The Descent of Heavenly Beings to Earth from the Book of GiantsAs promised earlier, more on the giants! And a free chapter from MOTP2! For you, special deal!The Book of Giants survives, in a highly fragmentary state, in two versions: the original, known from remnants of Dead Sea Scrolls written in Aramaic, and a later Manichean version, known from manuscript scraps found in Central Asia written in three old Iranian languages and in Old Turkic (Uigur). The Book of Giants recaps the story of the descent of the angelic watchers from heaven to mate with mortal women, who bore them giant offspring with catastrophic results (cf. 1 Enoch 1–36 and Genesis 6:1-4). The rest of the book tells the tragic story of these offspring from their own perspective.
Chapter from James R. Davila and Richard Bauckham (eds.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol.2, More Noncanonical Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2025).
By James Davila
School of Divinity
Professor of Early Jewish Studies
University of St. Andrews
April 2025
The chapter includes a detailed summary of the reconstructed Book of Giants. But it does not include any translations of the actual surviving manuscripts. For that you need to buy the book. Official publication is tomorrow.
For many PaleoJudaica posts on the Book of Giants and some, relatedly, on the Rephaim, follow the links.
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