Reintroducing the Myth of the Fallen Angels into Judaism

From, “You Can Call Me Al,” “He looks around, around; He sees angels in the architecture; Spinning in infinity; He says Amen! and Hallelujah!”

I borrow the expression “tawdry lust” from James Kugel How to Read the Bible (New York: Free Press), 71.  See his discussion of this exegetical tradition pp. 70-72.

The collocation “bnei ’elohim” in the Hebrew Bible always unambiguously refers to divine or angelic beings (cf. Ps. 29:1, 89:7 as בני אלים, and in Job 1:6 and 2:1 as בני האלהים, and 38:7 as בני אלהים).  In another passage in Psalms, the term ’elohim is used synonymously with bnei ‘elyon, sons of the Most High “I had taken you for divine beings [’elohim], sons of the Most High [bnei ‘elyon], all of you; but you shall die as men do, fall like any prince” (Ps. 82:6-7).  One might read his passage as a terse paraphrase of the myth on the fallen angels. The term bnei ha-’elohim [בני האלהים], divine beings, is juxtaposed with bnot ha-adam[בנות האדם], the daughters of man (i.e. mortal beings) in the biblical text..

The understanding that the Nephilim refers to giants, ‘anaqim, is an intra-biblical exegetical tradition (cf. Num. 13:33).  The Septuagint (3rd c., BCE), translates both terms,Nephilim (in v. 3) and giborim (v. 4) as hoί gίgantes (“the giants”).  Based on Deut. 3:11, Og, King of Bashan, one of the Rephaim (giants), is conjectured to have survived the Flood (b.Niddah 61a, and various parallels). Similarly, Goliath (the Philistine giant defeated by David), is deemed a descendant of these giants.  See Admiel Kosman, “The Story of a Giant Story – The Winding Way of Og King of Bashan in the Jewish Aggadic Tradition”, in HUCA 73, (2002), 157–190.

Ben Sommer analyzes the biblical material in more depth in his TABS essay, Why are there Demigods in a Monotheistic Torah?

Umberto Cassuto, Commentary on Genesis—Part One, From Adam to Noah (Jerusalem:  Magnes Press), 300.

Corroborated by the use of the term ’elohim in Exod. 21:6, 21:7-8, 27; 1 Sam. 14:17, 20, and 19:28.

אמר יודן טבת כת’ משהיו מטיבים אתה לבעלה היה גדול נכנס ובועלה תחילה

I Enoch (chapters 6-8), T. Reuven (chapter 5), Jubilees 5:1-5, 7:20-24, and 10, Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch) 56:10-16.  See also Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, Book 1, 3:1.

In particular, Jubilees ch. 5 and 1 Enoch, chs. 6 and 8, recount the story of the fallen angels and the genesis of giants. Neil Forsyth suggests that the term “Watchers”, as applied to these angels, is consistent with the image of Satan in the Bible, whose role was to travel about the Earth as the roving “Eye of the King.” Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 166. The term may be traced back to the Aramaic word for the angels in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 4:10, 20, “עיר”, in the plural “עירין”  (v. 14), though James Kugel suggests that the term is connected to the Aramaic ‘ir, meaning awake, “understood as reflecting the fact that the tireless angels never sleep.” James L. Kugel, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now (Free Press, 2007), 703-704.

In Jubilees, the angels’ role as “Watchers” was initially benevolent (Jub. 4:15), until they were seduced by the women (Jub. 5:1-5).

 See my discussion of the genre, dating, and provenance of PRE in Rachel Adelman, The Return of the Repressed: Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer and the Pseudepigrapha (Leiden: Brill 2009), 3–21, 35-42. This article is a condensed version of chapter six, “The Myth of the Fallen Angels,” 109-140.

For other lists and descriptions of the sins of the generation of the Flood, see Gen. Rab. 18:5, 26:5, 36:1, Lev. Rab. 5:1, b. Sanhedrin 58a, b. Yevamot 63b, y. Yevamot 11: 1. 11d, andSifra Qedoshim 10: 11.

