Table of Contents
The giants of Genesis 6 never speak. In the Book of Giants they do. Who Were the Nephilim? covers Genesis 6. This review looks at what the book itself gives.
The book is in pieces, and the pieces come from two places. This review rests on two sources. One is Iñaki Marro Sánchez, a Munich dissertation of 2026 with an edition of every Aramaic fragment. The other is W. B. Henning, who published the Manichaean fragments in 1943. I give the page for each quote. The fragments themselves, with my own retelling, are on the text page. There is also an earlier video on the site, Book of Giants, and the book card.
The book at a glance
| Item | What the sources show |
|---|---|
| What it is | A retelling of Genesis 6:1 to 4 from the side of the giants. Marro calls the book "intrinsically related" to those verses (p. 29). |
| Language | Aramaic at Qumran. Middle Persian, Sogdian, Uygur and Parthian at Turfan (Marro, p. 30). |
| Copies | About ten copies in four caves at Qumran (Marro, p. 30). The [Book of Enoch](/book-of-enoch) has seven Aramaic copies, all from one cave. |
| Date of the book | The 3rd century BCE (Marro, p. 29). Wikipedia says before the 2nd century BC. |
| Manichaean version | Ascribed to Mani, who lived from 216 to 274 (Marro, p. 29). Fragments published by Henning in 1943. |
| Main editions | Milik (1976), Stuckenbruck (1997), Marro (2026) |
Who found it, and when
Henning published fragments of a Manichaean Book of Giants in 1943. They came from Turfan in the Silk Road oasis in western China. John Reeves wrote that both the book and the thinking of Mani, the third-century Persian prophet who is credited with it, were unknown until 1943:
remained unknown to scholars until 1943, when fragments of several Middle Iranian versions of the Book of Giants were published by W. B. Henning.
John C. Reeves, publisher's description of Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony (Hebrew Union College Press, 1992)
Twenty-eight years later the book turned up a second time. Reeves puts it this way:
Twenty-eight years later, at Qumran, J. T. Milik discovered several copies of a fragmentary Aramaic work which is unquestionably the precursor of the later Manichaean recension.
John C. Reeves, publisher's description of Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony (Hebrew Union College Press, 1992)
Marro dates Milik’s insight to 1971 (p. 29). Milik printed the Aramaic fragments in 1976. Cave 4 was found in 1952, and the whole Dead Sea Scrolls find ran from 1946 or 1947 until 1956, according to Wikipedia.
Why it was lost
Henning cites a list of rejected books, the Decretum Gelasianum, where Alfaric had found an entry for the Manichaean book. It names a book about a giant called Ogia, who is said to have fought a dragon after the flood. The Latin runs “Liber de Ogia nomine gigante qui post diluvium cum dracone ab hereticis pugnasse perhibetur apocryphus” (Henning, p. 52). In my translation that is: the book of the giant named Ogia, who is said by heretics to have fought a dragon after the flood, apocryphal.
Wikipedia says Hilary, Jerome and Augustine banned the Enochic writings in the fourth century, and that they gradually passed out of circulation. It adds that Milik suggested the use of the book by Manichaeans was one reason for the censorship. Marro also says Mani’s use of the book contributed to its decline (p. 30).
What it says
The Qumran copies give a story in three beats.
The giants are sons of the Watchers. In 4Q530 two of them, the brothers Ohyah and Hahyah, dream on the same night. Hahyah sees a garden with gardeners, and fire and water come over it. Ohyah sees a court in heaven with books opened and a judgment written. The giants take fright and send Mahaway to ask Enoch what it means.
Enoch answers with a letter on tablets, and a copy of it survives in 4Q203. It tells the Watchers that the earth is crying out against them and tells them to pray. In 4Q531 someone who sounds like a giant admits that he cannot beat the angels who live in heaven.
For the line-by-line version with short quotes, see the text page.
Gilgamesh and Humbaba
Two names from Babylon stand in the Aramaic, and they are the part I read most slowly. Gilgamesh is named in 4Q530 and 4Q531. Humbaba is named in 4Q203 and 4Q530, under the spellings Hobabish and Ḥubaba (Marro, p. 31, note 21).
Marro reads the garden of Hahyah’s dream as the cedar forest of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The garden is equivalent to the cedar forest in the cycle of Gilgamesh, as in the Tablet V of the Epic
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), p. 86
The giant Humbaba guarded that forest in the epic. In the Aramaic Humbaba roars and is judged, and Marro says he is probably condemned (p. 299).
Gilgamesh is a smaller figure. Marro is careful about this:
He will appear as one of the great warriors from the mythical past, present only in spirit, to whom the giant Ohya comes to ask for an interpretation of his dream, thus playing a similar role than Enoch.
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), p. 98
That is the Gilgamesh of the Qumran copies. He is already dead, and the giants consult his spirit. Marro adds that Enkidu is missing, and that in his view a dead Gilgamesh needs no Enkidu (p. 97).
One thing in Wikipedia needs correcting. Its article says the Manichaean version also names Gilgamesh and Humbaba. Marro writes in a note:
Gilgamesh does not appear in the fragments of Turfan.
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), p. 95, note 239
Humbaba does appear there. Henning’s Fragment j has Hōbābīš robbing another giant of his wife (p. 60). So the Turfan texts keep one of the two names.
The Manichaean version
Mani wrote his own Book of Giants. Henning held that he wrote it in Syriac, and that the Persian and Sogdian names for the giants came later from translators (p. 52). Ohyah became Sām and his brother became Narīmān. Henning says plainly that the Persian names were not in Mani’s original.
In the Manichaean texts the giant Ohya has a sea monster to fight. Henning’s words are:
Ogias fought with a draco, and so did Ohya; his enemy was the Leviathan (text N).
