OVER THE LEGAL LIMIT

Tales of giants abound in the popular cultures of most ages. The human imagination is often drawn to stories about humans who are larger than life. A random sample of such characters, good or evil, might include Goliath, the Cyclops, the giant at the top of Jack’s Beanstalk, Paul Bunyan, or even Colossal Kid in the Legion of Super-Heroes. Sometimes this desire for the human-who-is-larger-than-life is expressed in physical terms, as seen in the Colossus of Rhodes, the Sphinx of Egypt, and  the effigies of Easter Island.

Henry Wilson Watrous

Henry Wilson Watrous

Fee Fi Foe Fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman
Be he live or be he dead
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.

rhetoricaldevice.com: ''In 1562 Arcimboldo crossed the Alps to Vienna for a position as court portraitist and festival organiser for Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand I (r. 1558-1564), who died almost immediately after his arrival. Fortunately, emperor Maximilian II (r. 1564-1576) and his young son, Rudolf II (r. 1576-1612), decided to honor Arcimboldo’s contract.  Rudolph became quite enamoured of Arcimboldo, who crafted grand costume pageants in the boy’s honor, such as a spectacle in which the six-year-old Rudolph played the part of a knighted dwarf in full plate armor among adults dressed as giants and monsters.''

rhetoricaldevice.com: ''In 1562 Arcimboldo crossed the Alps to Vienna for a position as court portraitist and festival organiser for Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand I (r. 1558-1564), who died almost immediately after his arrival. Fortunately, emperor Maximilian II (r. 1564-1576) and his young son, Rudolf II (r. 1576-1612), decided to honor Arcimboldo’s contract. Rudolph became quite enamoured of Arcimboldo, who crafted grand costume pageants in the boy’s honor, such as a spectacle in which the six-year-old Rudolph played the part of a knighted dwarf in full plate armor among adults dressed as giants and monsters.''

A fascination with height, short and tall, isn’t a modern invention. It has been around since one man was taller or shorter than another. At times it became more or less of interest but it has never really gone away and doesn’t really look like ever abating. The original book by Jonathan Swift consists of four parts and follows Lemuel Gulliver, the first part of which, the most well remembered, sees Gulliver end up in Lilliput, where to his surprise, he finds an island populated by people who are only 6 inches tall.

Gulliver’s Travels.

”In December, 1848, Robert Hales, son of a respected Somerton farmer, sailed into New York for a two-year American tour. Billed as the “Norfolk Giant,” he rose to a height of seven feet six inches, weighed four hundred an sixty pounds, had shoulders thirty-six inches broad, measured sixty-two inches around his chest, and sixty-four around his waist. On his return to England, he was commanded to appear before Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and six of the royal children at Buckingham Palace.”


Charles Cotter O’Brien ” He walked with difficulty, and felt considerable pain when rising up or sitting down. Previous to his death, he expressed great anxiety lest his body should fall into the hands of the anatomists, and gave particular directions for securing his remains with brickwork and strong iron bars in the grave.”

From their portrayal on walls of Tombs in Egypt, illustrations and portraits to postcards and newspapers giants have been interesting not just to the medical profession but to the population in general. Their is a strange symbiosis almost between the general public and giants now and in the past. The juxtaposition of the huge with the normal or the miniscule appeals to a deep seated craving for the spectacular. A fascination with giants extends to all ages and all peoples. In some earlier centuries, Europe’s interest in these huge creatures really perked up, particularly among the upper classes and the nobility. In fact, so many of the curious became so willing to pay money to see them that a kind of tour was established for the giants. Some of them made a lot of money. It is irrational, even perverse,and absurd; this fascination for what seems exceptional .Whether we find it repulsive or attractive it is hard not to stare.

