Table of Contents
The Book of Giants was lost after the fourth century, when the church banned the Enochic writings. It came back in pieces. In 1943 W. B. Henning published Manichaean fragments from Turfan on the Silk Road. From 1971 Józef Milik tied those fragments to Aramaic scrolls from Qumran. No scroll holds the whole story, so there is no complete text to print here.
The standard English translations are still under copyright, so I do not reprint them. So I go through the fragments one by one, say what each one says in my own words, and quote only a line or two with the page it comes from.
Two sources carry the quotes. One is Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants: A Critical Edition of the Aramaic Fragments in their Ancient Scribal and Tradition-Historical Context, a Munich dissertation of 2026. It gives an English translation of every Aramaic fragment, and I use his printed page numbers. The other is W. B. Henning, “The Book of the Giants”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11 (1943), pages 52 to 74. For Henning I follow the page markers on the Sacred Texts copy.
Square brackets in a quote belong to the translator. They mark words restored where the scroll is torn.
My own review is The Book of Giants: What the Fragments Say. The book card is here, and the video is Book of Giants.
The fragments at a glance
The giants of this book are the sons of the Watchers, the same people as the Nephilim. Marro lists the biblical names Anakim, Gibborim, Nephilim and Refaim as the giants of the Bible (p. 31). This page puts every scrap in one place. The book sits beside the Book of Enoch among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Marro’s edition has ten Aramaic manuscripts. I use six of them, plus the Turfan texts.
| Manuscript | Where | What I take from it |
|---|---|---|
| 1Q23 | Cave 1 | A list of animals, and an uncertain reading of Og |
| 2Q26 | Cave 2 | A tablet drawn out of the water |
| 4Q203 | Cave 4 | Enoch's letter to the Watchers |
| 4Q530 | Cave 4 | The two dreams, and Mahaway sent to Enoch |
| 4Q531 | Cave 4 | A speech about angels, Ohyah's dream, Gilgamesh |
| 6Q8 | Cave 6, papyrus | Ohyah and Mahaway talk |
| Turfan | Manichaean, Middle Persian and Sogdian | The giants fight, then the angels fight the demons |
Marro also edits 1Q24, 4Q206 frags. 2 and 3, 4Q532 and 4Q533, on pages 175, 225, 458 and 469 of his book. I leave those out here.
1Q23: two hundred of each
The Cave 1 fragment is a list. Two hundred donkeys, two hundred sheep and two hundred rams stand in it, and then “every kind of living being”.
two hundred donkeys, onager[s
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 1Q23 frag. 1, line 1, p. 145
The number two hundred is also the number of Watchers in the Book of Enoch. I do not know whether that is on purpose. Line 4 has an uncertain reading of ‘wg, which Marro says could be Og, the Amorite king of Bashan. He adds that the giant this manuscript names is Ohyah, not Og (p. 145).
Milik, following Starcky, dated the manuscript to 100 to 50 BC. Marro gives that date in note 505 on p. 144.
2Q26: the tablet and the water
The Cave 2 fragment is four lines long. Someone pulls a tablet away to erase it. Water rises over the tablet. Then people lift the tablet out of the water.
and they lifted the tablet from the waters, the tablet that[
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 2Q26, line 3, p. 184
I read the tablet as Enoch’s writing and the water as the flood. That is my reading of four lines, and nothing in the fragment says so. Marro dates the manuscript to the Herodian period, 37 BCE to 73 CE (p. 183).
4Q203: Enoch’s letter
This is the fragment where Enoch writes to the Watchers. The first lines name it a copy of the second tablet of a letter.
A copy of the s[eco]nd tablet of the le[tter
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 4Q203 frag. 8, line 3, p. 214
Enoch is called the eminent scribe, and the letter goes to Shemihazah and all his companions. It is a charge. The earth itself has risen up against them because of what they did on it.
through your fornication on the earth, and it (the earth) has [risen up ag]ainst y[ou and is crying out]
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 4Q203 frag. 8, line 9, p. 214
A little further on Marro’s text has “has reached Raphael”, and then destruction is announced for everything in the heavens and on the earth. The letter ends with an order to loosen their bonds and pray.
A neighbouring scrap, frag. 7b, mentions “the two tablets”. It adds that “the second until now has not been rea[d]” (Marro, p. 210). So the letter above is the second one.
4Q530: two dreams and a messenger
4Q530 carries the longest connected story. Marro joins several fragments into one text of 24 lines, which he calls 4Q530 2 ii + 6 + 7 i. I follow his joined text.
It opens in the middle of a trial. Ḥubaba, whom Marro takes to be Humbaba of the Gilgamesh story, roars. Judgment is announced against him, and the other giants rejoice over him.
