Matthew Neujahr’s 2016 article, “Babylonian Scribalism and the Production of Apocalypses and Related Early Jewish Texts” in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 5 (2016): 212–232, asks which similarities between early Jewish apocalypses and Babylonian learning support a real influence claim. His answer is narrow: the strongest evidence is technical lore—astronomy, metrology, physiognomy, and related scholarly material traceable to Babylonian scribal curricula. Larger motifs may reflect real background, but they rarely demonstrate direct dependence.
That matters for Genesis 6 readers because 1 Enoch and related texts expand the Watchers story inside a wider world of ancient learning. Neujahr helps distinguish cultural context from demonstrated borrowing, and both from biblical authority.
Neujahr’s Evidence Test
Neujahr states his criterion sharply near the beginning of the article:
“The only truly convincing claims of this nature involve those elements of apocalyptic and related works that exhibit esoteric, technical knowledge – e.g. astronomical, metrological – that can be traced to a Babylonian scribal curriculum.”
The key word is “technical.” A shared image of a sea monster, a heavenly throne, or an ancient sage may show that Jewish writers inhabited a common Near Eastern symbolic world. It does not, by itself, identify a school text, a curriculum, or a path of transmission. By contrast, complex calculations, lists, numerical systems, and specialist classifications are harder to explain as loose cultural memory.
That distinction shifts the center of the discussion. Comparisons such as Enoch and Enmeduranki, Daniel 7 and Enūma Eliš, and Daniel’s historical reviews and Akkadian ex eventu prophecy remain worth discussing, but they are not Neujahr’s strongest evidence for Babylonian scribal influence. The strongest cases come from less sensational material: astronomical schemes, metrological exercises, and technical divinatory lists. I find that restraint useful because it makes the strongest claims less dramatic but more durable.
| Type of similarity | Examples | Neujahr’s weight | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical astronomy and calendars | Aramaic Astronomical Book; 1 Enoch 72–82; MUL.APIN; Enūma Anu Enlil | Strongest | Complex celestial schemes point to trained scholarly transmission. |
| Metrology | Aramaic Levi’s sexagesimal weights and measures | Strongest | Base-60 systems fit Babylonian scribal exercises. |
| Physiognomy and zodiacal lore | 4QZodiacal Physiognomy; 4QPhysiognomy ar; Alam-dimmû-type texts | Technical, but mixed | Specialist lore suggests scholarly channels, though the parallels are not simple copying and include Hellenistic elements. |
| Primeval sages | Enoch, Enmeduranki, Utu’abzu | Real but not decisive | Sage traditions could circulate beyond formal cuneiform training. |
| Throne visions and chaos combat | Daniel 7; Revelation 12; Enūma Eliš; other combat myths | Weak for direct dependence | The motifs are too widespread to identify one Babylonian source. |
| Ex eventu prophecy | Daniel 11; Shulgi Prophecy; Dynastic Prophecy | Suggestive, weak for direct dependence | One shared literary device does not establish genre origin. |
| Cosmic geography | 1 Enoch 17–36; Babylonian Map of the World | Suggestive only | The parallels are loose and often fit broader cosmology better. |
Where the Evidence Is Strongest
Neujahr’s best case is the astronomical and calendrical material in the Aramaic Astronomical Book from Qumran and the corresponding material in 1 Enoch 72–82. He connects this material with Mesopotamian compilations such as MUL.APIN and Enūma Anu Enlil, not because the texts share a few attractive images, but because they preserve structured celestial knowledge.
On the Aramaic Astronomical Book he writes:
“It needs to be emphasized that this is technical material. It is highly implausible that such calculations would be circulated orally outside of scribal circles.”
That does not require a simple line from one Babylonian tablet to one Jewish author. Neujahr leaves open whether the knowledge came through direct cuneiform training, Aramaic adaptations, or scholarly intermediaries. But the calculations themselves make a purely casual route unlikely.
The metrological material in the Aramaic Levi Document gives him a second strong example. Drawing especially on Henryk Drawnel’s analysis, Neujahr argues that the text’s weights and measures reflect a Babylonian sexagesimal system. This is not the kind of material that functions mainly as narrative color. It resembles the basic lists and equivalencies used in scribal education.
The value of this example is that it broadens the evidence beyond astronomy. If both celestial calculation and metrology appear in Jewish or Aramaic compositions in ways that match Babylonian technical habits, the case is no longer dependent on one unusual corpus. The influence appears in the practical machinery of learned culture.
