Where Did the Watchers Come From? Amar Annus on Apkallu Sages

Where did the Watchers tradition in 1 Enoch come from? Amar Annus argues that Jewish writers reshaped Mesopotamian stories about the apkallu—primeval sages associated with divine wisdom—into a warning about rebellious heavenly teachers and forbidden knowledge. The comparison helps explain the cultural setting of 1 Enoch without making it Scripture or reducing Genesis 6 to borrowed mythology.

Annus develops that case in his 2010 study “On the Origin of Watchers: A Comparative Study of the Antediluvian Wisdom in Mesopotamian and Jewish Traditions.” Genesis 6:1–4 is Scripture. The Watchers appear in non-canonical Second Temple literature, especially 1 Enoch’s Book of Watchers; they develop the “sons of God” episode but do not carry doctrinal authority. Annus is not revising Genesis. He is asking how later Jewish writers used Mesopotamian antediluvian lore—sages tied to wisdom, ritual, kingship, and culture—and recast it into a story of illicit heavenly teachers whose knowledge corrupts the earth.

Annus’s Answer: Inverted Apkallu Tradition

Annus states the thesis directly: “In the article, it is argued that the origin of Watchers derives from the Mesopotamian mythology of the antediluvian sages (apkallus). More precisely, it is proposed that the mythology of Watchers and their sons the giants derived from inverted versions of various Mesopotamian myths and beliefs about apkallus.” That word “inverted” controls the paper: the comparison is not just about shared motifs, but about Jewish authors turning Mesopotamian prestige claims against themselves.

Two terms matter. In Mesopotamian tradition, the apkallu are antediluvian sages: divine or primeval figures associated with wisdom, exorcistic and ritual knowledge, scribal learning, crafts, city foundations, and kingship. In Second Temple Jewish literature, “Watchers” is the name 1 Enoch 6–16 gives to heavenly beings developed from Genesis 6’s “sons of God”: angels who descend, take human wives, teach forbidden knowledge, and are judged.

Annus notes that Mesopotamian antediluvian history often lists ten kings before the Flood, while Genesis 5 gives ten antediluvian patriarchs. He sees this as creative recasting: Israel’s ten patriarchs appear to answer Babylon’s ten kings, and apkallu motifs divide in Jewish tradition. Some positive sage material attaches to Enoch, while the dangerous teacher role is assigned to the Watchers; their giant offspring embody the violence and corruption that follow.

He rejects the ancient claim, reported by Cosmas Indicopleustes, that Chaldaean antediluvian accounts were borrowed from Moses. For Annus, the direction runs from Mesopotamian antediluvian schemes to biblical and later Jewish adaptation, not the reverse. He also rejects a purely inner-Jewish explanation. In his conclusion he says the mythology of Watchers “cannot be a phenomenon invented only through inner-Jewish discussions without outside sources,” and that its oral background “must belong to a period in history, when the Jewish culture was extensively exposed to Babylonian influences,” with the Exile an “obvious candidate.”

This does not make Jewish authors passive borrowers. On Annus’s reading, the Watchers story is a deliberate attack on apkallu prestige. Babylonian scholars traced ritual and intellectual authority to antediluvian sages; Enochic writers retell those sages as heavenly rebels whose revelations bring ruin. Enoch is elevated above them as the legitimate antediluvian receiver of divine wisdom.

Genesis 6:1–4 itself simply says that “sons of God” took human women, that Nephilim were “on the earth in those days, and also afterward,” and that the episode belongs near the Flood judgment. Scripture does not mention apkallus or Watchers. Annus is tracing where later Jewish expansions may have found some of their raw material.

The Strongest Evidence: Forbidden Knowledge

Annus’s case is strongest where the content of the Watchers’ teaching overlaps with Mesopotamian priestly and scholarly lore.

In 1 Enoch 8, Asael teaches metallurgy and weaponry; other Watchers teach charms, root-cutting, astrology, celestial signs, and cosmetic arts. In Enoch, these disciplines corrupt humanity by stirring violence, seduction, and manipulation. Annus asks how that list would sound in a Mesopotamian scholarly world.

He surveys cuneiform catalogues and colophons—scribal notes attached to tablets—that credit whole corpora of writings to Ea and to apkallus from before the Flood. One medical text traces its material to ancient apkallus from before the Flood. Annus then concludes: “Thus the genealogy of religious lore and skills was traced back to the wisdom of apkallus in its entirety.” The implication is social as much as literary: Mesopotamian scholars understood their technical learning as participation in primeval, authorized wisdom.

