nephilim in the Bible

What's myth? What's in the Bible? We're talking about a creature from hell who wants me dead and lives on chaos. Can we talk about dinosaurs? We can. How they got here on a boat with Noah, right? Did humans and dinosaurs ever exist together? It seems like, and this is where we're all going to get in trouble, right? There's angels or spiritual beings coming down to earth and taking human women as their lives. If there's something weird in the Bible, then it's something important. Buckle up, because it's going to get weird. I'm looking forward to talking about some crazy creatures today. Yeah, you got dinosaurs going down. Oh my God. We too. Where are we? It's kind of a wild scene. This is pretty cool. Yeah. So I do want to know about them, but I feel like there's even more than Jurassic dinosaurs in the Bible, and it feels a little confusing. So I feel like I've been reading, you got word dinosaurs fit into this. Giants, some Leviathan. Big old sea creature. Loch Ness monster. I don't know if that's in there, but behemoths, Nephilim. There's just so many like these unique creatures, monsters. Some of it feel like you read it. You're like, what's myth? What's in the Bible? Even some of the names start to kind of get mixed up. And so I'm being honest with you, I don't even know how to categorize this stuff.

And so when we talk about creatures in the Bible, strange stuff in the Bible, how do we even think about this? Where do we even begin? So maybe help us dive in here. How do we start talking about those? Two words buckle up because it is a ride. I think we're all very influenced in our day and age by a very rationalist type of approach to scriptures, a much more enlightenment view of like, no, this all makes sense. But you look below the surface on some of this stuff. It is a wild ride. Like it is scary the stuff that, everything you thought that you knew about the ancient world, about God and his interaction with ancient peoples. And it's not flannel graphs. It's not like Sunday school, you got the little arc. Be like, little baby kangaroos, you know, there's some, there's some weird stuff out there. So I don't have anything to say right off the bat. Just buckle up because it's going to get weird. It's going to get weird in this episode. And then it's going to get weird next episode, even more so next episode like snakes. I don't know. Do I think, well, as I think about this, one of the ways to help you put the buckle on well is to avoid what C.S. Lewis used to call chronological snobbery, which is the idea that because we're going to talk about some old stuff. The bow was pretty old, it's ancient. And I think we assume, I sometimes assume, because it's old, it probably doesn't hold up. Or like it's not true because it's so old or they just didn't understand, you know what I mean? And there are certain things that maybe they didn't understand that we do now. But just because it's an ancient revelation doesn't mean it's not true. Presentism. Yeah, exactly.

Presentism would be what we're trying to avoid. My wife practices presentism with my music selection. Have so long. She doesn't like that I like 80s music. Like I like, I feel a lot of good contemporary music I listen to, whatever. Contemporary music. Current, current music. But I like, you know, if I'm working in a garage or whatever, I like putting on 80s, whatever, she's like, oh my gosh, it's so old. And I'm like, why is that bad? So to your point, just because it's old, it doesn't mean it's bad. It just means you have to look at it a little bit differently and buckle up. We're in for a wild ride. Yeah. So how do we start with this? What do you want to talk about first? And there's just tons of different creatures we could dive into. Which one makes sense to start with? I don't know, what do you like? I think we should start with the Leviathan. Nice. Yeah, I'd like to start there. I mean, Job has Leviathan and Behemoth and they're kind of connected. Yeah, yeah. But I remember when I was young, I used to read, there was this book my family had, it was Ken Ham's book about like the creation of like, and it had like all these different like creatures that were listed in the Bible. And there's this one, maybe Tyler, you can pull it up. If you pull up like just like Leviathan image or something like that. Yeah, look pretty much, so this is pretty much what it looks like in the book.

And that's what I want it to look like. Yeah, I was like, dang, that thing is absolutely terrifying. I hope I never come across that. In sort of like the description I was given at the time was like, this was like a real extinct creature that like Job was interacting with. And it was also like representative too. So that scared me at the time. As I read my Bible now, it confuses me. So yeah, I was going to say, how do you deal with that? Because like there are people that'll be like, I saw it. Yeah, I had pictures in Lake George. And why are Lake George has like their own Loch Ness monster. That's why they named it Lake George. - I think it's called like Georgia or something like that. - But how come all the pictures of that are, especially now with all of our cell phones, they're like perfect, you know, in terms of like portrait mode and whatever, you can go 0.5 and everything's all blurry. Like that blurry, blurry creature's podcast, yeah. - That's a great podcast. - You can never get a good photo of the Bigfoot. - No, no. - So why, I mean, I don't know, do you think those creatures are around now? Do you think we, I mean, the Bible's talking about them. Do they exist? - Maybe. - Maybe? - No, let me correct myself.

It was Lake Champlain, not Lake George. - Oh, you was called Champy. - I'm serious, Champy. - They think there's a, there's a little, they have pictures of like a little head, similar to Loch Ness. - Yeah, okay. - And they tell stories of like ships being pulled down and things like that, interesting. Yeah, and I think that happens like the Bermuda Triangle. There's like weird stuff going on there. - Yeah. - But it's going down. - I've been to Loch Ness, I've actually-- - You've been there. - Yeah, I've been on the River Ness. - So you bet, you bet him. - No, I never met him. I never came out, maybe it was bedtime of the year. I don't know, he was done. He was on Christmas break. - So before we talk about like, is it real or not? How do we look at it? Where does it say it in the Bible? It's in Job, right? Where we talk about the Leviathan? - Yeah. - Can we read that? And I think it's how we can you pull it up or we can read where it talks about the Leviathan? - There's that, I think Isaiah talks about it as well.

- It's in a Psalm too, I'm pretty sure. - Okay. - So it's like a whole theme that comes through. I mean, I can try to find it. Job 40, 41, I think. - Yep, yep. - Yeah. - 41, one to 34. - Job 41, one. - It says, "Can you catch Leviathan with a hook "or put a nose around his jaw? "Can you tie it with a rope through the nose "or pierce his jaw with a spike? "Will it bag you for mercy or employ you for pity? "Will it agree to work for you to be your slave for life? "Can you make it a pet like a bird "or give it to your little girls to play with? "Are merchants gonna try to buy it "or sell it in their shops? "Will it hide be hurt by spears or its head by a harpoon? "If you lay a hand on it, you'll certainly remember "the battle of Volos. "You won't try that again." No, it is useless to try to capture it. The hunter who attempts it will be knocked down. And since no one disturbs it, no one dares disturb it, who then can stand up to me, as God speaking? Who has given me anything that I need to pay back? Everything under heaven is mine. And then God goes on to talk about,

like he describes Leviathan, the limbs, the strength that it has, the scales on its back and how they're close together. And all just like in beautiful language, the strength of its neck. There's one part that says, yeah, verse 31, Leviathan makes the water boil with its commotion. It stirs the depths like a pot of ointment. The water glistens in its wake. It's like really an amazing language. I'm just kind of describing how big, powerful. It calls it the king of the beast. That's the last verse. Yeah, just like cool language. There's even, oh yeah. So like they talk about a breathing fire, verse 19, or yeah, 18, 19, 20. It sneezes, when it sneezes, it flashes light. Its eyes are like the red of dawn. Lightning leaps from its mouth. Flames of fire flash out. Smoke streams from its nostrils, like steam from a pot heated over burning rushes. You see, that's, that's where, so Isaiah 27 has similar language here. It's like verse one that says, "The Lord will punish with his sword, his fears great and powerful sword." Leviathan, the gliding serpent. Leviathan, the coiling serpent,

