| The Book of Giants | |
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| Information | |
| Religion | Manichaeism |
| Language | Pahlavi,Aramaic,Syriac |
| Period | Before2nd Century BC |
The Book of Giants is anapocryphal book which expands upon theGenesis narrative of theHebrew Bible, in a similar manner to theBook of Enoch. Together with this latter work,The Book of Giants "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."[1] The text's composition has been dated to before the 2nd centuryBC.[2]
The Book of Giants is anantediluvian (pre-Flood) narrative that was received primarily inManichaean literature and known atTurfan.[3] However, the earliest known traditions for the book originate inAramaic copies of aThe Book of Giants among theDead Sea Scrolls.[4] References to theGiants mythology are found in:Genesis 6:1-4, the books ofEnoch (Ethiopic, Slavonic, Hebrew, Greek),Jubilees,Genesis Apocryphon,2 and3 Baruch (Slavonic), theDamascus Document, and visions inDaniel 7:9-14.[5] This book tells of the background and fate of these antediluvial giants and their fathers, theWatchers (calledgrigori in the Slavonic2 Enoch),[6][7] thesons of God orholy ones (Daniel 4:13, 17) who rebelled against heaven when—in violation of the strict "boundaries of creation"[8]—they commingled, in their lust, with the "daughters of men."[9]
Their even more corrupt offspring, the giants, were variously called thereafternephilim,gibborim, orrephaim, 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 namedemons (Greek Enoch calls thembastards).[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 thefallen angels in the apocryphal sources, as also in the biblical narratives that reference them.[4]
Since before the latter half of the twentieth century,The Book of Giants had long been known as aMiddle Iranian work (which some scholars now believe was written originally inEastern Aramaic) that circulated among theManichaeans as a composition attributed toMani (c. AD 216–274)—aParthian citizen of southernMesopotamia who appears to have been afollower 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 earlierSecond Temple Jewish sect of theEssenes (Essaioi "Saints").[8][10]
During the twentieth century a number of finds shed considerable light on the literary evidence for The Book of Giants.[2] The 1943 publication byW. B. Henning of the Manichaean fragments from The Book of Giants discovered atTurfan inWestern China (in what is nowXinjiang Province)[3] have substantiated the many references to its circulation among, and use by, the Manichaeans.[3][8] Further identification of the Manichaeans edition of The Book of Giants was revealed in 1971 whenJósef T. Milik discovered several additional Aramaic fragments of Enochic works among theDead Sea Scrolls; finding that the fragments bore close resemblance to Mani'sThe Book of Giants, he concluded thatGiants 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] For many scholars, the Qumran fragments confirmedThe Book of Giants to originally have been an independent composition from theSecond Temple period.[4]
Among the fragments discovered at Qumran, ten manuscripts ofThe Book of Giants are identified byLoren Stuckenbruck. These fragments (1Q23, 1Q24, 2Q26, 4Q203, 4Q530, 4Q531, 4Q532, 4Q556, 4Q206, and 6Q8) were found incaves 1, 2, 4, and 6 at the site.[4] These discoveries led to further classification of the Enochic works. In the third group of classification, ten Aramaic manuscripts contain parts ofThe Book of Giants which were only known through the Manichaean sources until the recognition of them at Qumran.[11]
There has been much speculation regarding the original language of The Book of Giants. It was generally believed to have had aSemitic origin. Indeed, the discovery of this text at Qumran led scholars, such as C. P. van Andel andRudolf Otto, to believe that while these ancientAramaic compositions of the book were the earliest known, the work probably had even earlierHebrew antecedents.[11][12] It wasR. H. Charles, translator and publisher in 1906 ofThe Book of Enoch, who asserted that Enoch was "built upon the debris of" an olderNoah saga than that in Genesis which only cryptically refers to the Enoch myth.[13] But Milik himself offered his own hypothesis that Enoch's 'creation story' andlaw of God account naturally predate theMosaicSinai 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.[14] More recent scholarship, such as that of Klaus Beyer, indicates thatThe 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.[15]
The text unearthed atQumran 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. TheGiants 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 QumrannicThe Book of Giants also bears resemblance to the Manichaean edition ofThe Book of Giants that came after it. Scholars, beyond their many questions of the Enochic tradition's oral or written transmission,[2][10] 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.[5][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 theWatcher "sons of God" (who, per the story's corroborative Jubilees[18] account [Jub 4:15; 5:6],[5][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") had sexual intercourse with human women, 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][11]
WhenEnoch heard of this, he was distressed and petitioned God, 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][11] 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 theirgrigori andnephilim companions.[5] This assembly of Watcher-giant associates were perplexed by the dreams,[20] 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] rather than to turn from their evil ways, to act in defiance against God. The Qumran fragments are incomplete at this point.[8]
The Qumrannic edition ofThe Book of Giants, like its Manichaean counterpart, affiliates the names of theSumerian heroGilgamesh and the monsterHumbaba with the Watchers and giants.[4][8]
The Manichaean version is similar to the one found in Qumran, only adapted toMani's story of the cosmos. The fallen angels are herearchontic 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.[21] While most given names are simply transliterated into Iranian language, Ohyah and Hahyah are renamedSam andNariman.[22] This version also contains a complete ending, telling how theforces of the Light, led by four angels identified withMichael,Gabriel,Raphael, andIstrael, subdue the demons and their offspring in battle.[8]
Much of the content inThe 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 titan or giant (mankind) and went on to kill and to viciously exploit them in slavery and sexual debauchery.[6] They also had sexual intercourse with animals, and raped one another. They murdered on a massive scale, and also aborted their own children.[8]
The authorship of the Qumranic edition ofThe Book of Giants is still a question among scholars.[10] Some initially believed that the manuscript (despite so many extant copies from Qumran of the overall Enochic work) to have been little used among thedesert sectaries; but more recent scholarship declares: "We know that the Qumran Essenes copied, studied, andvalued the writings and teachings ascribed to Enoch".[23] The Qumran discoveries decidedly ruled out any possibility that the Manicheans were the composers ofThe Book of Giants, for their work followed later.[3]
As far as comparisons that might be made with canonical texts, the books ofDaniel and 1 Enoch both have similarities; for example in their visionary elements. 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 thethrone-theophany itself".[24]
All of these Enochic writings would have held significance from the beginning of the first century. Indeed, theearly Christian church treasured Enoch and few earlyChurch Fathers quoted from and held it asdivinely inspired or authoritative, even when it was never included in the churchcanon list.[13][25] However, due in no small part to the influence of theAlexandrian philosophers who ill-favored it—its contents thought by many of theHellenistic era to be foolish or strange—the overall Enochic work rapidly ran afoul of ideas held by the Christian and Jewish doctors, who considered it a tainted product of theEssenes of Qumran.[2][10] Milik has speculated the reason why the book was censored by Christian authors was its popular usage by Manichaeans.[26] The book was soon banned by such orthodox authorities asHilary,Jerome, andAugustine in the fourth century and it gradually passed out of circulation,[5] finally becoming lost to the knowledge ofWestern Christendom—only sundry fragments remained.[27]
See also the author'sEnoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (1984), published by theCatholic Biblical Association of America: Washington, DC.
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