The Book of Giants

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Book of Giants
Paradise Lost 1.jpg
An illustration of the War in Heaven for Milton's Paradise Lost by Gustave Doré
Information
ReligionManichaeism, Judaism
AuthorMani (prophet)
LanguagePahlavi, Aramaic, Syriac
PeriodBefore 2nd Century BC

The Book of Giants is an apocryphal Jewish book which expands the primeval creation to end of time narrative of the Hebrew Bible and, by its multifaceted elaborations on divine decrees of warning and doom, ties the ancient prophet Enoch closer to his generally recognized 'storyline' (as collectively put forth in various Enochic traditions) than does even the story's principal treatise of 1 Enoch.[1] Together with 1 Enoch's Book of Watchers, as Enochian scholar James C. VanderKam maintains, "it stands as an attempt to explain how it was that wickedness had become so widespread and muscular before the flood; in so doing, it also supplies the reason why God was more than justified in sending that flood."[2] The Giants discovery at Qumran dates the text's creation to before the 2nd century BC.[3]

The Book of Giants is an antediluvian (pre-Flood) narrative that was received primarily in Manichaean literature and known at Turfan.[4] However, the earliest known traditions for the book originate in Aramaic copies of a Book of Giants among the Dead Sea Scrolls.[5] References to the Giants mythology are found in: Genesis 6:1-4, the books of Enoch (Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew, Greek), Jubilees, Genesis Apocryphon, 2 and 3 Baruch (Slavonic), the Damascus Document, and visions in Daniel 7:9-14.[1] This book tells of the background and fate of these ante-diluvial giants and their fathers, the Watchers (called grigori in the Slavonic 2 Enoch),[6][7] the sons of God or holy ones (Daniel 4:13, 17) who rebelled against heaven when—in forbidden violation of the strict "boundaries of creation"[8] —they commingled, in their lust, with the "daughters of men."[9][10]

Their even more corrupt offspring, the giants, were variously called thereafter nephilim, gibborim, or rephaim, being the earthly half-breed races that fought against God and his righteous followers whose numbers diminished as the world was overwhelmed with corruption and evil; the Manichaean fragments give these wicked ones the general name demons (Greek Enoch calls them bastards).[8] Though the terms for the Watchers and their offspring are often confused in their various translations and iterations, collectively these rebellious races are referred to as the fallen angels in the apocryphal sources, as also in the biblical narratives that reference them.[5]

Origins in ancient Jewish tradition[]

Since before the latter half of the twentieth century, the 'Book of Giants' had long been known as a 'Middle Iranian' work (which some scholars now believe was written originally in 'Eastern Aramaic') that circulated among the Manichaeans as a composition attributed to Mani (c. AD 216 – 274) — a Parthian citizen of southern Mesopotamia who appears to have been a follower of Elkesai, a Jewish-Christian prophet and visionary who lived in the early years of the second century.[8] Some scholars, concordant with supporting evidence for the ancient sect's geographical distribution, have posited both genetic and ritual-custom similarities between the Elcesaites and the earlier Second Temple Jewish sect of the Essenes (Essaioi 'Saints').[8][11]

During the twentieth century a number of finds shed considerable light on the literary evidence for the Book of Giants.[3] The 1943 publication by W. B. Henning of the Manichaean fragments from the Book of Giants discovered at Turfan in Western China (in what is now Xinjiang Province)[4] have substantiated the many references to its circulation among, and use by, the Manichaeans.[4][8] Further identification of the Manichaean Book of Giants was revealed in 1971 when Jósef T. Milik discovered several additional Aramaic fragments of Enochic works among the Dead Sea Scrolls; he astonished the scholarly world upon announcing that the fragments bore close resemblance to Mani's Book of Giants, then compounded this scholarly astonishment by a further claim that Giants was originally an integral part of 1 Enoch itself.[8] These fragmentary scrolls in Aramaic, which represented an Enochic tradition that was likely introduced to Mani in his sojourn with the Elcesaites, appeared to have been the primary source utilized by Mani in the compilation of his book, in which he made the legend of the Watchers and the giants "a cornerstone of his theological speculations."[8] And for many scholars, the Qumran fragments confirmed the Book of Giants to originally have been an independent composition from the Second Temple period.[5]

Among the fragments discovered at Qumran, ten manuscripts of the Book of Giants are identified by Stuckenbruck. These fragments (1Q23 [1], 1Q24 [2], 2Q26 [3], 4Q203 [4], 4Q530 [5], 4Q531 [6], 4Q532 [7], 4Q556 [8], 4Q206 [9], and 6Q8 [10]) were found in caves 1, 2, 4, and 6 at the site.[5] These discoveries led to further classification of the Enochic works. In the third group of classification, ten Aramaic manuscripts contain parts of the Book of Giants which were only known through the Manichaean sources until the recognition of them at Qumran.[12]

There has been much speculation regarding the original language of the Book of Giants. It was generally believed to have had a Semitic origin. Indeed, the discovery of this text at Qumran led scholars, such as C. P. van Andel and Rudolf Otto, to believe that while these ancient Aramaic compositions of the book were the earliest known, the work probably had even earlier Hebrew antecedents.[12][13] It was R. H. Charles, translator and publisher in 1906 of The Book of Enoch, who asserted that Enoch was "built upon the debris of" an older Noah saga than that in Genesis which only cryptically refers to the Enoch myth.[14] But Milik himself offered his own hypothesis that Enoch's 'creation story' and law of God account naturally predate the Mosaic Sinai accounts in Genesis: He saw Genesis 6:1-4 — long a puzzling passage to biblical scholars — as a quotation from what he believed ultimately to have been the earlier Enoch source.[15] More recent scholarship, such as that of Klaus Beyer, indicates that the Book of Giants (parts of which have been found in Hebrew at Qumran) was "originally composed in Hebrew during the 3rd century BCE, while the names of the giants Gilgamesh and Hobabish betray a Babylonian provenance" — which Babylonian-origins claim based on the name appearances, however, is refuted by Martínez (Stuckenbruck [1997], pp. 5 note 22, 30, 208 note 273, 220 note 27; Martínez [2018/1992], p. 114). But whatever the reality, one thing remains certain: the Qumran books and their fragments are now the oldest known Enochic manuscripts in existence.[6]

Contents[]

Dead Sea Scrolls version[]

The text unearthed at Qumran in 1948 was composed of fragments in Aramaic. Because of the book's fragmentation, it was difficult for the documents' linguistic researchers and specialists to know, in its subsequently varied permutations, the exact order of the content. The 'Giants' work is closely related to the 1 Enoch analogue, which also tells a story of the giants, but one which is far more elaborate. The Qumran Book of Giants also bears resemblance to the Manichaean Book of Giants that came after it. Scholars, beyond their many questions of the Enochic tradition's oral or written transmission,[3][11] still don't know why the Qumran community considered the Enochic texts so important that they possessed and retained so many copies in comparison to other textual traditions found there.[1][16]

