Every claim on this site comes from a credible source, and the source is always shown so you can check it yourself. How we check
Credible Theories Surprise me
Enoch, Jubilees and others · 1 Enoch 6:1–8

Two hundred descend on Mount Hermon

EvidenceDocumentedThe text exists and is quoted from a published translation. What it describes is a separate question.What this means
Reference1 Enoch 6:1–8
WrittenBook of the Watchers, c. 300–200 BCE
SetDays of Jared, before the Flood
And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.'… And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon.

Translation: R. H. Charles, 1917

Read it literally

A named landing site (Hermon, 9,200 ft, on today's Syria–Lebanon–Israel border), a number, a leader (Semjaza), twenty named officers, and a binding oath so nobody backs out. Hermon comes from herem, 'ban' or 'curse'.

What scholars say

Aramaic fragments at Qumran; the full text survives only in Ge'ez (Ethiopic). Canon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

From the sky Giants and hybrids
People and places hereJaredQumran

Quick answers about 1 Enoch 6:1–8

Where is 1 Enoch 6:1–8 found?

1 Enoch 6:1–8 (Enoch, Jubilees and others). Translation quoted: R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch (SPCK, 1917; first ed. 1912).

When was 1 Enoch 6:1–8 written?

Book of the Watchers, c. 300–200 BCE.

What do scholars say about 1 Enoch 6:1–8?

Aramaic fragments at Qumran; the full text survives only in Ge'ez (Ethiopic). Canon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Rabbit holes in this passage

PlaceMount HermonThe story says two hundred angels landed on this mountain and swore an oath, and that the peak got its name from that very oath. In Hebrew, Hermon sounds like a word for a ban or curse. It is a real snowy summit that feeds the Jordan River. Did the legend explain the name, or the name the legend?BeingSemjaza (Shemihazah)Before two hundred angels came down to take human wives, their leader got cold feet. He feared he alone would pay for the sin, so the others swore an oath to bind themselves together. One medieval retelling says he later hung himself upside down between heaven and earth, and still hangs there. This is the page about him.

Sources

  1. R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch (SPCK, 1917; first ed. 1912)Primary text
  2. 1 Enoch 6:6, trans. R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch (1917)Primary text
  3. 1 Enoch 6:3–5; 8:3; 10:11–12, trans. R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch (1917)Primary text

Scholarly dates are rounded. The wording follows the named public-domain translation.

Updated