Who Fathered The Nephilim?

Q

I used to believe that the Nephilim came from human men and human women until my mother said they came from fallen angels and human women. My pastor recently did a study on it and said he believes they come from men who were the offspring of Anak and human women. He says that it doesn’t say anywhere in the Bible that the “men of renown or heroes of old” were the offspring of fallen angels. How do we prove that those texts actually refer to fallen angels?

A

Anak was not around during the time before the flood. His descendants were first mentioned in Numbers 13:22 after the exodus from Egypt. Numbers 13:33 says the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim. If Anak was a Nephilim, or more likely one of their descendants, he couldn’t have been the father of the Nephilim.

The Hebrew phrase translated “sons of God” in Genesis 6:2,4 is b’nai haElohim, a phrase that when used literally in the Bible only refers to angels . For that reason, there’s good cause to believe that the “sons of God” who fathered the Nephilim were fallen angels.