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Enoch, Jubilees and others · 1 Enoch 8:1–3

What Azazel taught

EvidenceDocumentedThe text exists and is quoted from a published translation. What it describes is a separate question.What this means
Reference1 Enoch 8:1–3
Writtenc. 300–200 BCE
SetBefore the Flood
And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them… Baraqijal taught astrology, Kokabel the constellations… and Sariel the course of the moon.

Translation: R. H. Charles, 1917

Read it literally

A tech-transfer list: metallurgy, weapons, cosmetics, dyes, drugs and root-cutting (Semjaza), astronomy. Each named Watcher had a specialty.

What scholars say

Reflects Greek-era worries about foreign knowledge; compare Prometheus.

Looks like technology From the sky

Quick answers about 1 Enoch 8:1–3

Where is 1 Enoch 8:1–3 found?

1 Enoch 8:1–3 (Enoch, Jubilees and others). Translation quoted: R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch (SPCK, 1917; first ed. 1912).

When was 1 Enoch 8:1–3 written?

c. 300–200 BCE.

What do scholars say about 1 Enoch 8:1–3?

Reflects Greek-era worries about foreign knowledge; compare Prometheus.

Rabbit holes in this passage

BeingAzazelA strange word in an ancient ritual tells priests to send one goat into the wilderness "for Azazel," and the text never says who that is. Centuries later the Enoch writers answered: a fallen Watcher who taught swords, metalwork and makeup, locked in a named desert prison. Did they find a being, or invent one?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 8:1–3; 10:4–8, 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