Annus maps the Watchers’ curriculum onto named Mesopotamian series: astral “signs” with Enūma Anu Enlil, terrestrial omens with Šumma ālu, divination, ritual magic, medicine, and crafts. He summarizes the correlation this way: “When one considers this list of forbidden crafts from the point of view of Mesopotamian priests and scholars, almost everything looks familiar.” The analytical payoff is the clustering. A whole package of elite Mesopotamian knowledge reappears in Enoch as the forbidden instruction that devastates the earth.

He also reads 1 Enoch’s sexual framing as polemic. The Watchers swear an oath, descend, take wives, and disclose divine secrets. Mesopotamian scholarly knowledge was normally guarded by hereditary priestly houses and transmission restrictions. Annus writes that “Watchers revealing divine secrets to earthly women in exchange for sex must be taken as a hilarious irony, and as an indication of the polemical stance that the Jewish intellectuals took against their Mesopotamian colleagues.” If that reading is right, the story is not merely borrowing Babylonian material; it is mocking the status system that claimed custody of sacred expertise.

Annus then pushes the comparison into imagery. In the Aramaic Book of Giants, a broken passage refers to “gardeners” at work, which Annus takes as a possible reference to the Watchers before their apostasy. He connects this with Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs where apkallu figures—fish-cloaked men or eagle-headed winged beings—flank a stylized sacred tree. He writes: “From the comparative perspective, both the educational mission of the Watchers and likening them to ‘gardeners’ make perfect sense. On Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs and seals, the famous apkallus as fish-cloaked men or as eagle-headed winged creatures are very often associated with the Tree of Life.”

That comparison does not require a Jewish author to have copied a specific relief. The point is a recognizable symbolic world: antediluvian sages, guarded wisdom, sacred tree imagery, royal legitimation, and post-Flood religious authority. What surprised me in Annus’s paper is how often the Enochic material seems to select exactly the features a Babylonian scholar might have celebrated, then retell them as the reason judgment came.

Why Apkallus Could Become Demons

The simplest objection is that Mesopotamians revered the apkallus as culture heroes and protectors. Annus answers by showing that Mesopotamian sources themselves sometimes portray apkallu-like figures as dangerous, witchcraft-linked, or associated with the deep.

The key evidence comes from Maqlû, a major anti-witchcraft ritual series. In Maqlû III and VI, incantations call on the gods to burn and cast away sorcerers. Annus notes that the “Sages of the Apsû” appear in hostile anti-witchcraft contexts. His summary is blunt: “The apkallus occur at least twice in the anti-witchcraft series Maqlû as witches, against whom incantations are directed.” That matters because it prevents a too-neat contrast between good Babylonian sages and bad Jewish Watchers. In some ritual contexts, “sage” could shade toward dangerous wielder of illegitimate power.

Annus also uses Bīt Mēseri, a text listing apkallus and post-Flood successors. Some later sages in that chain provoke divine anger. One angers Adad, after which rain and growth cease for three years; another angers Ea in connection with a goat-fish and is killed. These stories suggest that the apkallu lineage already carried warnings about transgression and divine judgment.

Cosmology adds another bridge. Apkallus are linked to the Apsû, the fresh-water deep, which Annus connects with underworld and demonological associations. It is a realm tied in some texts to monsters and “evil ones of Ea.” Apkallu figures are created in the Apsû or dwell there; protective figurines are buried under thresholds as if emerging from the deep to guard the living. Such beings could be protective without being tame.

Annus also turns to Flood traditions. In the Erra Epic, Marduk describes sending “craftsmen” down into the Apsû and forbidding their return; Annus understands these craftsmen as sages. He reads this beside the Enochic punishment of Watchers and giants: “Thus, like the Watchers, the Mesopotamian apkallus were punished by a flood according to the Erra Epic.” The shared structure is suggestive: antediluvian semi-divine figures, judgment at the Flood, removal to a watery abyss, and continuing danger or influence afterward.

Here Annus is not saying Jewish demonology simply mirrors Mesopotamian demonology. His point is narrower and stronger: Jewish writers did not have to invent the apkallus’ dark side from nothing. Mesopotamian tradition already contained ambivalence—revered sages could also be warlock-like, underworld-adjacent, and capable of provoking divine anger.

How Michael Heiser Used Annus’s Argument

Michael Heiser repeatedly treated Annus’s paper as a turning point in the interpretation of Genesis 6. On his recommended-reading page, he described it as the most important study of the Mesopotamian background to the passage. In a 2015 discussion of Genesis 6:1–4, he argued that the apkallu material makes non-supernatural, purely human readings difficult to sustain because they fail to account for the ancient Near Eastern context.