The Book of Giants[17] is an expansive narrative of the biblical story of the birth of 'giants' in Genesis 6.1-4. In this story, the giants came into being when the Watcher 'sons of God' (who, per the story's corroborative Jubilees[18] account [Jub 4:15; 5:6],[1][19] God originally dispatched to earth for the purpose of instructing and nurturing humanity "in proper ritual and ethical conduct," "to do what is just and upright upon the earth") were seduced by and had sexual intercourse with mortal women,[20] who then birthed a hybrid race of giants.[8] These Watchers (grigori) and giants (nephilim) engaged in destructive and grossly immoral actions which devastated humanity, including the revealing of heaven's holy "secrets" or "mysteries to their wives and children" and to mankind generally.[6][8][12]

When Enoch heard of this, he was distressed and petitioned God,[21] who in his longsuffering and by divine revelation and counsel called Enoch to preach repentance unto them, that the earthly races might avoid God's wrath and destruction.[8][12] In his mercy, God chose also to give the fallen Watchers an additional chance to repent by transmitting dreams to several of their giant-sons, including two brothers named Ohyah and Hahyah who relayed the dreams to an assembly of their grigori and nephilim companions.[1] This assembly of Watcher-giant associates were perplexed by the dreams,[22] so they sent a giant named Mahway to Enoch's abode and to the places of his preaching (for Mahway had been instructed that he must first "hear" the prophet speak before petitioning him for the "oracle"). Enoch, in his attempt to intercede on their behalf, provided not only the oracle that the Watchers and giants had requested, but also twin "tablets" that revealed the full meaning of their dreams and God's future judgment against them.[8]

When the Watchers and giants had at last heard heaven's response, many chose, in their transcendent pride and arrogance,[8][23] rather than to turn from their evil ways, to act in defiance against God.[24] The Qumran fragments are incomplete at this point.[8]

Manichaean version[]

The Manichaean version is similar to the one found in Qumran, only adapted to Mani's story of the cosmos. The fallen angels are here archontic demons escaped from their prisons in the sky, where they were placed when the world was constructed. They would have caused a brief revolt, and in the process, two hundred of them escaped to the Earth.[25] While most given names are simply transliterated into Iranian language, Ohyah and Hahyah are renamed Sam and Nariman.[26] This version also contains a complete ending, telling how the forces of the Light, led by four angels identified with Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Istrael, subdue the demons and their offspring in battle.[8]

Other texts[]

Much of the content in the Book of Giants is similar, and most closely relates, to 1 Enoch 7:3-6, a passage which sheds light on the characterizing features of the giants. It reveals that the giants were born of the Watcher 'sons of God' and the 'daughters of men.' The giants, as their 'prostituted' half-breed offspring, began to devour the works of what they perceived to be a lesser race and went on to kill and to viciously exploit them in slavery and sexual debauchery.[6] They also sinned against nature, in the most defiling and violent of ways against the beasts and birds of the sky, creeping things and the fish of the sea, but also against one another. They murdered on a massive scale, and also aborted their own children.[8] The Qumran documents also mention that the giants devoured the flesh of those they exploited and of one another, and drank the blood [7]. This act of drinking blood would have horrified the people [8]. This offence is also mentioned in Leviticus 17:10-16, wherein strict rules are laid forth regarding the blood of animals and all living creatures; verses 10 and 11 warn, “I will set my face against any Israelite or any foreigner residing among them who eats blood and I will cut them off from the people. For the life of the creature is in the blood.”

Fallen Angels among Men: a genesis of evil[]

The Qumran texts that make up its so-called Book of Giants may seem to offer, for various faiths, a more complete picture of the beginnings of evil than the Eden story.[16][27][28] The Genesis story we read today, as is well known, was greatly altered by ancient Deuteronomist scribes and historians[29][30] (and others)[31] according to their own religious and political agendas and does not, therefore, represent the pristine form of whatever may have been its primordial message.[32] And while the Book of Giants cannot, by any means, heal that breach, it does begin to answer questions, fill in gaps, and make more clear, perhaps, what was originally intended.[16]

The Qumran fragments that began to be discovered in 1948 relate how a small cadre of giants – offspring of the 'fallen angels' called Watchers – including Ohyah and Hahyah (alternately, 'Ohya' and 'Hahya'), who were both sons of Shemihazah, chieftain of the Watchers,[22] and also Mahway, giant-son of the Watcher Baraq'el,[6][22][33] experience dreams that foresee the biblical Flood [9]. These disturbing omens are told to the assembly of fallen angels that had originally organized their secret society upon Mount Hermon[34] as a body of 200 members, bound together by a dark combination of clandestine oaths and operational pacts by which they might ruthlessly achieve their personal and collective aims.[6] A brief mention of the giant Ohya (Ohyah), is found in the Babylonian Talmud (Nidah, Ch 9), which gives the following: "סיחון ועוג אחי הוו דאמר מר סיחון ועוג בני אחיה בר שמחזאי הוו" ("Sihon and Og [from the Book of Numbers] were brothers, as they were the sons of Ohia the son of Samhazai [alternately, 'Shemihazah' or 'Semiazus,' chieftain of the fallen angels in the Book of Enoch].")[8] Thus are provided, it would seem, the names of the sons of Ohyah, grandsons of Shemihazah.[6] "Og king of Bashan," ostensibly a giant, presumably escaped the flood (Num 13; Deut 2:2, 3:11, 13; Josh 12:4).[6][8][27]

Fallen 'Son of God': The Qumranic Book of Giants tells the story of pre-diluvian origins of evil and the fate of the Watchers and their giant offspring. Fallen Angel by Odilon Redon, 1872.

The giant Mahway, an associate of Ohyah, is summoned to the assembly of the fallen angels and put under secret oath 'under pain of death' to approach Enoch, the "distinguished scribe"[35] and "apostle from the south" (Milik, p. 307; see Jubilees 4:25-6), in order to obtain prophetic interpretation of their sons' ominous visions of what appears threateningly to them as an imminent catastrophe: "An oracle [I have come to ask you] here," declares Mahway, after listening to Enoch's message to the people. "From you, a second time, [I] ask[36] for the oracle: [We shall listen to] your words, all the nephilim of the earth also. If God is going to take away ... from the days of their [existence][37] ... that they may be punished ... [we, of these portents,] should like to know from you their explanation."[6]

The elements of Hahyah's troubling dream include 200 garden-trees and gardeners, an Emperor, mighty winds, water, and fire. Enoch obliges the messenger of the Shemihazah-led assembly with his interpretation of the dreams: the 200 (female) trees watered by corrupt angelic 'gardeners' are, against their original nature, demon-defiled and unfruitful (producing bad fruit) — their waterers are the Watchers (once-good 'protector' or guardian angels gone bad) and the "great" shoots issuing from them, their bad-seed giant progeny[5][8][38] — upon whom the "Emperor of heaven" will descend as a "burning Sun" (as upon a mighty "whirlwind" of fury) in great judgment: "O ye lamentable ones, do not die now prematurely, but turn quickly back!" is the declaration Mahway claims to have heard in his own dream (in which he is borne aloft on avian wings above the wilderness, the dearth and fray). The other visionary elements, as interpreted by Enoch, represent future exterminations by fire and water (sparing only "three shoots" — which Milik explains is an ancient Hebrew expression for Noah's sons).[6][39] Mahway had also claimed to have heard Enoch "speaking my name very lovingly" in his desperate plea and call that the giant follow Enoch to safety.[6]

