Nephilim Biblical Discussion

Wing Commander: Prophecy isn't the only thing to mention the Nephs either. The Christopher Walken DTV movie The Prophecy II (http://imdb.com/title/tt0118643/), centers around a child born half man / half angel (who later becomes the main character in the third movie) and is refered to as a "Nephilim".

I wondered what the hell the chances were that two seperate series using the name Prophecy would end up quoting such a minute part of the Bible within a year apart from each other.
 
It wouldn't be in Origin's best interest to ostracise players who might be offended by religious references.

Like having a Space Alien Cat quote scripture from the pulpit on Victory's bridge? It's no big secret that Wing Commander is based on Judeo-Christian (aka Western) culture, so I doubt Origin/EA was ever really concerned about losing that market in the Middle-East.
 
Okay, I forgot about The Trigger scene, you got me there. But that's hardly a specific quotation, "weeping and gnashing" just happens to be mentioned a lot in Matthew's gospel, in Jesus' parables regarding those who are welcomed into his kingdom, and those who are not.
 
But that's hardly a specific quotation,

He says "from your Bible" or some such. Bible is pretty much recognized to mean the Christian one. Wing Commander has never tried to be inoffensive... it's a franchise from an era when being inoffensive (or offensive) wasn't a priority.
 
If you wikipedia on nephilim, they give some background on the mysteries surrounding them, from different cultures point of view even.
 
a child born half man / half angel (who later becomes the main character in the third movie) and is refered to as a "Nephilim".

Just to be perfectly clear, there is no actual information that the children of half-angles are called Nephilim, it's mostly just speculation based on that short passage of the Bible.

EDIT: This is my problem with people who think that the Nephilim are the Children of Fallen Angels based on that passage...

First, Nephilim means "The Fallen". This seems to refer pretty obviously to Fallen Angels, not fallen children, since the Children have, technically done nothing wrong. The problem with this argument is the basis for Nephilim, which can either mean the fallen, or strength.

The second problem that I have is that children are not listed until AFTER the Nephilim reference in the Bible. It states the Nephilim were there, and THEN had relations with women. How you jump from that to "The Nephilim are the children of Fallen Angels" I just don't know.

I'm reading up on the book of Enoch right now, as LOAF suggested, I'll be back tonight with so more postings.
 
I will argue that there is an intentional biblical connection in Prophecy... but it's not the quesitonable one being discussed here. It is more than just the name value Overmortal and company ascribe to the choice... heck, the sequels were penciled in as 'Wing Commander: Revelation' and 'Wing Commander: Redemption.' There's a clear Judeo-Christian theme here which is exactly as unsubtle as the World War II theme in earlier games.

Well, let's explore it from that perspective then...

What Judeo-Christian theme do you see as being prevalent in the WCP series?

The most obvious one that comes to mind is the prophecy of the Messiah, but that seems to fly in light of the fact that Christopher Blair didn't exactly sacrifice himself to save all humanity (or did he? I haven't reached the end of the game yet), might not actually be dead, and the Nephilim keep coming after the Kilrah gate is destroyed, at any rate.
 
Well, let's explore it from that perspective then...

What Judeo-Christian theme do you see as being prevalent in the WCP series?

The most obvious one that comes to mind is the prophecy of the Messiah, but that seems to fly in light of the fact that Christopher Blair didn't exactly sacrifice himself to save all humanity (or did he? I haven't reached the end of the game yet), might not actually be dead, and the Nephilim keep coming after the Kilrah gate is destroyed, at any rate.

He could have been alive, but from the end of Prophecy, to Secret Ops, (and maybe arena, i don't have it so i don't know.) there is no sign of him. At all. I think he was taken, brainwashed, and trained new tactics by the aliens. Maybe even cloned. But that is not why we are here. They also formed a gate in the Proxima system, but it is captured before it was completed.
 
He says "from your Bible" or some such.
I know he said "Terran Bible". But I disagree with your statement that Thrakhath quoted Scripture. It was more of a reference than an actual quotation of a specific verse from the Bible.
 
He says "from your Bible" or some such. Bible is pretty much recognized to mean the Christian one. Wing Commander has never tried to be inoffensive... it's a franchise from an era when being inoffensive (or offensive) wasn't a priority.

Well, he was addressing Blair, so he must have meant the Pilgrim bible ;) (I'm kidding, I know he wasn't addressing Blair, he didn't say 'your Bible' and that Blair isn't a Pilgrim in the religious sense...)

Actually, the Thrakhath lines are somewhat interesting in how they mirror the start of this thiread -- like the original poster, Thrakhath is borrowing the biblical armageddon imagery for his own thought process. Neither he (nor the Nephilim) have any necessary involvement in God's plan for the end of the world.

