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The Gigantes vs The Nephilim

These two are identified with one another in the record, which is not the same as being the same figure. The Septuagint renders Nephilim as gigantes, which is how the earth-born rebels of Hesiod lend their name to the giants of the English Bible. The identification is a translator's choice, not a claim either text makes.

Hybrid · Greek · c. 700 BCE

The Gigantes

also called The Giants, The Gegeneis

Born from the earth and the blood of a castrated sky, they fight the Olympians and lose — and the English word giant descends from them rather than from anything in Genesis.

Alignment
Disputed
Rank
Earth-born Adversaries of the Olympians
First attested
Theogony & Works and Days · c. 700 BCE
Named there as
Gigantes
Texts naming it
3
Powers attributed
2
80attestedGreek

Hybrid · c. 600 BCE

The Nephilim

also called The fallen ones

The offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men, given two verses in Genesis and a full history in 1 Enoch — the corpus's clearest case of a silence in scripture being filled in elsewhere.

Alignment
Disputed
Rank
Offspring of the Sons of God
First attested
Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon · c. 900–100 BCE
Named there as
Nephilim
Texts naming it
3
Powers attributed
2
85attestedChristianJewishEnochian

Where do they actually overlap?

Texts naming both

Powers credited to both

Grants Victory in WarBurns & Slays

Common questions

Are The Gigantes and The Nephilim the same figure?

These two are identified with one another in the record, which is not the same as being the same figure. The Septuagint renders Nephilim as gigantes, which is how the earth-born rebels of Hesiod lend their name to the giants of the English Bible. The identification is a translator's choice, not a claim either text makes. ColossiansOne records the link rather than asserting the identity: where texts disagree about whether two names denote one figure, the disagreement is what gets shown.

Which is older, The Gigantes or The Nephilim?

The Gigantes is the older name: first attested around c. 700 BCE, against c. 600 BCE for The Nephilim. Where the two dates are far apart, that gap is the whole reason the pair is worth comparing.

Do any texts name both The Gigantes and The Nephilim?

Yes — 1 text names both. A single text naming both figures is the strongest evidence available here that its author treated them as distinct, whatever later writers did with the pair.
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