Later, after the fallen angels of Watchers and giants had asked Enoch to make petition and to intercede for them before God,[40] Enoch (who takes his ascent[41][42][43] in the northern land of Dan, at the foot of Mount Hermon)[12][34] returned from that heavenly attempt (as he would also from his later universal visions and cosmic journeys made in the last year of his earthly sojourn, guided by the archangel Uriel)[1] with two tablets[8] — an 'Epistle' written in 'the distinguished scribe's own hand' from the Lord of Spirits and 'the Holy One,' giving God's answer "to Shemihazah and all his companions":

Let it be known to you that ... your works and those of your wives and your children by your prostitution on the earth [the giants themselves being the 'sons of prostitution'] ... It now befalls you [that] the earth complains and accuses you [for your works], and the works of your children also, and her voice rises to the very portals of heaven, complaining and accusing you of the corruption by which you have corrupted her. [But she will mourn] until the coming of Raphael [Metatron-Enoch].[44] For lo! a destruction upon men and on animals: the birds which fly upon the face of heaven, and the animals which live on the earth, and those which live in the deserts, and those which live in the seas. And [thus does] the interpretation of your [dreams come upon] you for the worst.[6]

Whereupon, after the assembly of fallen angels are read the words of the Epistle (see 1 Enoch 13:3-5),[8] the giants and Watchers, gathered together at the place Abel-mayyâ ('the spring of Weeping' between Lebanon and Senir),[6][34] straightaway 'prostrated themselves and began to weep before Enoch,'[12] for their request to heaven for clemency had been rejected, and God had cast them off (it is significant that they weep at the foot of their own mountain of blasphemous oath-taking): all was now 'for the worst.'[8] The only solace that Enoch could therefore offer them at that point, for theirs appears to have been a point of 'no return,'[45] was to "loosen your bonds (of sin) which tie you up ... and begin to pray."[6]

The archangel Raphael (Metatron-Enoch)[44] was, according to Milik, charged by God to bind Asael (or 'Azazel': Satan,[38][46] the ultimate fallen angel and divulger of God's holy Secrets and heavenly Mysteries, whom the others worshipped) hand and foot, and to heal the earth which the fallen angels had corrupted (the name 'Raphael' means 'God heals'; Asael is confronted by Raphael at 1 En 10:4-8 and by Enoch, as clearly 'both' are charged with the same mission, at 13:2). Milik notes the word-play on the double meaning of the verb rafa 'to tie' and 'to heal.' Reflecting upon God's decree in rejecting the fallen angels' petition, Milik says that "the Watchers seem[47] to be already chained up by the [arch]angels; [for] in order to be able to pray, to lift their arms in the gesture of suppliants, they have to have their bonds loosened" — that is, spiritually, if they will, through repentance (a genuine yearning for which, however, they appear to be 'past feeling' [Eph 4:19], and it is this stark reality of which Heaven is all too aware).[6][45]

[Thereupon] the roaring of the wild beasts came and the multitude of the wild animals began to cry out...[5] And Ohyah spoke ... My dream has overwhelmed me ... and the sleep of my eyes has fled ... Then God punished ... the sons of the Watchers, the giants, and all [their] beloved ones [who would] not be spared[36] ... [Then Ohyah said to Hahyah, his brother:] he has imprisoned us and you [as in your dream] he has subdued [tegaf: seized, confined; see Jubilees 10:5 and 1 Enoch 10:11-15] ...[6]

The mighty Archangel Uriel, Enoch's 'star guide' through the cosmos and, traditionally, the seraph set to guard the Edenic paradise. Bearing a sceptre of power, his garments vested with astronomical signs, this 'illuminator of the mind' holds one of his legend-ascribed symbols, a secret book of Wisdom. Nineteenth century stained glass window by Ford Madox Brown, the Holy Trinity Church, Tansley, Derbyshire, England.

In the Manichaean Book of Giants, Milik explains, Raphael (Enoch's 'heavenly double')[48][49] is the conqueror of Ohyah and of all the other Watchers and of their giant-sons. The same work intimates that all four archangels (Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel)[50] were engaged in the struggle with the 200 Watchers and their offspring: "and those two hundred demons fought a hard battle with the four angels, until the angels used fire, naphtha, and brimstone..."[51] The Enochic literature records the collusion of the archangels with the righteous (both seen and unseen - see 2 Kings 6:16) against their demon-foes: "Four hundred thousand Righteous ... [came] with fire, naphtha, and brimstone ... And the [fallen] angels moved out of sight of Enoch" (see Reeves, pp. 160–161 note 389; in the Book of Moses, at 7:14-15, the giants "stood afar off," in "great fear" of Enoch and "the people of God"). Then, after the course of more than three hundred years dwelling amidst his "holy people" (Moses 7:18, 68–69), when the patriarch-warrior-king suddenly "was not; for God took him" (Genesis 5:24; see Reeves, p. 77),[52] the archangelic Raphael-Metatron sent to Shemihazah a warning-message that brought complete fulfilment to heaven's former decree: "The Holy One is about to destroy His world, and bring upon it a flood" (Milik, pp. 316 note 12, 328).

The archangel Uriel, beyond his role of instructing Enoch among the stars,[53] directs Noah to prepare his escape from the Flood,[1] and figures prominently in the final Judgement of the world in the end times that will be administered by the 'Son of Man' figure as foretold in Enoch's Book of Dreams and Apocalypse of Weeks.[54][55] Two other archangels, Raguel and Phanuel (sometimes confused with the archangelic name-corruption 'Remiel' > Eremiel > Jeremiel),[56] are also mentioned in the Enochic material. With respect to the archangel Sariel (a name sometimes given in the Qumranic texts as taking the place of Uriel or Phanuel), it is the Manichaean tradition, drawing on the Book of Giants, that preserves that archangelic name more faithfully than do the Greek and Ethiopic traditions.[6]

The Qumran Book of Giants, like its Manichaean counterpart, affiliates the names of the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh and the monster Humbaba with the Watchers and giants.[5][8]

Interpretive issues between Qumran and Turfan[]

Although we can glean much information from the fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls narrative, there are still many unknowns and issues that scholars heavily debate.[3] Clearly, the authorship of the Qumran Book of Giants is still a question among scholars.[11] Some initially believed that the manuscript (despite so many extant copies from Qumran of the overall Enochic work) to have been little used among the desert sectaries; but more recent scholarship declares: "We know that the Qumran Essenes copied, studied, and valued the writings and teachings ascribed to Enoch" (VanderKam, 2008/1995, p. 143). The Qumran discoveries decidedly ruled out any possibility that the Manicheans were the composers of the Book of Giants, for their work followed later.[4]

However, the historical transmission of 1 Enoch assumes that the basis of the text must likewise fall to unknown authors, or tend to the idea that it was a pseudepigraphon text. For some scholars, this lends itself, as such texts invariably have, to questioning the originality and legitimacy of the book. But bearing in mind the eleven Enochic manuscripts discovered at Qumran, which contain one or several of the various Enochic 'booklets' known there — totals "higher than for most of the books that became parts of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament," and recalling also "the cost and labor involved in producing a manuscript in antiquity" — such inordinate numbers representing the Enochic stockpile "say much about the value accorded" such writings (VanderKam, 2008/1995, p. 184).

