In Genesis, before the flood, there are verses which talk about giants. They are called the offspring of “the sons of God (fallen angels) and daughters of women.” In some translations of the Bible (not the KJV), these giants are called Nephilim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim

Nephilim is an obscure word, probably of Hebrew derivation and has most commonly been translated as: “apostate”, or “fallen” or “those who cause others to fall down.” Nephilim is a plural word. Although it is not used in a singular form in the Bible, various authorities have speculated its singluar form would be either: Naphil, Nephil, or Niphal.

For the first major Book of Mormon prophet to be associated with a name which means “Apostate”, or “Fallen” seems like another epic failure on the part of Joseph Smith. The temptation here is great to rename the Nephites to what seems to be the more appropriate plural form of the word “Nephil’ - Nephilim.

So, perhaps the fictitious people of the Book of Mormon ARE aptly named: “Those who cause others to fall down.” Those of us who feel duped by the church would probably concur.

I wonder how the residents of Nephi, Utah feel about this.

:)

Well, only the King James Version of the Bible is approved by the church, and the KJV does not translate giants as Nephilim, so I doubt that they know!

Someone should tell them. :)

Interesting!

In the home of Solomon Spaulding was a myth about the Conneaut Giants at his time. They where supposedly very tall Isrealites that were mound builders. Perhaps the locals also considered them to be the Nephilim. Maybe this was an inspiration for the large and strippling Nephi in the BoM. Sidney Rigdon stole Spalding's manuscripts. He could have written a rough draft that was inspired by the stolen manuscripts, which included Nephi. Then the rough draft got into got the hands of Joseph Smith.

I like to speculate that the golden plates was this rough draft, and the angel moroni was actually Sidney Rigdon.

Yeah! 'Angel Investors' appear and help people wanting to start their own business/enterprise, right?! Too bad it turned into what it did.

Part 1: Aaron Wright, Solomon Spalding, and The GIANTS of Conneaut

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/saga2/sagawt0a.htm

Awesome link. I've bookmarked it.

I think Joseph Smith probably got the name Nephi from 2 Maccabees in the Apocrypha:

"And Nehemias called this place Nephthar, which is interpreted purification. But many call it Nephi." (2 Maccabees 1:36)

That's the older version of the text. More modern translations use the word naphtha. So Nephi was apparently named after a flammable liquid hydrocarbon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtha

Another Hebrew possible word, less likely than "nephil" I suppose, is the word "nephesh", which signifies a cunning serpent.

That works!