I’m not sure where to begin in discussing the bizarre and defensive series of statements that Nephilim theorist L. A. Marzulli and his business partner Richard Shaw made about Mike Heiser, a Christian scholar who has repeatedly challenged pseudoscientific claims about Biblical and Near Eastern mysteries. In a pair of audio releases yesterday, the pair attacked Heiser for criticizing their claims in the for-profit Watchers X DVD that they had obtained genetic proof that ancient Peruvians came from the Middle East, and that they had genetically examined the remains of a fairy. On July 25, Heiser posted a brief blog entry in which he discussed Marzulli’s and Brien Foerster’s claims for the Peruvian skulls. Heiser noted that previous efforts by Foerster to find non-human DNA in Peruvian skulls had failed, and the features that he identified as non-human, including a lack of sagittal sutures, are documented in medical literature with known causes. Heiser’s essay was a description of an essay by Carl Feagans that ran on the A Hot Cup of Joe blog, which offered a long and substantive critique of Marzulli and Foerster. “Run for the hills, folks! Marzulli’s completely wigged out!” That’s how Marzulli began his “Rant” podcast after indulging in a series of racist caricature accents, including an atrociously bad Indian accent that had nothing to do with the content of his broadcast. That audio release contained nothing but extreme conservative propaganda, mostly regurgitated from the kinds of talk radio hacks who happily abandon yesterday’s claims as easily as Oceania swapped East Asia for Eurasia as its unchanging and eternal enemy. The second audio release contained Marzulli’s and Shaw’s rebuttal to Heiser. He begins by reading Heiser’s entire blog post verbatim, which appears to be a violation of copyright (it’s creating a derivative work—in this case an audiobook—without permission), after which Richard Shaw announces that criticism of the Watchers DVD series “has got to stop” because “I’m sick of this.” Later, Shaw describes Heiser’s brief blog post—all of six paragraphs—as the work of a “bully” no different from the one that abused him as a child. Marzulli and Shaw, who have produced ten multi-hour Watchers DVDs, are outraged because Heiser has, by their count, made three blog posts over the past five years criticizing them. This, they said, requires overwhelming force to smack down a “university dude” who feels he has the right to “cut anyone else down to size” because he “went to college and graduated.” Marzulli and Heiser were (by Marzulli’s description) once friends, and Marzulli believes that “something has poisoned the well” that left Heiser embittered and with a vendetta against Marzulli. He says that Heiser has “professional jealousy” because he was not invited to become a Nephilim researcher. Neither Shaw nor Marzulli seem to understand that Heiser is describing Feagans’s essay and is not creating his own independent analysis of Watchers X. They also misunderstand Heiser’s criticism of DNA results of skulls used variously by white supremacists, ancient astronaut theorists, and Nephilim theorists to support their views for a blanket claim that Marzulli and Shaw are ancient astronaut theorists. (Heiser specifically notes that the two are merely mimicking ancient astronaut theorists.) Shaw is incensed because he only interviews ancient astronaut theorists in support of Nephilim theories, kind of like the way Heiser was only describing different flavors of belief that use the same evidence for opposing ends. “That’s not us saying it! We’re just reporting on what’s there, for crying out loud,” Shaw said, oblivious to irony. In a written rebuttal that he read in the podcast, Shaw had this to say: Never having walked through the sticky mud in Gilgal, or wrote checks for tens of thousands of dollars for lab tests at multiple genetics labs. Easy to criticize when facts are simply ignored and ignorance is so prevalent and disclosed with such breathtaking arrogance, and yet this has become Heiser’s trademark. I’m disgusted by it, and so are a lot of others. Note the logical fallacies: Presence at an ancient site somehow gives one special insight into DNA. (DNA can’t be seen with the naked eye.) Spending money on tests is equivalent to doing good science. (Spending money on bad lab work and contaminated samples won’t make a difference.) Criticism is invalid unless one is actively and financially invested in the outcome. (This is the total opposite of the truth; advocates are most likely to be blind to the errors in their assumptions.)