As far as comparisons that might be made with 'canonical' texts, the books of Daniel and 1 Enoch both have similarities (to give just one of many possible parallels) in their visionary elements: taking up the visions of both Daniel and Enoch, or even of the giants Ohyah, Hahyah, and Mahway. Indeed, Stuckenbruck suggests that "these similarities ... allow for the possibility that the author of Daniel 7 knew the early Enochic traditions well enough to draw on and then adapt them for his own purposes. Nowhere is this clearer than in the throne-theophany itself" (p. 119).[27] The biblical and apocryphal accounts speak of a king of heaven sitting upon his throne, and the Aramaic text A12 has other corresponding elements. The texts differ, however, in that, in the giants' account, God comes down from heaven.

Several such textual variants of the different 'Book of Giants' versions, moreover, raise many other points of ongoing debate among scholars and experts. For although all are said to derive in some measure from the same 'script,' they are, ultimately, very different in their content, particularly in the way that the Manichaean and Aramaic versions differ — even from later Jewish midrash retellings — in the elements of the giants' dreams or visions.

In the giant Ohyah's dream, for instance, he apparently sees a large inscribed-stone representation of the 'Book of Life' (from the inclusion in which, by defilement, the names of nearly all of Earth's inhabitants are forfeited) and/or the 'cosmic covenant' (which the Watchers and their offspring, by their defilement, have broken) that covers the whole earth "like a table."[57] In the midrash retelling, a great angel descends, but in the Qumranic version, the Lord of Heaven himself descends with a knife to scrape and efface all of its character-rows, save one, at the end of which only four words remain (the names of Noah and his three sons).[8]

J.T. Milik believed the Book of Giants originally to have been a part of the entire Enochic work, the five-sectioned 'Enochic Pentateuch' as it is sometimes called, including the Book of Watchers, the Astronomical Book, the Book of Dreams, and the Epistle of Enoch (with its Apocalypse of Weeks); Milik felt that the Qumran Giants had actually been replaced by the Ethiopic 1 Enoch's 'Similitudes' (or 'Parables') section.[6][58][59]

All of these Enochic writings would have held significance from the beginning of the first century. Indeed, the early Christian church treasured Enoch and held it canonical.[14] However, during the Christian era after the Apostles, the collection was altered and part of its narrative (Giants, it is thought) replaced by the Book of Parables.[6] Also, due in no small part to the influence of the Alexandrian philosophers who ill-favored it — its contents thought by many of the Hellenistic era to be foolish or strange — the overall Enochic work rapidly ran afoul of ideas held by the Christian and Jewish doctors, who damned it forever as a tainted product of the Essenes of Qumran.[3][11][60] Milik has speculated the reason why the book was censored by Christian authors was its popular usage by Manichaeans.[61] The book was soon banned by such orthodox authorities as Hilary, Jerome, and Augustine in the fourth century and it gradually passed out of circulation,[1] finally becoming lost to the knowledge of Western Christendom — only sundry 'fragments' remained.[58] The few copies left of the Enoch literature, if indeed they could be found, was therefore attributable, it is thought, to the Christian doctors' suppression of it and their partial replacement with the Book of Parables.[59]

See also[]

  • Og

References[]