Giovanni Bona. This portrait of the giant Giovanni Bona was initially referred to by Sternberg (1899) as the oldest historical document on acromegaly. This life size portrait, 2.40m, by the court painter of the Elector of the Palatinate, Frederick II, in 1553 was originally held in the Ambras-Schloss in the Tyrol now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Also include in the picture is the dwarf Thomerle

Giovanni Bona. This portrait of the giant Giovanni Bona was initially referred to by Sternberg (1899) as the oldest historical document on acromegaly. This life size portrait, 2.40m, by the court painter of the Elector of the Palatinate, Frederick II, in 1553 was originally held in the Ambras-Schloss in the Tyrol now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Also include in the picture is the dwarf Thomerle

It must harken back to something in a deep rooted memory before the Flood, where the biblical references to giants serving perhaps as a reminder that whatever we are now, there is a sense of being bound, held hostage and victimized by the Fall. ”But first, why should we look at the Nephilim at all?  The answer can be found in Number 13:32-33, which is the only other explicit reference to the Nephilim in the canon. In this passage, the Hebrew spies tell their desert-wandering comrades what they found in Canaan:

“…All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” The spies are clearly exaggerating (cf. Barker, p. 210). If “all the people” were of such great size, one wonders how to account for the apparently normal size of Rahab, the Gibeonites, and others that Joshua encounters upon entering Canaan 38 years later (cf. Joshua 6:25, 9:3-15). Still, there is no question that the “descendants of Anak” are giants, as we will see below. Thus, while it is possible that the spies are panicking and exaggerating when they claim to have seen the Nephilim, they do make a connection between the Nephilim and the “descendants of Anak”, and this would seem to secure a reputation for the Nephilim as people of great stature. The translation of Nephilim as gigantes in the Septuagint and the Vulgate supports this tradition (Hess, ABD 4.1072), as does Josephus’ use of this Greek term for giants (Antiquities 1.73).”

''The carte-de-visite card below shows a giant in uniform with a "normal" man looking up at him. Without this man for scale we would not know how big he is. In the same way furniture or larger people gave scale to the photographs of midgets.  Other copies of this image are identified as Monsieur E. Bihin, a Belgian giant with great strength.''

'&


The carte-de-visite card below shows a giant in uniform with a "normal" man looking up at him. Without this man for scale we would not know how big he is. In the same way furniture or larger people gave scale to the photographs of midgets. Other copies of this image are identified as Monsieur E. Bihin, a Belgian giant with great strength.''

The Nephilim, then, are a race of giants, born of a mixed divine and human parentage, who became famous for their heroic deeds in the days before the Deluge, and who may or may not have been present in the land of Israel after the Deluge, too, though this seems less plausible, but then truth can be stranger than even the Bible. There is a mixture of reverence and fear in the myth of the giant; but oh! how the mighty have fallen:  They  appeared in numerous “dime museums” like P.T. Barnum’s American Museum, circuses, and side shows as a sort of philistines on display, Goliaths without gainful employment.

It is easy from our 21st century perspective to look at society’s fascination with these people as exploitative and demeaning. While the recent reputation of the carnival side show is decidedly tawdry and the exhibiting of people with physical abnormalities is even illegal in some states, reading about the lives of the 19th century “freaks” shows some surprising differences. We are just more politically correct in their exploitation today.

David with the Head of Goliath. Caravaggio

David with the Head of Goliath. Caravaggio

So we rebel against the authoritative fire and brimstone tales and fear mongering, that are the currency of exchange in the post Fall world. This is affirmed, it appears,  principally by a refusal to develop God’s gifts; laziness, pollution and spoilation of the environment, anti-social tendencies and a reluctance to embrace true community. Its the least we can do. We just inherited the mess so an idolatrous refusal to worship the true and living God, though disappointing to those bearing the standard  of the cloth, it is an almost expected response.

Kaltenbrunner was a seven foot tall nazi. ''...with massive broad shoulders, huge arms, a thick square chin and deep scars from his student duelling days, Kaltenbrunner excelled in brutal repression and providing human fodder for the concentration camps.  Excitable, deceitful, self-indulgent – he was an alcoholic and a chain-smoker – he took a personal interest in various methods of execution used in the camps under his aegis and especially in the gas chambers.''