I’ve been on the receiving end of similar arguments, and even if you meet their requirements, it’s still not enough for fringe believers. For example, many argued that I had no right to suggest that Mystery Hill (America’s Stonehenge) was a colonial era construction because I had never been there to research it myself. When I explained that I have in fact been there and viewed the site myself, the argument changed to why my anger or biases or paradigms somehow prevented me from seeing the truth. It’s the same problem: Nothing short of full acquiescence is good enough. Shaw goes a step further and intentionally blinds himself to problems. He claims in the podcast that Heiser’s criticism of the so-called Star Child skull (actually links to the criticism offered by several scholars) is invalid because Shaw and Marzulli are not specifically working with that Peruvian skull (though Foerster did). Yet Shaw then claims that new testing on that same skull is contradicting Foerster’s earlier claims for it, made with Lloyd Pye. The two men don’t seem to think there is a problem with their “reputable” genetics labs producing such wildly different results from the same specimen. Shaw accuses Heiser of “slander” (he means libel) for questioning the validity of the lab work their unnamed genetics labs produced. He and Marzulli say they cannot release the names of the labs because the labs fear that they will be harmed by association with Nephilim theorists. The men allege that the lab reports are available for review, but they have not actually provided these or any method whereby researchers might review them. How would we verify they are true and accurate if the laboratory name is hidden? Finally, sixteen minutes into a thirty-minute podcast, Marzulli and Shaw remember that there is a link in Heiser’s blog post to Feagan’s blog, though they don’t seem to understand that Heiser was reacting to Feagan. Instead, both men agree that scientific and academic credentials do not apply to the hunt for Nephilim because “you can’t go to school” for Nephilim DNA research. This, of course, forces us to ask the obvious question: If you can’t go to school for it, then what good are your lab results, produced as they are by credentialed and trained geneticists? How do you know that evil angels didn’t fabricate fake DNA to humiliate you? What geneticist went to school to study angel DNA? To be fair, Shaw and Marzulli do not believe the skulls to be Nephilim; instead, they take the extra-biblical view that “there was genetic manipulation going on, which was a trademark of the Nephilim. According to Scripture, that’s what they did.” This, too, undermines their cause: If the Nephilim could genetically engineer at will, then there is no reason to conclude that the Peruvian skulls have “Near Eastern” DNA since the Nephilim could have engineered such traits to their liking with no movement of peoples. After all, isn’t it their belief that all world peoples are Middle Eastern, being descendants of Noah’s three sons in the days after the Flood? Consistency, Marzulli and Shaw! You need more consistency! Also: Where in Scripture is “genetic manipulation” described? The Nephilim are never described in Genesis 6:4 as even having sex, let alone manipulating genetics, since the Nephilim (giants) were not the Sons of God, the entities actually having sex and producing giants. According to Marzulli, the “scientific method” involves taking the Bible’s description of the Nephilim in Numbers 13:33 literally (“There we saw the giants” is the whole of it) and assuming from the lack of later description of the Nephilim that they fled from the puissance of the Jews and escaped “to the New World” where they reigned over the Native peoples as gods. You know: Science! As the half-hour festival of anger drew to a close, the two men humiliated themselves by failing to understand that Heiser’s comments were a description of Feagans’s essay, and they never actually dealt with Feagans’s criticisms in a substantive way.
28 Comments
Only Me
8/6/2016 10:30:22 am
Nice. You managed to break down the underlying problems with fringe claims in one review.
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Time Machine
8/6/2016 11:04:41 am
Life after death is a fringe claim that has just got to be broken down
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Only Me
8/6/2016 11:09:03 am
Stop trying to shoehorn your obsession into every comment section.
An Over-Educated Grunt
8/8/2016 10:17:15 am
If you have issues with your fringe, try keeping your leather taut and using an array of parallel, sharp blades. Shallow cuts over multiple passes, or you'll shred the leather.
Rose McDonald
8/6/2016 10:45:25 am
Once again,Jason, you nailed it. I don't now, nor have ever, understood the rationalizations of any fringe theorists. While denigrating the scientific and academic communities, they tout "scientific: evidence that appears to support their theories.
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Ken
8/6/2016 11:11:22 am
Heated arguments among fringe types about imaginary beings is not a whole lot different from two ComicCon aficionados arguing about whether the Hulk or Thing would win in a fist fight.
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Shane Sullivan
8/6/2016 01:26:30 pm
Anyone who thinks Thing could beat Hulk doesn't deserve friends. =P
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TheBigMike
8/6/2016 08:19:54 pm
Actually, if the Thing use all his strength on the Hulk right after banner changed, he might be able to knock him out. But if the hulk wasn't put down quickly, he'd get angrier... which means stronger and the Thing stands no chance. that's about it. When debating about the Hulk, canon shows that his strength is a sliding scale with how angry he is. When he's just hanged he hasn't had a chance to ramp up.
Raparee
8/7/2016 08:11:30 am
The Thing did beat The Hulk. It was a mutated Thing and the Grey Hulk, but ol' Blue-eyes managed to chalk one up in the win column.
Clete
8/6/2016 04:27:58 pm
I can kind of relate to that kind of argument. I once spent about thirty minutes listening to two Star Trek geeks debating who was the better Captain, Picard or Kirk. I was trapped on a bus going to work one morning and it seemed a lot longer than thirty minutes. Finally, someone else on the bus pointed out that each was a fictional character. That shut them up.....for all of five minutes, before they started in again.
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causticacrostic
8/6/2016 05:06:20 pm
Those types of conversations aren't limited to the world of geeks. There are entire radio stations devoted to people calling in to argue over the merits of Ted Williams against Joe DiMaggio.
