Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
A Colleague’s Appreciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Nili S. Fox
A Student’s Appreciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Richard S. Hess
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Publications by Dr. Samuel Greengus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Law, Economy, Academia, and Divination in Bronze Age Canaan:
The Value of the Cuneiform Tablets Discovered at Tel Hazor . . . . 1
Stephen J. Andrews
The Holiness Redaction of the Flood Narrative (Gen 6:9–9:29) . . . . . 13
Bill T. Arnold
Isaiah 47 and 54: An Investigation into a Case of Intertextuality . . . . . 41
Bryan E. Beyer
The Tenth Commandment and the Concept of “Inward Liability” . . . 51
Aurelian Botica
The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Jeffrey L. Cooley
Donning the Right Garb: The Egyptian Ritual of “Opening
the Mouth” and the Biblical Regulations in Exodus 28–29 . . . . . . 81
Nancy L. Erickson
Mythologizing Exile: Life, Law, and Justice after the Flood . . . . . . . . 95
Angela Roskop Erisman
The Hebrew Syllable: Definition and Practical Application . . . . . . . .111
Russell Fuller
Neither Slave Nor Free: Children Living on the
Edge of a Social Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
Kristine Henriksen Garroway
The Administration of Copper Tools at Umma
in the Ur III Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139
Charles Halton
v
vi
Contents
Rabbi Joshua Briskin’s Tav Y’hoshua: Yalkut Derekh Ereẓ,
A Handbook for Busy Jews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151
Rabbi Barton Lee
The Changing Face of Victory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161
R. Russell Mack
Zêru, “to Hate” as a Metaphor for Covenant Instability . . . . . . . . . .175
Andrew J. Riley
With Mace in Hand . . . and Praise in Throat: Comparisons and
Contrasts in the Bookends of the Psalter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Tim Undheim
Do Deities Deceive? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201
Ronald A. Veenker
Toward an Ethic of Liberation for Bible Translation:
A Work in Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Steven Voth
Demons in Mesopotamia and Israel: Exploring the Category of
Non-Divine but Supernatural Entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229
John H. Walton
The Literary Structure of Judges Revisited:
Judges as a Ring Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Kenneth C. Way
The Perfect Verb and the Perfect Woman in Proverbs . . . . . . . . . .261
Brian L. Webster
Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Index of Scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .278
Offprint from:
Bill T. Arnold, Nancy L. Erickson, and John H. Walton (ed.),
Windows to the Ancient World of the Hebrew Bible:
Essays in Honor of Samuel Greengus
© Copyright 2014 Eisenbrauns. All rights reserved.
The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh
Jeffrey L. Cooley
Introduction
In 1976, Milik published the Aramaic fragments of Enoch from Qumran. 1 One of the surprising discoveries of his work was that two fragments
of the Book of Giants contained the name of the Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh. Another fragment, he claimed, referred to the hero’s dreaded enemy from the epic, Humbaba. This was exciting news indeed: everybody’s
favorite king of Uruk survived the disappearance of traditional Mesopotamian culture. The discovery reinforced the generally accepted notion—
asserted by Milik, among others—that many themes and motifs found in
Jewish apocalyptic literature in general, and Enochic literature in particular, had a Mesopotamian background. 2
The Book of Giants (BG) is a piece of Jewish Second Temple literature that largely disappeared from the Jewish and Christian traditions. 3 The
book was adopted by members of the Manichean religion, who seem to
have adapted and translated it into a number of languages. 4 Milik, who was
Author’s note: It is with deep gratitude that I thank Professor Greengus for his years
of kindness, encouragement, and sage counsel. I would like to thank Martin Schwartz
(UC Berkeley), Yonder Gillihan (Boston College), Nancy L. Erickson (Zondervan Aca­
demic), and an anonymous reviewer for their outstanding advice on this work. In addition to this, I am in debt to Matthew Richey for his significant assistance transforming
this from a lecture script to a formal article. Any outstanding errors remain, of course,
my responsibility.
1. J. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1976).
2. See most recently H. Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and
Enochic: An Intertextual Reading (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
3. Though significant elements of the storyline have been preserved in the Midrash of Shemhazai and ʿAzaʾel.
4. Middle Persian, Uygur, Parthian, Coptic, Sogdian. The Manichean texts were
published beginning in the mid-20th century; see W. B. Henning, “The Book of Giants,” BSOAS 11 (1943) 52–74; and later W. Sundermann, Mittelpersiches und parthische kosmogonische und Parabeltexte der Manichäer (Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients 8. Berliner Turfantexte 4; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1984); and
67
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Jeffrey L. Cooley
working on the Enoch fragments from Qumran, noted that some of the bits
that mentioned Enoch did not come from the book of Enoch in any of its
surviving versions. Milik realized, however, that they did correspond with
some of the details of the later Manichean work.
