Giants appear in many ancient mythologies, and the Bible is no different in this way. One specific origin story for Biblical giants comes from the book of Genesis, which explains how the nephilim came about (6:1-4):
“When humankind began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were attractive, and they took women for themselves, whomever they chose . . . . The nephilim were in the land in those days (and also afterward), when the sons of God had sex with the daughters of men, and they bore them children. They were the mighty men of old, men of renown”.
Biblical scholar Esther Hamori’s analysis of this passage demonstrates how important knowing the OG Hebrew of the Bible is for understanding what it means. She notes that translations that call the women “wives” are incorrect — the sons of God (which she interprets to mean generic semi-divine beings — they aren’t called angels) see human women they like, and they rape them. The word nephilim comes from the term “fallen,” and although some translators have thought of this as fallen from heaven, the word nephilim also refers to miscarried fetuses elsewhere in the Bible (Job 3:16, Psalm 58:8, Ecclesiastes 6:3). Thus, these are monstrously created beings.
And they are mighty — elsewhere in the Bible, the nephilim are described as giants (Numbers13:32-33). Hamori points out that whenever the Bible mentions giants, it is dealing with foreigners, with the “thems” or “others”. And of course, it’s much easier to imagine one’s own group as being heroic defenders of a people when the enemy is monstrous, and giant in power.
Sources: Esther Hamori, _God’s Monsters”, 2023, Broadleaf Books, pp 243-247 and ff