he will lay, he will slay the monster of the sea. He goes on to talk about like what else he's going to do, but that coiling aspect of it. I think, honestly, when we talk about what this creature looks like or is, there's a big difference between the coiling serpent and the fire breather, which is interesting to me. Because the coiling serpent, that all connects with some of the etymology of the word. So the etymology comes from, it's like a comparison, or kind of like a lone word from Ugarit where the L, the Vav, the N, Leviathan is the same thing that we use, or that the Hebrews use to describe Leviathan. And it means like coiled one, or like coiling upon itself. Some people will say like devouring itself, you know, that sort of thing. So it has that slithery type of like coiled type of. - So it's a borrowed word, which we're familiar with. It would be like bon appetit. - Yeah. - Like it's a French word, but we use it. But you're saying this word Leviathan comes from another culture. - Well, the image would be borrowed. I mean, it's like shared, I would say. It's not directly coming from it. And I'm no like ancient Near Eastern languages expert by any means, but what's interesting

is how it describes it at the end there breathing fire. 'Cause that seems more like a dragon, which I think some of the later translators translate it as a dragon, you know, which is. That to me is probably the most interesting part of all of it is like, why do all of these ancient cultures have images or pictures or thoughts of this thing that comes out of the sea that breathes fire? - Yeah. - Like what is that? - Even like, yeah, even like ancient, like Asian cultures. - Yeah. Is there anything that's smaller that does something like that that just comes out like that? (laughing) Like what is that? Or is it just like the like Carl Jung used to talk about how there's like this collective type in our heads of things that just naturally come out within our things that we write, does it just come from somewhere deep inside of us or they must have been seen something? - It makes me think it's something real. That's why my initial reaction is like, oh well then they all had something like that. - So it's like they're all looking back at something that actually existed, kind of. Well I think that away about the flood, there's like, we talked about this in the last season, like all these cultures have a flood story, makes me think, well there was probably a flood.

So if that's the case with this, it kind of seems similar to me. - And I can go there, like I can definitely say like, okay, there must have been something they observed or witnessed that made them go like, oh yeah, it's like that thing that we saw. - Right. - 10,000 years ago or whatever, you know. But it does, and we're gonna talk about this later in terms of science, but it does mess with timetables. Right, because it's like, we're talking now even back before this time, you're talking maybe thousands of years before then. - Talking about before this was written saying, this came up, yeah. - 'Cause I mean, like if you're all sharing stuff and you have other cultures that are going back even thousands of years, you're talking about something way back in the periphery of their minds, like that's. - It's gonna be good stuff to talk about. - So it's suggesting, it's like, I'm looking at, you know, Job 41, what you were just reading, very descriptive of like different pieces of this creature. - Yeah. - So it's kind of seems like we're suggesting it could be something they saw, something that was real, something that they were like actually recording that they had seen, or-- - Recording.

(laughing) - Pulling out their phone. - So they were funny. - Not that kind of recording. - Put it on Snapchat. - That would have been convenient. - Pull out your scroll phone. - Would have settled it if they could just record it. But something that they've seen or something that they're pulling from, what, like a tail, a myth or something that someone has just had imagined at some point is that kind of our actions. - That's the other thing that, I don't know, it seems to make a whole lot more sense to me is that there's some of the surrounding cultures that the Jews found themselves in had had all kinds of interesting stories and they would have just, by trading, by, you know, doing, dealing with different people, walking through their area, whatever. They would have heard these different stories. In the same way we hear different stories from the people up in Canada, the people down in Mexico that would come through our land and you know, we just share different ideas. Like all of a sudden, now we know hockey because of, you know, Canada. But obviously oversimplified. But the idea is that there are these stories that have been around for hundreds or even thousands of years

that people can draw great conclusions from, you know, and they can think like, okay, well, that's a symbol of power. And so I wonder if in some ways the Leviathan, this coiled snake that's in the water. And this is where it combines with a couple of elements that are really interesting 'cause the water represents chaos, right? It represents everything that's unstructured. You ever been in the water deep, deep into the water and you can't touch the land? - I hate that feeling. - Yeah. - It's terrifying. - It feels awful. It feels like I can't control anything. - Yeah. - Like chaotic. - Yes. - Have you ever been in the ocean at night? - Yeah. - Even worse. - What does that feel like? Tell me. - You feel, well, one, you feel very unsafe, very small. Like if you go to, we go on the East Coast and you can already not see your feet after like four steps in the day. And so you go out there in the middle of the night. I mean, you get close to it and it's ominous. You're just looking out there.

It's just like, it feels like something's waiting for me to walk into that water. - And then to feel undertow? - Yeah. - Oh, it's creepy. Like I've gone, I've been out in the ocean at night and I've gone out pretty far and it's weird and it's very unsettling to hear waves far off. You know what I mean? You know, you're far out. And so you're like, well, what else is out here? And then you look around at 180 degrees of horizon. - That's terrifying. - It's all dark. That's what Genesis one is. You know, God's spirit hovered over the surface of the deep. And so in the collective consciousness of the ancient Near Eastern mind, water was, I mean, if you live in the desert, you know, it's kind of like, oh, I can see things. You know, everything's structured. And then to think of water being everywhere. And it's all random and chaotic and it just kind of runs wherever it wants to. And then that there's something in there that wants me dead. Like that to me is like creature double feature. You know, I'm like, but you know, like the way they looked at the world back then was almost like you got a bowl of Cheerios.

You know, you've got your bowl here and this represents like the earth, right? Which is really like the whole cosmos to them, right? And you pour a bunch of Cheerios on there and the Cheerios float on top of the milk. And in the middle, that's where the dry land is. And then everything where the milk was, that's like the ocean. And it goes down to the bottom, which would they would call like, and everything in the underworld is where all the dragons, where I'd swear like hell was. It's like Hades, you know, it's not a very desirable place to be. It's that netherworld that's black and white where like there's no flavor, there's no spice, there's nothing, it's just kind of, everyone who dies just kind of goes down to this nothing existence. And so that's where all the sea monsters come from. So every time you see the sea, it's like a direct route down to Tartarus or down to like the underworld. And so mixing all of that together, it's like, wow, okay, so when we're talking about Leviathan, we're talking about a creature from hell who wants me dead and lives on chaos, lives where everything is completely random. That's scary. - And Job is saying God basically treats Leviathan like a pet.

- Yeah, like I can do whatever I want with him. - Yeah. - I crush his head, you know. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's like songs. - It could be real. - There could be something out there slithering around. We don't really see a lot of them. I mean, there's some really interesting creatures in the deep, you know, if you've ever watched anything on like - Giant scratlets. - Oh, they catch like a little bit of some like massive tentacle. - Oh, yeah, it's such weird. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can imagine people who've been on the sea, they've seen some of that, they're like, what? But regardless of whether it exists or not, it's that feeling of chaos, that everything's random, I'm not safe. And it's like, no, Yahweh is the one who's master of all this. He thought of all this. He created the 10-aim. He knows what's going on. - Oh, I was gonna ask you, John, 'cause I've heard that like, so if, you know, this Ugarit people, the ancient Mesopotamian, they have low time, it's pretty similar to Leviathan, probably they're connected.

- Right. - In their culture, they have a God who like goes in fights Leviathan, fights low time and beats him. But that doesn't happen in Job. - Bail. - Yeah, in, oh yeah, it's Bail is that who it is? - Bail, you know. - Yeah, but in Job. - In Ugarit, yeah, but like, if you were talking like Marduk and Tiamat and the Babylonian. - Okay, I can't remember. - I can't remember. - Right now, what are you referring to? Like, you go out-- - We're in there now to hear about it. - I tried to follow one word at a time, then you drop like three or four more, just real quick. Are these just other, like mythological stories? - Can I tell you the story? - We talk to the story. Is it bear, does the bear repeating the Marduk story? Do we talk about this before? - I think you could probably just overview real quick. - No, no, no, no, we gotta get into this one. - Well, I just met at the very least. Like, overview, like even the words that you're using at an ergerat, what is it? Like, is that what you said? - You tell about Ugarit. - Yeah, I mean, it's a little more.

