Giant book

Gigantenbuch or Buch der Gianten is the name for a script that appears in several fragmentary manuscripts from the 1st century BC. BC or the 1st century in the Aramaic language . The fragments were found in various caves in Qumran on the Dead Sea (Siglen 1Q23, 1Q24 (?) 2Q26, 4Q203, 4Q206 f2-f3, 4Q530, 4Q531, 4Q532, 4Q533, 6Q8) in the 1950s.

The text tells of giants ( Hebrew Nephilim , Greek Gigantes ) who lived on earth in mythical prehistoric times. It refers to Gen 6: 1-4 L and the apocryphal Book of Enoch , of which fragments of manuscripts were also found in Qumran. The leaders of the giants Ohja, Hahja and Mahwaj dream of their imminent destruction and ask Enoch for forgiveness of their sins.

The exact content of the text cannot be clearly reconstructed, as the order of the fragments obtained is also unclear. Most of the fragments are now in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem , 1Q23 in the Jordan Museum in Amman .

A book of the giants was also written by Mani , a founder of religion in the 3rd century, but only a few Uighur, Central Iranian and Turkic-speaking fragments have been preserved. It was essentially based on the Book of Giants of Qumran.

In the Decretum Gelasianum , traditionally attributed to Pope Gelasius I (492–496) , which also contains a compilation of canonical and apocryphal texts, a Liber de Ogia nomine gigante qui post diluvium cum dracone ab hereticis pugnasse perhibetur (“ Book about the giant Ogias, of whom the heretics claim that he fought the dragon after the flood ”), which probably meant the book of giants.

literature

Józef T. Milik: The Books of Enoch. Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4. Clarendon, Oxford 1976. ISBN 0-19-826161-6
Loren K. Stuckenbruck: The Book of Giants. Text, Translation and Commentary (= Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism ). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1997. ISBN 3-161-46720-5 .
Géza G. Xeravits, Peter Porzig: Introduction to the Qumran literature. The Dead Sea manuscripts. de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2015, pp. 57–59. ISBN 978-3-11-034975-7

Web links

The Book of Giants with English translation of the text fragments
The Book of Giants on trismegistos.org Overview of 10 manuscript fragments
The Book of Giants on gnosis.org with English translation of the text

Remarks

↑ On the Manichaean Book of Giants, cf. u. a. Walter B. Henning: The Book of Giants, in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11 (1943-46), pp. 52-74; John C. Reeves: Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions. (= Monographs of the Hebrew Union College 14). Cincinnati 1992. ISBN 0-87820-413-X ; Werner Sundermann : Mani's 'Book of the Giants' and the Jewish Books of Enoch: A Case of Terminological Differences and What It Implies, in: Shaul Shaked, Amnon Netzer (Ed.): Irano-Judaica III. Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture throughout the Ages. Jerusalem 1994, pp. 40-48.

[1] On the Manichaean Book of Giants, cf. u. a. Walter B. Henning: The Book of Giants, in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11 (1943-46), pp. 52-74; John C. Reeves: Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions. (= Monographs of the Hebrew Union College 14). Cincinnati 1992. ISBN 0-87820-413-X ; Werner Sundermann : Mani's 'Book of the Giants' and the Jewish Books of Enoch: A Case of Terminological Differences and What It Implies, in: Shaul Shaked, Amnon Netzer (Ed.): Irano-Judaica III. Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture throughout the Ages. Jerusalem 1994, pp. 40-48.