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The Watchers and Mesopotamia: An Article Review

3/22/2014

21 Comments

 
In the annals of fringe history, the Watchers loom large. These are the Sons of God of the Bible, the Watchers of 1 Enoch and the Fallen Angels of Judeo-Christian lore—the creatures who mated with human women and taught the forbidden sciences of metallurgy, astrology, and cosmetology (yes, makeup). Among ancient astronaut theorists, these beings are often identified with the Anunnaki and assumed to be space aliens who genetically engineered humanity and taught science. For the “Nephilim research community,” the scant biblical reference to the Sons of God and their giant sons in Genesis 6:1-4 launched a global dragnet for the physical remains of these antediluvian beings. Even some lost civilization speculators take these creatures as evidence that an Ice Age civilization spread its high technology across the ancient Near East.
For such reasons, I was very excited yesterday to receive a review copy of The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Tradition, a new anthology of academic essays for the non-specialist collected by Angela Kim Harkins, Kelly Coblentz Bautch, and John C. Endres and published last month by Fortress Press. Before I start my discussion, let me note that I received an electronic review copy through Adobe Digital Editions, so I am not able to provide page number references to the print edition. With that out of the way, I have to note that the book is less than 250 pages long, and with 14 essays plus an introduction, each of the chapters is by necessity rather short, more so since about a quarter of the space is given over to end notes.

The essay I was most interested to read was the first, “Mesopotamian Elements and the Watchers Tradition” by Ida Fröhlich, a scholar at Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Hungary specializing in Judaism and ritual purity. As many readers will recall, I previously analyzed the Watchers tradition and discussed its relationship to and reinterpretation of Near Eastern semi-divine hero myth, and I was quite intrigued to see what an expert had to say on the same subject.

Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed by the article, which is a somewhat undercooked summary of the author’s voluminous earlier work on the subject.

My expectation going into the chapter was that Fröhlich would provide a clear discussion of the similarities between the Watchers tradition and specific aspects of Mesopotamian beliefs. However, while Fröhlich displayed an admirable expertise in citing Jewish texts of all stripes, she did not bring into the discussion a similarly detailed discussion of Mesopotamian material.

But to take first things first. Fröhlich makes many assertions that she has far greater confidence in than I do. First, she asserts that the Jews encountered Mesopotamian material primarily during the Babylonian Captivity, and therefore aspects of Jewish belief that parallel Mesopotamian sources date from that time and no earlier. I find this less certain. Homer’s Odyssey contains motifs drawn from the Epic of Gilgamesh, which may in turn have come into the Odyssey from a still earlier version of the Argonautica, as M. L. West has shown. Orientalizing influences from Mesopotamia can be seen in Greece in the seventh century, but even in Jewish history we know that the Neo-Assyrians had used Judah as a client state for almost a century before the Babylonian Captivity, so I’m not sure we can assign a specific date for the transfer of a motif.

Fröhlich also believes that the figure of Enoch was inspired during the Babylonian Captivity by Enmeduranki, the seventh and last antediluvian king of Sumer, but does not say why. In another article (from which this one seems to be a condensation given the repetition of ideas and language—yet a third article, with much more detail on the Watchers as astrological symbols, is here), she had previously made the same assertion but never quite describes the usual case others have proposed: Enmeduranki was the seventh king on the Sumerian king list, as Enoch was the seventh patriarch. Enmeduranki was associated with the sun-city of Sippar, while Enoch lived 365 years, one for each day of the solar year. Enmeduranki and Enoch were both taken up to heaven, and were shown books of knowledge, particularly astrological knowledge. Her earlier article was actually much more what I was hoping to see—a more detailed discussion of how the Enochian tradition, particularly the Book of Giants, reflects a Jewish re-interpretation of Mesopotamian source material, particularly the underworld divinity of Gilgamesh, who appears as an evil character in the Book of Giants. However, both articles have a very notable lack of primary Mesopotamian sources even when discussing Mesopotamian characters and motifs.

Anyway, Fröhlich sees the Watchers as parallel to the Seven Sages of Mesopotamian lore, best known today from Berosus’ late version where they appear as the civilizing fish-men led by Oannes, in combination with various Mesopotamian demons.