- It's a language in a people group that would have been like, they lived in the same region that the Israelites would have lived in. During the time that Job and other scriptures were being created, so they would have been familiar with what they believed about the origin of the universe. You could call it myth, but I think some people believed it too. This is what John was kind of getting to. It's kind of complicated to be like, oh, it was all fake. It was like, well, is it fake? There's truth in it. And so what in their version of what happens with Loton is a God comes in, fights him, beats him, and becomes the king because he beat him. But Job, God's not fighting with Leviathan. Because Leviathan doesn't have anything like, he doesn't have the power to do that. God just runs him, and that's totally different. It's a polemic. - It's an insult. - Yeah, it's an insult. Polemic's not really a word that we use often, but it's like the Bible was written with these other ideas in mind. Like they knew this is what other people believed, and they're saying, you guys have it wrong, Yahweh's the king. We use it even to need to fight against Leviathan. - And ultimately, and that's where I think you can get,

again, mixed up with what you're spending all your time focusing on. Like the focus on that is just how, that God's power over these things. Even referring to things in the culture, like you were commenting on that's like, hey, God's above all that. Like it's not even a contest. It's not even a battle. - Yeah, it's like, we talked about this in the last episode where we talked about Rocky facing up against Yvonne Drogo, right? And Rocky for, he goes and he takes on the Russian fighter, and he's this guy, he's gonna destroy him. And Rocky's like, you know, the whole thing is East versus West, and they're gonna go up against each other. Imagine that, we know that as a culture, we know that kind of trope. But imagine the movie is Rocky shows up and this guy just falls over, you know? And it's like, okay, it's over. No, no, no, you have to act out the whole thing. No, not really, because like it's not even a contest. You can't even stand in the same room as him. So it's that type of idea of Leviathan. People are getting ready for, oh, so Yahweh is gonna take out a sword. He's gonna cut him in half, and he's gonna make the earth out of the body, and then the top half, he's gonna make it into the stars of the sky,

and that's how, no, that's Marduk. Actually, God calls it a pet. This is what I created for my enjoyment. And that's it. So people were like, no, that doesn't fit the story. We're like, exactly, 'cause he's not ruled by chaos. - So, a python, we don't have picture proof, so much as I wish we could have recorded. The picture proof of this thing literally actually existing, but we don't know for sure that it didn't or doesn't, but we do know that there's a lot of cultural-- - Well, we know there's a lot of sea creatures out there. - A lot of sea creatures. - You know, there's a lot of creepy sea creatures that have done some damage to some seafaring missions, I'm sure, over the last several thousand years, at least. - So what about, so that Leviathan was one that is mentioned in Job. The other one's Behemoth. Is this a similar thing? Is this totally different? - Well, we could read that, do you wanna read that part? - Yes, read that as well. - That's the chapter before. - So it's pretty close to my little boy over there. - Yeah. - Bible man. - I love the Bible. All right, this is 40/15. It says, "Take a look at Behemoth," which I made just as I made you.

It eats grass like an ox, see its powerful loins, the muscles of its belly. Its tail is as strong as a cedar. The sinews of its thighs are knit together tightly. Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs are bars of iron. It is a prime example of God's handiwork. Only its creator can threaten it. The mountains offer it their best food where all the wild animals play. It lies under the lotus plants, hidden by the reeds in the marsh. The lotus gives its shade. Among the willows beside the stream, it's not disturbed by the raging river, not concerned when the swelling of the Jordan rushes around it. No one can catch it off guard or put a ring in its nose and lead it away. And then it goes on from there right into Leviathan. - Wow. - So these are like back-to-back two different creatures and Tyler pulled up a picture for us. - Yeah, so I grabbed the representation of this. - I grabbed this one because we don't know what this creature is. 'Cause there's like three big views. The first view is that it is, and this is ridiculous in some ways, mainstream Bible theologians will say, "Well, it's a hippo or it's a rhino." Or, you know, it's just, it's something,

'cause what they're doing is they're taking like, oh, it feeds on the reeds, didn't it say or something like that? So it's trying to think through like, oh, in their mind, this is what feeds on the reeds nearby and this is what it would have been. This is probably what would have been in that area, that region, and so it makes sense. But really, I mean, like, if you're talking about Leviathan, who's this very like, whoa, you know, like blow the doors off type of presence, and then you got a hippo? You ever been to the zoo and seen a hippo? They're not very impressive, they're just sitting there going, "Oh, oh." - Not like what's pictured here, that's right. - Right, right, and a tail, the tail's like this wide, you know, like what are you talking about? I think the other thing is like more critical ancient Near Eastern scholars say that it is hyperbole. It's just like a chaos monster. And so maybe something a little bit more like this where it's just imagine the worst possible creature you could ever imagine. And so that's more of what that is. But then-- - And he says in here that like, talking about how he made it, like, you know, which is just, he feels like it's such an emphasis song, which I made just as I made you. And doesn't that lean more, even feel even more obvious,

like this is a real creature? - Could be, yeah. Because then the young Earth creationist will say it's a sauropod, you know, it's actual dinosaur. So could be that as well. - But it could be both, right? It could be-- - Dinosaur and a-- - Well, no, I mean, it could be like a real creature, like you're saying, and it could be a literary device that represents chaos. - Right, right, yeah. - It could be both of those things at the same time. - Yep, and we see that all through the Bible, where like there can be something real that represents a much broader topic or conversation. - 'Cause Joe mentions a lion, a raven, a mountain goat, a fox, no, a goat, a deer, a wild donkey, a wild ox, an ostrich, a horse, a hawk, and the eagle. 'Cause they're all real things, real. And then the hemost, and Leviathan. - And those are the last two. - Yeah, yeah. So is it all a kind, like they're all real or is, are the last two, like the explanation point, like, oh, and even like mythical creatures. - And I feel like that's what's hard to figure out when you first look at it. 'Cause again, like if just plainly reading, it's like, oh, it looks like a real thing, you know? Like this, like I'm supposed to think about this thing. It's so descriptive of like all of its limbs

and what it eats that it feels like an epic thing you would have seen or could have seen. - Right, and so that's where we gotta look at like type. So we're talking about, like if you read the book of Daniel talking about apocalyptic literature, then it's like they start talking about beasts and they do talk a lot about beasts there. Now you gotta get a little bit more symbolic. But what's Job? Is Job more of a historical, like this actually happened? Or is Job more of just something? And not saying Job himself. I'm just saying, at this point, when God's going through this list of animals, is he talking about real stuff? is he just kind of like throwing two extras that are over the top. - And so those first two, right? Leviathan behemoths, we don't have a lot other than that passage in Job. Is it mentioned anywhere else? Other than that passage in Job? - Behemoths, I don't know. I'm not sure, maybe. - We could look it up. - I mean, they're great creature. (laughing) - The great creature, like the land creature of Revelation. I mean, they'll talk about that. - Oh, sure, okay.

- Like the beast. - Well, you know, that's interesting actually, like when we talk about the Antichrist, these are like the reverse of that almost. Like you got a beast from the sea and a beast from the land. These are a beast from the sea and a beast from the land, except like those are like the bad version of these two creatures almost. I've never actually thought about that before just now. I don't see anything other than Job in there. I'm seeing Job, Job, Job. So yeah, so there's not much else about the behemoths other than that to pull from. So what about, you mentioned that some people might think was, or he said that they thought it might have been a dinosaur, but it'd been what they had actually seen. So can we talk about dinosaurs? - We can. - Like how do they fit in? You know, we have bones where we can see these bones of dinosaurs. We also have to somehow figure out how they got here on a boat with Noah, right? Or like, how does that all play together? And are dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible? Like how do we? - Every generation loves dinosaurs. - You ever notice that, like my thing was, we got Land of the Lost on here. Do you remember this?