The BG is painfully fragmentary in both the extant Manichean and
Qumran texts. Nonetheless, a general storyline can be reconstructed. 5
The story revolves around the giants, who are the children of the watchers, themselves the sons of God who descended from heaven and mated
with the daughters of men (based on Gen 6:1–4). These giants are really
quite terrible beings; they are guilty of all sorts of violent acts against plants,
animals, and humanity. The antediluvian sage Enoch is informed of their
behavior, and the giants talk among themselves about what they have done.
The giants (it is not clear which ones) experience a pair of dream visions,
and one of them, Mahaway, travels to Enoch for assistance in interpreting
them. The giant is sent back with two tablets, which relate their impending
judgment by God. Of course, this judgment is not good, and the giants
ponder their situation and discuss their fate. It is not clear why, but something then appears to dissuade them from such a bleak view of their fate.
The giants have another pair of dream visions (again, it is not clear who
has them), and again they send Mahaway to Enoch for interpretation. He
announces the clear and certain punishment of the Flood. The giants will
not escape a soggy-bottomed fate. The story seems to conclude with an announcement of humanity’s impending postdiluvian contentment.
In light of the realization that Enochic literature seems to have been influenced to some degree by Mesopotamian traditions, several scholars have
since reexamined the Gilgamesh passages with a focus on what the author
of the BG may or may not have known about the original Babylonian epic.
Did he have a copy of the text in Akkadian or even Aramaic? Did he know
about the story through oral tradition? Scholars also question the motivation for including the Mesopotamian figures among the giants in the Jewish
work. Is the characters’ inclusion polemical? Satirical? Something else?
Stuckenbruck has argued that the author of the BG borrowed motifs
and themes from the epic, but with no real trace of polemic, while Reeves
has asserted that the author of the BG actually had an Aramaic translation of the epic and deliberately transformed the hero into a demon for po“Ein weiteres Fragment aus Manis Gigantenbuch,” in Orientalia J. Duchesne-Guillemin
Emerito Oblata (Acta Iranica 23; Leiden: Brill, 1984) 491–505.
5. This summary is based on L. T. Stuckenbruck’s reconstruction in The Book of
Giants from Qumran: Texts, Translation, and Commentary (TSAJ 63; Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1997).
The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh
69
lemical purposes. 6 Reeves’s and Stuckenbruck’s studies, which appeared in
the 1990s, preceded George’s monumental edition of Gilgamesh. 7 George’s
work initiated a new flurry of articles, once again addressing the issue of the
Mesopotamian hero in the Jewish pseudepigraphon.
Jackson reads Gilgamesh in the BG as anti-language; the Babylonian
hero represents a very specific aspect of Mesopotamian culture, namely,
forbidden foreign knowledge. 8 Goff also stresses that the thematic correspondences between the epic and the BG show that the author of the latter
had specific knowledge of the former, though most likely in oral form. 9 He
points out, however, that the author of the BG does not employ this knowledge in a polemical manner but instead uses it in his own presentation of
the evil nature, acts, and ultimate punishment of the antediluvian giants. Finally, in his article on the origins of the watchers, the fathers of the giants in
Enochic literature, Annus casts a characteristically vast net. 10 He broadens
the relevant Assyriological data against which the character of the watchers
from Enochic literature is viewed and adds several novel insights. Important for this discussion is his assertion that Gilgamesh was counted among
the giants for a number of reasons, particularly the fact that, as one who
communicated with Utnapishtim, he was identified as a tradent of antediluvian knowledge. It is this very knowledge that made the watchers and their
children, the giants, so reprehensible. The inclusion of the Mesopotamian
hero is for Annus (as with Reeves and Jackson) a deliberate inversion of the
character by the Jewish author. 11
Though several of these scholars attribute inspiration for delving again
into this issue to George’s recent publication of the epic, all of them have
6. Idem, “Giant Mythology and Demonology: From the Ancient Near East to
the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Die Dämonen—Demons. Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt (ed. A. Lange, H. Lichtenberger, and K. F. D. Römheld; Tübingen: Mohr Seibeck, 2003) 332 and J. C. Reeves,
Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions (MHUC
14; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992) 126.