W. B. Henning, "The Book of the Giants", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11 (1943), p. 54
The ending of the Manichaean version is different. The Watchers, whom Henning calls by their Greek name, are beaten by four archangels.
The Egrēgoroi and their giant progeny are fought and vanquished by four archangels: Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and Istrael
W. B. Henning, "The Book of the Giants", p. 54
The Egrēgoroi are the Grigori. Wikipedia says the Manichaean version has a complete ending, in which the forces of Light, led by four angels, subdue the demons. The Qumran fragments break off before such an ending.
Why it matters for the Nephilim and for Atlantis
For the Nephilim the book matters because it changes who tells the story. In the Book of Enoch the giants are the problem the angels solve. Here they have names, dreams and fears. Marro says the book makes the reader feel for them:
do not appear to be as wicked as in the later stories, to the point that the reader feels empathy for those fascinating creatures
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), p. 31
I hold both pictures open: giants as monsters, and giants as people who can be afraid. Marro lists the Anakim, Gibborim, Nephilim and Refaim as Bible names for these giants (p. 31). The Anakim and the fallen angels have their own pages on this site.
The book also shows how far the giant tale travelled. Marro says the tales of giants “pervaded the ancient literature”, and he names Turfan, Mesopotamia, the Bible and Greece (p. 31). That is the ground I cover in Giants Worldwide.
For Atlantis the case is smaller, and I want to say so. The Book of Giants never names Atlantis. What it gives me is a picture of the world before the flood. There are giants, Watchers, dreams of fire and water, and a flood at the end of Hahyah’s dream. Ignatius Donnelly built his case in 1882, in Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, seventy years before cave 4 was dug. He could not have known this text. If you read Atlantis as a lost antediluvian civilisation, this is one more voice from that age. On Marro’s date it was composed in the 3rd century BCE.
Open to a paleo-contact reading
I stay open to the reading that the Watchers were visitors and not angels. The text does not say so. In 4Q531 the speaker calls them angels who “dwell [in heave]n” (Marro, p. 402). Fire comes down from heaven in Hahyah’s dream, in Marro’s restored text. Marro reads Mahaway as a winged giant, in the family of the Mesopotamian demons Pazuzu and Shedu (p. 75). Someone who reads the Watchers as beings from the sky will look at the same lines and see something else.
I do not claim more than that. None of the passages I quote describes a craft or a machine. What I can say is that the fragments leave the question open. For the wider question, see the Grigori and the Nephilim.
Honest notes on the sources
Every manuscript of the Book of Giants is torn, and there are many copies. I try to keep what is read from what is restored.
- Torn text. Many lines in Marro’s translations are mostly brackets. I treat his restorations, for example the whole dream of Hahyah, as informed guesses.
- The date. Marro puts the book in the 3rd century BCE (p. 29). Wikipedia says before the 2nd century BC, and quotes Klaus Beyer for a Hebrew original of the 3rd century BCE. The two are close but not the same.
- Where it was written. Marro says that finding the oldest copies at Qumran “does not necessarily mean” that the book was written there (p. 31). He thinks an eastern, perhaps Persian, Jewish setting is possible (p. 32). He also warns that a book kept at Qumran need not reflect the beliefs of the community (p. 30). The Qumran library is often tied to the Essenes. A copy of this book there does not prove that the Essenes held its beliefs.
- The manuscripts. The list differs by scholar. Wikipedia names ten manuscripts, with 4Q556. Marro’s ten have 4Q533 in its place.
- Milik’s dates. Marro and Wikipedia say 1971 for the recognition. The Aramaic fragments were printed in 1976.
- Translations. The English translations disagree on small words. For the Aramaic I quote only Marro, and I name his line and page each time.
- Gilgamesh in Turfan. Wikipedia and Marro disagree, and Marro’s note 21 on p. 31 is loosely worded. I follow his explicit note on p. 95 (note 239).
- Parallels. Marro warns against what he calls “parallelomania”. His full sentence is below the list.
A caveat must be noted regarding the relation of influence between texts, for a detailed linguistic and historical analysis has to predate the conclusions, in order to avoid parallelomania and arbitrary statements.
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), p. 31
I take that warning for myself. A name in a fragment is a name. It does not prove a line of descent from the epic, from Atlantis or from the sky.
What I take from the Book of Giants
| Claim | Where | Kind of source |
|---|---|---|
| The Qumran book is the ancestor of the Manichaean one | Reeves, HUC Press | Scholar's summary |
| Ohyah and Hahyah dream, and Mahaway goes to Enoch | Marro, 4Q530, pp. 298 to 299 | Aramaic fragments |
| Gilgamesh and Humbaba are named in the Aramaic | Marro, p. 31, note 21 | Aramaic fragments |
| Gilgamesh is not in the Turfan fragments | Marro, p. 95, note 239 | Scholar's note |
| The Persian names Sām and Narīmān are later | Henning, p. 52 | Scholar's article |
| The Watchers are beaten by four archangels | Henning, p. 54 | Manichaean text |
This book moves the question about the giants of Genesis 6. It is not Genesis, and it is not Enoch. The Bible leaves this part of the story out. Here the giants tell it, and it survived in two places: a library by the Dead Sea and the writings of a prophet in Persia.
Related on this site
- Book of Giants (video): the earlier video on the site.
- The Book of Giants: The Fragments, One by One: the fragments retold, with short quotes.
- Who Were the Nephilim?: the giants of Genesis 6 and the sons of God.
- The 200 Grigori: the Watchers who came down.
- Book of Enoch: the book the Book of Giants grew beside.
- Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet I: where Gilgamesh and Humbaba start.
- Dead Sea Scrolls: the library that kept the book.
