Review: When Giants Were Upon the Earth: The Watchers, the Nephilim, and the Biblical Cosmic War of the Seed

When Giants Were Upon the Earth: The Watchers, the Nephilim, and the Biblical Cosmic War of the Seed by Brian Godawa

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a truly enjoyable read. I have read a handful of great theologically based books on giants in the past couple years, including Giants: Sons of the God by Douglas Van Dorn and The Sons of God and the Nephilim by Tim Chaffey, so the bulk of the giant related information covered in this Godawa book was not necessarily new. However, the difference with this book and the others, is that this one deals with a wider range subjects. It looks at the Divine Council and all kinds of other topics related to the battle between the seed of the serpent and the seed of Eve.
This book is just an expanded upon volume containing all of the historical appendices from his fantasy series Chronicles of the Nephilim. When brought together like this, they provide a good amount of background information explaining the historical basis and reasoning behind topics covered in his novels. And in the end, we are presented with a great source for understanding a lot of details pulled from the ancient Hebrew understandings of many biblical passages than have stumped many commentators in recent centuries.

People who wish to ignore the overwhelming evidence of the historical Hebrew and early church understanding of the Divine Council, Sons of God (Gen. 6) as being angels, the Watchers, Nephilim, and the idea of giants, will obviously dislike and poorly rate this book.

The book covers and discusses a lot of historical and scholarly topics, though it never crosses the line into becoming a dry scholarly read itself.

There were a handful of smaller topics that Godawa covers here, that over the years I had come to kind of lean towards believing, but had never studied them out or heard others promoting a similar understanding. So for me, I found some validations for my thoughts at times.

Sadly, the majority of the topics covered in this book will probably be so alien to today's average church goer, that they may be viewed as purely fantasy like the novels. The general consensus of the ancient Hebrews as well as the early church has been pretty much lost and forgotten on these things, and so, many today may be quite disturbed by them. However, once you begin to see this whole overarching story as it is revealed and plays out through Scripture, the whole of Scripture takes on new meaning.

So, while I feel a book like Giants: Sons of the God by Van Dorn is one of the better books on giants in general, covering the topic both from a biblical and recently modern historical view of the evidence of giants, this book by Godawa covers so much more, bringing a whole story together that other books do not.

So, as of now, this is my new go-to book when it comes to suggested reading for someone wanting to consider this subject.

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