Texts in Conversation
The Wisdom of Solomon and Baruch recall the destruction of giants born from the union of divine beings and human women, drawing on Enochic tradition. Both interpret the Watchers myth ending in judgment through the flood described in Genesis.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Baruch 3:26
Deuterocanon
24 O Israel, how great is the house of God! How large is the place of his possession! 25 It is great and has no end. It is high and unmeasurable. 26 Giants were born that were famous of old, great of stature, and expert in war. 27 God didn’t choose these, nor did he give the way of knowledge to them, 28 so they perished, because they had no wisdom. They perished through their own foolishness.
Date: 200–50 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Wisdom of Solomon 14:6
Deuterocanon
4 showing that you can save out of every danger, that even a man without skill may put to sea. 5 It is your will that the works of your wisdom should not be ineffective. Therefore men also entrust their lives to a little piece of wood, and passing through the surge on a raft come safely to land. 6 For in the old time also, when proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world, taking refuge on a raft, left to the world a seed of generations, guided by your hand. 7 For blessed is wood through which comes righteousness; 8 but the idol made with hands is accursed, itself and he that made it; because his was the working, and the corruptible thing was called a god.
Date: 50 BCE – 50 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The interesting fact is that all these accounts of the myth of the Watchers are different from the biblical ones and, keeping in mind the modified aspects of the myth, especially those of the pseudo-Clementine version, they are close to the Enochic narrative. Biblical materials such as Genesis 6:1-8, Numbers 13:33, and Deuteronomy 1:28; 2:10, 21; 9:2 were most likely used in the Christian communities of the first centuries. While the text of Genesis 6 recounts the fornication of the sons of men (h’lhym) and mentions the presence of giants (nplym) on earth, the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy associate the giants with the terrestrial people of Anakites, the sons of Anak, the inhabitants of Hebron at the time when the Israelites came from Egypt; this association most likely reflects a different tradition. Several other fugitive references to the myth appear in Wisdom 14:6, Sirach 16:7, Baruch 3:26-8, Testament of Reuben 5:6, and Testament of Naphtali 3:5, and a larger remaking in Philo’s De Gigantibus 6-18 and 58-61 ..."
Dragoș-Andrei Giulea, “The Watchers’ Whispers: Athenagoras’s Legatio 25,1-3 and the Book of the Watchers,” VC 61 (2007): 258–281.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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