Aramaic, from the caves
The Book of Giants
A companion to the Book of Watchers, kept in nine Qumran copies and, later, as Manichaean scripture. The children of the two hundred have names, an assembly, and dreams of a tablet washed clean.
- Named giants
- 6
- Dreams of erasure
- 3
- Qumran copies
- 9
- Reconstructed beats
- 14
What this book is
Not a plague. A camp.
1 Enoch 6–16 tells the descent from heaven’s side: the oath, the arts, the cry, the four sentences. The Book of Giants tells it from the children’s side. Ohyah and Hahyah, sons of Shemihazah, dream. Mahaway, son of Baraqel, flies. Gilgamesh is afraid. Enoch still answers letters. The interpretation is the flood.
Almost nothing is complete. What follows is a reading of the Aramaic fragments (especially 4Q530 and 4Q203), ordered after Stuckenbruck and Davila, with the Manichaean Kawān used only where the caves go silent. Reconstructions are marked.
A reconstructed sequence
Fourteen movements
No full copy survived. The order below is a scholarly join of the Cave 1, 2, 4, and 6 pieces, not a recovered table of contents.
4Q531; cf. 1 Enoch 6–7
Sequence reconstructionThe children are born
The book opens where the Book of Watchers does: descent, wives, and a new race that is neither angel nor man.
Shemihazah fathers Ohyah and Hahyah. Baraqel fathers Mahaway. Other Watchers father other sons. The Book of Giants does not retell the oath on Hermon at length — it assumes it — and turns the camera on the camp of the children. They have names. They will have an assembly. They will have nightmares.
The named
Six persons the fragments still hold
The defiant son · Shemihazah
Ohyah
Brother of Hahyah, first speaker when blame is being assigned. He dreams a throne, names Azazel, questions Mahaway, and tries to hang the coming flood on someone else.
The garden dreamer · Shemihazah
Hahyah
Brother of Ohyah. He dreams the orchard of two hundred trees, the gardeners, the fire and the water. He is the one who first says: we must ask Enoch.
The messenger · Baraqel / Baraqiel
Mahaway
The only giant who can still travel far enough. The assembly sends him to Enoch at the ends of the earth, because he has heard the scribe’s voice before.
The frightened hero · Unnamed Watcher
Gilgamesh
The king of Uruk is written into the Watchers’ family. His walls will not help him. In the fragments that remain, he is the giant who knows he is overmatched.
The cedar guardian · Unnamed Watcher
Hobabish
The monster of the cedar forest, written as Ḥobabiš among the Watchers’ sons. In the epic he is killed by Gilgamesh. Here they are kin, and both are on the docket.
Named, then lost · Unnamed Watcher
Ahiram
One of the giants the fragments name and then drop. His office, his father, and his dream are in the lacunae. The list is the point: they were persons.
Three dreams of erasure
A tablet, a garden, a throne. Each night leaves a remnant: three names, three roots, a sentence written for all flesh.
What the caves kept
Nine (perhaps ten) Aramaic copies. More than most books of Hebrew scripture at Qumran. Two of them are worth opening at length.
4Q530
4Q530 — Book of Giantsᵇ
The best-preserved copy. Column ii holds the assembly, Hahyah’s garden, Ohyah’s throne, the fear, and the sending of Mahaway. Without this manuscript the book is a pile of names.
4Q203
4Q203 — Book of Giantsᵃ
The second tablet of Enoch’s letter, in the handwriting of the noted scribe, addressed to Shemihazah and all his companions. The land is crying out.
1Q23
Produce of the earth; killing; the larder emptying
1Q24
Small scraps; placement debated
2Q26
The tablet plunged in water
4Q203
Enoch’s second tablet, to Shemihazah
4Q530
Assembly, both dreams, sending of Mahaway
4Q531
Violence; Gilgamesh’s strength failing
4Q532
Broken narrative of the camp
4Q533
Small Cave 4 pieces
6Q8
Ohyah and Mahaway; three roots in a garden
Paraphrases follow the Aramaic as edited by Stuckenbruck, Puech, and García Martínez, and the Manichaean joins used by Milik and Davila. Lacunae are not silently filled. This is a study of ancient books — not a recovered scripture.