Citations[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h VanderKam, James C. (2008) [1995]. Enoch: A Man for All Generations. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1570037962. See also the author's Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (1984), published by the Catholic Biblical Association of America: Washington, DC.
  2. ^ "Genesis notes that corruption and violence were widespread and that human thoughts were continually evil, but it does not explain how that had come about"; VanderKam (2008/1995), pp. 41, 128.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Boccaccini, Gabriele, ed. (2005). Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0802828781.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Goff, Matthew; Stuckenbruck, Loren T.; Morano, Enrico, eds. (2016). Ancient Tales of Giants from Qumran and Turfan: Contexts, Traditions, and Influences. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3161545313.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Stuckenbruck, Loren T. (1997). The Book of Giants From Qumran: Texts, Translation, and Commentary. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck. pp. 24-28, 31, 72-74, 79, 81, 83, 90, 105, 114, 125-127, 143, 164-167, 182. ISBN 978-3161467202
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Milik, J. T., ed. (1976). The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4. London: Clarendon Press. pp. 43, 58, 92, 109-110, 113, 158, 171, 254, 300-316, 320, 328, 336-338. ISBN 978-0198261612
  7. ^ Orlov, Andrei; Boccaccini, Gabriele, eds. (2012). New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-9004230132.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Reeves, John C. (1992). Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions. Cincinnati, Ohio: Hebrew Union College Press. pp. 2-3, 9, 22, 30-32, 65, 67, 69-72, 76, 81-102, 109-110, 114, 118-121, 124-127, 130, 133-134, 138-139, 147, 154, 156-158 notes 334, 347 and 353, 207-209. ISBN 978-0878204137
  9. ^ At Jubilees 20:5, the patriarch Abraham uses the punishment of the giants (referred to as rebel beney Seth, 'the sons of Seth'—a righteous son of Adam—or apostate sons of the beney ha 'elohim, the sons of God [Watchers]: half-breed Sethite 'giants' engendered through exogamy) as "an example of what happens to those who pollute themselves through sexual union with 'the daughters of Canaan' [called also the benot ha 'adam, "the daughters of Cain"—the murderous son of Adam]." Elsewhere in the Enochic literature, the archangel Gabriel is commanded of God to "Go ... to the ill-begotten ones, the crooked ones, and the sons of adultery; and destroy the sons of the Watchers [the giants] from among men. Set them to fighting each other in war and in wanton destruction" (Codex Gizeh 10:9). Such "intramural rivalry" is, according to Stuckenbruck, "a manifestation of divine punishment" and a "violence" that cascaded to be "absorbed" into the behavior of the rest of Earth's inhabitants (see Jub 5:2, 7, 9 and 7:22; 1 En 7:5, 10:12). A striking parallel to this "intramural rivalry" is witnessed at Enochic Moses 7:4-7 (see herein "A 'Book of Moses' connection"), wherein God, speaking "face to face" with Enoch (who had turned aside from Mahijah's companionship to pray upon a mount before experiencing this theophany), directs him to behold in coming "generations" the utter obliteration of one "great people" by another. The giants' "internecine strife" and "denied longevity," however, meant for them, as VanderKam observes, "mutual annihilation." See Stuckenbruck (1997), pp. 148, 151 note 185, 152 note 189; Reeves, pp. 68, 182, 186; and VanderKam (2008/1995), pp. 39-40.
  10. ^ Harkins, Angela K.; Bautch, Kelley C.; Endres, John C., eds. (2014). The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Traditions. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0800699789.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Boccaccini, Gabriele (1998). Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0802843609.
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Nickelsburg, George W. E.; VanderKam, James C., eds. (2001). 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress. pp. 8-11, 81-108, 137, 174, 180, 188, 215, 221-222, 225, 234, 237-247, 250-251, 276, 297, 300, 536-537, 560. ISBN 978-0800660741
  13. ^ Van Andel, C. P. (1955). The Structure of the Enoch-Tradition and the New Testament: An Investigation into the Milieu of Apocalyptic and Sectarian Traditions within Judaism in their Relation to the Milieu of the Primitive Apostolic Gospel. Domplein, Urecht: Kemink and Son. pp. 9, 11, 43, 47, 51, 69-70.
  14. ^ Jump up to: a b Charles, R. H. (1913). [1906]. The Book of Enoch. London: Oxford University Press. pp. ix (note 1), 305. Centenary Edition by Weiser Books. ISBN 978-1578635238
  15. ^ Milik maintains, further, that the Qumran Damascus Document (at CD 2:17-19) "quotes from the Book of Giants (in Hebrew!)." Milik (1976), pp. 57-58; Reeves (1992), pp. 52-53, 129 note 17.
  16. ^ Jump up to: a b c Barker, Margaret. (2005) [1988]. "The Origin of Evil," "The Cosmic Covenant," and "Postscript," in The Lost Prophet: The Book of Enoch and Its Influence on Christianity. London: SPCK; Sheffield Phoenix Press. pp. 33-48, 77-90, 105-113. ISBN 978-1905048199
  17. ^ Schiffman, L. H., & VanderKam, J. C., eds. (2008). Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 2 Vols. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195084504
  18. ^ Jubilees intimately connects with Enoch's story. Jub 4:17-23 presents, for example, the perspective of the heavenly archangels who direct and instruct Enoch in Wisdom: "We told him"; "we taught him"; "we led him". See VanderKam (2008/1995), pp. 112-114, 128-129.
  19. ^ Boccaccini, Gabriele; Ibba, Giovanni, eds. (2009). Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0802864093.
  20. ^ The Watchers' "freedom" or "agency" in the context of their choice to trespass creation's boundaries as set by God is touched upon in 2 Baruch (56:11-14), whereat they are declared to have "possessed freedom in that time in which they were created," but that "some of them came down and mingled themselves with women," while "the rest of the multitude of angels, who have no number, restrained themselves." 2 Baruch accords with the Book of Moses (7:32) concerning this gift of choice to God's intelligent creations: "The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy [fallen] brethren [for whom Enoch attempts to intercede, and for whom he weeps, as do the Heavens and God Himself]; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden [the premortal paradise], gave I unto man his agency" also. See Moses 7:28-29, 41.
  21. ^ 1 Enoch 9 describes also the petition of four heavenly archangels, in which they bring before God's high court the suit (rib 'lawsuit') of humankind on Earth, whose souls cry out (their "lamentations" reaching "the gates of heaven") from the murderous acts of the "lawless" ones — Azazel (Satan), Shemihazah (Watcher chieftain), the Watchers and their giant-sons.
  22. ^ Jump up to: a b c Nickelsburg, George W. E.; VanderKam, James C., eds. (2012). 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 2 Enoch. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press. pp. 49-50, 95, 111, 119, 130, 148, 153, 166, 180, 187, 194, 198, 224, 233, 243, 247, 254-255, 273-274, 297, 311, 315, 320. ISBN 978-0800698379
  23. ^ The 'Damascus Document,' or 'Covenant' (CD), another Qumran text, warns those it speaks to against prideful "will" and lustful "thoughts" and "eyes": "For through them, great men have gone astray and mighty heroes have stumbled from former times till now. Because they walked in stubbornness of their heart the Heavenly Watchers fell; they were caught because they did not keep the commandments of God. And their sons [the giants] also fell ... All flesh on dry land perished [in fiery archangelic retribution and flood]; they were as though they had never been because they did their own will and did not keep the commandments of their Maker so that His wrath was kindled against them" (CD 2:16-20).