7. A. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and
Cuneiform Texts (2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
8. D. Jackson, “Demonising Gilgameš,” in Gilgameš and the World of Assyria:
Proceedings of the Conference held at Mandelbaum House, The University of Sydney, 21–
23 July 2004 (ed. J. Azize and N. Weeks; ANESSup 21; Leuven: Peeters, 2007) 107–14.
9. If this is what he means by “legends”; see M. Goff, “Gilgamesh the Giant: The
Qumran Book of Giants’ Appropriation of Gilgamesh Motifs,” DSD 16 (2009) 221–53,
esp. p. 253.
10. A. Annus, “On the Origin of the Watchers: A Comparative Study of the Antediluvian Wisdom in Mesopotamian and Jewish Traditions,” JSP 19 (2010) 277–320.
11. Ibid., 282–83.
70
Jeffrey L. Cooley
rejected George’s sage counsel: Gilgamesh references in “post-cuneiform”
texts recount merely that Gilgamesh was a prominent monarch and a “magic power.” 12 These two facts would have been preserved via the promulgation of Babylonian technical knowledge (for example, mantic and exorcistic
traditions) rather than through the transmission of the epic itself. 13
In the wake of these scholars’ studies, I would like to readdress two
questions. In the first place, what (if any) knowledge did the author of the
BG have of the epic? Second, why is the author of the BG referring to foreign characters at all?
Gilgamesh and Humbaba in the BG:
Technical or Literary Borrowing?
I want to begin by reexamining scholars’ claims of references to knowledge of specific material derived from the Babylonian epic. For the sake of
brevity, I focus here on the arguments for direct borrowing that appear to
be the strongest.
A number of scholars who argue for the BG author’s direct knowledge of the epic point out the prominent place dreams and their interpretations play in both texts. In Stuckenbruck’s reconstruction, for example,
Gilgamesh either has one of the ominous dreams or interprets one of the
other giant’s dreams to mean that the group will not, in fact, suffer a collective punishment. 14 For Stuckenbruck, this means that the epic’s focus on
the “illusionary search for immortality . . . helped shape the storyline of the
BG.” 15 To be sure, the Gilgamesh of the epic has a number of dreams which
are ominous in nature. Regardless of who has the dreams in the BG, this
parallel is indeed striking, but is it so profoundly coincidental that it cannot be explained by reference to native Jewish and Israelite tradition? We
know that oneiromancy was one of the acceptable methods of divination in
ancient Israel (for example, 1 Sam 28:6). We also know that it is in Israelite-­
Jewish tradition one of the ways by which the god of Israel communicates
12. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 1:69.
13. Ibid. Note, however, that Goff claims that his assertions are consistent with
George, who does admit that there might have been an Aramaic version of the epic, but
that any legacy of plot or themes “were transformed by a variety of intermediate stages,
about which we can know almost nothing” (ibid., 1:70; Goff, “Gilgamesh the Giant,”
253). Clearly, though, Goff is rejecting George’s basic conclusion regarding the survival
of the character of Gilgamesh. The characterization of this survival is really the crux of
the issue.
14. Stuckenbruck, “Giant Mythology,” 329–32.
15. Ibid., 332.
The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh
71
his intentions not only to his own people but to foreigners, including his
people’s adversaries (For example, Genesis 20, 39–41; Judges 7). In the biblical tradition it is often God’s righteous servant who has to interpret the
dream for the foreign potentate (for example, Joseph and Daniel). 16 That
oneiromancy is a native Israelite tradition and one that is not necessarily
adopted in exile is clear from the fact that it occurs as a feature in other
West Semitic works at Ugarit. 17 The most parsimonious explanation is that
the use of oneiromancy in the BG has a native rather than a foreign origin.
A Jewish author could have easily composed such a narrative without any
knowledge of the epic’s themes or individual pericopes. It goes without saying that the use of dreams in the BG would have been wholly understandable to an ancient Jewish reader familiar with solely biblical and Jewish traditions without any recourse to foreign literature.
