Scholarly Papers on 1 Enoch Available For Free

Posted on February 11, 2013 by MSH

Hey book of Enoch fans …

This link from the Ancient World Online (AWOL) will take you to a few dozen SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) seminar papers that have been made available for free. There were several academic papers on 1 Enoch that caught my eye:

Annette Yoshiko Reed, McMaster University Beyond Revealed Wisdom and Apocalyptic Epistemology: The Redeployment of Enochic Traditions about Knowledge in Early Christianity

Leslie Baynes, Missouri State University Enoch, the Angels, and Heavenly Books

Rebecca Lesses, Ithaca College Women, Magic, and the History of 1 Enoch

Technorati Tags: 1 Enoch, academic, angels, book, conference, Enoch, papers, SBL, scholarly

Another Giant Human Skeleton That Isn’t

Posted on December 28, 2011 by MSH

I’ve blogged before about giant human skeletons that aren’t giant human skeletons. The first two examples I blogged about were hoaxes, created with image editing software (see here and here). The Remnant of the Giants blog recently had an interesting post about a presumed giant human skeleton discovered in Belgium in 1643. Turned out the giant was a mammoth. This is typical, both in the ancient world (as chronicled by Adrienne Mayor) and, as this article points out, in modern times as well.

Technorati Tags: bones, giant, Giants, human, human skeleton, mammoth

Giant Mistaken Identity

Posted on November 4, 2011 by MSH

Hard to believe, but it’s been three years since I blogged about Adrienne Mayor’s book explaining references to giant skeletons and bones in ancient classical authors (The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times). It’s highly recommended. Tonight I came across a 24-page PDF that is the new introduction to the 2011 edition of the book. If you haven’t read the book (and you should), the intro will give you a very good idea of the sorts of things Mayor covers in her book.

Technorati Tags: adrienne mayor, fossils, Giants, Greece, paleontology, rome

The Cardiff Giant Hoax

Posted on February 28, 2011 by MSH

Many of you have no doubt heard of the Cardiff giant — supposedly a genuine fossilized human giant discovered in 1869. Despite the conclusive evidence for a hoax, one can still find pictures of the giant on obscure websites where it is assumed tobe evidence for biblical giants. There’s a new book out on the hoax (2010) that looks like a definitive work. It’s entitled, “A Colossal Hoax: The Giant from Cardiff that Fooled America.” You can check out the book’s website here. It just went on my wish list.

Technorati Tags: cardiff giant, fraud, Giants, hoax

Giant Teenage Caveman Found

Posted on September 21, 2010 by MSH

Before this gets mis-reported all over the web on Christian sites that promote phony Photo-shopped pictures as proof of giants in the ancient world, I thought I’d post it. Here is the link; the photo is below. And I’ll save you the conversion time. 193 cm = just under six feet, four inches, not ten or fifteen feet. Unusually tall for Chinese (these days) but right in the range I’ve suggested constituted a giant in the ancient world (anything over six feet tall upward into the seven foot range — sort of like today on the higher end).

Technorati Tags: ancient, China, giant, skeleton

Giant Foot Mark Found in Figi

Posted on September 13, 2010 by MSH

Here’s the story (scroll down), which includes a picture.

I can hardly wait for the ancient astronaut crowd and those who want 2o-foot giants in antiquity to cite this find. Never mind that it’s an obvious *sculpture* (hence “foot mark” not “footprint” in my title). A connection to the pyramids can’t be far behind.