See the discussion Guy Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1984), 46-51.

In the Septuagint (LXX on Gen. 4.1), the phrase appears as “I have gained a man through God [dia tou theou]”, the term kuriou (‘the LORD’, i.e. YHWH) is not used.  Either the Greek translation testifies to an alternative version of the Torah, or engages directly in an interpretation, which alluding to Eve’s tryst with the fallen angel (referred to as ’Elohim).

According to this sect of Gnosticism, Cain is genetically corrupt as the offspring of the demiurge and Eve, while Adam’s son, Seth, is the only true offspring of man who is made in the divine image: “he begot a son in his likeness after his image” (Gen. 5:3).  The same tradition is preserved in Targum Ps.Jon. on Gen. 5:1-3.  See the discussion in Stroumsa.Another Seed, 38-53.  On the peculiar form of Sethian Gnosticism, which PRE seems to draw from, see J.D. Turner, “The Gnostic Seth,”, in Biblical Figures Outside the Bible, eds. Michael E. Stone and T. E. Bergren (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International 1998), 33-58.

Based on Seth’s naming in Gen. 4:25, “God has given me another offspring [שת לי זרע אחר],” which the Septuagint translates as: sperma heteron (another seed); or an alternativeseed.

This translation is based on the first printed edition (Constantinople 1514), supplemented with reference to four different manuscripts. For a critical edition of this chapter, see Appendix E of my book, Return of the Repressed, 285-288.

The plain meaning of the verse, in Gen. 5:3, is that Seth (the father of the new line of humanity) is (also) in the image and likeness of God; but PRE implies that the referent (the possession pronoun, “his”) alludes to Adam—Seth (and Abel) were in Adam’s image, while Cain was not!

מבוסס על יחזקאל כ:לח "המורדים והפושעים בי"

In En866 and Ci75, the manuscripts read: “in a lascivious and haughty manner” [בזנותבגובה קומה].  Friedlander’s manuscript resembles Higger’s edition: “who walked with pride in their heart” [בשרירות לבם ובגובה קומתם].  In The Wisdom of Solomon, the sin of the giants is attributed to pride: “Even in the beginning, when the proud race of giants was being brought to an end, the hope of mankind escaped in a raft…” (Wis. 14:6).

Addition from En866 and Ci75.

The First Book of Enoch is a composite of various sources, which date from the second century B.C.E. to the first century C.E.  The myth of the Fallen Angels is found in the composition known as “The Book of Watchers” (chapters 1-36), probably belonging to the earliest strata of this composition.  This piece has been translated from the Ethiopic by E. Isaac (in Charlesworth OTP, 1983 1: 13-29).

Lit. “the children.”

“Semyaza” according to Knibb 1978 2: 67.

Lit. “by it.”

Knibb: “And he showed them the things after these, and the art of making them: bracelets and ornament, and the art of making up the eyes and of beautifying the eyelids…” (Knibb 1978 2: 80-81).

Lit. “and their heights.”  Knibbs suggests “And the world was changed”, see his detailed footnote there (Knibb 1978 2: 81).

Knibb: “Amezarak”, lit. meaning: “toil”, “labour” (ibid.).

Note how the names of the angels are related to the knowledge they teach.  Knibb: “Armaros the release of spells, Baraqiel astrologers, Kokabel portents, and Tamiel taught astrology, and Asradel taught the path of the moon” (ibid.).

Compare to Knibb 1978 2: 79-84.

The Book of Jubilees has been dated to the second century B.C.E.  I used Wintermute’s translation of the Ethiopic, probably based on an original Hebrew text no longer extant, in Charlesworth, OTP 1985 2: 52-142.  The Greek version derives from the Ethiopic.

After the command to bind the Fallen Angels in the depths of the Earth, their children (the giants) were condemned to live for 110 years and began to kill one another until they were wiped out from the Earth., while their parents (i.e. the angels) watched (Jub. 5:7-9, cf. VanderKam 1989: 33).  Perhaps this account provides an alternative etiology for the term “Watchers.”