Manuscripts
The Book of Giants
- Era
- c. 2nd century BC
- Location
- Qumran Caves 1, 2, 4 and 6; later reused by the Manichaeans in Central Asia
- Discovered
- Fragments identified across several caves; the Manichaean version recovered at Turfan in the early 20th century
A shattered Aramaic work about the giant sons of the Watchers, who dream of their own destruction before the flood. It once circulated alongside 1 Enoch.
The find
Only fragments survive, and they are tantalising. The Book of Giants picks up where Genesis 6:1–4 leaves off: the sons of God took wives of the daughters of men, and their offspring were giants. Here those giants have names — Ohyah, Hahyah, Mahaway — and personalities. They devour the earth. They quarrel. And then they begin to dream. One dreams of a garden drowned by water until only a single tree with three roots remains. Another sees a tablet thrown into water, its writing washed away except a few names. Terrified, they send Mahaway flying to Enoch, "the scribe of interpretation," in the ends of the earth, to ask what the dreams mean. The answer comes back: judgment. The flood is coming, and their fathers the Watchers are already condemned. One surviving line reads: *"Then Ohyah said to Hahyah his brother ... Then he punished not us but Azaz''el and made him the sons of the Watchers, the giants; and none of their beloved will be forgiven."* **How it travelled.** In the third century AD, Mani — founder of the Manichaean religion — took the book over and rewrote it as one of his own canonical works. Fragments of that Manichaean version in Middle Persian, Sogdian and Uyghur were recovered at Turfan in Chinese Turkestan, and it was only after the Qumran fragments were published that scholars realised the two were versions of the same Jewish book. **Where it stands.** In no canon of any church. It is not part of Ethiopian 1 Enoch either, though it belongs to the same literary family.
Why it matters
The Book of Giants is the clearest proof of how much Second Temple Jews built on four verses of Genesis. Genesis 6:1–4 is terse to the point of obscurity; the Enochic literature turned it into a whole mythology of fallen Watchers, giant offspring, forbidden knowledge and imprisoned spirits. That mythology is the background to several difficult New Testament passages — 2 Peter 2:4 on the angels who sinned and were cast into chains of darkness, Jude 6 on the angels who left their proper habitation, and 1 Peter 3:19–20 on the spirits in prison from the days of Noah. The apostles use the language their readers knew. They do not endorse the book. That is the discipline this card is here to model. Knowing what the Jewish world believed about the Watchers helps you read Peter and Jude. It does not make the Book of Giants Scripture, and the speculation it contains — names, dreams, giant genealogies — has no apostolic warrant. Modern translations of the fragments are under copyright, so Berean quotes only briefly and points to the published editions below.
Cross-linked Scripture
- Genesis 6:1-4— The four verses this whole literature grows from
- Jude 1:6— Angels who left their proper habitation
- 2 Peter 2:4— Angels who sinned, cast into chains of darkness
Doctrine check
Sources
- ·Loren T. Stuckenbruck, 'The Book of Giants from Qumran' (Mohr Siebeck, 1997)
- ·John C. Reeves, 'Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony' (Hebrew Union College Press, 1992)
- ·Geza Vermes, 'The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English' (Penguin, 2011)
- ·The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library
See also
