The Rebellion of the Watchers

Chapter 6

1 And when the population of humans had increased during those times, beautiful and attractive daughters were born to them.⁠ 2 And the angels, the children of heaven, saw them and desired them,⁠ and said to each other: 'Come, let us choose wives from among the humans and father children.'⁠ 3 And Semjâzâ, their leader, said to them: 'I fear that you will not actually agree to do this, and I alone will have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' 4 And they all replied to him and said: 'Let us all take an oath, and all bind ourselves with a solemn promise not to abandon this plan but to carry out this act.' 5 Then they all took an oath together and bound themselves with a solemn promise to do so. 6 And there were in total two hundred who descended on the summit of Mount Hermon⁠ in the days of Jared, and they named it Mount Hermon because they had taken an oath and bound themselves with solemn promises there. 7 And these are the names of their leaders:⁠ Samîazâz, their leader,⁠ Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl, Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl, Tûrêl, Jômjâêl, Sariêl.⁠ 8 These are their chiefs of tens.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 6:2 and Philo, on the Giants 4

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Classical

Summary

1 Enoch builds on the narrative of Genesis 6 to explain the origin of evil through the Watchers, who desired human women and had giant children with them, corrupting the world. Philo incorporates this tradition in his interpretations of the Hebrew Bible.

Passages

1 Enoch 6:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

1 And when the population of humans had increased during those times, beautiful and attractive daughters were born to them. 2 And the angels, the children of heaven, saw them and desired them, and said to each other: 'Come, let us choose wives from among the humans and father children.' 3 And Semjâzâ, their leader, said to them: 'I fear that you will not actually agree to do this, and I alone will have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' 4 And they all replied to him and said: 'Let us all take an oath, and all bind ourselves with a solemn promise not to abandon this plan but to carry out this act.'

300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Philo, on the Giants 4

Classical

If, therefore, you consider that souls, and demons, and angels are things differing indeed in name, but identical in reality, you will be able to throw off that heaviest of burdens, superstition. But as men in general speak of good and evil demons, and in the same way of good and evil souls, so also do they speak of angels, regarding some as worthy of a good name, and calling them ambassadors of man to God, and of God to man, and sacred and holy on account of this blameless and most excellent office; others, again, you will not be wrong to regard as unholy and unworthy of any title. And the words of the psalmist in the following verse testify to the truth of what I say, for he says, "He sent upon them His fierce anger, indignation, and rage, and affliction, and he sent evil angels among them." These are the wicked who assume the name of angels, who do not know the daughters of right reason, that is, the sciences and the virtues, but pursue the mortal descendants of mortal men, that is, the pleasures, which can confer no genuine beauty, the kind perceived by the intellect alone, but only a bastard sort of elegance of form that beguiles the outward sense; and they do not all marry all the daughters, but some of them have chosen some of that innumerable company as their wives; some choosing them by the sight, and others by the ear, others again being influenced by the sense of taste, or by the belly, and some even by the pleasures below the belly; many also have laid hold of those whose home lies far away, setting various desires in motion among one another. For the choices among the various pleasures are necessarily various, since different pleasures are seated in different places.

20–50 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Philo, On the Giants

References

"... The problem of evil and human suffering was apparently an important and popular topic for writers in Judaism during the closing centuries B.C.E. and the early first century C.E. Recent discoveries amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls attest that the people of the Qumran Community were concerned why the people of Israel, and perhaps humanity in general, were suffering. One such explanation for human suffering is detailed in the Watcher tradition that is found in 1 Enoch 1-36, the Book of Watchers. The Watcher tradition of 1 Enoch, considered by most scholars as an expansion of Genesis 6:1-4, tells the story of the origin of evil spirits. These spirits were a result of the sexual union of the bene elohim and human women, which produced giant offspring. Furthermore, the giant tradition of BW was taken up by several other Second Temple Period Jewish writings and further developed alongside an anthropology which assumed a human nature that is weak, corruptible, and subject to the manipulation of spiritual forces. However, this was not the only Jewish understanding of the problem of evil ... In what follows, I will present an alternative approach to the responsibility for human suffering articulated by a lone voice in the Alexandrian Diaspora during the first century C.E., Philo of Alexandria. Philo's understanding of human suffering differs considerably from the tradition set forth in the Watcher tradition ... it is difficult to determine whether Philo knew of the Watcher tradition as we have it in but it appears that he was aware of some form of the Fallen Angel tradition prevalent in Palestinian Judaism ..."

Archie Wright, “Some Observations of Philo's De Gigantibus and Evil Spirits in Second Temple Judaism,” JSJ 36.4 (2005): 471–488.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

The Rebellion of the Watchers

1 Enoch108 chapters

Compare 1 Enoch 6:2 and Philo, on the Giants 4

Summary

Passages

1 Enoch 6:2

Philo, on the Giants 4

References

Your feedback

Leave a comment

Glossary

Search the Library