Can you show that? Land of the Lost was-- - I don't even know what that is. - Oh my gosh. It is like Saturday morning cartoons, and you would have all these different cartoons, but then there was this thing that came on called the Land of the Lost. And it was a family that was trapped back in time where dinosaurs were, and they had these interactions where they named like different dinosaurs, but this is what it was. It was total like stop motion type of like-- - Oh, wow! - That's it? - Those, that's the family. - That's the family. - Whoa! (laughing) Oh my goodness. - It's like, it's like a transitional animal, you know, somewhere in there. - I forget what the names were. - Well, Will Ferrell does the more recent one. - Oh, okay. There's like a movie. - But the Saturday morning version, do you have, do you have that video of the Saturday morning version? - Okay, well, imagine it's working right now.

(laughing) And they're basically, they call it, I forget what the, what's the name of the dinosaur that they call 'em? Grumpy. Yeah, they call one of the dinosaurs grumpy 'cause he's always grumpy. And it's like, you see them on the set going grumpy. Don't be grumpy. And like this little kid yelling, and all of a sudden it turns, and you see like the set going (grunting) It's like eating people and like, oh, wow. It's great. Same time. That's basically. Yeah, you can see that's the stop version. - This is a kid show. (laughing) - My number was land before time. - Dude. - Is that the name of that movie? - Yeah, you should watch those ones. - The cartoon ones. - See, that's why Gen X is so much more hardcore. You guys were like-- - They're animation. - They're animation. - There it is. - We're talking about people being maimed by these scenes.

- They don't look very scary, but they were friendly. - Yeah. - It was an epic tale. I mean, you got Jurassic Park. - And then you guys were Barney, right? Wasn't that your-- - Yeah, I did a little Barney when you were in there. - We had land of the laws where people died. You have Barney, I love you, you love me. We're gonna be a happy family. - There was a movie that came out in 2000 called Dinosaur. It was like way ahead of its time. It was a credible animation. Yeah, it's like a very good movie, but it's about dinosaurs. I think people, yeah, there it is. Yeah, dinosaur. So good, actually, I recommend it. But yeah, with to your point, John, people really like dinosaurs. It's probably the most popular PJs to buy for your children when they're like between two years old and five years old. - Nice. - I still have a pair. (laughing) - Say, you're gonna have two year olds soon. - Yeah, dinosaurs are gonna be a problem, I think, for a lot of people, though, 'cause as we talk about it, because now we're gonna have to talk about, like this is stuff we see, right?

This there's like science behind us. So how does the science fit together with what the Bible talks about? - Yep. And you asked the question that I was gonna ask you. So I think that is-- - I don't know. I don't think I'm prepared for this. - Yeah, I mean, but that is, like, come on. Like if we're finding these bones and we're like, we're seeing evidence that these dinosaurs existed, but we also are taking our faith in the story of the Bible. We're looking at Noah and we're saying, okay, he built an ark. I mean, we have the dimensions, we have the measurements, and how did, like, some of these creatures, I mean, I'm picturing Jurassic Park, T-Rex's, ripping people apart, there, on the boat? Is that actually what we're supposed to think about this? - On the boat, on the ark? - On the ark. - Okay, yeah. - It's ark about it. - So I'm gonna go back to Westhof. I love how he says, "Whatever the Bible whispers, don't shout, which I love." And the Bible doesn't really talk about a whole lot. We probably shouldn't fill in the gaps too much. And it doesn't seem that the Bible really talks a whole lot

about people walking around with dinosaurs. Like, I haven't read really a whole lot where someone's just interacting. So did humans and dinosaurs ever exist together? We don't know. It seems like, and this is where we're all gonna get in trouble, right? It seems like the science tells us that dinosaurs were a long time before humans never walked the earth. What are your thoughts on that? Oh, easy, easy question. Well, I mean, we talked about this in season one a little bit when we talked about like you've got options. You're a follower of Jesus. You got options. You don't have to be like, this is definitely what it is, like you can, you can believe in a breadth of different things and still be within orthodoxy. We also talked about like how the flood could have been regional, you know, they say the world, the whole world, the world that they understood, the world that they lived in was flooded. And so there could have been dinosaurs outside of that as possible too. But what you're asking about like the fossils and stuff like that, I think within the realm of possibility, even looking at Genesis, the world could be, the earth could be 4.5 billion years old. That wouldn't contradict scripture. Right. You can interpret the Bible that way. Right. And that's not like a problem. You can tell me what you think on this, but I think right now Christians get very offended quickly or they get very anxious quickly when we start talking about stuff like this and

they're like, don't let the children here, you know, they get kind of like scary because it feels like we're in a street fight with each other, where it's, you believe this, I believe this, you stay on your side, I'll stay on my side. We're not going to talk when I think the best thing we can do as Christians is to realize that we all love Jesus and we might have different ideas about the science. Because really when we, when we talk about this, and I think I mentioned this before about, you know, the book of the Bible, and then there's the book of nature and then God has given us both. God has given us his revealed word, but he's also given us general revelation where we can anticipate, we can think like, okay, well, I see this in nature, so God must have done it this way. It's like we're, we're guessing at his steps after him, right? And so when we look at something like like island chain of Hawaii, there's this vent that keeps spewing up stuff, you know, it's why the volcanoes keep erupting, right? And we see that there's like one island here and another island here and another island here and another island here and it seems like that plate just keeps moving at a constant rate. We've actually measured how fast that rate is and we've computed it out that that rate of moving and producing new islands works out to like millions of years, you know, it's not 6,000 years. So if you're reading God's word of nature and you're really understanding like, okay, well, this seems to be if it's always worked that way, then it seems to be millions of years old, that's not satanic, that's not wrong, you know, I mean, like that's something that a person can still follow Jesus, love God and hold that the earth is a lot older than 6,000 years. So it's like having just appreciation for different ideas on this. There's some people that believe that the earth is young, so they're young earth creationists, like Ken Ham would be a great example of that. He's got an amazing exhibit out there with the ark exhibit and he puts a dinosaur on the ark.

Maybe, you know, I mean, I wasn't there, you weren't there, nobody was there, right? Science seems to say that couldn't happen, but, you know, that's where we got a wrestle with it. And so do you want to say, well, I'm going to ignore what I can see in terms of some of the evidence and I'm going to more look at this and say, well, I'm going to follow what the Bible says on this, or am I going to have some sort of intermediate position? So you can be a young earth person that says it's only 6,000 years old, you can be a person that's an old earth creationist, like God created the world, but it was like millions and millions of years ago, or you can be somewhere in between, you know? But I think the biggest thing we need to do with other Christians is to realize that just because you have a different view, it doesn't already mean that you're against me, you know, that you're saying that I'm wrong and, you know, everybody can exist. And I think in our culture today, it's very much you hear an issue and you instantly think like who's side of my own. Other than thinking, like, what do I think? And so I think we want to teach everybody that you can think on this. You don't have to know what to think. Just to think. Yeah. And I think people get stuck too, because I think we read the Bible like a 21st century person, not like an ancient person, when the original audience was ancient people. Bible is written for us, but not to us, like we weren't the original intended audience. And so I think then people get stuck because they're like, well, the Bible doesn't say that the earth is billions of years old. So if I believe that it is, then I'm disagreeing with the Bible. Right. But the Bible also doesn't say that the earth is 6,000 years old, right? You know, that's just just what you're reading into it from your 21st century perspective. You got genealogies in there. And so people are like, well, if you run the genealogies back, would an ancient person

do that? Not necessarily. Genealogies aren't like an exact record. Right. And they're not exhaustive. - And so I think that's where we shoot ourselves in the foot because we are like, if I wrote Genesis 1, this is what it would have meant to me. Each day is actually a day because I live in America in 2026. - And what you're saying is really salient because it's like the Bible never says, you know, Methuselah went out one day and bumped into a dinosaur. - Right. - If he did, then we have something to say. Then it's like, well, the Bible says that humans and dinosaurs were at the same time. - Yep. - But it doesn't. The work we gotta do is we gotta build a bridge from our culture to theirs. Like what's true here now, and know what was true there and then, and then understand the Bible in that context. When we don't do that, that's when we mess everything up because we're like, they were basically like playing God. If I were God and I inspired the Bible, this is what it would have meant to me.