The most obvious one that comes to mind is the prophecy of the Messiah, but that seems to fly in light of the fact that Christopher Blair didn't exactly sacrifice himself to save all humanity (or did he? I haven't reached the end of the game yet), might not actually be dead, and the Nephilim keep coming after the Kilrah gate is destroyed, at any rate.

Well, yes, there's Blair as a Christ-figure... but you can't swing a dead cat around a library without hitting that particular allegory a dozen times.

First, Nephilim means "The Fallen". This seems to refer pretty obviously to Fallen Angels, not fallen children, since the Children have, technically done nothing wrong. The problem with this argument is the basis for Nephilim, which can either mean the fallen, or strength.

The suggestion on the internet is that Nephilim means 'those which cause a fall' and not 'the fallen.' The bigger problem with debating the linguistic minutea of Genesis is that we aren't looking at it in ancient Hebrew or Greek... we're looking at it after at least a thousand years of oral tradition and then a thousand years of retranslation into the language we happen to understand. This all combines to make the 'detail over apparent intent' form of criticism very unreliable.

In thinking about this sort of thing we have to get as far away from our Freshman ConLaw course understanding of the importance of sentence structure, word choice and punctuation as possible...

The second problem that I have is that children are not listed until AFTER the Nephilim reference in the Bible. It states the Nephilim were there, and THEN had relations with women. How you jump from that to "The Nephilim are the children of Fallen Angels" I just don't know.

I don't think it says that. Lets look at these two versions of the passage in question, from versions of the bible we're most familiar with:

The King James Bible: "That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose... There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

The New American Bible: "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 (as well as later), after the sons of heaven had intercourse with the daughters of men, who bore them sons. They were heroes of old, men of renown."

In the first instance your argument seems valid prima facie -- but that's ignoring the fact that it's written with significantly older grammar rules and for a significantly different (more dramatic) form of presentation. In the modernized version it's the story as everyone knows it - which suggests that the source material is that the Nephilim appear on Earth as a result of the angels intermarrying or interbreeding with human women.

... and here's where I press the stop button and suggest that we're taking this too far. The suggestion in Wing Commander Prophecy is only that the Nephilim were the giants/monsters/whatever which appeared on Earth in biblical times and which humans then believed to be a result of their immorality.
 
... and here's where I press the stop button and suggest that we're taking this too far. The suggestion in Wing Commander Prophecy is only that the Nephilim were the giants/monsters/whatever which appeared on Earth in biblical times and which humans then believed to be a result of their immorality.

I think that in and off itself is worthy of a whole slew of discussion.

I was originally basing my assumptions on the fact that the the Kilrathi Prophecy of Armageddon was made in reference to a factual series of events that actually occured on Kilrah, and became religious-ized over the ensuing generation.

Compared to the Human Prophecy of Armageddon which was made in a Supposed* vision from God, and had no fact based incidents to back it up.

What you're suggesting instead is that the Nephilim visited both Earth and Kilrah, and through the happenstance of those circumstances, are somewhat responsible for the war between the two factions. This was probably done with the intention of coming back to battle the greater surviving race.

I think the more serious implications behind this conclusion is that in the WC Universe the Christian Bible has thus been disproved, and so is false. I think the discovery of the Kilrathi and the Nephilim already prove this point (The Bible says Man was created in his own image - if there are other species out there, what's that say about the Bible?) but that's not a topic I even want to delve into.

*I say supposed because it's not what I happen to believe, but I understand people who want to doubt that John's vision was from God, as I have heard even Christians debate this until they are passed out on the floor from being so blue in the face.
 
The Nephilim visited Kilrah about four thousand years before the events of Prophecy. The 'Star Gods' challenged the Kilrathi to battle, but were unimpressed when the warriors assembled. They told the Kilrathi that they would return to fight someday when they had proven themselves worthy.

This (apparently historical) event gave rise to the 'Prophecy of Sivar,' a (but not *the*) cornerstone of Kilrathi philosophy. This is the system of thinking that gives the two possible outcomes (Tr'thrak and Kn'thrak) depending on whether the Kilrathi stay loyal to their goal of racial improvement through warfare.

The difference is that John's vision has (in so far as we can tell) absolutely nothing to do with the Nephilim. It's unrelated to whatever "prehistoric military conflict being recorded as mythology" (ICIS Manual) the appearance of the Nephilim in the bible makes reference to. If the Nephilim made the same promise to ancient humans, then they just didn't care.

There is also no evidence that the Nephilim are precursor/Puppeteer type aliens - the fact that they visited Earth and Kilrah doesn't seem to be connected to the fact that there was later a Terran-Kilrathi war (beyond the fact that the Kilrathi religion uses its Prophecy as one of multiple reasons for engaging in continued extraterrestrial conflict...)