But here the primary focus isn’t on the transmission of myth (which, indeed, she takes to be a given) but rather on concepts of ritual purity, her primary research interest. Thus, the majority of her article (in both versions) is devoted to exploring how the Jews interpreted purification and how various magical arts lead to impurity. In so doing, she reduces the question of the Watchers to a series of propositions stated more definitively than I would like, since many of these questions are still open. She says in the main text that the Watchers of 1 Enoch and Jubilees are not an attempt to amplify the narrative of Genesis 6:1-4 but rather that the Genesis account is an independent tradition from the same background, even though the extant texts of both 1 Enoch and Jubilees use the language of Genesis 6:1-2 to introduce the story. (Her end notes contain more nuanced discussion.) It’s possible, of course, that both derive from an older version of Genesis, before the final redaction. Others, like Józef Milik and Matthew Black, hold that the Genesis tale at 6:1-4 was inserted into Genesis in response to 1 Enoch. But I think I would probably agree with scholars like Pierluigi Piovanelli, who wrote in 2007 that the Enoch narrative presupposes and requires familiarity with Genesis, and the two need to be seen as in intertextual conversation.

Because Fröhlich believes the two narratives are distinct, she sees no reason to try to situate the Enochian Watchers within a broader Near Eastern context. Had she viewed them as related, she might have explored the concept of the Sons of God in terms of its Near Eastern parallels—and not just Mesopotamian ones. For example, the Sons of God (bene ha’elohim) might be cognate with or parallel to the Ugaritic godly council, the bn ’il the sons of El, the chief god. These beings’ children, the Nephilim or giants, are described as the heroes of old, the men of renown (Gen. 6:4), and the Book of Giants places the hero Gilgamesh among them. I expected to see Fröhlich touch on the widespread mythology of the semi-divine hero, the powerful human born of a god and a human mother, found across the Near East. This would seem to be relevant to understanding the concept of the divine birth of ancient heroes, but because it does not fit easily into a narrative of ritual purity, it does not enter into Fröhlich’s discussion.

A more helpful title for her article might have been “Reflections of Mesopotamian Ritual Practice in Enochian Purity Narratives.” It would also have been nice if the editors’ introduction hadn’t set up expectations that the article would discuss the wider Mesopotamian origin of the Watchers story rather than just ritual purity.

There are elements in Fröhlich’s article that are really interesting, but I had hoped to learn about how Mesopotamian myths influenced the Jewish legend of fallen angels and their giant offspring. Instead, I read a discussion of Jewish purity beliefs and how they might reflect Jewish disapproval of Mesopotamian magical practices. While interesting on its own terms, it tells us rather little about the actual origin of the idea of the Sons of God or their semi-divine offspring. After all, the condemnation of Babylonian magic could have been inserted during the Babylonian period into a preexisting myth.

That this might be the case shows up in Fröhlich’s earlier work on astrology in the three books of Enoch. She showed that the rebel angels in 1 Enoch reappear in 3 Enoch as guardians of the sky, that is to say, as astrological agents akin to their Mesopotamian counterparts, the gods and spirits that inhabit the stars, the planets, and the gates in the sky that keep them running in order. Marduk, as Nibiru-Jupiter, the ruling star, is foremost among them. She concluded that the myth of the fallen angels was a revision of an astrological description that associated stars with spirits, and thus, if we might expand on her thoughts a bit, the passage of some constellations below the horizon during the year (or perhaps over longer periods due to axial precession) might suggest a myth that some star-angels had “fallen” into the underworld. This I find very interesting, and it’s a shame that she stops her analysis before quite explaining how this would have worked. From another writer, Kelley Coblentz Bautch, I learn that the Seven Stars of 1 Enoch 18 were quite possibly the Pleiades, which were also associated in Mesopotamia with the underworld god Enmesharra’s rebellious sons. Marduk captured Enmesharra and his sons and bound them to the Pleiades, just as the Seven Stars in 1 Enoch 21:6 are bound. Coblentz Bautch offers full references to Mesopotamian texts to support her argument.

All of this is even more interesting and another suggestion of a deep connection between the Enochian Watchers and the gods and monsters of Mesopotamia.

Oh, and selfishly: All of this supports my new book Jason and the Argonauts through the Ages, where I discuss the Near Eastern idea of the gate of the underworld on the eastern horizon and its association with the place where the sun rises. Kelley Coblentz Bautch notes that this is the place where witches were imprisoned in Mesopotamian myth, and that’s exactly where we find the witch Medea, at the land of Aea-Colchis in the farthest east, where the sun emerges at the dawn.

I probably won’t be reading every chapter of The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Tradition, but I do plan to at least review the chapter on the Watchers and Greek mythology. That one should be fun!

21 Comments
KIF
3/22/2014 08:17:29 am

The book of Enoch containing the Book of the Watchers (the oldest part) dates from around 300 BC. About 332 BC Jerusalem was occupied by Alexander The Great. The beginning of the Greek domination of the Jews.

