Nephilim Stories

Part 1: Alien

Dr. Michael Heiser has become like the pope of weird Christian internet stuff. Thankfully most of what he does is debunk common myths that are spread in the ancient aliens (and adjacent) crowd. So I guess that makes him more like the anti pope of weird Christian stuff.

He refers to all the fringe evangelical thinking (bible code, predicting Jesus’ return, etc) as Christian Middle Earth. It’s a bizarro world of pseudo theology, and I think that what Heiser has mostly done is ground these “evangelical x files” in biblical, scientific, and historical truth. He’s a biblical supernaturalist but ironically is also very skeptical of much of the weird stuff online, often referring people to secularist specialists like Jason Calovito to debunk modern myths about giants (like that the Sympsonian is covering up the existence of giants in North America). 

Heiser is also basically known as the Nephilim guy. His book Reversing Hermon shows how a correct understanding and application of the first part of Genesis 6 is fundamental to interpreting Jesus’ life and ministry. In case you’re unaware of any of this background, I would refer you to the Bible project. They make these amazing videos that demonstrate complicated biblical truths in about 5 minutes. Specifically this video on Satan and Demons.

What’s really interesting about the Nephilim framing of the Biblical story is that it starts to make sense of many other things, outside of the Bible as well as within. Which is a bit odd when you consider that Nephilim is probably best translated as giant (and the giants in question were really not all that big, despite what Christian Middle Earth would have you believe). But that’s because this framing is actually about spheres of reality more than large (or not so large) humanoids. 

The giant is a kind of biblical monster that represents threshold violation. It’s a kind of perverse incarnation. Whereas Jesus is the peaceful union of heaven and earth designed by God to bring harmony to all things, the giant represents (for lack of a less triggering word) rape, or at least illicit union between heaven and earth. Jesus becomes human in order to suffer and die, the divine beings that father the giants do the opposite. They have come to create death and suffering. 

Halloween has just ended, and if I had restarted blogging sooner I probably would’ve gotten this up during Halloween, but one of the best scary movies ever is the original 1979 Alien. I’ve been watching this bizarre film my entire life and it keeps opening up new depths. The newest thing I saw in it was actually due to another Evangelical figure, Brian Godawa. Godawa is a legit Hollywood screenwriter and pop culture analyzer. But he’s also a theologian of sorts and a novelist. His big series of Novels is called The Chronicles of the Nephilim. In it he recounts the biblical war between “the seed” and “the serpent.” Essentially the battle between God’s plans and Satan’s. It’s a pretty fun fantasy series, and I think it's very fair to call it fantasy and not historical fiction because Godawa is open about the liberties he took in portraying the ancient world that was populated by giants and angels.

One of the most interesting bits of innovation he did was having the Nephilim birthing process destroy their mother in the process. I think they even consume her body (I’m too lazy to go look it up to see if I’m right, but regardless the birthing process was horrific and disgusting). This little bit of horror made me realize that Alien is actually a Nephilim story. Well Godawa and the documentary Memory: the Origins of Alien. 

Memory is one of the best documentaries about the making of a film I’ve ever seen, and this is probably my favorite sub genre of documentary. The definitive making of Alien is obviously The Beast Within by Charles Lauzirika (which is usually available, at least partially, on youtube somewhere if you don’t own the blu rays). Lauzirika is the main chronicler of the original Alien Franchise, and his work is probably beyond compare. I believe he also did Dangerous Days, the making of Blade Runner. These films are a masterclass in how to document the making of a film. He’s a fabulous documentarian, and he’s really documenting. There’s very little interpretation or embellishment, it's mostly interviews with cast and crew etc.

Memory retreads some of the area that Beast Within covers so admirably but in many ways Memory is an entirely different…uh, Beast. Memory is really about what Alien means, it deals more with Dan O’Bannon and Mythology than the actual making of Alien. And it does so with amazing artistic flourishes. I don’t want to ruin too much because I really think this film needs to be seen more (and its usually available on some streaming service), but the upshot is that Alien is essentially a piece of mythology in the traditional sense of mythology. Not just like it has become a mythology all its own but Alien is getting at something more Jungian, something within the human imaginary. Memory interprets the alien creature as essentially a type of the Greek Furie that would revenge itself upon humanity if divine boundaries were crossed. 

Between Godawa and Memory I realized that Alien was a Nephilim story. These are the parallels between Genesis 6 and Alien:

1. Two power entities are acting in a “lustful” manner. 
   In Genesis 6 it's the Sons of God. In Alien it is the Company that comes to be known as Weyland-Yutani. The Sons of God see human women and desire them. The Company is looking for alien life to exploit and they find it with the beacon. 

2. There is a violation of a “heavenly” boundary marker
   In Genesis 6 it is the boundary between humans and the Sons of God. In Alien the terrestrial humans are in space, or the heavens.  These realms are not designed for the kind of interaction that takes place.

3. The violation of the boundary marker is sexual
   In Genesis 6 the “sacred” marriage that takes place is between the Sons of God and human women. In Alien the Facehugger essentially rapes Kane.¹ The idea of rape, especially the fear of male rape has always been an acknowledged theme in Alien.  

4. The product of the union is semi divine
   In Genesis 6 the children of the corrupt union are semi divine beings. In Alien the creature that Kane “births” is literally called a perfect organism by the robot Ash. They all seem to agree that there’s really no way to kill the creature, the only thing they can do is blow it out of the airlock. They need to get it back to the “heavens” where it belongs, not on the terrestrial ship.

5. The result of the progeny is an “apocalyptic” destruction
   In Genesis 6 God’s response to the union is to flood the world. In Alien and Aliens the response is essentially a nuclear explosion. Ripley actually gets in a lifeboat to escape the self-destruct sequence of the Nostromo, similar to Noah getting in a boat to escape the destruction of the earth. And what’s really interesting is that the "apocalyptic" destruction doesn’t fix the problem permanently. In Aliens the same violation recurs, just like how the Nephilim still exist after the flood and are a continual problem in the Biblical narrative, hence Godawa’s Chronicles of the Nephilim series.

There’s probably more points of contact, but 5 fundamental points of comparison seems to be enough to conclude that something is going on here. Alien is more than just a sci fi horror film, from a Christian perspective it's getting at deep biblical ideas. And it's hard to not see it as a Nephilim story of sorts, by which I mean a story about how the unholy union of heaven and earth is something that leads to horrifying results. 

Meditation for the Day: Jude 1:6-7

“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

My prayer: Heavenly Father, I ask that your heavenly will would be done in my life and the lives of those around me, and that the schemes of the evil ones would be defeated. 

1. There is a whole other sort of biblical connection here that I’ve never seen addressed anywhere, and that’s the origin of monsters in Beowulf. In the version of Beowulf we have (which is almost assuredly Christianized) the biblical Cain’s progeny are monsters. Grendel and his mother are somehow related to Cain. And in Alien, the robot Ash, calls the full grown monster Kane’s son. When you put this together with what happens in the sequel there’s some very interesting literary parallels between Beowulf and the initial Alien duology. Like how Beowulf has to descend to defeat Grendel’s mother, Ripley has to descend to fight the Alien Queen mother.