- And so the whole problem with this, sorry, I just wanted to throw this out, is that with the advent of AI and with all of these kind of doctored things that really look like evidence for something, I know somebody had turned in some evidence, maybe last year or two, it might have been longer, but where they said they found dinosaur bones that had soft tissue. And there's no way you can have soft tissue in dinosaur bones if they're 65 million years old. It would have to have been only thousands of years. And then, you know, when they looked further into it, they found that like, well, it really wasn't soft tissue. This was something completely different. And so you might see something and think like, man, that's really convincing. And that's where we have to practice discernment, especially as believers, because a lot of times what we wanna do is we wanna justify a particular way we read the Bible. And we think, if I don't justify this way that I read the Bible, then I can't believe it. Is that really faith? Do I just trust God, put my faith in Jesus, regardless of the scientific data I'm reading? Or am I arguing for a particular worldview, and Christians are big on worldview, but it's like, am I embracing the worldview or am I embracing the word?

And that's a very big difference in there, is that a word-driven worldview is what we want, but we don't want to have a worldview that now informs the way we work at the word, because everything hinges on our science then. It's like, no, we run it to hinge on what Jesus said. And, you know, so that's all, I think that's all stuff that we can all agree on. But I think inviting people into the conversation and saying like, oh, you know what? I'm actually a young Earth creationist, which I mean, I think that's a valid position to have if you want to buttress it with whatever your thoughts are, and then talk with an old Earth creationist, and you guys have a conversation, and then go to lunch. You know what I mean? Enjoy the time, but don't think like, oh, they're an idiot, that's just not the way we should be handling this, I think. - Yeah, and so you mentioned something earlier, I never thought about it this way, just in terms of where dinosaurs would fit, we'll say you got old Earth, young Earth, ways of thinking. Sounds like old Earth creationists, you'd say, hey, like dinosaurs, way back, way back. - 65, 66 million years. - Okay, so they were done and gone. - Yeah. - Then we get God creating humans, and that's why they're, you know, as art comes, and there's no dinosaurs on the Ark,

'cause they're done and gone. - Right. - Then the other young, like a young Earth view would say, no, like Earth is young, so dinosaurs were walking, and they're on the Earth with these ancient people. Maybe that's Leviathan and Behemoth, maybe that's referring to some dinosaurs, and so then you're gonna get hit with a different kind of challenge, which would do the dinosaurs fit on the boat. - Right, right. - And so is that, like, let's just say, let's look at that view for a second, is that possible? You mentioned the exhibit you went to where they tried to put dinosaurs on the boat. - I didn't go, that's too expensive for me. It's like $100 to get in, I think. - Has someone looked at that to say, like, do we have that, like, literally? Like, were they too big or were they not too big? Could they have physically fit on the Noah's Ark or not? - Well, I think him would say that he got, like, an adolescent dinosaur or something. - Really young, young guy. - Okay, okay, okay. - I was able to put it on there. - Also, I'm not recommending this movie, but there's, like, a Hollywood movie called Noah. Maybe, if Darren Oranovsky. Honestly, it's like, look, it's pretty interesting

to think about the story the way he does. He says it's not a biblical movie, so bear that in mind. But one of the things that they do is, like, they have this special potion that puts all the animals to sleep. So, because they have that, the lion doesn't eat the, whatever, you know, all that kind of thing. And God is the one who directs the animals to get to the ark and stuff like that. So, I think, within reason, there's ways to get around that. If we believe in a supernatural universe or a supernatural God, he could make it work. - Well, I mean, think about Daniel and the lion's den. - Yeah. - I mean, clearly, like, we can't, that's part of it, is that God and how he wants to make that happen, if God could shut the mouths of lions to not eat Daniel, of course, you could put a bunch of animals on an ark and God can make sure that that happens the way he wants to. He keeps it peaceful, whatever that looks like. It's just interesting, the dinosaur piece of like, some of those pieces help logically to think through, like, how could they physically have done it? If we're getting dimensions for the ark, I didn't think about it that way, like, adolescent dinosaurs. - And I think you're talking about trade-offs. literally. And so I'm taking this word for word, which is a good thing generally. I mean, there's some things you don't want to take too literally. But the trade-off is that you have an issue with science that we can see some things that aren't lining up. If you're an old earth creationist,

you're saying, well, I believe that God has still created everything. Maybe it's more symbolic, maybe the day, you'll mean something a little bit more expressive, one day is like a thousand years and thousand years like a day, that sort of thing. But what you're trading off there is so you're saying then that for millions of years, things lived and died. So death was a part of things. And you have an issue of theodicy at that point. So now it's like, okay, well, that's where you're trading off is you're trying to figure out some way to death enter the picture. Because I thought death came when sin entered the picture. And that was when humans were created. And so everything's going to have a trade-off. And so that's why we all got to be very humble about our positions and say, well, if you believe this, you believe that that's fine. I know some wonderful Jesus loving, much more spiritually minded people than I, that embrace evolution scientifically has some issues with evolution. But I'm not going to say that, okay, well, that makes them any less or more of a Christian than I am or a person that embraces a literal view of creation six days and comes up with 6,000 years from genealogy lists. They're not any more Christian or less than a Christian. I am. Everything that we base are following Jesus on is the resurrection, you know, the court whether or not we are. Yeah, the court doctrines are so much more important than no one was there. So we don't know. Yeah, I think it's good. And I want to get on to like the next, the next thing, but the last piece of this then is it seems like there's not anywhere else in the Bible that is talking about dinosaurs. Other than the potential of Behemoth and Womai, then we're those considered dinosaurs. Is that right? Potentially, yeah. We're like, let me and we talked about the symbol of the dragon in Revelation. That'd be another example of like, depends on how you choose to interpret it. How to train your dragon. You ever see that? Yeah, that's great. Great movies. Yeah, that would be very fun. That would be wild to just see things like flying around breathing out fire. Yes. What? But it's also different. We're not seeing dinosaurs referenced in the way that like Jesus casting out demons into the pigs, pigs just referenced as things that were roaming around. You know, it's like, this is different. Yeah, right. So that we're hitting kind of creatures. We got sea land dinosaurs. We didn't mention ziz. Ziz is another one. What's this? It's the air creatures. So you got Leviathan, you got Behemoth and then you got ziz. Ziz was like an air type of creature. So they had pretty much in every domain. There was some sort of like wild creature. I was like, whoa, you know, that's in the Bible. No, no, no, two-car it. Oh, yeah. I was going to say, ziz, ziz. This is a great name.

The zizzer zazers. So I said to like creature, this is kind of reaching a little bit outside of creatures, I guess, would just be like giants. And so the Bible has the word giants and there are several times. And maybe we could find some of those verses and pull them up. So when the Bible's talking about giants, Goliath is the most popular giant story in the Bible. And here's this this huge guy. Like, is this a giant? Like I'm picturing Lord of the Rings, you know, some kind of massive huge troll creature. Like, is that what I'm supposed to be picturing? Shaq. Or is this just like, ah, they were big. You guys never heard of Shaq Fu? Shaq Fu? Shaq you know, there's this movie is like Shaq Fu. There's like a Kung Fu giant. I have some. How tall is Shaq you know, seven one or seven two? I'm a big basketball fan. Yeah. Was there any, but there's y'all mean, right? Seven six. Seven six. There's guy in the NBA now. Well, he's going to be in the NBA. He's seven foot nine. Wow. He's in college right now. Holy cow. All of a Ryu. So would we call him a giant? Yeah, pretty much compared to me. Yeah. Yeah. He's a giant. So where do we see? Maybe it's pull up a couple of verses. Tyler's got some verses up for us. Where we actually see giants show up and maybe see what they're referring to. So we got Goliath the first same as 17 described. Goliath is over nine feet tall. Deuteronomy three eleven. His bed. Someone's bed being over 13 feet long. So are these should we consider these to be some kind of like not full. I like how we talked about this. So we talked about sea creatures, right? And then we talked about the land creatures and we even talked about like dinosaurs and we're starting to get into like, okay, so the dinosaurs seem to group into like, we actually have fossil evidence of them, right? Giants, when we talk about giants, you kind of break them into a couple different categories because there's actually really tall people, right, that we can see that we're giant. And so like what constitutes a giant? Like Goliath was a real person. It wasn't like, you know, Loton or some sort of like Tiamat or Appsu or any of these gods or goddesses. - And as I recall, based on like the food that was available to them, the average person was pretty short as well. Like the average guy was in 5'10. - Yeah, it was like 5'3".

