The Book of Giants
The Book of Giants | |
---|---|
2nd Century BC |
The Book of Giants is an apocryphal book which expands upon the Genesis narrative of the Hebrew Bible, in a similar manner to the Book 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 century BC.[2]
The Book of Giants is an
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.[4]
Origins in ancient tradition
Since before the latter half of the twentieth century, the Book of Giants had long been known as a
During the twentieth century a number of finds shed considerable light on the literary evidence for the Book of Giants.
Among the fragments discovered at Qumran, ten manuscripts of the Book of Giants are identified by
There has been much speculation regarding the original language of the Book of Giants. It was generally believed to have had a
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,[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 the Watcher "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]
When
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 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.[4][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.[21] While most given names are simply transliterated into Iranian language, Ohyah and Hahyah are renamed Sam and Nariman.[22] 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 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]
Interpretive issues between Qumran and Turfan
The authorship of the Qumran 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 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".[23] The Qumran discoveries decidedly ruled out any possibility that the Manicheans were the composers of the Book of Giants, for their work followed later.[3]
As far as comparisons that might be made with canonical texts, the books of Daniel 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 the throne-theophany itself".[24]
All of these Enochic writings would have held significance from the beginning of the first century. Indeed, the
See also
References
Sources
- Henning, W. B., tr. "The Manichean text." (1943).[21]
Citations
- ^ "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.
- ^ ISBN 978-0802828781.
- ^ ISBN 978-3161545313.
- ^ ISBN 978-3161467202
- ^ Catholic Biblical Association of America: Washington, DC.
- ^ ISBN 978-0198261612
- ISBN 978-9004230132.
- ^ ISBN 978-0878204137
- ISBN 978-0800699789. Archived from the originalon 2019-04-30. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
- ^ ISBN 978-0802843609.
- ^ ISBN 978-0800660741
- ^ 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.
- ^ ISBN 978-1578635238
- ^ 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.
- ^ Stuckenbruck [1997], pp. 5 note 22, 30, 208 note 273, 220 note 27; Martínez [2018/1992], p. 114
- ISBN 978-1905048199
- ISBN 978-0195084504
- Jubilees intimately connects with Enoch's story. Jub 4:17-23 presents, for example, the perspective of the heavenly archangelswho direct and instruct Enoch in Wisdom: "We told him"; "we taught him"; "we led him". See VanderKam (2008/1995), pp. 112-114, 128-129.
- ISBN 978-0802864093.
- ISBN 978-0800698379
- ^ a b The Book of the Giants, 1943
- ISBN 978-1591432944
- ^ VanderKam, 2008/1995, p. 143
- ISBN 978-3161554476
- ISBN 978-9004074194
- ISBN 978-1905048199