Several other features of Gilgamesh in the BG are cited as evidence
of direct knowledge of the epic on the part of the author. One potential
connection is Gilgamesh’s semidivine status; in the epic the king is considered two-thirds divine, just as the BG’s giants are said to be the offspring
of the sons of God, the watchers, and the daughters of men. A second correspondence is Gilgamesh’s gigantic size. A recently published fragment
of the Standard Babylonian epic from Ugarit now shows that, in the most
widely known tradition in Mesopotamia, the king was considered a giant. 18
Third, the Gilgamesh of the epic is considered a tradent of antediluvian
knowledge; this is pointed out in both tablets I and XI of the SB text. 19 As
a giant in the Enochic tradition, one of Gilgamesh’s sins is revealing such
forbidden knowledge to humanity. One possible difficulty involves the BG’s
application of all of these characteristics to giants in general, regardless of
the individual characters’ origins. That is to say: in the Book of Giants, as a
giant, Gilgamesh is a giant. This characterization would still be the case if, as
George maintains, Gilgamesh comes into the BG tradition simply because
16. At Qumran we even see, in Methuselah’s trip to Enoch in order to confirm
Noah’s parentage, the specific motif found in the BG: travelling to a distant realm to visit
the sage Enoch for advice (1QapGenar, cols. 2–5).
17. In the Kirta story, for example, El reveals to the king, via a dream, how to
restore his dynasty (E. L. Greenstein, “Kirta,” in Ugaritic Narrative Poetry [ed. S. B.
Parker; SBLWAW 9; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997] 12–13 [Tablet I, i.33–43]). See other
examples from Ugarit and discussion of biblical and Ugaritic materials for oneiromancy
in A. Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (SHANE 8; Leiden:
Brill, 1996) 125–43.
18. A. George, “The Gilgamesh Epic at Ugarit,” AuOr 25 (2007) 247–48.
19. Tablet I, lines 7–8; Tablet XI, lines 8–10 (cf. lines 281–82) (idem, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 1:538–39, 702–3, 720–21).
72
Jeffrey L. Cooley
of his association with the technical knowledge of exorcistic and mantic
practice with no knowledge of the character’s background in Babylonian
literature on the part of the BG’s author.
The purported inclusion of Humbaba in the BG further highlights the
problem of deriving Gilgamesh’s inclusion in the Jewish work on the basis of his character in the Babylonian epic. As Goff points out, Hobabish
(Humbaba’s supposed name in the BG) is never in conflict with Gilgamesh,
nor is he related to a forest. 20 There are very few specific points by which
one can connect the character in the BG to the epic. He is a monster in the
Babylonian tradition, but he has no relationship with antediluvian knowledge. Since the character’s name in the Babylonian epic is consistently written with the divine determinative in Akkadian (dḫum-wa-wa; tablet III 48),
there is little doubt that the author of that work considered him in some
way divine, but there is no indication of mixed divine-human status. Unlike
Gilgamesh, who has a career in the underworld long after his death, Humbaba dies and remains dead. Outside of the epic, Humbaba appears primarily in the Babylonian teratological tradition, but not as a living player;
unusual animal and human births are simply said to look like the monster. 21
In a similar vein, the monstrous face of the Humbaba was an esthetic analogy used in Mesopotamia to describe kinds of ornamentation. 22 These uses
of the Humbaba outside of the epic are all technical in nature.
If we are to find both Gilgamesh and Humbaba in the BG and neither
of their characters there can be traced back to the epic, we have to ask: What
do Gilgamesh and Humbaba have in common—besides their features in
the epic—that might make them appropriate giants in the Jewish tradition?
As George pointed out, they are both featured in technical literature. 23 Gilgamesh is featured in exorcistic and antiwitchcraft rituals. Humbaba is featured in artistic terminology and in mantic texts. This implies that, if the
names are found in the BG, they are there because of their foreign technical associations and are not used in reference to the epic. This aligns quite
well with the sinful nature of the giants in Enochic literature as tradents of
foreign technical knowledge, whether this be magic, divination, or skilled
metallurgy.
20. Goff, “Gilgamesh the Giant,” 252.
21. See texts and citations in George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 1:145–46.
22. For examples and references, see ibid., 1:144–47. He is also possibly addressed
in a single incantation, but the reading is very uncertain (ibid., 1:147).
23. In contrast to the situation with Gilgamesh, George does not cite Humbaba’s
location in technical literature as the reason for his survival outside the cuneiform tradition (ibid., 1:147).
The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh
73
The Names of Gilgamesh and Humbaba in the BG Manuscripts
With all of this in mind, it might be helpful to look at the supposed references to the Gilgamesh and Humbaba in the scrolls themselves. In 4Q530
2 ii 2, we read ‫—גלגמיס‬the final samek is a bit unusually shaped, but not
so much as to cause concern of any of the editors. 24 The real question is
whether one should read the fifth letter as a yod or a waw. Milik and all who
followed him read the letter as a yod, approximating a transliteration of the
vowel as it appears in the Akkadian tradition. However, the letter could just
as well be a waw as indicated by a survey of the other waws in the manuscript, including those appearing just below the name (lines 3, 4, and 5).