Kaltenbrunner was a seven foot tall nazi. ''...with massive broad shoulders, huge arms, a thick square chin and deep scars from his student duelling days, Kaltenbrunner excelled in brutal repression and providing human fodder for the concentration camps. Excitable, deceitful, self-indulgent – he was an alcoholic and a chain-smoker – he took a personal interest in various methods of execution used in the camps under his aegis and especially in the gas chambers.''

We are loath to pick up our fallen humanness. Its more fun to laugh at it , slipping on a banana peel writhing in pain with its back locked on the ground. Why repudiate what breaks the monotany and alleviates the suffering if only temporarily. We like our giants, the huge, and the midgets,as part of an empathy with the marginal in a world that is normative. We are all in the circus, uprooted and nomadic for the most part; hopping on the gypsy caravan for the next show.

”Jacob Rheuben Ehrlich (3 July 1906 in Denver, Colorado – 18 July 1952 in El Paso Texas) was an American silent film actor and sideshow performer. Due to acromegalic gigantism, Earle was one of the world’s tallest humans at the time of his death, standing at 7.75 feet (2.32 m) in tall. For 14 years, he traveled with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, then became a salesman. He is referenced in Tom Waits’s song “Get Behind The Mule”.
”We need our giants.”I WAS LOOKING FOR THE WORD FOR ‘A FEAR OF MIDGETS!’ I have a friend who is terrified of them and I was trying to locate the word for it. Good to see there are others so it is a legitimate phobia that deserves a legitimate lexical context.”

According to the Jewish Scriptures, as well as many legends from most ancient cultures, such a kind of interdimensional cross-fertilization took place during – and also after – the Antediluvian World (the world before the Flood of Noah). This is why there are so many records of giants in history in every continent of the world. It is sometimes interpreted that these giants are somehow related to UFO phenomena; abductions that have resulted in genetic transformations though the scientific evidence appears negligible making this theory one of the faith based variety, at least for the moment. However, the great stone tombs across the world are visual evidence of their existence, likely before the Flood and were Bilically called the ”Nephilim” .

Land of the Giants T.V. Series

Land of the Giants T.V. Series

”The Return of the Nephilim is a sure event yet to happen, again, in the End of Days, it will take place in an open and worldwide scale. In the near future, just as they did in the antediluvian world – previous to the universal Flood of Noah as narrated in Genesis 6(1-2 and 4) – demonic “alien” beings, or fallen angels, will appear on our planet and will make widespread and direct contact with mankind with a highly distorted but very deceptive message and specific purpose.”

Sumerian God King

”These rebellious interdimensional beings will manifest among us in the guise of extraterrestrial from other galaxies, or aliens beings from another dimension or time. They will pretend to just teach mankind higher elements of science and technology, as well as the means to successfully achieve a peaceful social cooperation among the nations of the world, thus putting an end to wars, hunger, plagues, etc. To attain that intent they will tell us that it is absolutely necessary to unite all the nations of the world under a new One World Government or New World Order, and a New World Religion. All of this will be the ultimate Tower of Babel.”

L0040522 Mariedl, the Tyrolean Giantess Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

”I am a 30 year old man and when I see a midget I am mortified. I grew up very religious and in the Old Testament of the bible there are 2 references to giants. The bible clearly explains that giants were the offspring of humans who procreated with fallen angels. There is no proof of this ofcourse only faith, but it lends the question; are midgets also the product of some type of other worldly breeding gone bad. My fear of dwarfs is driven by a fear that they are not “all” human. I feel threatened by them and I feel that they all grow up knowing their true origin and even worse – when they’re around me they sense that I know what they know. I am wondering if other peoples phobia is rooted in the same type of thought as mine.” ( Chad Turner )



Related Posts

This entry was posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Marketing/Advertising/Media, Miscellaneous, Modern Arts/Craft, Music/Composition/Performance and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>