The Original Nephilim were 450 Feet Tall

[Volkaitis]

    "For it was on account of these three things [fornication, uncleanness, and injustice - see Jubilees 7:20] that the flood was on the earth, since (it was) due to fornication that the Watchers had illicit intercourse - apart from the mandate of their authority - with women. When they married of them whomever they chose they committed the first (acts) of uncleanness. They fathered (as their) sons the Nephilim. - Jubilees 7:21-22

In Jubilees, Mastema is the chief of the spirits. As God commanded the angels to bind all the evil spirits, Mastema came and asked the Lord that some of the spirits might be allowed to remain with him to do his will. God granted his request and allowed one tenth of the spirits to remain with Mastema, while the other nine parts would be condemned.

[Volkaitis]

"When Mastema, the leader of the spirits, came, he said: 'Lord creator, leave some of them before me; let them listen to me and do everything that I tell them, because if none of them is left for me I shall not be able to exercise the authority of my will aong mankind. For they are meant for (the purposes of) destroying and misleading before my punishment because the evil of mankind is great.' Then he said that a tenth of them should be left before him, while he would make nine parts descend to the place of judgment." - Jubilees 10:8-9

[Volkaitis]

Watchers in 2 Enoch
2 Enoch also mentions a group of angels called the Grigori, who are similar to the Watchers. Their prince is called Satanail. A difference in this account as compared with the two previous accounts is that only 3 angels came down to earth to take wives and beget giants.

    "These are the Grigori, who with their prince Satanail rejected the Lord of light, and after them are those who are held in great darkness on the second heaven, and three of them went down on earth to the place Ermon, and broke through their vows on the shoulder of the hill Ermon and saw the daughters of men how good they are, and took to themselves wives, and befouled the earth with their deeds, who in all times of their age made lawlessness and mixing, and giants are born and marvellous big men and great enmity. And therefore God judged them with great judgment, and they weep for their brethren and they will be punished on the Lord's great day." - 2 Enoch 18:3-4

[Volkaitis]

Watchers in Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
In the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the fall of the angels is mentioned twice. One is only a brief reference stating that the Watchers "changed the order of their nature." (Naphtali 3:5) The second is in Reuben, where he accuses womankind of seeking to ensnare men.

    "Thus they allured the Watchers before the Flood, for as these continually beheld them, they lusted after them and conceived the act in their mind; for they changed themselves unto the shape of men and appeared to them when they were with their husbands; and the women, lusting in their minds after their forms, gave birth to giants, for the Watchers appeared to them as reaching up to heaven." (Reuben 5)

[Volkaitis]

In this account, the writer denies that there was a physical union between the angels and mortal women. He says that the real fathers of the giants were humans, but the giants were conceived from the mutal passion from angels and women.

[Volkaitis]

Flavius Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews
Flavius Josephus,a Palestinian, wrote his Antiquities of the Jews to educate the Roman-Hellenistic world about Judaism and the Jews. In it, he recounts the tale of the Watchers as follows:

    For many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength; for the tradition is, that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants. But Noah was very uneasy at what they did; and being displeased at their conduct, persuaded them to change their dispositions and their acts for the better: but seeing they did not yield to him, but were slaves to their wicked pleasures, he was afraid they would kill him, together with his wife and children, and those they had married; so he departed out of that land. - 1.72-75

[Volkaitis]

According to Josephus, the union between the fallen angels and human women produced a race of giants, which in antiquity were called Nephilim..

http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/articleview.asp?Post=192

[Volkaitis]

Philo's Commentary on Genesis 6
Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C.E.-50 C.E.) wrote a commentary of Genesis 6 called Concerning the Giants. In it, he emphasized that the passage was not a myth.

    "And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, they took unto themselves wives of all of them whom they Chose."{#ge 6:2.} Those beings, whom other philosophers call demons, Moses usually calls angels; and they are souls hovering in the air. And let no one suppose, that what is here stated is a fable, for it is necessarily true that the universe must be filled with living things in all its parts, since every one of its primary and elementary portions contains its appropriate animals and such as are consistent with its nature; --the earth containing terrestrial animals, the sea and the rivers containing aquatic animals, and the fire such as are born in the fire (but it is said, that such as these last are found chiefly in Macedonia), and the heaven containing the stars: for these also are entire souls pervading the universe, being unadulterated and divine, inasmuch as they move in a circle, which is the kind of motion most akin to the mind, for every one of them is the parent mind. It is therefore necessary that the air also should be full of living beings. And these beings are invisible to us, inasmuch as the air itself is not visible to mortal sight. (But it does not follow, because our sight is incapable of perceiving the forms of souls, that for that reason there are no souls in the air; but it follows of necessity that they must be comprehended by the mind, in order that like may be contemplated by like.
    - Philo, On the Giants II: 6-9

[Volkaitis]

Names and Misdeeds of the Watchers
Names and Misdeeds of the Fallen Angels (aka the Five Satans) in 1 Enoch 69:4-12. (1 Enoch gives other lists of the names of the fallen angels as well.) This passage is odd because it mentions angels that are not mentioned elsewhere.

   1. Yeqon - "one who misled all the children of the angels, brought them down upon the earth, and perverted them by the daughters of the people"

[Volkaitis]

Names and Misdeeds of the Fallen Angels (aka the Five Satans) in 1 Enoch 69:4-12. (1 Enoch gives other lists of the names of the fallen angels as well.) This passage is odd because it mentions angels that are not mentioned elsewhere.

   1. Yeqon - "one who misled all the children of the angels, brought them down upon the earth, and perverted them by the daughters of the people"
   2. Asb'el - "one who gave the children of the holy angels an evil counsel and misled them so that they would defile their bodies by the daughters of the people"
   3. Gader'el - "he who showed the children of the people all the blows of death, who misled Eve, who showed the children of the people (how to make) the instruments of death (such as) the shield, the breastplate, and the sword for warfare, and all (the other) instruments of death to the children of the people"
   4. Pinem'e - "demonstrated to the children of the people the bitter and the sweet and revealed to them all the secrets of their wisdom. Furthermore he caused the people to penetrate (the secret of) writing and (the use of) ink and paper"
   5. Kasadya - "he who revealed to the children of the people (the various) flagellations of all evil - (the flagellation) of the souls and the demons, the smashing of the embryo in the womb so that it may be crushed, the flagellation of the soul, snake bites, sunstrokes, the son of the serpent, whose name is Taba'ta"

[Volkaitis]

Names of other fallen angels - Semyaz, Aristaqis, Armen, Kokba'el, Tur'el, Rumyal, Danyul, Neqa'el, Baraqel, Azaz'el, Armaros, Betryal, Basas'el, Hanan'el, Tur'el, Sipwese'el, Yeter'el, Tuma'el, Tur'el, Rum'el, and Azaz'el - 1 Enoch 69:2
http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/articleview.asp?Post=192

[Volkaitis]

The Book of Enoch and the Pseudepigrapha
posted by Krista | 12/29/2003 4:44:54 PM | Permalink

Jewish Traditions Not Included In the Bible
The Pseudepigrapha is a collection of various works written approximately between 200 BCE and 100 CE that were left out of the Old Testament. They tend to be written in Hebrew or Aramaic or occasionally Greek, and tend to be attributed to well known biblical heroes like Abraham, Moses, and Noah. Some of these books were included in Greek manuscripts of the bible, and those extra books became known as the Apocrypha and are still included in Catholic bibles.

[Volkaitis]

Note, in ancient times, they were not distributed together as one collection called the Pseudepigrapha. That's just a term that scholars use today to classify this body of literature. Also note that while Catholics hold the Apocrypha to be part of the canonical scriptures, Jews give them a similar weight/influence as other non-canonical texts in the Pseudepigrapha like the Book of Enoch - ie very little other than legends. This is because the stories often deviate from the mainstream beliefs of the various prominent Jewish sects of the time.

Ethiopic Enoch (what we know as the Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch)
Originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic (which we have from the Dead Sea Scrolls), this book describes the revelations of Enoch, who according to Genesis lived 365 years and then 'walked with God and was not, for God took him.' (Gen 5:18-24) The text itself, is made up of several stories that seem to be put together piecemeal and jump around.

[Volkaitis]

1 Enoch describes a number of issues including the fall of the watchers, the end of days, the Messiah, punishment of the wicked while the righteous will be rewarded, etc. Its main purpose for telling the story of the watchers seems to be to recount how moral evil came into the world. By engaging in the sinful/evil act of sexual relations with humans, the angels defiled their own pure nature. To make matters worse, they taught their wives forbidden secrets of beautification, war, magic, the workings of the universe, and other immoral practices. Later, Enoch becomes the intermediary between the captured Azazel, who will now never know peace and must watch his children die, and God. Azazel asks Enoch to read a petition for forgiveness, but God refuses due to the magnitude of the crime they committed. Interestingly, the story also mentions how when the giants were slaughtered, evil spirits emerged from their bodies and were condemned to roam about until the final judgment.

This now accounts for how we have evil in the world. While the fallen angels were punished, the giants were slaughtered and mankind was wiped out with Noah's Flood, this condemning sin did not go away because these evil spirits, who were unable to be drowned or killed, still roamed the earth.

Reference

    * Bamberger, Bernard. Fallen Angels: The Soldiers of Satan's Realm. Jewish Publication Society. ISBN: 1-56618-850-X, 1952. Republished by Barnes & Noble Books in 1995.
    * Collins, J.J. The Apocalyptic Imagination, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; Revised edition (April 1998)


http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/articleview.asp?Post=36

[Volkaitis]

Fallen Angels
posted by Krista | 12/29/2003 2:00:22 PM | Permalink | StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble It!
The story of a rebel force that defies a Deity has been a topic of great fascination for authors and poets for millennia. There are para-biblical stories about how angels defied God to sleep with mortal women and bear children. John Milton creates a vivid mythos around Satan as a tragic character. Greek poets speak of Prometheus who defied Zeus and was condemned to eternal torment in a similar fashion.