A third cluster comes from Qumran’s physiognomic and zodiacal texts, especially 4QZodiacal Physiognomy and 4QPhysiognomy ar. These writings connect bodily features with astrological or divinatory significance. Neujahr follows Mladen Popović in comparing the material with Akkadian physiognomic series such as Alam-dimmû, while still recognizing that the Qumran texts also differ from known Babylonian omen series and include Hellenistic elements.
He cites Popović’s judgment approvingly:
“These are not the sort of texts that one schematizes in memory or through oral communication.”
The implication is methodological. Dense omen lists and classificatory systems are more likely to move through written, specialist channels than through ordinary storytelling. They do not prove that Jewish apocalyptists sat under identifiable Babylonian teachers, but they do require contact with scholarly material more exact than folklore.
| Jewish or Aramaic text | Technical content | Comparator | Transmission question |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aramaic Astronomical Book / 1 Enoch 72–82 | Solar and lunar cycles; calendrical calculation | MUL.APIN; Enūma Anu Enlil | How did Jewish writers access complex Babylonian astronomy? |
| Aramaic Levi Document | Sexagesimal weights and measures | Babylonian metrological lists | Does the material reflect foundational scribal exercises? |
| 4QZodiacal Physiognomy; 4QPhysiognomy ar | Physiognomic and zodiacal divination | Alam-dimmû-type omen traditions; Hellenistic astrology | What mix of Babylonian and Hellenistic learning lies behind the texts? |
| Book of the Watchers, 1 Enoch 17–36 | Journeys to cosmic edges and otherworldly regions | Babylonian Map of the World; Gilgamesh traditions; broader cosmology | Are the parallels specific enough to support dependence on a specialized tablet? |
Where Neujahr Slows Down
Neujahr does not deny Mesopotamian background where the evidence is looser. He denies that loose background should be treated as direct dependence on Babylonian scribal curricula.
The Enmeduranki–Enoch comparison is a good example. Helge Kvanvig and James VanderKam have noted real correspondences: Enoch and Enmeduranki both stand in the seventh position in an antediluvian line, both are associated with heavenly knowledge, and both function as privileged recipients or transmitters of revelation. Neujahr accepts that such comparisons are worth taking seriously. He resists the stronger claim that the Jewish authors must have used Enmeduranki texts directly or received formal cuneiform training. Traditions about primordial sages could travel more widely than the limited circle of scholar-scribes.
He is similarly cautious about throne visions and Chaoskampf imagery. Hermann Gunkel argued that Daniel 7 and Revelation 12 reworked the Babylonian creation epic Enūma Eliš, especially the combat between Marduk and Tiamat. Neujahr notes that few modern scholars still accept Daniel 7 as a direct recasting of Enūma Eliš, and even fewer extend that claim to Revelation 12. Sea-combat imagery appears across Near Eastern and Mediterranean traditions, where it can be reshaped by local theology and politics.
Daniel 7’s proposed relationship to the Neo-Assyrian Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Prince receives the same kind of treatment. Kvanvig pointed especially to a shared pattern in which a living figure receives a vision and sees an enthroned deity. Neujahr regards that as a resemblance, not a secure derivation. Throne scenes are common enough in ancient literature that the form alone cannot carry the burden of proof.
The Akkadian ex eventu prophetic texts raise a sharper genre question. Compositions such as the Marduk Prophecy, Shulgi Prophecy, Text A, Uruk Prophecy, and Dynastic Prophecy describe past events as though they were future predictions. Daniel’s historical visions use a comparable device. Some scholars have therefore treated the Akkadian texts as the Babylonian origin of apocalyptic literature.
Neujahr challenges that conclusion. The Akkadian works are obscure, esoteric, and do not appear to have formed part of the regular scribal curriculum. They also lack central apocalyptic features such as pseudonymous seers, heavenly mediators, temporal or spatial transcendence, and a narrative revelatory frame. For him, the shared use of ex eventu prediction shows a comparable technique, not a shared genre or a demonstrated source.
Cosmic geography in the Book of the Watchers is also suggestive but limited. Pierre Grelot and others proposed that 1 Enoch 17–36 depends on the Babylonian Map of the World tablet, BM 92687. Neujahr follows later cautions by VanderKam and Kelley Bautch: the Enochic journeys fit many ancient cosmological patterns, but the match with that specific tablet is minimal and inexact. He finds George Nickelsburg’s broader explanation more reasonable: the geography likely reflects general Hellenic and Near Eastern cosmological ideas rather than direct use of one specialized map.