Reply
Only Me
3/22/2014 09:31:38 am

Jason, just to clarify your thought process, are you suggesting that some material in the Old Testament comes from older myth and traditions that were adopted and reinterpreted before being included in early Christian texts? This would imply a religious evolution, where older beliefs were selectively included into the earliest framework of Christianity. This would also support the suggestion that early Christian missionaries, seeking to convert others, would assimilate their myths and traditions and redefine them within a Christian context, to aid in the conversion.

I'm wondering how much material in early Christian texts was independently and uniquely Christian. Perhaps this may have influenced the decision to include certain works that make up the Bible as we recognize it today.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
3/22/2014 10:14:29 am

From what I've read, my thought would be that there were similar traditions across the Near East and that the process of creating monotheism involved editing and rewriting older theologies and cosmologies in light of the new beliefs. This would have been on the part of the Jews, not the Christians. The Christians, though, took the material they derived from Jewish sources in a different direction. As Tertullian explained in "On the Apparel of Women" (ch. 3), the Jews rejected 1 Enoch because they doubted any books survived the Flood, while the Christians accepted it (at the time he wrote) because they believed Noah would have kept his grandfather's papers with him on the Ark. In other words, the texts were always being reused and reinterpreted down to the time they were collected in more-or-less official compendia. There's actually a new book out about that now called "How the Bible Became Holy" by Michael L. Satlow (Yale, 2014) that discusses the slow process of writing, editing, and compiling the Bible.

Reply
Mandalore
3/22/2014 04:22:29 pm

The Old Testament was already set before the rise of Christianity with the Septuagent. The Roman Catholic Church includes some extra books in the Old Testament but they are rejected as scripture by Judaism and other Christian sects. The books of the Old Testament were compiled over the course of nearly a thousand years. Plus, Christianity started as a Jewish sect.

Reply
KIF
3/22/2014 10:28:49 am

But it was the Jews who composed the Book of Enoch and other books similar to it, It wasn't included because it was written when the canon of the Old Testament was closed.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
3/22/2014 10:36:18 am

I'm not an expert in rabbinic Judaism, but the Book of Watchers section of 1 Enoch dates from c. 300 BCE, which would be after the proposed dates for the canonization of the Pentateuch (c. 400 BCE) but before the canonization of the prophetic writings (c. 200 BCE). However, if you follow the arguments given by the authors in the blog post, the texts weren't fixed until sometime after 1 Enoch had been written. Tertullian, though, was writing propaganda, so I wouldn't take his claim literally, but rather as evidence that the Jews and Christians differed on the value of some of the texts.

Reply
daniel
3/23/2014 07:35:17 am

Well, strictly speaking, the rabbinic Jewish canon wasn't fully and finally formalised until the 2nd century CE - and this is why there's a divergence between the LXX of the Alexandrian hellenistic Jewish community, as adopted by the early church, and the Masoretic Old Testament ( we'll ignore the Samaritan canon ). When the text of the books becomes stabilised is a separate question to when the book becomes canonised as authentic scripture.

The last book of the Old Testament, as defined by the Rabbis, was Daniel, which appears as part of the Ketubi'im ( writings ), and is not strictly speaking one of the prophetic books, written in the wake of the Maccabean uprising in the 2nd century BCE - later than the composition of works like the earliest parts of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. But then again, if you were an Ethiopian Jew, you'd have considered both Enoch and Jubilees to be unimpeachably canonical. Who's canon is it anyway?

History has a habit of making a mockery of static or frozen textual traditions - hence the reality that Judaism ( and subsequently Christianity and Islam ) never stopped producing writings, or was ever able to authoritatively "close" the interpretive door.

KIF
3/22/2014 10:48:06 am

The Book of Enoch tells the story how sin was introduced to the world through The Watchers, hence the book's importance to later Christianity and its ultimate rejection by Judaism.

Reply
KIF
3/22/2014 11:22:23 am

Annette Yoshiko Reed, "Fallen Angels and The History of Judaism and Christianity" (Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Reply
Dave Lewis
3/22/2014 02:59:16 pm

In his book "Beyond the Essene Hypothesis - The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (1998)" Gabriele Boccaccini sees the Enochian writings as a challenge to the normative Zadokite priesthood.

"The Zadokite priests,who controlled the temple up to the Maccabean period, claimed to be the custodians of the good and uncorrupted order created by God. "The high priest... and his priestly kinsmen served as the human community that established and maintained connection between the various orders of being. Their labor in the temple preserved all other orders of being from collapse. Upon them, the people of Israel, the land of Israel, and, ultimately, the entire cosmos and its population all depended."

It was incumbent on the priests to be morally irreproachable
and "to distinguish between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean" (Lev10:10).

