Azazel is not a demon, and fallen angels are not demons. The fallen angels are locked in chains; their offspring are the ones forced to wander in search of a vessel to fill. Azazel is a watcher angel. Demons are the offspring of the angel-human hybrid. If you do not believe that there exists, or existed hybrid entities from unholy and abominable unions between lower-class hosts and humans (directly, or genetically,) then we are arguing from two fundamentally different points of view.
The very fact that scholarly discourse cannot distinguish between demon and fallen angels, archons, principalities and powers suggest a much bigger problem in the faith. Combining and mixing the identities of these different classes of entities is what causes traditional and doctrinal confusion - leading to a jumbling and mistransl(iter)ation of identities.
My original thesis stipulated that Azazel was the one that initiated the deception that led to the fall of man - not the one most think of as "The Devil," or "Satan." That is another type of entity. I am well aware of my controversial point of view; that is my prerogative based on my relationship with my/our Father. I label myself as "other religion" because of this; I do not fit with any denomination. And, if it wasn't for my belief in Christ I wouldn't be a Christian at all (it seems.)
I was addressing the Hattat rituals in Leviticus, but you are addressing a much different topic. Your assertion is that Azazel is a “fallen angel”, of course you do this in a very non scholarly fashion with “surface” evidence, but your assertion fails. You have a timeline issue as well, the Biblical texts and apocryphal texts are written on Papyri (Israel; including Biblical and Apocryphal writings), while Cuneiform (Sumerian, Babylonian, and other Ancient Near East writing) are written and etched in differing timelines.
Papyri writing isn’t until about 3000 BC by the Egyptians, and before that time period about 3100 BC is clay tablet etchings known as Cuneiform. Your Apocryphal and Biblical writings occur on Papyri while Ancient Near East before that time occur on Cuneiform, those Cuneiform epics are part of a polytheistic belief structure, while Papyri (for the most part) indicates monotheism, just another indicator of the adoption of monotheism from polytheism. Essentially there is no “fall” of Angels because when the fall is penned it is long after the Cuneiform writings of Mesopotamia occur, hence, the Biblical stories are reconstructions of the Mesopotamian epics, legends, so on. Hence, your Enochian book is a reconstruct.
You begin your problems asserting then that the Bible is not influenced by Mesopotamian thought, which it is. All the epics, legends, so on in Biblical literature are seen much earlier in Sumer. The first of monotheism that we see is with the Egyptian Ankhet and it is until Israel that we see monotheism after their Babylonian captivity, the Pentateuch is penned by Yahwehistic cult’s (formally named Moses) and so even the apocryphal books suffer this issue. Essentially monotheism develops from older polytheism, we see in Luke 8:25 Jesus as master of storms, and in much earlier Canaan we see Ba’al equated to Yahweh as both are storm Gods, one like the other rides on a cloud.
The origin of Watchers derives from the Mesopotamian epics of the antediluvian sages (apkallus). More precisely, the epics of Watchers and their sons the giants derived from inverted versions of various Mesopotamian epics and beliefs about apkallus. On some layers of Mesopotamian epics and ritual practices, the sages were already regarded as dangerous and potentially malicious creatures, upon which the Jewish authors could build their parody. Among other associations, the apkallus had strong ties to Mesopotamian demonology, and they were occasionally counted as evil beings, capable of witchcraft. This shows that the wickedness of antediluvian teachers of humankind in Jewish sources was not wholly an inversion of the Mesopotamian traditions by Jewish scholars, but was partly taken from already existing trends in Mesopotamian demonology.
Some
Keywords to be aware of: Watchers, book of Enoch, Book of Giants, Mesopotamian mythology, demonology, sages.
