In a recent post Bruce Charlton raises the topic of giants and the nature of those giants. He quotes John Michell who suggests that giants were nature spirits raised by magicians who sometimes developed some independence. This is a fascinating topic and I agree with Bruce Charlton that the existence of giants is well-supported if you believe that ancient people were truthful and accurate in reporting what they had heard and seen. In addition, the world has changed drastically even in recorded history, so it may well be that it was once quite a bit different. In fact, the ancient Near East must have been a very strange place, if Melchizedek really was an angel, if there were people like Balaam with the power to bless or curse, and if there were giants like Goliath.
It may be that giants were spiritual. On the other hand, I have read that some dinosaurs had hollow bones, which allowed them to grow long necks. It may be that the skeletal and muscular anatomy of the giants was very different from human beings. For instance, David was able to kill or stun Goliath instantaneously with a single sling stone to the forehead. These giants may have been stronger, but with bones in some ways more fragile than modern humans. Also, large animals reproduce more slowly and so that may be why the giants died off.
If the giants were partly spiritual, that would correspond with the famous passage of Genesis 6:4
"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days - and afterward as well - when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown."
Whatever this mysterious passage corresponds to and whoever these "sons of God" were, one possibility is that the giants were part spirit and part human. On the other hand, this video suggests that the first part of this passage "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days" is a gloss on the passage meant to suggest that Nephilim were simply powerful men of various origins who were on the earth at the same time as the children of humans and "sons of God." In any case, there is some oral tradition which would give more information about this passage that is now long gone.
The main purpose of this post is simply to raise ideas to discuss a subject I find interesting. However, as Bruce Charlton has pointed out in his posts, "insanity is lack of insight." So, it behooves me to mention that I am fully aware that thinking seriously about the topic of the existence of giants would cause many people to regard me as crazy. And this also raises an interesting point. I have never seen a giant and whether giants once existed or not seems to have little direct relevance for our lives now, so is thinking about such questions if not crazy, then at least rather academic?
I am reminded of a sentence in Humphrey Carpenter's Tolkien biography: "his [Tolkien's] stranger beliefs rarely had any bearing on his behaviour." In the context, this sentence is referring to Tolkien's mannerisms, but we should remember that Carpenter was one of the few people outside the Tolkien family who was permitted to examine Tolkien's personal papers. So I think he was also referring to things like Tolkien's belief that his dream of a great wave covering everything was an ancestral memory from Atlantis. (And there is actually some evidence for this because J.R.R. Tolkien's son Michael Tolkien inherited the dream without his father having mentioned it to him).
But, in fact, even though these beliefs did not have any obvious bearing on J.R.R. Tolkien's behavior, I think that his most personal and cherished beliefs did have effects, though not overt. These considerations were put into Tolkien's fiction and did affect his private thoughts and hence his conduct of life, though it would be difficult to determine exactly how. So, although it can be difficult to determine when such speculations are worthwhile, we should not rule them out altogether. They can be valuable.
The book of Enoch has more on the Nephilim issue
ReplyDeletehttps://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/index.htm
One reason for talking about giants is as a mark of respect for the people of the past. To write off giants, conversely, is to treat past people as foolish, credulous, or dishonest.
What tends to happen is that people believe those bits of ancient texts that fit with modern ideas while assuming that anything which is 'impossible' to modern ideas was an error - e.g. the Anglo Saxon Chronicle is the primary historical source on its era, but everything it says about dragons and Heavenly portents is ignored as obviously false.
A Steiner-Barfield perspective on the evolution of consciousness seems to account - in general terms - for a great deal of this. In other words The World really was different, when Men's consciousness was different - because although the two can be distinguished, Man's consciousness and Man's environment cannot be separated nor isolated each from the other.
They are a 'polarity' (by Coleridge-Barfield's terminology - in Barfield's What Coleridge Thought).
Thanks for the link.
DeleteThere's a lot to think about with the Steiner - Barfield perspective. I would have to think more about how it works in detail, but I agree with the broad picture, that there is a correspondence between the nature of the world and the people born into it in a particular time.
That is a good observation about respect. If we trust the people of the past in one respect, then we should at least consider what they have to say in another.