For many in contemporary societies, the imagining of unseen phenomena has been shaped by the claims of modern science. The air that surrounds us is emptied of sentient agency, animated only by the wanderings of microorganisms, the gyration of waves of sound and electricity, the movement of molecules, and the agitation of atoms and particles. That this emptiness stretches even to the skies is conveyed by our very notion of outer space – a vast and vacuous realm in which stars and planets cycle on paths guided by the laws of energy and matter, indifferent to human hopes, deeds, and suffering. Germs may be feared, and bacteria warded off, but even the harmful elements of the unseen world are conventionally conceived apart from voices that tempt and sing, eyes that watch and witness, and spirits that sizzle with ardor and anger.

This chapter focuses on the first known example of an extensive Jewish demonology − that is, the Book of the Watchers. It interprets its demonology in relation to the angelology of the Astronomical Book as well as evidence for ancient Jewish "magic."

Whether or not Peter Berger is correct to suggest that those who believe in demons and angels make up the “cognitive minority” in today’s secular societies, it is certainly the case that angelology and demonology have been marginalized from the settings that have most shaped modern Western scholarship. Partly as a result, even historians of religion tend to assume that any “real” interest in demons must have been popular or sectarian, rather than elite or mainstream, and that any literary claim to commerce with angels must signal a work’s allegorical, esoteric, or mystical character. When confronted with premodern references to angels and demons by learned elites, it is common to presume that they must be symbols or ciphers for something else.

This chapter looks to one of the oldest Jewish writings outside of the Hebrew Bible, the Enochic Astronomical Book, and argues for its overlooked importance for the development of Jewish angelology. It considers the intertwining of angelology and astronomy in a Jewish scribal context that resonates with cross-cultural concerns with knowledge in the early Hellenistic age.

This chapter draws upon new evidence for the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls to make the case for situating the beginnings of Jewish angelology and demonology in the third century BCE. It considers the new views of scribes, books, and knowledge within sources like the Aramaic Levi Document, Admonitions of Qahat, and Visions of Amram in relation to broader cultural trends in the Hellenistic Near East.

This chapter focuses on the Book of Jubilees, considering its representation of angels, demons, and the history of Jewish writing in relation to earlier Aramaic Jewish literature. It makes the case that Jubilees lays the groundwork for the broader diffusion of the angelology and demonology of Aramaic Jewish scribal pedagogy.

This chapter considers the lack of concern for demons and angels in early biblical literature, situating it in relation to other ancient cultures and surveying references to transmundane powers.

THE BOOK OF GENESIS TELLS US PRECIOUS LITTLE ABOUT THE FIGURE of Enoch. In the course of presenting a genealogical list of those who lived before the Flood, it notes his Sethian ancestry via Jared (5:19) and his fathering of Methusaleh (5:21). We find only hints of his special status: the other men in the genealogy merely live, propagate, and die, but Genesis states twice that Enoch “walked with God” (5:22, 24). And rather than tell his death in straightforward terms, it recounts that “he was no more, for God took him” (5:24).

The brevity of the biblical comments stands in stark contrast with the wealth of traditions about Enoch in Judaism and Christianity. As early as the Second Temple period (536 bce to 70 ce), Enoch attracts intensive interest within Judaism. He becomes a scribe, sage, and even scientist. As visionary, he is taken up to heaven and travels with angels to the ends of earth. As witness and prophet, he exhorts against sin, predicts Israel's history, and even intercedes for wicked angels. Moreover, books begin to circulate under his name, purporting to record the visions and teachings that the antediluvian patriarch passed on to his progeny and bequeathed to the righteous of future generations.

The present study tells the story of one of the earliest and most influential of these books, namely, the Book of the Watchers.

THE COMPOSITE NATURE AND COMPLEX REDACTION-HISTORY OF THE Book of the Watchers point to its origins, not in the vision of a single author, but rather in the hands of a series of authors, redactors, and tradents. The previous chapter surveyed some of the scribal concerns that dominate this apocalypse: we noted its elevation of Enoch as a “scribe of righteousness” (1 En. 12:3–4; 15:1) and its self-consciousness about the power of writing, as well as its “scientific,” exegetical, and epistemological interests. Most scholars infer from these features that the apocalypse emerged from a scribal milieu. Important questions, however, remain unanswered: should we imagine these scribes as a closed group of apocalypticists, visionaries, or “Enochians,” who can be readily distinguished from other Jews? Or should we see their distinctive interests and concerns as part of a broader continuum of “normative” ideologies in the third century bce, reflecting ongoing discussions about knowledge, purity, and piety within a single scribal discourse? And, most importantly, what was their relationship to the Jerusalem Temple and to the tradents responsible for the continued transmission of the texts that would eventually form the Tanakh?

We lack the evidence to reconstruct Judaism in the third century bce with any degree of certainty. Consequently, scholarly answers to these questions have often been shaped by the reception-history of the Book of the Watchers.