There was a broad tradition in the Babylonian scribal milieu that the seventh antediluvian gure, a king or a sage, ascended to heaven and received insights into divine wisdom. The seventh antediluvian king according to several lists was Enmeduranki, the king of Sippar, who distinguished himself with divine knowledge from the gods Adad and Shamash (see Lambert 1998). Biblical scholars generally agree that the religious-historical background of the figure of Enoch, the seventh antediluvian patriarch in Gen. 5.23-24 and subsequently the apocalyptic authority in Enochic literature, lies in the seventh Mesopotamian antediluvian king Enmeduranki. The following quotation of John J. Collins conveys the consensus view well:
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The figure of Enoch is to some degree modelled on Enmeduranki, founder of the guild of brûs, or Babylonian diviners... Enoch is listed in Genesis as seventh in line from Adam. In the Sumerian King List, the seventh king is Enmeduranki or Enmeduranna. Sippar, the city ruled by this king, was a center of the cult of Shamash, the sun god. Enoch is associated with the solar calendar: his age is given as 365 years in Genesis and the Astronomical Book [contained in 1 Enoch] presupposes a calendar of 364 days. Enmeduranki was also the founder of a guild of diviners and a recipient of revelations... Evidently the biblical seventh man emulates the Mesopotamian seventh king. (Collins 1998: 26, 45-46)”
Besides Collins, the complexities of the historical connection between Enmeduranki and Enoch have been recently and comprehensively studied by J. VanderKam (1984) and H. Kvanvig (1988), among others. The recognition has well grown into maturity among scholars, who often also nd the traces of Enoch’s Mesopotamian background even in later Enochic materials, such as the second, Old Slavic book of Enoch, and the third book of Enoch in Hebrew. There is nothing to challenge in this association, except that from the point of view of an Assyriologist it seems that biblical scholars should study and compare the Mesopotamian and Jewish evidence much more systematically than has been done previously. One could cast a much wider net on the Mesopotamian material, in order to glean more insight regarding antediluvian traditions and thereby enrich the comparison. For this objective, it is necessary to expand the textual base of the comparison by using more cuneiform evidence than just the famous king-lists, the Gilgamesh epic, and the Enmeduranki text from Nineveh.
One question that immediately arises in regard to the present stage of consensus among biblical scholars is, if religious-historical bonds tie Enoch so neatly with Enmeduranki, and Ziusudra with Noah, how can it be that there is so little else in the two antediluvian histories that can be favorably compared? Some ancient testimonies recognize that the biblical and the ‘Chaldaean’ accounts of the antediluvian period derive from common sources. For example,
Cosmas Indico pleustes, the wandering Nestorian monk of the sixth century CE, indicates that a received knowledge existed in his time that the antediluvian patriarchs in the Hebrew Bible correspond to Mesopotamian kings of the same period in regard to their position in corresponding historiographies. Cosmas’s account in his
Topographia Christiana 12.3 juxtaposes the biblical patriarchs with the Mesopotamian kings as follows:
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The writers of Chaldaean history, more ancient and living farther east, have mentioned in their works both the deluge and the building of the Tower, since they saw that Tower with their own eyes under the process of construction, being no doubt well aware that the men of that time, in fear of another flood, erected it for themselves as a place of refuge and safety. But the men of later times, when they read Moses also, and found that Noah, in whose time the deluge occurred, was the tenth from Adam, they feigned that they also had ten kings, who had reigned 2242 myriads of years... Of these the first was Aloros, that is, Adam; the second Alaapros, Seth; the third, Almdn, Enosh; the fourth, Ammen, Canaan; the fifth Ammegalaros, Mahalaleel; the sixth, Daonos, a keeper of shee;p Jared; the seventh, Euedranchos, Enoch; the eighth, Amempsinanchos, Mathousalah; the ninth, Otiorts, Lamech; the tenth, Xisouthros, Noah. In his time they say the great flood recorded by Moses occurred.”
The epic of Noah is the epic of the earlier flood of Ziusudra and the tower of Babel is the younger version of the older Building of the Ziggurat to the Gods who destroyed it, and the language changes are from the older “Enki confuser of languages”, as interpreted by Sam Noah Kramer.
The names of the Mesopotamian antediluvian kings that Cosmas lists derive from the tradition attested in similar cuneiform king-lists, which were the sources for Berossus. Cosmas may rely on an unidentified fragment of Berossus, but his source seems in any case to be ancient and instructive. Cosmas’ account shows that already the ancient scholars were conscious of the congruence between Jewish and Mesopotamian antediluvian histories, and, at the same time, tried to deflect these similarities by stating that the Chaldaeans learned from Moses. It goes without saying that from our contemporary perspective, Mesopotamia clearly provided the model, which the biblical writers quite creatively followed and modified (see Hallo 1996: 1-17).