Clete
8/6/2016 06:02:19 pm
In response to Cauticacrostic. Everyone knows the greatest ballplayer who ever stepped on a major league diamond was Clete Boyer.
TheBigMike
8/6/2016 08:28:06 pm
First, of course those two characters are fictional. and those trekkers did know that. That doesn't stop people who are passionate from debating their point. When it's about a fandom, the people involved argue canon and their own opinion, and that's fine.
Uncle Ron
8/7/2016 11:57:46 am
TheBigMike- I thought a much better closing to "Beyond" would have been Kirk and Jaylah stealing off to a mattress somewhere. It would have been a hilarious nod to Kirks bedding all sorts of alien stuff in chronologically later episodes of the series. 8/6/2016 12:55:32 pm
Their arguments can seemingly be summed up with, "we're doing science, damn it! We don't need pesky scientists to ask us to show our work!"
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RW Taylor
8/6/2016 02:07:44 pm
A splendid article to read.
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Eric
8/6/2016 04:19:17 pm
The word isn't actually "giant" but "Nephilim", which is derived from a verb meaning "to fall". In the LXX (the Greek translation of the Old Testament current at the time of the writing of the New Testament) "nephilim" is rendered "gigantas" or "gigas", which obviously leads to our English "giant". ("Gigantas" also may be a translator making up a noun out of a verb since "gigantes" is the normal Greek term.)
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8/7/2016 01:33:48 pm
nephillim isn't necessarily fallen or to fall. the same consonants are in another word about giant size though as you point out, to paraphrase you, as compared to what?
Eric
8/7/2016 04:28:32 pm
Not to doubt your knowledge of ancient Hebrew, which may well be better than my own, but which word using the NFL/NPL root and refers to giants? I was unable to locate it in a lexical search.
An Over-Educated Grunt
8/8/2016 08:55:52 am
In context and given the miscarriage possibility, translating into Old High Southern, it as "we saw the bastards and they got the skeer on us."
Chris Lovegrove
8/6/2016 04:46:44 pm
Jason, I really struggle to get my head around this nephilim stuff. I imagine the basic allure is that these individuals have access to secret, esoteric knowledge that others do not (similar to the AA theorists for example). However, I could very well be wrong as I just don't know enough about this area of fringe science. Can you direct to a decent source to give an outline of it?
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Chris Lovegrove
8/6/2016 04:49:21 pm
Please ignore this. Just remember that AA Debunked touches upon this and I'll have a search through your archive (remembered where the search button was).
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Frank Johnson
8/6/2016 05:09:39 pm
Boy if he thinks heiser was picking on him, wait til I finish editing and post my debunk of his fairy...
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Kal
8/6/2016 09:27:59 pm
One of you posters hit the nail on the head. These fringies want to make you think they have 'secret knowledge nobody else has' and for a price, you can buy into their cult like goofiness.
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11/14/2016 06:31:25 am
For a short window of time, I have to admit, I was very intrigued by such authors like Marzulli, Quayle,Skiba and the like. Not a groupy persay. Just moderately curious. I researched a good bit, translated and re-researched and tried very hard to understand what they were saying from their point of view. In my absolutely primitive understanding of all things alien and fanciful I find that much of what is going on behind the "craze of haze" is basically praying upon ones lack of knowledge of true scripture. I find it likely that there were giants in the land in those days just as I find it likely that Noah could fit two of each kind of animal upon his ark. I just find it not a very important stance to approach it from. God said himself that there were other, lesser gods, small "g" being the significant difference, which leads to the question, so what? They're the created, not the creator. It makes little or no difference if they exsisted at all or not. They have no bearing upon ones own salvation nor do they have any great weight as concerned to ones own belief system. As has been said over and over again and again, they are authors and sellers of wares just like Steven King or any other seller of stories. They have found a niche, somewhere between fact and fiction, and are simply taking Christians attention from where it should be, Christ. A doctrine that has been added to or taken away from is no doctrine at all and it would serve any and all who dabble with them to tread lightly and to keep ones faith where it remains, not in man. I appreciate the hard work that all of you have dedicated to these type forums and will continue to follow even though I rarely comment. Do not take the silence of the multitude as lack of concern, please. We are only silent while we watch what unfolds. I have personally witnessed what can happen when the multitude becomes in-silent and it is awe inspiring to say the least. Continue on my friends and may Captain Kirk, the hulk, and super man be ever so distant, though they are so close at hand
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Борис Димитров
2/28/2023 01:04:47 pm
The difference between the two is like between an astronomer and an astronaut. Heiser tries to explain something through the text and it is always foggy to him and he is like an astronomer, while Marzulli goes to the site and examines the localities like an archaeologist and he, like an astronaut, sees a clear picture of something in the past.
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AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
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