Demons Among Us

THE NEPHILIM: BOOK ONE

  

Who are the Nephilim?

Fantasy fiction often begins with a bit of mythology or legend. This is very true of new paranormal series, The Nephilim. Book One of the series, The Night Everything Fell Apart, arrives October 4.

Some readers may have already encountered some twist on the legend of the Nephilim in books and TV. For example, there’s an episode of the X-Files devoted to the Nephilim. Other readers may not have heard of them at all. Who or what are they? Where did the legend originate?

The Nephilim are said to be a hybrid human/demon race. They’re descendants of a group of angels known as Watchers, who were cursed by Heaven after they knocked up some human women.

The Nephilim are mentioned very briefly in the Bible: 

"When men began to multiply on the Earth and daughters were born to them, the Sons of Heaven saw how beautiful the Daughters of Man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth after the Sons of Heaven knew the Daughters of Men, who bore them sons."  Genesis 6:1-4

An ancient text known as the Book of Enoch reveals more history of the Watchers and the Nephilim. For some unfathomable reason (because when does stuff like this ever work out?), two hundred Watcher angels were sent to Earth and allowed to assume bodies of flesh. This sounds great, but of course there was a catch: no interaction (read: S-E-X with the Daughters of Men—God’s version of the Prime Directive, maybe?).

Of course, the whole experiment didn’t work out. Human women turned out to be just too pretty to resist. One Watcher angel called Azazel decided to revise the original program. He got all the other Watchers to go along with him:

The sons of Heaven said to one another: Come let us chose wives among the children of men. So the Watchers took wives, teaching them sorcery, incantations, astronomy, and the dividing of roots. And the women conceived and brought forth the Nephilim, born of spirit and of flesh.  From the Book of Enoch

One catch: apparently hybrid human/divine children are a tad bit unstable.

The children of the Watchers became evil spirits upon earth, turning against men in order to devour them, to eat their flesh, and to drink their blood. The Nephilim, who have been born of spirit and of flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon Earth.  From the Book of Enoch

Oh, crap. Damage control time! Heaven banishes the Watchers and sends a Flood is sent to exterminate their demon kids. This solution didn’t quite do the trick—some Nephilim escaped the flood. As a backup punishment, the survivors and their descendants were cursed. They’re doomed to fight among themselves while alive and experience no afterlife after death.

Bind Azazel hand and foot; cast him into darkness; and opening the desert which is in Dudael, cast him in there. Incite the offspring of the Watchers one against the other. Let the Nephilim perish by mutual slaughter. Upon the death of the Nephilim, wheresoever their spirits depart from their bodies, let their flesh be without judgement. Thus shall they perish.   From the Book of Enoch

Legend tells us the Nephilim scattered across the Earth and settled among early humans. Because of the divine knowledge taught to them by their fathers, they became the shamans and sorcerers of various ancient cultures. They married and had children who—outwardly, at least—became indistinguishable from humans. But—so the legend goes—their forbidden magic was passed down through generations.

Perhaps the descendants of the original Nephilim walk among us to this day.

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