An examination of the word ‫ יומיא‬in another fragment of the same scroll
(4Q530 3 line 2, which seems to be a different hand) reveals that the two
letters on this particular scroll are indistinguishable, as they are in many
manuscripts from Qumran. Thus, the reading of the name could be either
‫ גלגמיס‬or ‫גלגמוס‬.
The second supposed reference to our hero is significantly more difficult to read. The name in 4Q531 22 is usually reconstructed as ֹ‫ג]ל[גֹ]מיש‬. 25
However, a simple glance at the manuscript indicates that this reading is
far from secure. First (besides the missing gimels) the yod is clear, but—as
in the case with the fifth letter of Gilgamesh’s name in 4Q530 2 ii 2—it is
not certain that it is a yod rather than a waw. Second, only the top of the
šin/śin is preserved, and I suggest it might not be a šin/śin at all but could
in fact be a samek. Reading this last letter as šin/śin, of course, would give
a reading closer to our approximation of the Akkadian name. Still, in light
of the clear reading in 4Q530 2 ii 2, I suggest reading the final letter as a
samek. One might compare the samek at the end of line 3 in ‫ בחסן‬and note
the crease in the manuscript in line 22 (where the name appears) that could
have caused the closed top of the samek to appear as if it were the two leftto-right diagonal strokes of a šin/śin. 26 I would propose a reading of 4Q531
22 as ‫וס‬/‫ג]ל[ג]י‬, ending not with šin/śin, but rather with waw or yod samek.
How do we decide whether to read yod or samek in these two manuscripts? The only other Aramaic attestation of Gilgamesh’s name—in
the commentary on the patriarchal history of Theodore bar Koni, the
24. For 4Q530 2, see E. Puech, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXI. Qumrân
Grotte 4 XXII. Textes Araméens. Première Partie 4Q529–549 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001)
28–38 (text, translation, and commentary) and plate 2 (photograph).
25. Ibid., 74–78 (text, translation, and commentary) and plate 4 (photograph).
26. In either case, it appears that the sound indicated by the šin/śin is undoubtedly
an /s/ rather than a /š/, as per the first attestation of the name in 4Q530 2 ii 2.
74
Jeffrey L. Cooley
8th-century Nestorian church father—is gmygws, ending in waw-samek. 27
While bar Koni’s attestation is admittedly much later, I suggest that this is
how we read the final two letters in the fragments from Qumran as well:
‫גלגמוס‬. Aside from attesting to a consistent Aramaic transcription of the
name’s ending, what is the relevance of this suggested reading for our discussion here?
Before answering that question, I would like to reexamine the assumed references to Humbaba in the BG. The first of the two references
(and the only one identified by Milik) occurs in 4Q203 3 3 and is read as
‫חובבש‬. 28 The writing here is crystal clear. But this is, of course, not Humbaba’s name—one must explain the final šin/śin. Milik suggested that the final
šin/śin is an appended ʾyš, “man”—indicating that the figure is some sort
of Mischwesen. 29 I would assert that, had Milik not identified Gilgamesh in
the BG, we would not be reading ‫ חובבש‬as Humbaba in 4Q203 3 3 at all. 30
Even disregarding the problematic šin/śin ending, the very form of the first
part of the name itself is curious. In OB texts, the name is usually written
d
ḫu-wa-wa, 31 which is the spelling consistently (but not exclusively) seen in
27. A possible variant is gnmgws (R. Hespel and R. Draguet, Théodore bar Koni:
Livre des Scolies [recension de Séert]. I Mimrè I-V [CSCO 431, Syr. 187; Louvain: Peeters,
1981] 130); see also George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 1:89. M. Lewin 2 (line 8),
25 offered gmygmws for this passage (Die Scholien des Theodor bar Kônî zur Patriarchengeschichte (Genesis XII–L) [Berlin: Itzkowski, 1905] 2 [line 8], 25).
28. L. T. Stuckenbruck, “4QEnoch Giantsa ar,” in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
XXXVI. Qumran Cave 4 XXVI. Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, Part 1 (ed. Stephen Pfann
et al; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000) 13–15 (text, translation and commentary) and plate 1
(photograph). Note, Stuckenbruck identifies the fragmentary Gilgamesh citation appearing in 4Q531 22 12, as appearing instead in 4Q531 17 12, reflecting Stuckenbruck’s
alternate numbering of the fragments of that manuscript (Stuckenbruck, DJD XXXVI,
14 n. 31, 15; see also Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants, 141–77).