And Ḥ[u]baba roared, and [ju]dgment was announced against his soul, and the guilty one cursed the magnates,
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 4Q530 2 ii + 6 + 7 i, line 2, p. 298
Then two giants dream in the same night. Hahyah goes first. In his dream a big garden is watered by gardeners. Roots and huge shoots grow. Tongues of fire come down from heaven, water covers the dust, and the fire burns the trees. Marro restores much of this passage from the torn edges, so I read it as the outline of a story and not as word-perfect text.
The giants cannot interpret the dream. In Marro’s text someone says the dream must go to Enoch, and he restores Azazel as the one addressed.
This [drea]m you shall give [to Eno]ch, the eminent scribe, so that he will interpret for us
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 4Q530 2 ii + 6 + 7 i, line 14, p. 298
Ohyah, his brother, tells a second dream. It is a throne scene, and Marro points to Daniel 7:9 to 10 beside it. The Great Holy One sits, and thousands serve him.
and thrones were set up. And the Great Holy One sa[t down. A hundred hu]ndreds were serving him, a thousand thousands [were bowing to] him.
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 4Q530 2 ii + 6 + 7 i, line 17, p. 298
Books are opened, and a judgment is spoken and written down. At that point all the giants become afraid. They call Mahaway and send him to Enoch.
they called Mahaway, and he came to the as[em]bly of[ his companions (?) (and)] the giants. And they sent him to Enoch,
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 4Q530 2 ii + 6 + 7 i, line 21, p. 299
Marro notes that this is the second time Mahaway is sent to Enoch (p. 299). In column 7 ii Mahaway goes on a journey through the desert, and Marro reads him there as a winged giant, in the family of the Mesopotamian demons Pazuzu, Shedu and Lamaštu (p. 75).
4Q531: a speech about angels, and a third dream
One passage in 4Q531 is a speech by someone who sounds like a giant, though the fragment does not name him. He says he attacked all flesh and made war on them. He could not win, because his enemies are angels.
[are angels who] dwell [in heave]n, and they reside in holy places.
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 4Q531 frag. 22, line 6, p. 402 (speaker not named in the fragment)
Then Ohyah says that a dream was laid on him and that the sleep of his eyes fled from him. The next line is Gilgamesh answering.
[And then Gi]lgamesh said, “Your [d]ream
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 4Q531 frag. 22, line 12, p. 402
The line has a gap after “dream” and ends in a doubtful “peace”. Gilgamesh, the hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh, is here someone the giants go to for an answer.
6Q8: Ohyah teases Mahaway
The papyrus from Cave 6 has a short exchange. Ohyah asks Mahaway whether he is not trembling, and who showed him everything. Mahaway answers that his father Baraq’el was with him.
Baraq’el my father was with me”.
Iñaki Marro Sánchez, The Book of Giants (Munich dissertation, 2026), 6Q8 frag. 1, line 4, p. 488
Before Mahaway has finished, Ohyah cuts in. He has “heard wonders”, he says, and starts a line about a barren woman giving birth. Marro’s comment on the passage is that Ohyah is “having fun of Mahaway and his dream” (p. 488). The giants are not one voice. They argue with each other.
Turfan: the Manichaean Book of Giants
The second line of the book runs through Mani, who lived from 216 to 274. Henning held that Mani wrote a Book of Giants in Syriac and that his followers translated it into Middle Persian and Sogdian. He published the surviving pieces in 1943.
The Persian translators renamed the giants. Ohyah became Sām, and Ahya (Hahyah) became Narīmān.
Thus Sām is merely the translation of Ohya.
W. B. Henning, "The Book of the Giants", p. 53
Henning also says the story fitted Mani’s own system without much work.
The story of the fallen angels and their giant sons needed little adaptation to be fitted into Mani's system.
W. B. Henning, "The Book of the Giants", p. 53
Some Turfan pieces carry events the Qumran fragments do not reach. In Fragment j the giants turn on each other.
Thereupon the giants began to kill each other and [to abduct their wives]. The creatures, too, began to kill each other.
W. B. Henning, "The Book of the Giants", p. 60
Fragment G, in Sogdian, has a battle. The two hundred demons fight the four angels, until the angels use fire, naphtha and brimstone.
And those two hundred demons fought a hard battle with the [four angels], until [the angels used] fire, naphtha, and brimstone
W. B. Henning, "The Book of the Giants", p. 69
Wikipedia says the Manichaean version has a complete ending in which the forces of Light, led by four angels, subdue the demons. Fragment G is the nearest piece I have to that ending.
Where to go next
For what I make of all this, read my review of the book. The Watchers are in The 200 Grigori, and the angels who fall are in Fallen Angels.
