The Book of Giants is one of the most remarkable texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls—and it tells a story the Bible only hints at. In (Genesis 6:4), a single verse mentions the Nephilim (נפילים), "mighty men of old, men of renown," born from the union of divine beings and human women. That is all the Bible says. The Book of Giants tells what happened next.
Composed in Aramaic, probably in the 3rd or 2nd century BCE, the Book of Giants is an expansion of the Watchers tradition found in 1 Enoch. It focuses on two giants in particular: Ohya and Hahya, the sons of the Watcher Shemihazah. These giants are enormous, violent, and destructive. They devour the produce of the earth and turn against humanity. But they are not mindless brutes. They dream.
Ohya has a terrifying vision: a huge tablet descending from heaven, covered in writing. When the writing is read, it describes the destruction of everything on earth—all flesh, all life, wiped out by a divine catastrophe. The giants are shaken. They realize that the judgment is directed at them and their fathers, the Watchers, who violated the boundary between heaven and earth.
The giants send a messenger—Mahaway, son of the Watcher Baraq'el—on a journey to find Enoch, the one human who can interpret dreams and speak with the angels. Mahaway flies across the inhabited world (the text may describe him using wings or supernatural travel) until he reaches Enoch. But Enoch's interpretation offers no comfort: the flood is coming. The tablet is a death sentence. And no giant, no matter how powerful, can appeal the verdict of heaven.