Technorati Tags: archaeology, Figi, foot, footprint, giant

Giant PaleoBabble

Posted on February 10, 2010 by MSH

Yesterday I received an email containing some pictures of alleged giant skeletons. PaleoBabble readers know that I’ve posted before on this topic before, noting how Photoshop is certainly the solution to many of these pictures you see circulating on the web. Whenever I get photos like these (see below), I wish I had the time to comb the web for the originals that were used to create the hoaxes. Sometimes you find someone who’s already done that work (like my earlier post, linked above). But this sort of thing could take dozens of hours. Fortunately, among the two photos sent to me are two that are easily demonstrated to be fakes. Here’s the first of the two:

Now here’s the second:

Can you spot the problem? Look at the skulls side by side below:

See it? What are the odds that two skulls, at two allegedly different archaeological digs, would be missing the exact same teeth? A billion to one, I’d say. Take a closer look at the comparison picture. You can see that the fracture lines on the two photos at the bridge of the nose are also exactly the same. It’s the same skull, photo-shopped into two different pictures, with adjustments made in tinting.

You can find these pictures on several creationist websites. That’s a shame. Readers should know that I am no enemy of the idea of a divine creator. Frankly, I think creation is much more philosophically coherent than naturalistic materialism. But this is simply unethical.

Technorati Tags: archaeology, bones, Giants, hoaxes, skeletons

Posting Some Comments on Giants

Posted on August 18, 2009 by MSH

I’ve had a reader have trouble replying to a post I did some time ago on giants. I wanted you all to get the reply. I have block-quoted any response I have to the material. Here’s the post:

—————–

This is a very interesting post, along with the previous post about Giants. Anything abnormal always injects a high dose of curiosity into individuals, unless you really don’t care about the world around you at all.

Let me point to all of you to something more than just bones, archeology, history, dinosaurs and polydactylism (see following post on Giants). Other than alien and/or angelic apparitions and demon possesions, how about live Giants and Live mythical-like creatures?

For Living Giants, See Steve Quayle’s Books here:

Genesis 6 Giants, Master Builders of Prehistoric and Ancient Civilizations
http://www.stevequayle.com/books/gen6cover.html

I have Steve’s book. It’s a good compilation of reports with FEW examples of modern, living giants. But they are an anomaly and cannot be used as evidence of a race of people exceeding seven feet tall. For allof Steve’s work (and his is the best collection out there), producing newspaper articles from the 19th century about the discovery of giant bones isn’t sufficient. It is known now that at least some of those finds were in fact dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals. That means many others could have been as well, had they been investigated . . . it’s just that people 150 years ago didn’t know what they had. It’s interesting but not proof of anything.

LongWalkers, Return of the Nephilim
http://www.stevequayle.com/books/Longwalkers.html

For very interesting and captivating interviews with Steve Quayle about living Giant sightings and reports and about the swine flu, and more, see:

Living giant reports are like proof for extraterrestrials — it’s merely hearsay and anecdotal “evidence” that falls FAR short of actual proof. Or it’s “a renegage military guy told me this and that and he saw giants in the lab.” Yeah. Right. Imagine what it would be like if people had to defend their faith this way. Give me real DNA, real giant specimens, that sort of thing. Anything less isn’t sufficient.

Flashpoints and Giants (with George Noory):
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2008/12/03

Illuminati, Giants and dead microbiologists (with George Noory – Just listened to this last night)
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2009/08/10
and
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/malaysian-report-12-ft-giant

CAVEAT: For Coast to Coast AM full downloads above, you must sign up ( not sure, because I did a few months past ) to StreamLink (see: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/pages/streamlink). Although, Steve is a long life time (35 years) dedicated researcher on all kinds of paranormal event around the globe: Biological Terrorism, Illuminati, Ancient History, Giants etc. We may not all agree on what he says at everypoint, but a very diligent researcher indeed, especially, in my interest, when it comes down to talk about LIVNG Giants.

CAVEAT 2: There are 4 full hours of downloadable MP3s in the links above at coasttocoastam.com. The first hour (Hour 1) is only generic global news, I recommend to only listen to Hours 2, 3, and 4, first and then listen to Hour 1 if curious.