Heiser takes Annus’s comparison one step further. Annus is primarily reconstructing the cultural and literary background of the Watchers tradition. Heiser folds that reconstruction into a broader biblical-theological argument: Genesis 6 itself answers Mesopotamian claims about divine sages, primeval wisdom, hybrid heroes, and civilization before the Flood. On this reading, the biblical writer is not accepting pagan religion as truth. He is taking a familiar story-world and reversing its moral verdict. What Mesopotamia could praise as wisdom delivered by divine culture-bringers, Genesis presents as a transgression that accelerates human corruption and judgment.

This is also why Heiser gives 1 Enoch real historical value without treating it as Scripture. He argues that the Book of Watchers preserves and expands elements of the ancient context surrounding Genesis 6—especially forbidden instruction, divine-human boundary crossing, giant offspring, and judgment. For Heiser, this background helps explain why Jude and 2 Peter can echo the Watchers tradition while Genesis remains the canonical anchor.

That is a stronger theological synthesis than Annus’s paper itself attempts. Annus supplies the comparative evidence; Heiser incorporates it into a supernatural reading of Genesis 6 and a larger account of biblical theology. Heiser’s use should therefore be evaluated as an interpretation and application of Annus, not as independent proof that every proposed apkallu–Watcher correspondence is exact.

For a focused introduction, watch Michael Heiser’s video “Mesopotamian Origins of the Watchers.” He explains why he reads Genesis as polemic rather than simple copying, discusses what Annus’s 2010 study added to the debate, and connects apkallu traditions to the Watchers material.

What the Comparison Can and Cannot Prove

Four layers need to stay distinct: what Scripture states, what Annus argues, what the comparative evidence supports, and what remains speculative.

Scripture is sparse. Genesis 6:1–4 says the “sons of God” took “daughters of man,” that Nephilim were present “in those days, and also afterward,” and that the episode belongs in the shadow of the Flood. Jude 6 mentions angels who sinned and were kept for judgment; 2 Peter 2:4–5 places sinning angels near the example of Noah. Neither passage mentions apkallu lore.

Annus argues that Jewish writers knew Mesopotamian apkallu traditions in some form, mapped Enoch and the Watchers onto that antediluvian template, and turned Babylonian wisdom claims into a critique of illicit revelation. He further suggests that the Watchers myth may also criticize illegitimate priestly authority in Jerusalem, because apkallus functioned as ancestors of priests and scholars. He proposes the Exile as a likely formative setting, but that remains a historical inference, not something directly proved by a text.

Similarity is not the same as dependence. Annus’s model is most persuasive where several features converge: antediluvian setting, teaching function, forbidden sciences, priestly authority, garden or tree imagery, Flood judgment, and abyssal confinement. Any single parallel could be coincidence or part of a broader ancient Near Eastern mythic environment.

Even if dependence is granted, it does not make apkallu stories the theological original. Annus is doing historical comparison. From a Christian perspective, Genesis remains the canonical anchor; 1 Enoch, Jubilees, the Book of Giants, and Qumran fragments are valuable witnesses to Second Temple interpretation, not binding authorities. When they explain demons as the spirits of dead giants, we are hearing an ancient Jewish interpretation, not a doctrine established by Genesis.

Conclusion: Takeaways

Annus’s model is useful because it explains why the Watchers tradition looks both Jewish and Babylonian. Its central claim is that Enochic writers deliberately inverted Mesopotamian apkallu lore: culture-bringing sages became corrupt heavenly teachers, their prestigious knowledge became forbidden revelation, and Enoch was raised as the faithful antediluvian revealer over against them.

The best use of this work is disciplined comparison. It can illuminate the world in which some Jews read Genesis 6, show how Second Temple authors resisted rival claims to wisdom, and warn us against treating every Enochic expansion as if it were Scripture. It also reminds researchers to keep Annus’s speculative proposals marked as proposals: priestly critique and exilic transmission are plausible, not proven.

The takeaway is not “Babylon explains the Bible.” It is that later Jewish writers may have preached Genesis 6 into a Babylonian intellectual world by turning that world’s proudest wisdom tradition upside down. Scripture stays first; comparative history helps us understand the conversations happening around it.

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.

Primary source: Amar Annus, “On the Origin of Watchers: A Comparative Study of the Antediluvian Wisdom in Mesopotamian and Jewish Traditions,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 19.4 (2010): 277–320. https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820710373978. This review read the paper closely alongside the Mesopotamian and Enochic passages Annus cites, with quotations checked against the verified text and weighed against the biblical witness.

Next: Read What Is the Book of Enoch? for a Bible-first guide to the text, its Watchers story, canon status, and related research.