- Oh wow. - Yeah. - So there's something that's just shorter already. - Yeah. - Wow. - Yeah, not crazy. Average height now is what? - I think the average guy is like 5'9", 5'10". - In America? - Yeah. - Yeah, a bunch of guys out there like, "Yo, see how I mean it, baby. I'm average." - By one inch. - But I mean, what you're getting at is sort of like, a giant, there are like multiple kinds of giants and a giant to a 5'3" guy could've been a guy who's the size of Shaq. - Oh yeah. - Right. - That's a possibility. - And so, for example, numbers 13, 33, it says, "Hey, we even saw giants there." The descendants of Anak, pronounce that. - Anak. - Thank you. - Anakim. - Next to them, we felt like grasshoppers and that's what they thought too. So there's an example where like-- - It's oriental hyperbole, for sure. - Yeah.

- It felt like felt so small and it seems like-- - Right. - And I don't know what constitutes like, a mythical giant versus just someone who's super tall. But is that kind of what we're dealing with here? - Yeah, it's a single testament breaks it down into like different subgroups of the refame. And every time you see eam, it just is like, it means a plural. It's like a masculine plural for, you know, particular words. So the refame or like the tall people, and they're broken down and so you got like the anakeem. The anakeem, when it talks about the anakeem being, was that the one that they were referring to when they went in and scouted out the land or was it the refame? - Yeah, anakeem. That's Joshua, right? Am I right about that? I think so. - Yeah. So it's funny because even Egyptian texts refer to the anakeem. So we know that it's extra biblical. These aren't just like things that were made up. So they're very, very tall people. And Goliath was some gath. And I think gath was under that whole mantle of the anakeem, just super duper tall people.

And so the Masoret text has him as like nine feet tall. And I think the Septuagint lists him as six foot nine. Is it six foot nine? - Six, six, I think. Well, what's the difference between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint? - The Masoretic text is from 11, 1200 AD. And it's the full complete Masoret text of the Jewish Old Testament, the Tanakh. And then the Septuagint, obviously, is from like, anywhere between like 300 to like 150 BC. - And that's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Church in the Testament. - Yep, yep, yep. So when they're talking about real, like people, these were real people. So like Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell, if you ever get a chance to, have you seen his treatment on Goliath? He does this like 20 minute, almost like a TED talk. I think it is actually a TED talk. But he talks about Goliath. And he said he was doing research on David Goliath. And as he did his research, he realized that there were some real, there were some really interesting very real elements of the Goliath story. So Goliath being giant, probably about seven feet tall, six, nine, seven feet tall. That's according to Septuagint.

It says that he wore all this like heavy armor and everything, but that he was led down to the place where he was supposed to battle. And when he talks to David, he's like, oh, you come out at me with a bunch of sticks. And he refers to the plural. And so they wonder if he had giantism, which one of the side effects of giantism is double vision. Like it affects your vision. So they wonder if he couldn't see very well. And so when they saw David, he maybe saw multiples of David and thought he was a bunch of sticks. And the fact that he was led to somewhere and that he couldn't. And so he was more used to very like proximity battle where you just like bash the heck out of somebody because you couldn't see far away because he was huge. So when David's brought up, and this is where Goliath's really fascinating, like how he talks about this, David shows up and he's got a sling and we're always taught that like, okay, David showed up with five smooth stones. Look how humble he was. He's just a little shepherd boy. But actually what he was carrying was a lethal weapon back in that day. And they were actually part of the like the firing line where when they did ballistics tests on these particular stones that were from that area, when you sling them,

they have the equivalency of a nine millimeter gun. - Wow. - Like it would just shoot you dead. And so the fact that he buried it right in the middle of his forehead, he blew his brains out. You know what I mean? Like he defeated Goliath and it wasn't like, what a miracle. I was like, no, that's what they do. Like that's exactly what they do. So all of those elements of those story are real - It makes me think of, you know, who, Hap Thore Bjorsen is, Thor. - Say that again. - Hap Thore Bjorsen. - That's how we're learning that. - I don't know if I nailed that pronunciation. - That's really good. - Kind of acting confident. But Thor Bjorsen, he's the world's strongest man. Like he was for like years and years and years and years, like held that title. He played, he plays, you're pulling pictures of him up right now. He's massive. - Oh, I've seen this guy. - He played Mountain in Game of Thrones, was like supposed to be this massive character. It makes me think of stuff like this, 'cause like I would stumble into him and be like, look at that picture of him and his wife.

- He's a giant. - He's huge. - Holy cow. - Imagine him stepping out to fight you. - Yeah. - And like I would absolutely be like that guy's a giant. He, there's a video of him fighting Conor McGregor. - Yeah. - And they're kind of, they're kind of, they're kind of sparring. - He's like running around. - Yes. - He's literally like running circles and every time he gets in the ear him. - I got to get between his legs. - I got a story for this. 'Cause I went to Penn State, and while I was there, John Amici was there. He was like a NBA player. He was, he was maybe in the league for like four years or whatever. Very, you know, average guy. Like, I think he made it on the Sixers. But I played a pickup game in Rec Hall, and I had to cover John Amici. And again, not like the biggest guy on the team or anything like that, but from one end where he was, and he posted up from where his hand was, to the other side,

I had to take two large steps to get around to the other side. And I mean, you talk about giants, man. And he wasn't like super huge. Can I imagine like another foot on this guy? That's impressive. - Mm-hmm. - So listen, real quick. Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, India, ancient China, pre-Columbian Americas, Norse, ancient Israel, ancient Ireland. They all have stories of giants. They're all have these tales of, and not to say that they're not embellished to some degree. You know, we talk about Gilgamesh, just talking about being like 15 feet tall. You know, I was like, "Eh, I don't think he was necessarily 15 feet tall." But the guy was probably big. - This was part of like language at that time. Hyperbole was normal and almost expected. - Right. - It wouldn't have like lacked, it wouldn't have taken credibility away from what they were saying if they were like. - Right. - Oh yeah, the grasshoppers things a great example. Like we were like grasshoppers. They weren't actually like grasshoppers. They weren't 85 feet tall.

But like that's how they felt. - Right. - And so it's expressed in the language. It was different to me, like, I feel like there's moments where hyperbole feels obvious. And then moments where it feels less obvious. Like when they put a number to the height, feels, and again, maybe it shouldn't be as significant as it is in my head. But there's times where you see like, oh, this text said six something. This is a nine something. How seriously should we take that stuff? Is that stuff where it's like, oh man, that's kind of, is it significant that those varied in size? Is that change anything about how we're supposed to look at that story? Those are the pieces that feel like, yeah, hyperbole when it's clear makes sense. But this one's like, how did you get those numbers so, so different? - Yeah, and that's where I think giants fall into a different category for me. Because I think ultimately, when we're talking about the sea creatures, sea creatures represent chaos for me. They tell me my life is unpatterned. There's no point to it. Everything's random.