29. I believe the case for Humbaba’s name in the second attestation, 4Q530, to be
particularly weak (as I will discuss below). Nonetheless, there are a number of problems
with this first attestation, not the least of which is Puech’s reconstruction of the second
attestation of Humbaba’s name in 4Q530 2 ii 2, which ends with a samek! If the latter
citation is indeed referring to the same character as the former, then Milik’s suggestion
cannot stand. Stuckenbruck notes this difficulty and posits another eastern origin for
the final samek, possibly originating with a language spoken by an unidentified people
group settled in Philistia by the Assyrians in the 8th century (“Giant Mythology,” 328).
On the other hand, M. Schwartz posits that the samek ending was attached because of
the influence of the same ending in Gilgamesh’s name in 4Q530 2 ii 2 (“Qumran, Turfan,
Arabic Magic, and Noah’s Name,” Res Orientales 14 [2002] 234).
30. Although the same name appears in the Manichean version of the BG (minus
any reference to Gilgamesh in the extant fragments), Henning did not make the connection to the Babylonian monster (“The Book of Giants,” 52–74).
31. OB Tablet 3:133; see George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 1:199.
The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh
75
the mantic tradition. 32 An early Neo-Assyrian fragment from Assur reads
m
ḫu-ba-ba, the closest approximation of what we see in the BG. 33 But in the
SB version, which is the most likely ultimate source from which we would
expect the author of the BG to derive his knowledge, the name is consistently written dḫum-ba-ba. 34 Undoubtedly, one could derive ‫ חובב‬from this
(a mem can assimilate, after all), but given the other problems presented
here, such a derivation becomes increasingly difficult.
The second supposed reference to this name in the BG appears immediately following Gilgamesh in 4Q530 2 ii 2 and is heavily reconstructed
by Puech: ‫ו˚ח˚[ו]ב˚בס‬. 35 The samek ending poses a significant problem for
understanding the name as a combination of Humbaba and ʾyš, as Milik
proposed. In any case, this reconstruction seems to be more the product of
wishful thinking than paleography. Even the final bet and samek are questionable. 36 I offer no alternate reading of this passage.
As for the name ‫ חובבש‬itself, is it possible that the name Humbaba is
not the reading in either passage? Is an alternate Hebrew or Aramaic etymology equally as plausible for the name of this giant? I would suggest the
author of the BG invented the name, perhaps combining ‫חוב‬, “debt” and
‫בוׁש‬, “shame” or “sickness,” or, as is more likely, with ‫ביׁש‬, “bad, evil,” thereby giving us a moniker that means something like “wicked” or “shameful
debt.”
The significance of the name ‫ חובבׁש‬is not as straightforward as the
current consensus represents it to be. Stuckenbruck’s rather thorough analysis of the giants’ names yielded little other than the possibility that they
were all considered Mischwesen. 37 Notably, however, this conclusion did
not reveal much about the actual choice or the forms of names employed
by the author of the BG. 38 In light of this, it might be useful to examine the
monikers of the compatriots of ‫חובבׁש‬.
32. See citations in ibid., 1:145–46. There are a few OB variants including ḫu-bi-bi
(A fragment from Harmel; ibid., 1:256 line 48) and dḫu-wa (OB tablet in the Shøyen
collection; ibid., 1:234 line 16).
33. Ibid., 1:358 line 19′.
34. E.g., Tablet 2:221; ibid., 1:556.
35. Puech, DJD XXXI, 28–32.
36. Stuckenbruck does not reconstruct the name here, nor does his reading end
with samek: ‫בה‬.] [.˚‫( ו‬The Book of Giants from Qumran, 205).
37. Stuckenbruck, “Giant Mythology,” 320–32, 335–36.
38. Note that the only morphological commonality of some of these names is the
ending –yš which Milik, as mentioned above, thought indicated the composite animal
nature of ‫חובבׁש‬. Milik’s suggesting has fundamental problems, as discussed (Stuckenbruck, “Giant Mythology,” 327–28).