In addition to Enmeduranki, the Mesopotamian lore surrounding the flood survivor, variously named as Ziusudra, Atra-hasis or Utanapishti, and his post flood visitor Gilgamesh, has been discussed by the biblical scholars interested in comparative research (Collins 1998:46). However, there is more still to do. By combining evidence from philology and textual sources, from iconography and archaeology, one can show that the descriptions of the antediluvian period in Jewish sources depend even more extensively on the antecedent Mesopotamian mythology and ritual practices. In other words, a survey of recent studies in Assyriology enables more comprehensive juxtaposition of the two corresponding historical narratives. Besides well established and famous texts at both sides, one has seriously to consider the variability of the traditions, and also to observe how the beliefs were put into practice in rituals, prayers and incantations.
Varying accounts of the antediluvian history in the ancient Mesopotamian and Jewish sources should be regarded as results of ancient debates. Not only direct borrowings took place, but also creative reinterpretations, especially on the Jewish side. Some of these creative reinterpretations must have occurred as deliberate inversions of the Mesopotamian source material. The Jewish authors often inverted the Mesopotamian intellectual traditions with the intention of showing the superiority of their own cultural foundations. The present survey will comparatively explore the phenomenon, how Jewish authors systematically discredited the Mesopotamian primordial sages (apkallu in Akkadian) as the Watchers and Nephilim, while making them a part of their national history. In Jewish reinterpretation, Mesopotamian antediluvian sages became illegitimate and wicked teachers of humankind. Moreover, this demonization process was partly built upon the Mesopotamian traditions themselves, as the apkallus were occasionally envisaged as evil beings at least in some Mesopotamian theological quarters, and to inhabit the netherworld (Mallowan 1954: 92). I shall argue that histories of the two related species in their divergent versions cover exactly the same ground. A summary of the history of research and my arguments used in the present study can be outlined as follows:
1. There are two different adaptations of Mesopotamian lore in Genesis in respect to the antediluvian history. One of them is positive and affirmative—the sequence of ten patriarchs before the flood is in accordance with the ten antediluvian kings of Mesopotamian mythology, including Enmeduranki (see Kvanvig 1988). The second adaptation is negative—the antediluvian sages, the Mesopotamian apkallus were demonized as the ‘sons of God’, and their sons Nephilim (Gen. 6.3-4), who in later Enochic literature appear as Watchers and giants, illegitimate teachers of humankind before the ood (see 1 En. 6–8). The Book of Watchers reconciles these two different adaptations by making Enoch in every respect superior to the Watchers.
2. As many kinds of Mesopotamian sciences and technologies were ideologically conceived as originating with antediluvian apkallus, so both Enoch and the Watchers were depicted as antediluvian teaching powers. In so doing, the Jewish authors wanted to depict their national hero as superior to the champions of foreign wisdom.
3. A.D. Kilmer (1987) has already posited Mesopotamian apkallus as the model for the biblical Nephilim, indicating in support of her thesis that the sources ascribe to the Mesopotamian antediluvian sage Adapa an act of hubris, and that daring, and that wicked deeds were ascribed to some postdiluvian sages, which angered the gods. In Genesis 6, the Nephilim exemplify the wicked antediluvian humankind in general (Kilmer 1987: 40). It did not occur to Kilmer that the Mesopotamian tradition of apkallus was deliberately inverted in Genesis, and that the tradition found a full expression in the 1 Enoch. J.T. Milik noted the parallel with the Mesopotamian mythology, when he wrote on 1 Enoch 6: ‘The writer imagines two chiefs of the fallen angels, a king (Šemîhazah) and a sage (Asael), each presiding over about ten Watchers...thus drawing on a Babylonian model of antediluvian kings and sages’ (Milik 1976: 29). The present study offers an expansion of comparative arguments.
4. The apkallus themselves were sometimes viewed negatively as malicious creatures within the Mesopotamian tradition itself. Among other associations, the apkallus had strong ties to Mesopotamian demonology, and they were occasionally counted as demonic and evil beings, capable of witchcraft. This point of comparison shows that the wickedness of antediluvian teachers of humankind was not wholly an inversion of the Mesopotamian traditions by Jewish scholars, but was partly taken from already existing trends in Mesopotamian demonology.
5. Apkallus were often considered as sh-garbed creatures of Ea, who resided in Apsû, the Ocean of Wisdom. The flood punished Watchers and Nephilim. A comparable tradition of the deluge from Mesopotamia survives in the version of the Erra Epic, where Marduk sent the sages down into the Apsû as a consequence of the flood, and ordered them not to come up again (I 147).