  24. ^ The avowed arch-enemies of the grigori and nephilim — Ohyah's "opponents" who "derive their power from heaven" yet were "still not stronger" than himself (he claimed) — that is, in addition to the archangels (whom he admitted were stronger), were Enoch's righteous-preacher kin (Moses 6:23) — the patriarch's ancient forebears who were then still living and who dwelt with their righteous followers in mountain heights "set apart" (Reeves, p. 77; VanderKam [2008/1995], p. 11; Stuckenbruck [1997], p. 126). The fallen angels described the dwelling-places of their angelic "accusers" as being in "the heavens, for they live in holy abodes," which would have been also, by the lights of the ancients, an apt description for abodes set amidst the mountains, where Enoch's people dwelt. These may have been located beyond the "great desert" of "Solitude" (perhaps within the "Kögmön" mountains of Milik's translation, identified now as Siberia's Sayan Mountain range). But as Enoch is referred to as the "apostle from the south," a rather different region — to the safety of which Enoch beckons Mahway in his dream — seems indicated). It may also be the case, because of the close association of God's righteous with the heavenly archangels, that the fallen-angel races, in describing their enemy's abode, may have similarly described the dwellings of Enoch's "holy people." See Milik (1976), pp. 306-308, and Reeves (1992), p. 153 note 286; but also Richard J. Clifford (2010). [1972]. The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock. Originally published by Harvard University Press: Cambridge. ISBN 978-1608997176. The great desert referenced by Mahway was conceivably the Syrian desert, according to Reeves, pp. 104, 119.
  25. ^ Cite error: The named reference ST was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  26. ^ Xaviant Haze, Ancient Giants: History, Myth, and Scientific Evidence from around the World, 2018, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-1591432944
  27. ^ Jump up to: a b c Stuckenbruck, Loren T. (2017). [2014]. Chapter 1: "Origins of Evil in Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition: The Interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4 in the Second and Third Centuries BCE," in The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. Originally published by Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, Germany. pp. 1-35. ISBN 978-3161554476
  28. ^ Lumpkin, Joseph B. (2011). "The Alpha" and "The Origin of Evil," in Fallen Angels, the Watchers, and the Origins of Evil. Blounstville, Alabama: Fifth Estate Publishing.
  29. ^ Weinfeld, Moshe (2014) [1972]. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School. University Park, Pennsylvania: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1575063188.
  30. ^ Doorly, William J. (1994). Obsession with Justice: The Story of the Deuteronomists. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press. ISBN 978-0809134878
  31. ^ Friedman, Richard Elliott. (1981). The Exile and Biblical Narrative: The Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Priestly Works. Harvard Semitic Monographs Series, number 22. Chico, California: Scholars Press. ISBN 978-0891304579
  32. ^ Friedman, Richard Elliott. (2003). The Bible with Sources Revealed: A New View Into the Five Books of Moses. San Francisco: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0060530693
  33. ^ Baraq'el appears as 'Virōgdād' in the Manichaean fragments of the Book of Giants and as 'Irad' in the Enochic account in the Book of Moses (5:43) — for which, see herein "A 'Book of Moses' connection." Baraq'el is also (in Jubilees 4:15) the father of Dinah, the wife of Enoch's grandfather Mahalaleel, making Mahway/Mahujael, if the accounts are consistent, the prophet Enoch's first cousin once-removed. Reeves states that "Baraq'el was one of the twenty principal Watchers [each a chieftain over ten other angels] who descended to earth, and was responsible for instructing humankind in the forbidden science of astrology" (1 Enoch 6:7, 8:3). See Reeves (1992), pp. 76, 108, 138 note 98; Bradshaw (2014), p. 96.
  34. ^ Jump up to: a b c 'Abel-mayyâ' (Abel-maîn, also Abelsjâîl) is modern Tel Abil, located northwest of 'the waters of Dan' (the source of Palestine's Jordan River; conceptually seen also as the Sea of Galilee) at the mouth of the valley between the Lebanon range to the west and Mount Hermon (ancient Senir, Seneser, Sion, Sirion, Siryanu, Sariyana, among the mountain's many names in antiquity; 'Hermon' is related to the word for 'swearing an oath'). Symbol-laden 'waters' were traditionally a place of revelation and could "stand in polar relationship to the gates of heaven [a Temple motif] and, through them, to the sanctuary and the throne of God." A sister-sanctuary site to Beth-el 'House of God' (where Jacob and Levi experienced their own theophanies) was established at Dan-Hermon by Jeroboam after the Israelite kingdom divided, c. 930 BC. It was at Abel-maîn that Levi, in vision, shepherded his flocks and was taken to the top of Sirion (Hermon), where he was clothed in the robes of the Holy Priesthood by seven white-clad archangels of light, who opened to him the gates of heaven — from the sanctuary of which God appointed him to his high priestly office (Testament of Levi 2-5: a visionary ascent and commission that was actualized at Beth-el, Jubilees 32:1). It was also on the slopes of Hermon (Caesarea Philippi) that revelation-receptive Peter was commissioned by Christ, "the Son of the living God," and where (by the greater consensus of scholars) Peter, James, and John were theophanic witnesses of the Transfiguration and of God's voice bearing witness of Christ's divine Sonship (2 Peter 1:16-18; Matt 16:13-19: reflecting the dualism of priesthood keys of power to 'bind' and 'loose' in earthly sanctuary and heavenly Temple, while rebuking, as does the Levi passage, Satan and his Hell; see Isaiah 22:22-24, where these binding keys "fasten ... as a nail in a sure place" upon which hangs kingly glory). Mountains of special designation, of course, were viewed by the ancients as 'temples' — natural 'cosmic' portals connecting heaven and earth. The temple or holy mount was perceived as the earth-center omphalos 'naval' of an 'umbilical' conduit by which God nourished the creation. For Mount Hermon and Enoch, see especially Clifford's Cosmic Mountain (2010/1972), pp. 182-192. Nickelsburg (1981); VanderKam (2008/1995); "Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee". Journal of Biblical Literature. 100 (4). pp. 575-600.
  35. ^ The scribal titles of Enoch-Metatron, the "witness of God" and "judge of all men" — beyond that of "celestial" or "heavenly scribe" and "keeper of the Book of Life" — include, simply, "the scribe," but also "distinguished scribe," "scribe of distinction," "Great Scribe," "scribe of Justice," "scribe of Righteousness (and Truth)," "scribe of trustworthy deeds" and "scribe of all the wonder of Wisdom" (Milik [1976], pp. 97, 104, 118, 128, 130-131, 237, 261-263, 305; at recension B, Testament of Abraham 11:3, Enoch stands, along with his "evidence" at the final Judgement bar of God, as "the teacher of heaven and earth and the scribe of righteousness"). Beyond his scribal role, Enoch, the "High Priest" (or angel-priest and "upholder of Wisdom" in the "true cult of God"), was also — as "the seventh [patriarch] from Adam" — the great "sage-king" whom (at 3 En 48:9) the "King of kings" and "Holy One" (3 En 25:4) placed over the "seventy [guardian-angel] shepherds" (1 En 89-90), or unwise rulers of nations and kingdoms throughout time ("sacred history divided into seventy ages"), who are called at the final Judgement to account for their stewardships before the holy throne of the Son of Man (Milik, pp. 24, 29, 31, 43-45, 47, 52, 114-115, 248, 252, 254, 257, 304, 313, 431; VanderKam (2008/1995), pp. 81-89; Barker (2005/1988), pp. 29-30, 72-73; see Jer 6:3, 23:1-4; 25; Zech 10:2-3, 11:3-6, 15-17, 13:7; John 5:27).
  36. ^ Jump up to: a b Martínez, Florentino García; Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C., eds. (2019) [1997]. The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. Two volumes. Originally published by E. J. Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-0802877529. In Mahway's second petition on behalf of the 'fallen angels' — rebels who had, in essence, abandoned their high archonic station at the 'watch-post of the Great King' of Heaven with their blasphemous divulging of 'divine wisdom' — and on behalf of their accursed, murderous progeny, the giant (per Martínez' translation) doesn't "ask" but rather "begs" for Enoch's interpretive oracle. But also, per Martínez' translation, God punishes all among earth's profane who not only refuse to be "spared" but, more specifically, who refuse to be "forgiven". See also García's Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran (Chapter 3: "The Book of Giants"), Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill Publishers (2018) [1992], pp. 97-115.
  37. ^ The fallen angels had wished to live to be 500 years old, Noah's age when his sons were born: 1 En 10:9-10; Gen 5:32; VanderKam (2008/1995), pp. 39-40.
  38. ^ Jump up to: a b Orlov, Andrei A. (2011). Dark Mirrors: Azazel and Satanael in Early Jewish Demonology. Albany: State University of New York (SUNY Press). ISBN 978-1438439518.