76
Jeffrey L. Cooley
The names of the other giants in the BG, ʾOhyah, Hahyah, Mahaway,
ʾAhiram, and (only partially preserved) ʾAdk? (‫אוהיה‬, ‫ההיה‬, ‫מהוי‬, ‫אחירם‬, and
‫)?אדכ‬, show no consistency and have heretofore remained unexplained as a
group. I suggest, however, that most of these names, in addition to ‫חובבׁש‬,
are simply invented. Though it could be that ‫ אחירם‬was intended to refer
to a king of Byblos, it is more likely that the meaning of the name is transparent and particular to the cast of characters in the BG: “My brother is
tall.” This is, after all, a perfectly legitimate name for a giant. 39 ‫אוהיה‬, ‫ההיה‬,
and ‫ מהוי‬are significantly more opaque, but, as Stuckenbruck has pointed
out, it is possible that the three are somehow derived from the verb “to be”
in either Hebrew (‫ )היה‬or Aramaic (‫)הוי‬. Perhaps the three names are deliberate corruptions of the Tetragrammaton, or even playing on Yahweh’s
self-identification to Moses in Exod 3:14 in which the verb ‫ היה‬is used in
the first-person imperfect three times: ‫ויאמר אלהים אל־מׁשה אהיה אׁשר אהיה‬
‫ויאמר כה תאמר לבני יׂשראל אהיה ׁשלחני אליכם‬, “‘I am who I am,” and he said,
“Thus you will say to the Israelites, ‘I am sent me to you.’” This proposal is,
of course, highly speculative. The name ‫ ?אדכ‬is at the edge of the fragment
and the final letter is not entirely preserved, so I will not speculate here as
to what it might have been. 40
Reeves further argued that the flood hero himself, Utnapishtim, appears
in a later Manichaean version of the BG; the name is preserved in Middle
Persian as ʾtnbyš, vocalized as At(a)nabīš. 41 However, this name does not
appear in any of the Aramaic fragments. While the suggestion is appealing,
a flood hero with this particular epithet is not very well-attested even in the
native Mesopotamian tradition. 42 Outside the Epic of Gilgamesh and, more
importantly, in the tradition that travelled internationally, it seems the flood
hero was known by his Sumerian name, Ziusudra. This name is attested in
both Berossos as Ξίσυθρος and Abydenus as Σίσουθρος/Σείσιθρος. 43 It is tell39. Compare with similar wordplays in Genesis, such as the name of the first
mighty man in Gen 10:8–9, ‫נמרד‬, “We will rebel,” undoubtedly foreshadowing the
Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11; so too the names of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen 14:2, ‫ ברע‬and ‫ברׁשע‬, “wickedly” and “evilly,” respectively.
40. Stuckenbruck notes that the next letter in the name “could be dalet, waw, yod,
or reš,” (DJD XXXVI, 14). In light of the name ‫אחירם‬, one is tempted to read the dalet
in ‫ ?אדכ‬as reš, allowing a combination with the root ‫ארך‬, “long” (again, appropriate for
a giant). Nonetheless, the ductus in this manuscript is quite clear and the reading of the
dalet seems to be in little doubt.
41. J. C. Reeves, “Utnapishtim in the Book of Giants?” JBL 112 (1993) 110–15. See
also R. V. Huggins, “Noah and the Giants: A Response to John Reeves,” JBL 114 (1995)
103–19; and Stuckenbruck, “Giant Mythology,” 333–34.
42. See discussion in George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 1:152–55.
43. For Berossos, see FGrH 680 F 4 (15); for Abydenus, FGrH 685 F 2b–3b.
The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh
77
ing that Berossos chose to use the Sumerian name to relate his story rather
than either of the Akkadian possibilities (that is, Utnapishtim or Atra­ḫasis),
and I argue that this, the Sumerian name, was the primary form that was
used popularly and was consequentially the most likely to have been received by neighboring cultures. 44 The ʾtnbyš preserved in the Manichaean
texts has nothing to do with the flood hero, and, if it does actually derive
from the Aramaic BG, is most likely an Aramaic name, perhaps incorporating ‫אתן‬, “you,” and ‫ביׁש‬, “evil, bad.” Again, it is an invented name intended
to reveal the insidious nature of the giants.
If my understanding is correct, the names of the giants do not all fall
into a single pattern. They are not all borrowed from foreign literary traditions, nor are they all the names of the great pagan monarchs of hoary
antiquity, nor do they all follow a single morphological type. Nonetheless,
it is possible that the names represent a single agenda, that is, labeling the
giants as a group whose existence and character are contrary to God’s intentions for humanity. Stuckenbruck, among others, was at least partially
correct in noting that the giants were conceived of as hybrids of a sort, but
they are not necessarily animal-human Mischewesen. 45 We must remember that they are not the offspring of humans and animals, but rather, the
spawn of the daughters of men and the sons of God (Gen 6:1–4). The giants
are living metaphors, reminding readers of the perils of crossing sacrosanct
boundaries and the ways in which that upsets God’s objective; their names
reflect this. The human-divine boundary is represented by a perversion of
the human form, originally the image of God: ‫( אחירם‬contra Gen 1:26–27).