I have no meaning. And that was very much the point of these ancient stories is chaos is out there. And the only person that converts chaos in the meaning is Yahweh. And so that's why those stories are important. It's not important to go find them. It's not important to like, play one open and put it on a wall and be like, there's your drawing. There's your huge sea serpent, there's Leviathan. Leviathan's main purpose was to remind people that in the chaos of life, there's a God who brings order. Behemoth was the same way in that you have these huge creatures that just make you feel powerless. Like, oh my gosh, how can I come up against this? And sometimes institutions feel like that. Sometimes it feels like the things that we've created, even social or cultural, just feel like I have no name. I have no voice in this. And it reminds me that like, no, no, no, God is in control even of those things. And so then when we get to giants, giants just represent fear. They represent like, what do I do? You know, like, I can't even think right now. There's someone standing in front of me.

And so it's less existential and it's much more like, hey, in the moment, be faithful. Like, when you're afraid, you don't have to know what to do, just be faithful. And so that doesn't mean cursing out the person in front of you and getting your back up and being like, get away from me. You know, like, no, be faithful. Like, say like God, why have you brought me here? What should I do? What's the most faithful next step for me to do as a person that follows Jesus? - And can I say, 'cause what you were saying, Andrew, I feel to the like, tension that it feels like a contradiction of like, well, the Bible says that they're this tall, but we're saying like, oh, but they might not actually have been that tall. - Yeah. those types of things the way that we do. Because we're like, we're just like so literal about everything. And for them, they're okay with like what maybe on the on the face looks like a contradiction. But they're they're like, well, maybe maybe it's both maybe they're giants represent fear and they were pretty big. Like they can it can be both. But I don't want that. I'm like, let's smooth it over. Can I solve it, please? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's not like that's not faith. You know what I mean? If I have the answers to everything, that's not faith. Yeah. You know, and I want to I want to like it. I want it now my way. I told 100% agree with you. There's sometimes we observe things that just make no sense. And I just like, wait, what like for example, my backyard, I had a tree that looked like one of the limbs was dying. And it was a tree I wanted to save. And it was big. It was probably like about 20, 25 feet tall. There's a pin oak. And so as I look at this limb, I'm like, man, what is making that limb just die? Because I know if one limb dies, it's going to maybe infect the rest of it. I climb up into the street,

I go out in this limb and I look and I'm not even kidding. I'm not even embellishing. I see lined up information for like wasps, a wasp like yellow, black, whatever lined up. And then next they were right next to just doing this, like digging next to them were like two or three flies facing the other way, just sitting there like scratching themselves, sitting right next to them were like some like all of these different insects and like winged creatures on this branch, just like three were going this way, four were going that way, toured. And it's almost like they were there on purpose. And I just sat there. I'm like, am I seeing this? Is this real? Is this like the apocalypse? Like what's going on? It was so weird. Like, and I have no explanation and I've talked to people before, you know, I've talked to people that are like experts at tree care, whatever. I'm like, you ever see anything like that? Like, no, like that's really weird. And I was like, yeah. And I mean, I was standing there and like I put my finger near them. They ignored me completely. Didn't so if you're an entomologist, please let us know what that was. Yes, exactly. But that's where, you know, you're just going to see crazy things in your life. And maybe that's a very small amount of crazy. But I think that what we see in the scriptures, there are things that are viewed and reported back to us that were like, well, I don't even have a category for that. So you have those giants that are, you know, just really, really big people. All right. But there's still there's still a verse of Genesis that feels like a little different brings up the term giant. And and it feels like more than just like a really big dude. This feels like this feels more like the mythological. What the heck was that? That's right. You're talking about Genesis six. Genesis six. So I'm a man. You want to read it and read Genesis six four for us. Well, it turned it turned right to Genesis six. Yeah, I'll read one through four. The subscript is corruption of the human race says then the people began to multiply in the earth and daughters were born to them. The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any that they wanted as their wives. Then the Lord said, my spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time. For they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years in those days. And for some time after giant nephthalites lived on the earth. And for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with women, they gave birth to children who became

the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times. And then right after that, it goes into the account of the flood and Noah. And just it just kind of moves on. Yeah, the Lord no more background that I would like for those guys. The Lord's he sees the extent of the human wickedness on the earth. And he saw that everyone was evil. And then he decides to flood the earth. So yeah, those things seem kind of epic and mysterious. What in the world has happened? What are those guys? Well, it is a lot. And this is where we said buckle up because there's been a lot of ink spilled about this. There's been a lot of podcasts, a lot of people talking about all kinds of ornate theologies and ideas. And we hope to in this episode and in next episode unpack that a little bit more because a lot of order has to be brought to it. And some of it, I think it's probably important now just to lay out a little bit of the groundwork of even what we're talking about. And so I think big picture to remember that Hebrew is a very sparse language. And the concepts and the way it's written is very, very, I guess the best word is sparse. And there's not a whole lot of detail they give. And in the Old Testament specifically, there are places that will mention something and then just move on and leave gaps. We want to supply the previous story that sets up all that when that's not the point of the story. It's not, it's not exhaustive. It's meant to inspire mystery. You know, Paul says, I was caught up to third heaven. What does he say? He's like, and I was not allowed to report back what I saw. Well, then why even mention it, you know, like, what the heck's that all about? So he's got a gag order, like, I think the scriptures are genius in what they reveal, but also in what they conceal. And we've lost the art of concealing. We think everything's all about revealing when I think we're losing the point on this. So that that would be my general introduction to Genesis 6 is that we've turned it into a prequel and we're like, man, let me give you the backstory on this. Yeah. And is that so it's interesting, like, how you phrase that?

I like that. It almost made me think of like a magician, you know, where it's like a magician never reveals his secrets. Like, can you, you enjoy magic and it's like magic's more enjoyable before you actually know how it's done. Is that what are you saying? The Bible's magic. That's what you're saying. No, what I'm saying is when you no, not, not, not that kind of magic, but double door. The whole idea of double door. Yes. Yeah. So you think about, uh, now I'm lost my trip. What am I trying to say? But you're saying. No, no, I'm asking because you said, Hey, we, we lost the art of concealing. Yes. And I think what I'm asking is, are you talking about like a magician when he's like, no, no, no, no, no, like let this stay concealed because that's part of like the mystery and the wonder and the construct or is there a different reason that Paul would say, I can't talk about this. This has to stick. It's the same reason when, you know, Jesus, they're like, Hey, so who's, who, who will marry this person in heaven? And he goes, Oh, well, they're like the angels in heaven. They're neither married or given in marriage. That's all he says, which really ticks off a lot of married people. They're like, wait, so I'm not going to be married anymore. You know, like, what does that mean? But there's not an ounce extra on that topic.

So the point being in all that is that, um, we, we don't just let it sit and appreciate it's sitting. And maybe this stuff we can't know. So I'm prepping all this. We haven't even talked about it yet. We should probably unpack it a little bit. Like when we talk about the Nephilites or the Nephilim, a lot of people talked about it so far. So what have they said? Yeah, I can lay out a couple of options because I find this so fascinating. I'm like really interested in it. And I think a lot of people are. It's like a pet project. I feel like there's people who know stuff about this chunk of verses that know nothing about Jesus. They're like obsessed with, with this stuff in the book of Enoch because it's like kind of connected. It's so much more interesting. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, I mean, I think Jesus is more interesting, but I think some people, so I got, I got some notes, some things to, to think about. There's a phrase in their sons of God. And that's like a Hebrew word, Benet, Elohim. And we'll probably talk more about that in the next episode. But it, it shows up in other places in the Old Testament too. And it usually is in reference, almost always in reference to spiritual beings. So maybe you'd call them angels. And so there's angels or spiritual beings coming down to earth and taking human women as their wives. That's what's described as happening. And then at the end, in verse four, you see there are Nephilim as well in the NLT.