  39. ^ Noah and his sons together represented, in both the Qumranic and Manichaean traditions, a "tree of life" for the renewed creation. But moreover, the "elect of God" would thereafter ever be known to both Jew and Christian as a "plant of righteousness" — a reference which is used also throughout Enoch's prophecies in the Apocalypse of Weeks to refer to the "holy seed" of Abraham who, as "the righteous community of Israel at the End of Days," would honour a renewed 'eternal' or new 'creation covenant' and so merit the eternal reward of deification. As in the Book of Dreams when Enoch begs God to spare "a plant of the eternal seed" (1 En 84:6), so in the Book of Moses, the Lord of Spirits — in response to Enoch's mourning "over his brethren" (7:44), "the children of Noah" (7:49) and the Earth (7:58: "When shall the earth rest?") — promises by covenantal oath to "preserve" the "elect" of His chosen "people" not only in Noah and his seed (7:51-52), but also at the last day (7:61-62). In what Boccaccini calls Qumran's Temple Scroll- and Jubilees-affiliated Epistle of Enoch of "Enochic Judaism," the Apocalypse of Weeks is, in its historical determinism, "entirely focused on the concept of election. As in [Enoch's Book of Dreams], history is subjected to inexorable degeneration [apostasy] until the end, but, as [in] Jubilees [as also in Enoch's Similitudes] ... in this world there is a distinctive group of chosen people, the plant of righteousness, Israel. ... [A]t the beginning of the final times [the last days, when an "interim temple" is rebuilt "until the day of the new creation" (Jub 1:15-18; 1 En 53:6-7) and the "divinely created" eschatological Temple of "the world to come" (11QT 29:2-10)] ... God will choose a group from among the chosen. This group [latter-day Israel — the "generation of righteous ones" of 1 En 107:1 — who are worthy to enter that "interim" sanctuary] will receive special 'wisdom' and will keep themselves separate from the rest of the people while acting on their behalf and thus preparing the way for the redemption of Israel and of the entire creation. [They would be led by a "unique prophet" and high priest, messianic in nature, who would teach and interpret, but also suffer and die (Testaments Benj, Sim, Dan, Gad; CD 12; 1QS; 1QSa; 4Q175): the "herald" of Daniel 9 and 11QMelchizedek, whom Jewish legend calls 'Messiah ben Joseph' (the great white-bull gatherer of God's elect {Deut 33:17} who becomes the slaughter-lamb of 1 En 90:37-38), resurrected martyr-forerunner to the great 'Messiah ben David' — who embodies the joy-inducing revelation, as Barker calls it, of 'the name of the great Son of Man' as it is finally 'restored to the true servants as part of the Wisdom of the last times' — together with 'the hope of a transforming Wisdom to be revealed to the righteous in the last days before their own exaltation'; The Older Testament, pp. 279-280] ... Finally, we have the return to the primordial stage with the final judgment and the new creation, which opens the path to the eternal glory of the world to come ... [After the apocalyptic 'ten weeks,' the "elect" who are chosen "from among the chosen"] 'will gain riches in righteousness and there will be built the house [Temple] of sovereignty of the Great One [the Lord of Spirits], in his magnificence, for all eternal generations ... and there shall be no more sin forever' (1 En 91:12-13, 17)." See Reeves (1992), pp. 95-102, 150-151 notes 246, 250, 253, 255, 256; VanderKam (2008/1995), pp. 40, 64, 68-69, 84-85; Hanson (1977), pp. 201, 220; Boccaccini (1998), Chapter 4: "The Formative Age: The Proto-Epistle of Enoch, Including the Apocalypse of Weeks"; John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (Eerdmans, 2010; Doubleday, 1995); Elhanan ben Avraham, Mashiach Ben Yosef (Clarksville, Maryland: Messianic Jewish Publishers, 2006); and David C. Mitchell, Messiah ben Joseph (Newton Mearns, Scotland: Campbell Publications, 2016).
  40. ^ 1 Enoch 84 records Enoch's intercessory prayer "after he had experienced an especially frightening vision of cosmic destruction (1 Enoch 83: the impending Flood). His grandfather Mahalaleel advises Enoch to petition God for mercy [that a faithful remnant be spared], and Enoch accordingly addresses God with the prayer of 84:2-6. God responds to Enoch's plea by vouchsafing him yet another vision" — which is recorded in the Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 85-90). Indeed, it was while in the very act of "[lifting] up [his] hands in righteousness" to praise "the Holy and Great One" and speak "with the breath of [his] mouth" to offer "praise to the Great Lord, the Eternal King" (12:3; 84:1) that "the Watchers cried out" to Enoch, asking him to intercede for them before God. See Reeves (1992), pp. 82, 141 note 147. These visions and exchanges with the Watchers and giants come to a relatively young Enoch, not yet 65, staying with his grandfather, before his marriage to Edni (Jub 4:20). It is only long after that he relates them all to his son Methuselah: VanderKam (2008/1995) pp. 71-73, 115.
  41. ^ Himmelfarb, Martha (1993). Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 38–46. ISBN 978-0195082036.
  42. ^ Rowland, Christopher C. (2002) [1982]. The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock. Originally published by : New York. ISBN 978-1592440122.
  43. ^ Collins, John J. (2016) [1984]. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (3rd ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. Originally published by Crossroad: New York. ISBN 978-0802872791.
  44. ^ Jump up to: a b Orlov, Andrei A. (2005). The Enoch-Metatron Tradition. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3161485442.
  45. ^ Jump up to: a b "The summons to pray ... does not mean that the possibility of forgiveness is [now, as it once was,] being left open for Shemihazah and his companions. Rather, as in the Book of Watchers [of 1 Enoch], their praying is a sign of defeat signalling a contrast with the ultimate lot of earth's victims. Whereas the latter's [anguished, perishing] cries have been heeded [by Heaven], the Watchers' pleas for divine mercy for themselves and their children cannot escape the decisive results of divine judgment" (Stuckenbruck [1997], p. 93).
  46. ^ Hanson, Paul (1977). "Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel, and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6-11". Journal of Biblical Literature. 96 (2). Atlanta, Georgia. pp. 195–233. JSTOR 3265878. Hanson describes the primordial myth of a "heavenly rebellion" of "astral deities" and a fallen astral-host — "the divine rebels and their earthly successors" — led by a morning-star figure (i.e., Lucifer 'son of the morning' = Satan/Satanael), whose aspirant ascent "in the subdued light of the morning [is] blotted out by the more brilliant light of the rising sun" (i.e., Yahweh — the anglicized 'Jehovah' — who in 1 En 10:11 uses Michael as His "divine agent" in the rebels' heavenly exile and punishment. The mighty archangel declares to Shemihazah, a leader of the fallen host: I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and the guardian [angels] drove you out from the midst of the stones of fire [stars, or astral deities] ... I cast you to the ground ... You have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever, pp. 207-209). Though ultimately cast from God's 'summit' and brought low, such arrogant presumption and ambition rises primevally to transcend the powers of Heaven in the spirit of Isaiah 14:13-14: I will ascend to heaven: I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High. It is by this Urzeit connection to the prologue of creation, wherein a heavenly rebellion of divine beings occurs, that a fuller picture emerges for "an etiology of evil in the world: all of the evil in the world stems from a heavenly event, the rebellion of certain divine beings." Likewise does the story of fallen Watchers and giants both elucidate and advance towards an eschatological "denouement" (Endzeit) because "extirpation of evil would not occur from within the world order, but through cataclysmic extension of primeval events, culminating in a purging of the evil angels and spirits and the restoration of a perfect order" (pp. 218-219). See also Robert Murray's The Cosmic Covenant (2007, Gorgias Press), pp. 8-11, and Hanson's The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (1975, Fortress Press).
  47. ^ That Milik here employs the word "seem" in referencing the fallen angels' bonds of "sin" indicates his understanding that the enslavement spoken of by Enoch is a spiritual bondage and dreadful promised fate that afflicts the fallen angels at this point in the narrative because of their vile crimes and deeds, as clearly the temporal retribution of heaven has not yet been carried out. The passage refers to the bonds of sin, not to physical bindings.
  48. ^ Mani, too, according to the biographical Cologne Mani-Codex, was in vision visited by his celestial or 'divine twin', a heavenly or pre-existent 'true self' — a noted element in Jewish mysticism (but manifest also in the apocryphal Syriac Hymn of the Pearl at the end of the Acts of Thomas, preserved and treasured in Manichaeism) — which alternately is thought to be the embodiment of what a 'son of God' (or true and faithful 'Watcher' as opposed to a 'child of Error') is meant to be, or to become. See Milik (1976), pp. 29, 34, 55, 142, 144, 172, 174, 192, 214, 229-230, 235-236, 427; Reeves (1992), pp. 35 note 13, 186-188; Stuckenbruck (1997), pp. 84 note 63, 88 note 71, and for Raphael, 93; Orlov (2005), pp. 165-176. Joseph Smith's 'restored' theology mentions the archangel Raphael canonically (D&C 128:21) and holds the archangels Michael and Gabriel to be, in essence, the 'heavenly doubles' of the patriarchs Adam and Noah, respectively. See Smith's History of the Church 3:386.