Similarly, a reversal of God’s declaration of the goodness of humans as an
element of creation (Gen 1:31) is evident in ‫( חובבׁש‬and perhaps ‫)אתנביׁש‬.
The divine-human boundary is represented by corruptions of the divine
name ‫יהוה‬, playing on the three-fold repetition at the disclosure of the
Tetragrammaton in Exod 3:14: ‫אוהיה‬, ‫ההיה‬, and ‫מהוי‬.
P. Buttmann’s emendation of the name of the flood hero in Lucian’s De Dea Syria (12)
(Δευκαλίωνα τὸν Σκύθεα, “Deucalion the Scythian,” to Δευκαλίωνα τὸν Σισυθέα) in
light of the name in Berossus and Abydenus has gained wide acceptance among scholars (Mythologus, oder Gesammelte Abhandlung über die Sagen des Alterthums [2 vols.;
Berlin: Mylius, 1828–1829] 1:191–92). Nonetheless, as J. L. Lightfoot has argued, Buttmann’s suggestion has fundamental problems that make it rather unlikely (Lucian: On
the Syrian Goddess [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003] 342–43). Thus, Lightfoot
maintains the reading which the text preserves though he is admittedly at a loss to fully
explain the epithet.
44. Is it possible that the two forms of the name attested in Berossos and Abydenos
attest to two separate occasions when the flood hero’s name crossed the Semitic-Greek
linguistic border?
45. Stuckenbruck, “Giant Mythology,” 335–36.
78
Jeffrey L. Cooley
Gilgamesh in the BG:
A Babylonian or Hellenistic Character?
If Gilgamesh’s name is to be found among the giants in the BG, it follows, then, that his name should also conform to this agenda. Let us assume
for a moment that the Babylonian Humbaba is not there in the BG. Let us
also assume that the reading of Gilgamesh’s name in the BG from Qumran is, as it is in bar Koni, ‫—גלגמוס‬ending in waw-samek. What might this
indicate? We know that Greek names ending with -ος are commonly transcribed in the Aramaic script with waw-samek. 46 I propose that this is precisely what we are looking at when we see Gilgamesh’s name as it appears
in the BG at Qumran—not a direct borrowing from Akkadian or Aramaic,
but rather the transliteration of the name of the Babylonian hero as it would
appear in Greek. Indeed, in the only actual Greek instance of the name—in
writings of the second-century author Aelian—the final šin of Gilgamesh’s
name is interpreted as the typical masculine singular nominative case ending: Γίλγαμος. 47 If we were to transcribe this into Aramaic, we would get
‫גלגמוס‬.
What do these conclusions have to bear on our original questions? If
this is indeed the way to understand the Aramaic text of the BG as it appears
at Qumran, what might this indicate regarding the manner in which the
reference made its way to the Jewish author? It supports the suggestion that
the name came to the BG author as part of technical knowledge, as George
maintains, but via a Greek mediator and not, as many others have contended, through some sort of Aramaic channel that also preserved some knowledge of the Babylonian epic. This is not to deny the general Mesopotamian
influence we undoubtedly see in apocalyptic in general and in Enochic literature in particular. But we have to remember that the foreign intellectual
challenge faced by Jews in the later Second Temple period was not directly
from Babylon; it came primarily from Hellenism. As such, Gilgamesh—or
Gilgamos, as the case may be—was not a figure of Babylonian heritage but
a figure of Hellenistic tradition. And in light of the tendencies noted in my
suggested readings of the other giant names in the BG, Gilgamesh’s name
needs to be taken in a similar vein. The Hellenistic Gilgamos stood alongside a list of gigantic beings, who were living, perverse metaphors of the
perilous outcome of crossing sacred boundaries. Gilgamos must be seen as
a totem of the Hellenized magical tradition of the ancient Near East. The
46. E.g., Ἀντίοχος: ‫( אנתיכוס‬4Q169 3–4 3); Ἀντíγονος: ‫( אנטיגנוס‬ʾAbot 1:3).
47. De Natura Animalium 12.21. For the most recent edition, see Manuala García
Valdés et al, Claudius Aelianus: De Natura Animalium (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009).
The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh
79
other giants’ names argue that they are corruptions of the human form, of
divine intent for humanity, and of the divine name. As part of this agenda,
Gilgamos’s name is representative of forbidden Hellenistic technical wisdom (that is, magic, divination, and so on); he represents an aberrancy of
divine wisdom that humans, the Jews in particular, were meant to have.