The Book of Enoch 7
Book I The Book of the Watchers Chapters 1–36 · 3rd century BCE
The oldest core of 1 Enoch: the descent of the two hundred Watchers, the birth of the giants, Enoch's intercession, and his guided journeys through the cosmos and the places of judgment.
Dating & manuscripts. Among the oldest apocalyptic writings in existence. Aramaic copies were found at Qumran (4QEnoch a-c), confirming its pre-Maccabean date - older than the Book of Daniel.
Chapters 6-11 preserve an older Semjaza/Shemihazah myth cycle later woven together with the Azazel/Asael tradition; scholars read them as composite, with a Noah fragment embedded. Angel names vary by manuscript (Semjaza/Shemihazah, Azazel/Asael).
In later tradition. This section's imagery echoes through later scripture and tradition: the Epistle of Jude (verses 14-15) quotes 1 Enoch 1:9 by name, and the Watchers legend shaped 2 Peter, the Book of Revelation, and the theology of the Qumran community and early Christianity.
The Book of Giants. A sixth Enochic work that expands the Watchers story from the giants' point of view - their violence, their prophetic dreams, and their doom. Known from Aramaic fragments at Qumran and, centuries later, adopted into Manichaean scripture. It is not part of the Ethiopic 1 Enoch preserved here.
1 Enoch is an anthology of five distinct works, composed over roughly three centuries.
The Giants and Their Consumption
They took unto themselves wives, each chose one, defiled themselves with them, taught them charms and enchantments and the cutting of roots and made them acquainted with plants.
1nd all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants.
2 And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells:
3 Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them,
4 the giants turned against them and devoured mankind.
5 And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood.
6 Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.
Did You Know?
They took unto themselves wives, each chose one, defiled themselves with them, taught them charms and enchantments and the cutting of roots and made them acquainted with plants.
The wives became pregnant and bare great giants whose height was three thousand ells.
The great giants who were born consumed all the acquisitions of men.
When men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind.
The giants began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood.
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Commentary
In brief
The Watchers take human wives and teach them sorcery, herb-lore, and forbidden arts. Their offspring are monstrous giants who devour everything men can produce and then turn on mankind itself, until the ravaged earth cries out against the bloodshed.