  49. ^ Orlov, Andrei A. (2017). The Greatest Mirror: Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha. Albany: State University of New York (SUNY Press). ISBN 978-1438466910.
  50. ^ The Qumranic texts, as both Milik and Orlov note, variously, and secondarily, give Sariel or Phanuel's name in place of Uriel's.
  51. ^ The great Paris Magical Papyrus of the fourth century gives a fascinating glimpse of divine retribution against the giant-rebels. Therein is recorded what is purported to be an ancient Hebrew prayer meant to exorcise demons in the holy name of "the god of the Hebrews ... the One who burned up the stubborn giants with lightning, whom the Heaven of heaven praises ... by the One who put the mountains [boundaries] around the sea [or] a wall of sand and commanded the sea not to overflow. The abyss obeyed, and you obey, every daimonic spirit ..." (cited in Murray [2007], pp. 91-92).
  52. ^ Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (v. 24) reads: "Enoch worshipped in truth before the Lord and behold he was not with the inhabitants of the earth because he was taken away and he ascended to the firmament at the command of the Lord, and he was called Metatron, the Great Scribe." Compare Heb 11:5-6. See VanderKam (2008/1995), p. 167.
  53. ^ Fourth-century historian Eusebius quotes "On the Jews" by first-century BCE historian Alexander Polyhistor (112-30) in his Praeparatio Evangelica (9.17.1-9 Pseudo-Eupolemus frag 1; 9.18.2 frag 2) that the Hebrew patriarch Abraham, who taught astronomy first to the Phoenicians and then to the Egyptians, inherited his knowledge of the stars from the archangelic Wisdom legacy extending from Noah to Enoch, who "first discovered" the celestial sciences by Uriel's instruction; the ancients identified Enoch with the Titan Atlas, whom the Greeks said "discovered astrology" (9.17.9). See Stuckenbruck (2017/2014), pp. 7-12, 31-32; Abr 3.
  54. ^ Boccaccini, Gabriele, ed. (2007). Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0802803771.
  55. ^ The mighty archangel Uriel ('God-fire' or 'fire of God'; God's "Regent of the Sun," "gloriously bright ... Interpreter ... Brightest Seraph" - Milton), as overseer of the 'heavenly bodies' of the cosmic creation and of the fallen angels of the underworld (1 En 20), was Enoch's "star" guide through the cosmos. He was also — according to Jewish tradition, as a foremost Angel of the Presence, or high priest of the celestial Temple — that great angel with flaming sword (a seraphic Watcher) placed by the gods to guard the gate to the pre-existent Edenic paradise and its Tree of Life (4 Ezra 3:5-6). Because of rebellion, archonic beings were, from their angelic stations or status, primordially "cast ... as profane out of the mountain of God ... from the midst of the stones of fire [from their positions amidst the stars, or from heaven's angelic host]" (Ezek 28:16). Uriel was set to ward off the demonic host (or those beings deemed unworthy, or unprepared) that might profane the sacred precinct. Uriel, who "helped Solomon repel demons from the Temple," was that archangel who, as he did for Enoch but also for the prophet Ezra, acted as the "interpreter" of heaven-sent visions and books — an "illuminator of the mind." In the end times, it is said, Uriel will, in warning declaration, blow his archangelic trump to usher in the boiling, melting conflagration (Isa 64:2) set to accompany the coming of the 'Son of Man' to reign for a thousand years, then judge the world. The prophet Isaiah, speaking for the Lord of Hosts, declared: "Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work [of ingathering latter-day Israel; of defending God's elect against hostile or demonic powers]; and I have created the [archangelic] waster to destroy [in the cleansing inferno at earth's harvest]" (Isa 54:16). Jewish tradition's end-time "warrior" 'Messiah ben Joseph' is cast in very similar terms, or in like mold, to Uriel, who joins in raining "fire, naphtha, and brimstone" upon the Watchers and nephilim. As a messianic or forerunner figure, Ben Joseph serves well, in this sense, as an earthly referent or counterpart to the fire-of-God archangel: ultimately, Ben Joseph rains destruction on the wicked at end-times Jerusalem and calls forth in resurrection the spirits of the netherworld, over portions of which Uriel holds stewardship as cosmic warden. See Stephen Miller, The Book of Angels: Seen and Unseen (Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne, England, 2019), pp. 59-64; Margaret Barker, An Extraordinary Gathering of Angels (2004), pp. 66-67, 81-82, 102, 107, 400, 402-403, 412-413; and Mitchell (2016), pp. 182-183, 229.
  56. ^ Elijah, among the few prophets explicitly referred to in the Enochic writings (1 En 89:52), is Enoch's 'translated' colleague, but possibly also the archangel Phanuel, who, quite appropriately after Enoch's own translation, is one of three angels who take him atop the heavenly temple — whereupon one of the angels (Elijah-Phanuel?) directs Enoch to witness the great diluvial Judgement poured out upon the Earth's inhabitants (1 En 87:3-4). In early Jewish and Christian traditions, Elijah is often mentioned in this 'deathless' context with Enoch, which has given rise to the belief that this prophetic duo — both of whom were 'taken' by God to heaven without tasting death — are the two witnesses spoken of at Revelation 11 who return to testify and wage war in Jerusalem at the last day, but who are ultimately martyred, then resurrected. See VanderKam (2008/1995), pp. 69, 85, 116-117, 141, 180-182.
  57. ^ Such a "table" — according to the Latin Life of Adam and Eve (50:1-3; 51:9) — appears to have taken two earthly forms in order to ensure its preservation — to make one or the other indestructible, or impervious to God's great Judgements of water and fire. Eve, upon her deathbed, instructs her son Seth to make "tablets of stone and other tablets of clay [containing their history but also "what Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied before the Flood"]. If he [God] should judge our race by water, the tablets of earth will dissolve and the tablets of stone will remain; but if he should judge our race by fire, the tablets of stone will break up and those of clay will be thoroughly baked" (the tablets are preserved by two archangels in 2 Enoch).
  58. ^ Jump up to: a b Barker, Margaret. (2005) [1987]. "The Book of Enoch," in The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity. London: SPCK; Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1905048199
  59. ^ Jump up to: a b Even so, contrary to J. T. Milik's original assessment of a very late 270 CE date for the Enochic fragments at Qumran, scholarly consensus (by setting the date for the Book of Parables, rather, right at the turn of the Christian Era) overturns the idea that 'Similitudes' was a "late Christian document". The Parables section was wholly absent from the Qumran fragments in which were represented portions of all of 1 Enoch's other sections. But this was because (with the exception of the Qumran community's own sectarian literature) "no document whatsoever, written after the end of the second century BCE [in fact, probably not exceeding 150 BCE, per VanderKam], managed to find its way into the Qumran library"; all of 1 Enoch's other sections (or 'booklets') were written before 'Similitudes' between the second and fourth centuries BCE and were, therefore, found (in abundance) at Qumran. This consensus, of course, questions whether the original Parables book (though later celebrated by early Christianity) was a 'Christian' document at all; Milik's now-antiquated view, in other words, "has not," as VanderKam says, "carried the day" (Boccaccini, 1998; VanderKam 2008/1995, pp. 121, 132).
  60. ^ Bearing upon the scholars' above-mentioned suspicion of Hebraic foundations of the Enochic literature is Adolf Jellinek's insinuation or anticipation in 1853 — nearly one hundred years before the mid-20th century Qumran discoveries — when he suggested (in retrospect, rather startlingly) that the book of Enoch was an Essene creation! See Adolf Jellinek, "Hebräische Quellen für das Buch Henoch," Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 7 (1853): 249.
  61. ^ Gedaliahu A. Guy Stroumsa, Guy G. Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology, 1984, Brill, ISBN 978-9004074194

Sources[]

  • Henning, W. B., tr. "The Manichean text." (1943).[1]

External links[]

  1. ^ The Book of the Giants, 1943
Retrieved from ""