March 28, 2012 – Baruch 3

“In it were born the giants, renowned at the first, huge in stature, skilled in war. These God did not choose, nor did he give them the way of understanding; They perished for lack of prudence”  26-28  I was thinking about this verse and what “giants” they might be talking about.  The footnotes say that they meant some giant thing killed in the flood.  But there is nothing really about giants before the flood in the telling of that in Genesis that I can remember.  It got me thinking about what might make them write this.  Here is my theory.  If you lived in 1000-500 BC and you were in your field or out and about and you stumbled upon the femur bone of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, what would you think.  Without the knowledge or understanding that we have now and with the education the somewhere in the past there was a huge flood that killed all but 8 people and the animals that are left, what can you conclude from this huge bone.  I think it is pretty logical that a person could think there were giants (I don’t think a femur of a T-Rex looks all that different than a femur bone of a human) that are not around anymore and were killed by the flood.  Obviously they would have been strong enough to defeat any clan, but for some reason God did not choose them and did not give them wisdom to survive. 

Stories that involve giants may come from the same ignorance of science.  Homer didn’t know anything about dinosaurs, so maybe they had knowledge of these large bones and developed the notion of giants based on these huge bones that could not be identified.