6. The names of Gilgamesh, Humbaba and Uta-napishti occur in different recensions of the Book of Giants as names of the gigantic offspring of the Watchers. According to J. Reeves, ‘this represents a bold polemical thrust against the revered traditions of a rival culture’ (Reeves 1992: 126). L.T. Stucken bruck has argued that knowledge of the Epic of Gilgamesh ‘was not restricted to the mere use of names derived from it but is reflected in the broad narrative of BG [= Book of Giants] itself’ (2003: 333). The fact that a Second Temple Jewish text demonizes some characters belonging to Mesopotamian intellectual milieu speaks entirely in favor of the idea of the present study—that deliberate inversions of Mesopotamian traditions was an existing practice among Israelite intellectuals.
7. Figurines of apkallus were buried in boxes as foundation deposits in Mesopotamian buildings in order to avert evil from the house. The term massar, ‘watchers’, is used of these sets of figurines in Akkadian incantations according to ritual texts. This appellation matches the Aramaic term yryn, ‘the wakeful ones’, for both good angels and the Watchers.
8. The ‘sons of God’ in Genesis and the Watchers in Enochic literature are fully divine, as also were the antediluvian apkallus in the Mesopotamian tradition. The four post flood apkallus were ‘of human descent’, which means that apkallus could mate with humans, as the Watchers did. The last one of this group of apkallus, Lu-Nanna, was only ‘two-thirds apkallu’ (Kilmer 1987: 39-40). This exactly matches the status of Gilgamesh in the post-diluvian world, as he also was ‘two-thirds divine, and one-third human’ (I 48). Gilgamesh was remotely related to antediluvian apkallus, as he ‘brought back a message from the antediluvian age’ (I 8). In Jewish terms, he was like one of the giant Nephilim, as exactly the Book of Giants depicts him (Stuckenbruck 2003: 329). There is new supporting cuneiform evidence that Gilgamesh was thought of as having a gigantic stature, his height being 11 cubits (George 2007: 240 l. 34).
Dissemination of the Antediluvian Knowledge: Lawful or Forbidden?
Very well attested ancient Mesopotamian intellectual tradition gives a divine origin in the antediluvian age to all priestly sciences. The period before the deluge was the one of revelation in the Mesopotamian mythology, when the basis of all later knowledge was laid down. The antediluvian sages were culture-heroes, who brought the arts of civilization to the land. During the time that follows this period, nothing new is invented, the original revelation is only transmitted and unfolded (Kvanvig 1988: 201). Oannes and other sages taught all foundations of civilization to antediluvian humankind, as narrated by Berossus.
An important issue reflected upon in the ancient sources in regard to antediluvian knowledge was its survival during the flood and its transmission after it. If only one family escaped from deluge, as was the case in many Mesopotamian as well as Jewish accounts, the flood survivor and his progeny must have been regarded as the transmitters of the antediluvian knowledge to post-diluvian times. Apparently, some sources regard the flood survivor as a descendant of the line of divine apkallus, without being explicitly equated with them. One of the flood survivor’s named in Mesopotamian literature was Atra-hasis, meaning ‘exceedingly wise’, which is also an epithet of the sage Adapa in the Akkadian myth (Izreel 2001: 9 obv. 8’). In the Epic of Gilgamesh XI 197 we learn that Uta-napishti was admitted into the company of the gods only after he had heard their secret lore, and in this context he also bears the epithet atra-hasis (George 2003: 716). The Gilgamesh epic, with its programmatic first line, ‘he who saw the Deep’, presents the hero as the transmitter of the antediluvian wisdom to his contemporary world. There were other thinkable means of preserving the antediluvian knowledge besides making the flood survivor the divine source of it and his visitor its transmitter. Still another way was to conceive apkallus as amphibious fish-like creatures, capable of surviving in the depths of water, and of reemerging from there after the inundation was over. One more way to preserve the knowledge was to inscribe pre-flood wisdom in its entirety on different tablets or stones and either to bury them or to install the knowledge carriers on high places to escape the perdition. In Mesopotamian tradition, such a divine source of information was the Tablet of Destinies, which corresponds to heavenly tablets and the Pargod in 3 Enoch, on which the divine secrets are written (Arbel 2006: 372).
