Genesis 6 tells us of a time before the flood when angelic spiritual beings called the Sons of God came down to earth and mated with human women.

(If this is your first time hearing about this, you may need to go back and read that sentence again. Maybe a few times until it sinks in. Or check out this episode of the Weird Stuff in the Bible podcast that gives some more background.)

The Genesis 6 Account

Genesis 6:1-3 – When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

The Nephilim were the giants; human-like beings of unnatural size and strength. Biblical accounts generally have them ranging from 8 to 13 feet tall

This event took place prior to the flood. In fact, this was also one of the chief purposes of the flood- to wipe out the Nephilim bloodline before it corrupted all of mankind. In fact, Noah was chosen not just for his righteous character, but because he was “perfect in his generations” (Genesis 6:9), meaning his bloodline was not corrupted by the demonic Nephilim DNA. After this happened, it started a doomsday clock of 120 years until the waters of the flood washed over the earth.

However, after the flood, Scripture clearly states that these Nephilim made a stunning return.

Genesis 6:4 – The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

But how? If the Nephilim perished in the flood, then why do we see more of them showing up later in the Old Testament- such as in Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, or I & II Samuel? There are three popular theories to answer this mystery.

#1- A Localized Flood

Some believe that the flood of Noah’s day did not cover the entire planet. Scholars call this the local flood view; it believes that the flood of Noah was not something that covered the world, just the region of the Middle East.

You might say: but doesn’t the Bible say it covered the whole world? Proponents of this view say that Noah or Moses may have only known about the Middle East region, so to them, this WAS the whole world. To be fair, there are other cases in Genesis of using the Hebrew word for “earth” to refer to a specific territory, not the entire globe. And so if the flood was limited to just the Middle East, perhaps there could have been other Nephilim giants in other parts of the world who weren’t affected by the flood.

Dr. Michael Heiser took this view, among other respected scholars. However, a major purpose of the flood of Noah was to kill all the Nephilim. If the flood wasn’t widespread enough to kill them all, then why have a flood in the first place? Why spend 100 years building an ark if Noah could have just moved to Florida?

Furthermore, why are there accounts of the great deluge in virtually every ancient civilization around the world? Why is there geological evidence of a huge flood across the planet?

#2- Noah’s Son’s wives carried Nephilim genes

Another theory on how the Nephilim survived the flood is that Noah’s wife- or perhaps one of his son’s wives- would have had some Nephilim lineage and therefore carried the Nephilim genetics in her bloodline, thus passing it on to her sons. Or perhaps one of Noah’s son’s wives’ carried dormant Nephilim genes in her blood, and after the flood, those genes were reactivated.

Dr. Laura Sanger and Ryan Pitterson take this view, and there is some scientific data suggesting that genes can go dormant and be reawakened in later ancestors. Their findings are well-researched in books like The Roots of the Federal Reserve and Judgment of the Nephilim.

However, this theory also negates a major purpose for the flood: to wipe out the Nephilim bloodline. If some of Noah’s family carried those genetics with them onto the ark, then it was essentially all for nothing.

#3- A Second Incursion

A third theory is that some Sons of God or Watchers came down and reproduced with women once again after the flood. A basis for this is that Genesis 6:4 told us, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.” Another translation, the KJV, says it like this: “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 argument against this view is that we have no scriptural stories of when exactly this happened. The first transgression has Genesis 6, II Peter, Jude, and the extrabiblical Book of Enoch, to tell us about it. If the watchers tried it again, we don’t have any details about when it happened.

The fact that Genesis 6 says, “and also after that,” seems to say it did actually happen, even if we don’t know exactly when. 

Some might question, “But why would they try it again after it didn’t work the first time around, since God just sent a flood?” But remember that God said to Noah He would never again flood the world. That was a one-time thing. And surely the demonic world heard about that, too. So they probably thought if they tried it again, this time they would get away with it. There wasn’t going to ever be another flood to ruin their plans.

Could more Nephilim be created today?

If the second incursion theory is correct, is there a possibility of further incursions today? Could more Nephilim be created?

This is a common idea among some end times Bible prophecy teachers. As Jesus said:

Matthew 24:37 – For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

It’s likely that Jesus’s words there were simply referring to mankind being spiritually blind to its impending doom in the tribulation period. However, some take this to be a hint that the circumstances of the world just before the return of Christ will bear a resemblance to the angelic transgression of Genesis 6- including a “seed war” for the bloodline of mankind.

This is certainly possible. Nebuchadnezzar’s dream includes this detail when it refers to a great statue that he saw:

Daniel 2:33 – …its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

The feet of the statue refer to the short-lived empire of the Antichrist. When Daniel interprets the dream, he makes this comment about it:

Daniel 2:41-43 – ⁴¹ And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. ⁴² And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. ⁴³ As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.

The repeated use of the word “mix” implies a (forced?) merging of two dissimilar things- such as an angelic being and a human being. Furthermore, it said they will mix in marriage, which sounds like how the Sons of God “took wives” from among the human women in Genesis 6. This created the “unclean” demonic spirits of the New Testament (“unclean” also means an unnatural mixture of two things).

Conclusion on Nephilim after the flood

Much of this is theorizing based on the Biblical accounts, so take that for what it’s worth. Now that we have established some possibilities for where the post-flood Nephilim originated, next time we’ll look at each of the post-flood giants of the Bible.

If you can’t wait for that article to release, check out this episode of the Weird Stuff in the Bible podcast now: