By the Gods!
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Enoch and the Watchers: Part Two
Even though the Watchers, with their angelic know-how, taught their human charges a great deal–-they showed them how to make weapons, cosmetics, mirrors, and to use sorcery—God couldn’t abide the existence of the Nephilim, fruit of those who’d betrayed his trust and fled from his service. Semyaza, the leader of the Watchers, earned a great deal of God’s wrath by being the principal tutor of humanity in ways that were beyond them at the time, and by inciting the Watchers to rebel in the first place.
God decided that the Watchers and the Nephilim had to be taken care of. With his buddy, Enoch, acting as chief administrator, he organized a worldwide flood, that would end all life on Earth, thus washing clean the perceived stain of the Nephilim with the rest of humanity. This was put into effect in the time of Noah, the great-grandson of Enoch, and from there the familiar deluge story of Genesis would kick in.
It’s a sad story, in a lot of ways. The great crime of the Watchers was caring too deeply for the humans, those they were charged to care for. The book sets the familiar tone of raising the idea of humanity, with all its faults, as the greatest gift that heaven could bestow; even the immortal, ancient, powerful angels envied the lives of humans, and for that envy, their children were washed away, and the Watchers themselves were bound in the valleys of the earth, to wait there until Judgment Day.
Enoch and the Watchers: Part One
Christian/Jewish scripture rarely maintains a consensus, and when it comes to angels, everything’s up in the air. When we talk about the Watchers, we’re delving deep into Christian and Jewish apocrypha— specifically, the Book of Enoch. The writings attributed to Enoch were seen as real scripture by many Christian authorities writing in the first and second centuries CE, and may have been similarly important to Jewish groups about this time. However, the Book of Enoch was removed from canon in the years to come, except for in the Ethiopian Christian Church, where it remained a fundamental part of scripture.
Now, Enoch was the great-grandfather of Noah, and was elected by God as his all-around favourite guy, and was essentially named “greatest dude on the planet.” He was plucked from the mortal world, and raised to the level of Metatron: in some canon, he is seen as the voice of god, and was “promoted” to angelhood. He was also seen as the inventor of reading and writing, and was in charge of doing all of the big guy’s dirty work on Earth— like dealing with those pesky rebel Watchers.
The Watchers, y’see, were a group of angels who had been charged with watching over humanity. They just watched a little too closely, if you catch my meaning; they became deeply enamoured with the lives of men, and with the lovely wiggle ‘n shake of human women. They gave up their duties, descended down to Earth, and began to procreate with undoubtedly surprised people. The result of this interesting and as yet unseen union were the Nephilim— in the book of Genesis, they were described as “warriors of renown,” which you’d expect from Angelic stock. In the Book of Enoch, however, they were giants that would bring ruin on the world, and were the cause of everything bad.
Adam
According to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, Adam was the first man. In the book of Genesis, God (Yahweh, as his friends know him) made him from dust and gave him a beautiful garden in which to live ‘n play. Everything in the garden belonged to Adam, except for the fruit of one tree. That one tree. Together, with his consort Eve (created c/o Yahweh and one of Adam’s ribs) Adam ate the forbidden fruit from the tree. Now, this tree just happened to be the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the original duo lost their innocence. They were cast out of the garden, and had to work to survive. They were thusly made the first man and woman, toughin’ it out in the real world.
According to the Jewish mystical system known as the Kabbalah, Adam both symbolized and embraced cosmic perfection. With Adam’s fall, the material world was created and the light of his divine nature was broken up into countless minute sparks, which are the lights that illuminate human souls. At the end of time, they will be reunited into perfection once more.
Adam was the progenitor of everybody, according to Jewish, Islamic, and Christian tradition. He lived to the ripe old age of 930, a number that would slowly decline as the generations flew by. In Islam he is seen as the first prophet, and in Christianity he’s the guy that brought about original sin. In Judaism, even though he’s #1 chronologically, Abraham is seen more as the father/founder of the Hebrew people. It’s not just about being first. It’s about wanting it more.
Moloch
The Ammoonite god to whom human sacrifices were made in the times of the Old Testament was known as Moloch. The Ammonites occupied the southern part of modern Jordan, and were said to be descended from Lot, the nephew of Abraham. Moloch was described in the Hebrew Bible as the “abomination of the children of Ammon.”
Moloch is often depicted as an animal idol, usually a bull, sometimes with the body of a man. He was regarded as one of the many false deities before Yahweh, and was yet another reason why the Israelites were so angry and belligerent with all of their neighbouring tribes. Moloch’s thing, if he had a thing, was sacrifice. He loved himself some sacrifice.
Many Israelites (supposedly before the separation of Lot’s people) are believed to have consecrated their children to Moloch by chicken’ ‘em into the fire. Moloch liked his sacrifices extra crispy. There is some disagreement on Moloch’s true form, as some believe the name “Moloch” to refer to the ritual of sacrifice itself, or to the Ammonite king, regarded as the son of a divine power, “son of Moloch,” or “Moloch.” Other research suggests that Moloch may have been the god Baal-Hammon who was worshipped at Tyre and Carthage.
Abraham
Abraham, whose name means “Father of a Multitude,” is a major character in the Old Testament, and is referred to by the oldest sources simply as “the Hebrew.” The Bible states that Abraham (originally named Abram) was the tenth generation from Noah, and the twentieth generation from Adam. He was sent to Canaan, the land promised to the Israelites by Yahweh. It was Abraham who began the covenant with Yahweh, granting Abraham and his descendants ownership of the land in exchange for recognition of Yahweh as their only god.
He was a devoted guy, to be sure. When Yahweh told him to take Isaac, his son, up a mountain and sacrifice him, he didn’t hesitate. It turned out to be one of those “I just wanted to see if you’d actually do it” situations, and Isaac was saved at the last second by divine intervention.
He was the first of the three great patriarchs, his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob being the other two. Abraham was said to live around 2,000-1,800 BCE, and his importance in relation to Yahweh is such that Islam, Christianity and Judaism are all referred to as the “Abrahamic religions.” In Islam, Abraham is known as “Friend of God,” and is regarded as the propagator of the original pure monotheism, which was restored and perfected by the prophet Muhammad. Muhammad, in turn, was said to be a descendant of Abraham, through the line of his other son, Ishmael.
Lilith in Judaism
In Hebrew mythology Lilith is believed to be a creature that is essentially a succubus, in that she seduces men and eats children. Her origins are scattered and varied, and while her presence in the Hebrew Bible itself is minimal, (perhaps nonexistent) additional writings in Judeo-Christian folklore have credited her with involvement in significant events in the Hebrew Bible.
According to Hebrew legend Lilith was the first woman to be created, at the same time as Adam (according to the Talmud). She may have been his first wife and refused to lay with him, she may have been a woman who left Eden and then became a demon, she may have been a demon in the first place, or she may have been a fallen Cherubim. With all these theories flying about, who really knows? She is charged with tricking Eve into eating the infamous apple, and thus convincing Adam to do the same, so obviously Yahweh isn’t a big fan of her. Her only real mention in the Hebrew Bible, however, comes in Isaiah, a book of prophecy, and refers to a screech owl that some believe to be Lilith, as the owl was her sacred animal. Regardless of what we can actually pin on her, though, she’s definitely a big deal. She originated in Sumerian mythology as a goddess of desolation, and appears in Babylonian, Greek, and Arab myths, and is utilized in modern Luciferian and Wiccan practices.
Tower of Babel
According to the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, the Tower of Babel was an enormous structure erected in the city of Babylon after the Great Flood. Humanity was completely centralized and united in the generation following the flood, and they all spoke the same language. The people decided that their city needed a monument, a testament to its glory: they would build a tower so tall that it would have its top in the heavens.
Yahweh, as we know, was a jealous god. He had a bit of a complex, you could say, and needed constant assurance that people loved him and knew that he was #1. The problem with the whole “Tower of Babel” plan was that it wasn’t built in worship and praise of Yahweh, but was instead dedicated to the glory of man. The Hebrew Bible is full of this stuff, and the people never seem to learn! Why can’t you just get it through your heads that Yahweh’s gonna mess you up when you’re all “look how great we are,” huh?
Yahweh, displeased with the builders’ intent, came down and confused their languages and scattered the people throughout the earth. The story provides aetiological context for the difference in human populations, both in terms of language and region, and is one of many examples of Yahweh getting his feelings hurt.
Behemoth
The Behemoth originated in Jewish myth, and was a huge creature that resided on land, unlike his aquatic counterpart, the Leviathan. God (Yahweh) created him on the fifth day as the prime, unconquerable monster of the land.
The book of Job describes Behemoth as a gigantic grazing beast, and states that no one could ever slay him, for only “his maker can draw his sword against him.” The Behemoth was incredibly strong “in the loins and in his belly” and “his bones [are strong] like a load of iron.”
A popular theory is that the Behemoth, Leviathan and Ziz were dinosaurs. This leads us to question if archaeologists in the time of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible knew of the extinct creatures way back then. It also leads to the super-rad question, “Did Jesus ride a dinosaur?” We can only hope for either to be true.
Yahweh
Yahweh is the personal name of the god of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible. The name “Yahweh” is a modern scholarly convention, as rendered in Roman letters it is simply “YHWH.” There is no conclusive meaning for the name among scholars, but most likely it’s something along the lines of “He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists.”
The Hebrew Bible describes Yahweh as the one true God who delivered Israel from Egypt and, through Moses, issued the Ten Commandments. Yahweh revealed himself as a jealous god to the Israelites, who would not suffer any rivals, forbidding the worship of idols or gods of other nations. It was to be a strictly monogamous human-deity relationship. Many of the religions in the surrounding area around roughly this time (mid-2nd millennia BCE) were polytheistic, but another major with Yahweh was his requirement of real faith. All worshippers were expected to believe in and recognize their respective gods, the Israelites were told “you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
Other gods demanded sacrifice and recognition, but you never would’ve been asked by, say, a Greek priest: “Have you accepted Lord Poseidon into your heart?”
Leviathan.
Leviathan is derived from Judaisim, and is a massive sea-serpent that terrorizes the Mediterranean sea, thought by some to be a gate keeper of hell/the underworld. He is said to be three hundred miles long, and able to breath extremely hot air, or fire. Leviathan is extremely smelly, and his body has an illuminating power that blinds sailors in the night.
The Jewish midrash states that a male and female Leviathan were created on the fifth day, but God knew that the world would be destroyed if they kept breeding, so he smote the female and left the male to wander the seas alone forever. Well, not entirely alone, as it says in the Talmud that God spends about 3 hours a day with “the Leviathan which [God has] created to play with”
This post is dedicated to my ex-fish, Leviathan Petey Ippen, 2003-2005. Rest in peace, bud.
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