Why “Scribal” Does Not Prove a Wisdom-to-Apocalypse Genealogy
Neujahr also pushes back against a larger theory: that apocalyptic literature developed out of wisdom literature because both are “scribal” and didactic. He accepts that technical materials in apocalypses show real engagement with learned culture. He rejects the move from that observation to a wisdom-apocalypse genealogy.
He states the warning in his opening summary:
“The highly technical aspects of such specialized instruction should not be taken as evidence of a scribal-pedagogical strain within apocalyptic literature that relates it intimately to wisdom literature.”
Calling a text “scribal” is too broad to classify it meaningfully. Ancient law codes, rituals, chronicles, royal inscriptions, literary compositions, wisdom texts, and apocalypses all reached us through scribes. The label tells us that writing, copying, and training were involved; it does not identify a distinctive genre, party, social class, or theological program.
Neujahr makes that point directly:
“Rather, any emphasis on a ‘scribal character’ of both apocalyptic and wisdom texts misconstrues the nature of ancient scribal practice, which is distinctive of no particular type of literature.”
Near the end of the article he sharpens it further:
“Part of the problem with connecting wisdom texts and apocalypses by appeal to their ‘scribal’ character is, quite simply, that all texts (with the likely exception of things such as graffiti) are scribal texts.”
This also affects the term “wisdom.” Some scholarship appeals to Akkadian nēmequ, often translated “wisdom,” because it can include divinatory and technical expertise. Neujahr, drawing on Wilfred Lambert, argues that this does not map neatly onto biblical wisdom in the sense of moral, practical, and theological instruction. If technical divination is simply renamed “wisdom,” then the connection between wisdom and apocalypse has partly been built by expanding the term until it covers the evidence in advance.
Neujahr’s alternative is deliberately modest. Some early Jewish apocalypses and related texts appropriate Babylonian scholarly disciplines and recast them as revealed knowledge. That does not mean apocalyptic as a genre arose from wisdom literature, or that a unified scribal party generated apocalypticism through changing social conditions.
What Remains Unsettled
Neujahr leaves the exact routes of transmission unresolved. The astronomical and metrological material could reflect direct or mediated access to cuneiform training, Aramaic versions or adaptations of Babylonian scholarly material, West Semitic scribal contacts, or other scholarly intermediaries. His firmer claim is negative: the complexity of the data makes purely oral, non-scribal diffusion unlikely in the strongest cases.
The sage traditions remain less certain. Neujahr takes the Enmeduranki–Enoch parallels seriously, but he does not think they require direct school transmission. Stories about a seventh primordial sage associated with heavenly knowledge may have moved through broader cultural channels. That middle position avoids both isolationism and overconfident tablet-to-text reconstruction.
For Genesis 6, the boundary is important. The biblical text gives a brief account of the sons of God, daughters of man, Nephilim, and the movement toward the Flood. The Book of the Watchers expands that world dramatically, and Neujahr’s work helps explain some of the learned environment in which such expansions were composed. But context is not canon. Second Temple literature can illuminate reception history without redefining what Scripture itself teaches.
Conclusion
The practical takeaway is simple: use different standards for different parallels. When a Jewish text contains technical astronomy, sexagesimal metrology, or dense divinatory classification with Babylonian comparators, Neujahr thinks influence is genuinely persuasive. When the parallel is a throne vision, sea combat, primordial sage, cosmic journey, or historical prediction, the evidence may be interesting without proving direct dependence.
For Genesis 6 readers, that keeps the categories clean. Scripture gives the doctrinal ground. 1 Enoch and related texts show how some later Jewish writers developed the Watchers tradition. Babylonian scholarship may help explain parts of that later development, especially where the material is technical, but it does not turn every ancient resemblance into a source claim.
Jake Mooney is a lay researcher and the author of the novel The Descent of the Gods, with 25+ years studying Genesis 6. Chasing the Giants is where he brings Bible-first research together on the topic to help separate what we can really believe vs what is purely sensationalism.
This review follows Neujahr’s article closely, preserving his distinction between direct source claims, cautious interpretation, and unresolved transmission routes. I have treated Scripture, Second Temple expansion, and modern scholarly reconstruction as separate layers of evidence.
If you want more careful, Bible-first work on Genesis 6, the Watchers, and Second Temple literature without the sensationalism, you’re warmly invited to subscribe to the free monthly Chasing the Giants newsletter.
