Texts in Conversation
Fragments of 1 Enoch in the Dead Sea Scrolls such as 4Q201 tell of heavenly beings who joined with women and produced giants who spread forbidden knowledge. These show that this interpretation of Genesis 6 was already known when the scrolls were written.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Enoch 7:1
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And all the others together with them took wives for themselves, each choosing one for himself, and they began to unite with them and defiled themselves with them. They taught them sorcery, spells, and the art of extracting medicinal substances from plants. 2 The women became pregnant and gave birth to enormous giants, whose height was three thousand ells. 3 These giants consumed everything humans produced.
4Q201 1 iii 13
The Enoch Scroll
Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Retellings
13 These are the chiefs of the chiefs of tens. They [and their chiefs all took for themselves] 14 wives from all whom they chose, and [they began to go in to them and to defile themselves with them,] 15 and to teach them sorcery and [spells and the cutting of roots, and to show them plants.] 16 And they became pregnant by them and bore [giants, three thousand cubits tall, who] 17 were born on the earth [in keeping with their childhood, and grew at the rate of their growth, and who were devouring] 18 the labor of all the sons of men, and men were not [able to supply them. And the giants] 19 were conspiring to kill men and [to devour them. And they began to sin … against] 20 all birds and beasts of the earth, [and the creeping things that creep on the earth and in the water] 21 and in the heavens, and the fish of the sea, and to devour [their] flesh, [one another’s, and they were drinking blood. Then]
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Notes and References
"... On the basis of literary dependence and thematic similarity, scholars consider Genesis 6:1–2, 4 as the source text especially for 1 Enoch 6:1–2 and 7:1–2, where the only major departure from the biblical text is the presentation of sexual intercourse between the sons of God and mortal women as sinful. Then, it is claimed, creative reinterpretation of the primeval story attested in Genesis 6–11 generated the rest of 1 Enoch 6–11. Through the lens of its relationship to the biblical primeval story, the myth is understood as an etiological explanation of evil and violence on the earth caused by the rebellion of the angelic beings, who by mating with the women transgressed the divinely established order inherent in the created world. Józef T. Milik, the editor of the Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch from Qumran, reverses the direction of dependence between the two texts and claims that the Genesis mythological account, which literally repeats two or three phrases from 4Q201 and 4Q202, abbreviates chapters 6–7 of 1 Enoch. Thus, the abridged and allusive formulation of Genesis 6:1–4 deliberately refers back to the Enochic document. Some scholars have accepted Milik’s proposal but stress the possibility that the relationship stems from a common source ..."
Drawnel, Henryk
"The Reception of Genesis 6:1-4 in 1 Enoch 6-7" in Dubovský, Peter, and Federico Giuntoli (eds.) Stones, Tablets, and Scrolls: Periods of the Formation of the Bible
(pp. 461-483) Mohr Siebeck, 2020
* 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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