One of the hardest phrases for any Christian to say is this: "I don't know."
This is exactly where I found myself when Lisa Shields sent me a question about the Nephilim. If you aren't familiar, here is the entirety of the scriptural record as it applies to Nephilim.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Number 13:31-33)
Other than these two references, we don't have a lot in the surviving scriptural record to talk about these otherworldly creatures. Lisa asked a great question about how we explain the Nephilim and I had to tell her "I don't know."
Now, there was much more to the explanation than just this. I explained how there is some scholarly disagreement on whether the Nephilim were literal giants or if they were simply "great men" who were giants in more of a nostalgic/mytho-historical sense. Both would be entirely plausible given the history of human oral tradition and the turns-of-phrase that often occur when oral tradition is handed down over dozens of generations. Sure, someone could myopically declare, "my Bible says 'giant', so they were giants", but that would presume that the way they read their English Bible in 2022 is identical to the way the oral tradition was created in ancient Aramaic or Proto-Hebrew (doubtful). At the end of an in-depth analysis of the phrase, I simply concluded with those three simple words... "I don't know."
Many Christians are incredibly uncomfortable admitting they may not have an answer, especially for something in their ink-and-paper Bibles. We insist that there must be an answer to every question and that answer must be understandable to us in the modern age. If you really think about it, it's a form of intellectual arrogance. Without any appreciation for the size, the magnitude, or the methods God uses throughout the scriptures, we insist that if we can't personally understand something then it must be wrong or there must be a more black-and-white explanation. There is a thing called recency bias and it's never more apparent than when we have to mesh our intellectual insecurities with the infinite depth and Glory of God's Word.
Sometimes we are going to feel confident in the answers to scriptural questions. We know Jesus Christ is the son of God who was sent to earth to die for our sins. We know that God is the creator of all things and that He will send his Son to earth one day in the future to complete the work He stated. We are confident in our faith of these things. There are other things that we may have strong opinions on, but must acknowledge we do not know. We do not know the precise mechanics of how God created everything in Genesis (even if you feel confident in the timeline). We do not know the intricacies of how grace is applied to all conditions and circumstances of mankind. We do not know when or precisely how Christ will return to this earth again. Because we do not know these things, we must take care not to use our religious opinions to divide or condescend to one another. We must emphasize that which unites us and reserve our theological differences for study and discipleship. Disagreement is good and it is healthy when used to help further our understanding of things which may never truly be understandable in our limited, human forms.
There are plenty of subjects both interesting and edifying to study and meditate upon. It is good to do so. In our study, let us not shy away from our worldly insecurities of the unknown. God has permitted these mysteries to remain and maybe the existence of these mysteries are a hidden blessing. Maybe, through embracing the fact that we can not know everything, God is granting us the opportunity to exercise a little faith.
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