Actually, I would be interested with the NIV how it translates it, but it's the NLT like made it very clear that like, Oh, the children of this intermarried people group are the Nephilim. But I don't know if it's that really that clear in other translations or in the Hebrew. I thought that was interesting. But yeah, what's verse four in the NIV? When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and the daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful. And they married any of them that they chose, then the Lord said, my spirit will not contend with humans forever. If they are mortal, these will be 120 years. Yes. Maybe not. Oh, I'm sorry, I need to get the praise of everything you asked for, and then you stopped what the fool wanted, thus ended the Lord of the Lord. Okay, so the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward, when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans and they had children with them, they were the heroes of old men of renown. Yeah. So that's not as clear. It just says that the Nephilim were on the earth during the times and also after those times. So it's like, and it's like, are they connected or are they just mentioning like, oh, yeah, the Nephilim were around it. I listened to Dr. Peter Gentry, he's like an Old Testament scholar. And his take is, it's what they're actually saying is, although people believe that, He's saying, Genesis six is telling us that they're not because the Nephilim were around back then and they're around after. - Sure.

- So they were giant people and they have nothing to do with these marriages. But I think other people would disagree with that and they would say that no, they clearly are because the sons of God came down, intermarried with humans, you ended up with these hybrid, half man, half angeled beings. And then other people throw all that stuff out the window. It has nothing to do with angels coming down. Sons of God are actually human beings. And it has to do with how they would translate the word, yeah, the word nephal. Because that's not a translated word, that's a word that's just like left for us. It's a Hebrew word that we just kept in the Bible as Nephilim. - Yeah, 'cause we didn't know what to do with it. - Exactly. - Which I would agree with that. So again, just to summarize, you got Genesis chapter six, there's these, tell me if I'm getting this right, you got these sons of God that went in and chose to have wives with just mortal women. And it says the Nephilim were on the earth in those days. And Nephilim is plural, nephal means to fall, so like the fallen ones. The fallen ones were on the earth in those days and in the days afterward. And so it's like these two parallel ideas. One, you have the sons of God went down

and took wives of the people on this earth. And then there were the fallen ones that were on this earth. So it really is the most accurate reading would be the fallen ones, it wouldn't be the giants. Why we tend to read giants into that is because when the Septuagint, when they were doing their translation of it, they understood to say the fallen ones, they took it up, men of renown was equivalent to like their Gilgamesh or their Hercules, the Greek idea of men of old, men of renown, the fallen ones, those who are dead, those who fell in battle, the heroic ones of years past. So they introduced gigantes, which means like giants, which made us all go away saying. And then again, I think it was in Numbers 13, where they talk about giants, they interpreted that the Nephilim as gigantes again. But the most accurate reading would be the fallen ones. So it's really interesting. And this is, I think it's gonna set up next time is what are we talking about here? Are we talking about giants that now have a backstory in the book of Enoch or in the five books that come from that tradition? Or are we talking about people from a long time ago that were very heroic in battle, that have fallen since they are like the band of brothers. You know what I mean?

They're like from the Second World War, the veteran combat, hardened combat, but now they fall in and they are heroes from a bold. Like that's, it's a big gap, you're not really sure. - You're saying that they fall and you say died and came back? - Well, no, no, no, they fall in. And then now because of them having this like heroic stature, what's attributed to them is that, so this city came up from that particular hero, that city came up from that. And so these men of renown have places associated with them that are like, okay, well, yeah, I see that. We remember the sacrifice of this particular person, they were just so heroic in battle, but they're fallen, they're dead, they're remembered from-- - That would almost not be referring to bigger creatures walking around. It's referring to the remembrance of people that were significant. - Do you see the length though? So the people when they're translating it, they're like, oh, all those old people that like started cities and they were heroic and men of old, they were giants. - And so that's why they interpreted it, giants and the Septuagint. - Let me, can I push back on it though, because I think this will set us up for next episode. - Yeah. - If you're talking to someone like Dr. Michael Heiser,

he would look at that and he would say, you gotta read this the way that an ancient Hebrew would read it. - Yep. - And in Second Temple Judaism, the prominent interpretation would have been what the book of Enoch says, which is that fallen ones are fallen angels, and their children are like some hybrid spiritual being. And that's a big deal because it unfurls into the whole spiritual realm. - Yep. - And he would always say like, if there's something weird in the Bible, then it's something important. And there's only four verses on it because it was part of a larger background that other people would have been familiar with. And so that's kind of the way he thinks about it. And it actually is the reason for the flood. And it ties to a bunch of other things like why are there giants later on in the Bible because of these verses? - Real quick, real quick. You referenced Book of Enoch. - Oh, yeah. - So what's that? Is it part of the Bible, not part of the Bible? Make sure we catch like, you know, I have not read Book of Enoch. So why do people read it and why is it not in the Bible?

And John mentioned this earlier, I think, it sort of like gives you a background on the Genesis 6 story. What some people would say, though, is that the knowledge, the oral history from that book, was already known even when Genesis 6 was compiled. But it gets filled-- - But who wrote it? - Yeah, I don't know. - Yeah, it's beautiful. Meaning it's not Enoch who wrote it, but it's the story of Enoch. There's also like three parts to the book of Enoch, and then there's two more books of Enoch, and they're written in the 80s, so they're separate, different than first book of Enoch. It's not in the Bible mainly because of the author and also the late right date. I think those are some of the main reasons. So people are using it as extra-biblical references to say, "Hey, could this inform us more on what's going on in Genesis 6?" - Correct. - It's quoted in the New Testament, so they were aware of it. Whether or not that means they thought it was authoritative or not is what people debate, so. And the time on which is written, if you're talking 200 BC and the time in which the tradition comes down from Moses, I mean, you're talking huge amounts of time. So the equivalent, for me at least, and then we're going to talk about this more next time, but it's like saying, "Well, we're going to understand the Gospels better by reading the Gospel of Thomas." And it's like, "Why? Gospel of Thomas is a forgery." We know there wasn't written by Thomas, and Enoch, it wasn't written by Enoch. Why are we listening to this? Except that the Gospel of Thomas isn't quoted by Jude and Peter. - Yes. - Right. - That's where I get caught up. - That's folklore, right. Is Jude saying, because he seems to be supporting what the book of Enoch says about these angels in Genesis 6, because he's supporting that, does that mean he believed the Nephilim were definitely children of angels? So I'm paused there, because it's going to get so good next episode. - We haven't even gotten into seraphine. - No. - We're going to dive into some of that stuff. - Oh, buckle up. - So yeah, this is kind of just breaching in to the Nephilim and just setting the groundwork.

And then next episode, we're going into, like, we talked about some of the biblical creatures. This is, I guess you'd call them more spiritual creatures. Demons, angels, how do they play into this? How does this relate to the Nephilim, all that stuff? - Adam's going to do an exorcism. - Oh, it's going to be cool. - Special, special edition. - He's going to be so cool. - So don't miss that one. - Who are you bringing? - We're going to dive more into all of that stuff. But thank you, again, just your guys' thoughts and all this stuff and what you're sharing about it. But man, there are a lot of weird stuff. A lot of weird creatures that we can pull out of the Bible. But yeah, I can't wait for next week, and we dive into the spiritual creatures. - Sounds good. - There are demons that have power over geographical areas. What can demons do? Are they real? What do they look like? Demons can possess things. Demons can enter into people and cause horrible, horrible mental distress. I trust Jesus, I'm a believer. Can I be possessed by a demon? The word possession isn't even in the Bible. Where the angels come from? How were they created? When did this happen? The more you look into what a seraphim is or a cherubim, it's spooky. You know, a seraphim, it's a snake. Is this suggesting more spiritual creatures than just angels and demons? It's a small amount of information, and it's shrouded in mystery. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]