CAVEAT 3: What distinguishes these Giants with just tall people (7-9 feet?)? Well, according to Steve and his reported sightings and military contacts:

- They are between 8 to 12 feet tall
- They have six fingers/toes
- They run super fast at abnormal speeds
- They can abnormally lift tons of weighs
- Their smell is uncomfortable
- Maybe a few other features that is escaping me

Where are the actual specimens? Actual science from which these conclusions are drawn? It is, sadly, only hearsay, and hearers must simply take it on faith. Let’s have the real deal before we believe it. That isn’t an unreasonable request.

For Mothman creatures (research Mothman in Google), see LA Marzulli and Travis Shortt here:

Mothman Theories and Reports
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2009/07/14

Again, download Hours 2, 3, and 4 above. Very interesting!

There is a Interview-movie being produced by Travis and Marzulli entitled “Dark Wings”:

http://www.blackriverfilms.com/

Polydactylism in the Ancient World

Posted on September 17, 2008 by MSH

Cam across an interesting article today on this subject. The article in PDF is here. The article points out that polydactylism (having more than the normal number of fingers or toes) is associated with giants in the Bible. Actually, this is only said of Goliath’s family (one of the sons of Rapha); it is not said of other giant clans, so there is no necessary association.

Technorati Tags: Bible, Giants, polydactylsim

Biblical Giants and Dinosaur Bones

Posted on July 9, 2008 by MSH

Aeneas asked a question in a comment to an earlier post about the faked giant human skeleton:

I’d like you to comment on the dinosaur bones angle as well. It is certainly not an unreasonable theory for all the stories of giants in the past, including the Bible. I lean towards believing your theories on Gen. 6, but I think this one should at least be considered.

Aeneas (and others) may not be familiar with all my views of Genesis 6, namely the giant issue, so I thought I’d answer this question with a post.

I don’t think for a minute that the biblical giants were 10-20-30 feet tall. I think they were (like today) 6-8 feet tall. The giants of the Bible were not unusually tall BY OUR STANDARDS. Based on human skeletal remains that have been recovered from the biblical period (and there aren’t many – they didn’t embalm, and less than 10% of the Holy Land has been excavated by any standard of thoroughness), the average male height was a few inches over five feet tall, with women shorter. This is typical around the world for ancient times. Great height was unusual. The average height in modern times on into today is greater because of better nutrition, longer life spans, medical advances, etc. I personally don’t believe that the biblical giants were much over seven feet tall, which would have been HUGE compared to the norm (imagine walking into a settlement where 6-7 feet was the norm when everyone you knew was a foot shorter!). According to the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT, which has as a slightly different text than the one Jews have used since the first century AD) and Dead Sea Scroll readings for the Goliath story, Goliath was actually 6 feet 6 inches (and for those who wonder, it is Og of Bashan’s COFFIN that measures around 12 feet, not Og – read Deut 3:11 – so we really don’t know how tall he actually was — I’d guess he’s within my proposed range). That is the best reading for the original text based on the cumulative text-critical issues in 1 Sam 17-18 and the broader book of Samuel itself (i.e., textual critics have long known that the Masoretic text of 1 Samuel is in poor shape in many places, compared to the Septuagint, which is frequently agreed to by the Dead Sea scroll text of Samuel). If yo u know Hebrew and might enjoy reading about the textual mess of 1 Samuel, I’d recommend P. Kyle McCarter’s 1 Samuel commentary in the Anchor Bible series. There are more thorough and technical discussions of the text of 1 Samuel, but this one is more readable (still, it won’t be easy for those uninitiated in academic biblical studies and textual criticism).

Consequently, there is no need to appeal to dinosaur bones for the biblical giants. Dinosaur bones as the explanation for purported giants in non-biblical writings like Josephus are a good explanation. That issue was the subject of Adrienne Mayor’s Princeton dissertation (or maybe it was a thesis – can’t recall just now) which was published:

The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times.

Mayor now has a second volume, devoted to the same issue in Native American legends:

Fossil Legends of the First Americans

Good question, Aeneas!

Technorati Tags: dinosaurs, Giants, Old Testament

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Your antidote to cyber-twaddle and misguided research about the ancient world.

Category Archives: Giants