Note that in so far as we know the idea that the Kilrathi would be wiped out should they falter in their progress is *not* something the 'Star Gods' promised - it's only part of the Prophecy which grew out of their appearance. It appears that that *is* what happened (the Nephilim or the Aligned Peoples noticed the destruction of Kilrah and wanted to test the species capable of such a thing)... but it's not necessarily what they predicted four thousand years ago.
 
Please forgive me for sidetracking this conversation a bit, but I though this might be the best place for such a topic, and since there appears to be a lull in the discussion…

First, an anecdote: I had an idea for a WC story a long time ago, which drew heavily from Biblical/mythological lore. It had all sorts of good stuff in it: A Confed task force and a group of pirates/privateers (being lead by an ex-Black Lancer no less) wind up in uncharted space (ala Star Trek Voyager) and basically the two group have to make peace with each other and fight/run back to friendly space. Along the way they run into the Mantu (envisioned by me a large minotaur-like beings) who had been fighting the Aliens for years, if not decades. Needless to say, the friendship with the Mantu presents some natural problems with some of the Kilrathi pirates.

Indecently, the idea for the Mantu came from a section in Revelations describing four anthropomorphic beasts: A human, a lion, some sort of bird, and an oxen. Naturally, being of quick wit, I took this to symbolically represent Humans, Kilrathi, Firekkans, and Mantu.

Let’s see…There was also Church of Man fanatics working with the Aliens (much like the Pilgrims working with the Kilrathi I realize, but this was before I saw the movie).

In retrospect, its funny that a lot of the simple ideas I had for the story, such as the devastating attack on earth and the Hurricane II fighters all appear in Star*Soldier. Great (and predictable) minds truly think alike.


But enough of this. To my main point, being Blair, and his relation with the Aliens:

A December 26, 2000 post at the CIC listed a segment from a IRC interview with former EA producer Mark Day, regarding the planned fate of Blair, post Prophecy:

Eagle-1: Mark... did Blair die in WCP... or did he live? (your opinion) :)

Mark Day: He lived. That's the way Adam and I had it planned...

Eagle-1: Mark, how was he getting out of that? Kills the bug, then runs to his ship, right?

Mark Day: The bugs never wanted to kill Blair. They wanted Blair. The Bugs were never the main threat

Eagle-1: Mark... what was the main threat... if not the bugs?

Mark Day: ....the Bugs were merely one of three races under the command of an entity. The entity was never well described or thought out because it wasn't necessary for WCP. The entity had become interested in the human race and it's natural abilities for killing death and destruction. Blair was a perfect specimen in its opinion. How many men have been responsible for wiping out an entire homeworld of a race?

Eagle-1: Blair!!!

Mark Day: And imagine being Blair... Living with the guilt and memory of all that had been lost... ... and all that he had done. Actually he minded quite a bit (IMHO). Then Blair gets captured... and suddenly everything seems so clear. Suddenly someone tells him that its ok to be a Natural Born Killer. No more feeling alone... no more guilt.

Eagle-1: ok...

Mark Day: He didn't hang back at the end of Prophecy because he was being stupid. He hung back because he wanted to.

Eagle-1: well... sure he did what he had to do... but still it may have gnawed at him. Possible?

Mark Day: .......the plan was to have Blair alive with the bad guys. Whether a prisoner or a member was unclear. But I had planned that he would return to the Border World to enlist new recruits. And become the third horseman......


Now, the Third Horseman is “Famine” or “Pestilence”, whom rides a black horse and carries scales, which could be a representation of the 'scales of pitiless justice' which commonly represent inequality and corruption. All and all, the guy is representative of Famine, Hunger, and Economic Breakdown.

The "a measure of wheat for a penny" from the King James Version might not sound like a famine to modern ears, but in the Worldwide English Version we read "four cups of wheat for bread will sell for a day's wages".

Now, Cobalt 60’s lyrics for the song Prophecy have always struck me as rather cryptic, but perhaps rather than being poetic, they are supposed to reflect the thoughts and intentions of Christopher Blair:

https://www.wcnews.com/music/lyrics.shtml

One way or another, it’s clear that the controlling Entity of the Aligned Peoples (U-DO, anyone?) or at the very least the bugs themselves have big plans for Blair…
 
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Now, the Third Horseman is “Famine” or “Pestilence”, whom rides a black horse and carries scales, which could be a representation of the 'scales of pitiless justice' which commonly represent inequality and corruption. All and all, the guy is representative of Famine, Hunger, and Economic Breakdown.

pes·ti·lence /ˈpɛstləns/ –noun
1. a deadly or virulent epidemic disease.

I don't know about you, but that 2681 entry in the Star*Soldier's looking pretty interesting about now.
 
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