The ideology of the authors of the Enoch documents directly opposed that of the Zadokites. The catalyst was a particular concept of the origin of evil that portrayed a group of rebellious angels as ultimately responsible for the spread of evil and impurity on earth.

The myth of the fallen angels was not merely a bizarre or folkloric expansion of ancient legends; it disrupted the very foundations of Zadokite Judaism. Enochic Judaism directly challenged the legitimacy of the second temple and its priesthood.

The Enochians completely ignore the Mosaic torah and the Jerusalem temple, that is, the two tenets of the order of the universe. In addition, the attribution to Enoch of priestly characteristics suggests the existence of a pure prediluvian, and prefall priesthood and disrupts the foundations of the Zadokite
priesthood, which claimed its origin in Aaron at the time of the exodus, in an age that, for the Enochians, was already corrupted after the angelic sin and the flood.

Reply
KIF
3/23/2014 12:18:48 am

The splits within Judaism began with the Book of Daniel and the Son of Man theology that ultimately led to the origins of and the development of Christianity

Reply
KIF
3/23/2014 12:26:55 am

The Son of Man is referenced in I Enoch Chapter 46

Opinions and theories change with the passage of time and I Enoch was once regarded as having been composed when the canon of the Old Testament was closed, hence inter-testamental literature

Gunn
3/23/2014 04:56:50 am

Compared to now, very few people existed on Earth several thousand years ago...in Old Testament days. I read somewhere that most of the people born on Earth are living today. Is this true?

This may be the reason God's Word, the Bible, was divinely orchestrated into a final version, acceptable by God for today, as we prepare to enter into the End Days.

God's living Word to us sometimes seems to be as unfathomable as It is infallible. We need to suck it up, and get with the program....

Who are we to question our Creator? You over there! Yes, YOU, that lumpy blob of clay. What will you demand of the Potter? Clearer instructions on how to be a lump of clay?

We who have heard the Word will be without excuse. Those who hear It repeatedly and reject God's plan will become hard-hearted. They will perish. The skeptics will perish. Those who parse God's Word without accepting His plan will perish. It is vanity to consider God's Word without receiving His message of salvation.

Reply
R. J. Mason
3/23/2014 05:33:01 am

So easy to become a follower...

Reply
Mandalore
3/23/2014 06:02:24 am

Compared to now, there were far fewer people alive in the ancient world.

That is why the gods revealed their divine plan to the world through revelation of sacrificial livers, augury, and oracles.

The divine word of Jupiter and the rest of the Capitoline Triad is unfathomable and must be accepted. . .

Who are we to question the gods, our creators? Will we as men of the Iron Race question how to be better iron?

We who have known the will of the gods for the last three thousand years are without excuse. We must spread the word to those who follow new fad religions that are only a couple of thousand years old. Otherwise the Pax Deorum will be destroyed and not only will all those who break the Pax perish, but so too will our society and state as a whole. It is sheer vanity to see the mighty works of Jupiter and the other gods and reject it.

-----------------

Perhaps we should keep in mind that Christianity is not the only religious system that has claims to legitimacy and faith. If you wish to preach the word of God, there are more appropriate places.

Reply
Johnny Jee
3/23/2014 06:28:22 am

We question the gods because we are human beings, not sheep

J.A.D
3/23/2014 06:48:55 am

sometimes the "sheeple people" lead a peasant's revolt

Johnny Jee
3/23/2014 10:08:25 am

Then the sheep became cabbages

Dave Lewis link
3/23/2014 01:43:58 pm

Gunn can't help preaching here. When he reads anything here that contradicts his Christian world view, he experiences cognitive dissonance and has to defend his beliefs. He is really saying, "here's what I believe and I need to confirm it." The problem is that his "I'm right and you are going to Hell" attitude is offensive to lots of folks. Gunn may dispute this.

I experience this situation when I used to be a Christian. I decided that I wanted to learn all I could about the Bible. My studies over a number of years led me to become an agnostic.

J.A.D
3/23/2014 06:46:43 am

By all means take things back to the interface between
the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Egypt battles the Sea
People and then the Hittites for control of the region. If you
leap ahead past RAMSES to his descendant the "Silver
Pharaoh, Canaan and/or Palestine are colonies, GOTO
PBS's Secrets of the Dead. if each colony inside each
city-state has a governing council answerable to a foreign
despot, then religious offerings are a form of tribute. GOTO
the BOOK OF DANIEL and the statue that indicates empires.

Reply
Rich Faussette link
10/21/2016 09:05:34 pm

https://www.academia.edu/9965748/The_Biblical_Significance_of_the_Sons_of_the_Gods_and_the_Daughters_of_Men

https://www.academia.edu/10690071/The_Biblical_Significance_of_Sodom_and_Gomorrah

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