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One of the sacred books of the Manichaeans, known as the Book of Giants, contained stories about Gilgameš and his monstrous opponent Humbaba, including how the world was corrupted by lustful giants of divine origin. This contains echoes of a Hittite version of the Gilgameš Epic in which Gilgameš and Enkidu are both giants, and of the Akkadian story in which the lust of Gilgameš is emphasized. The Book of Giants also included an episode relating the tale of the Flood in which the name of the hero who survived by building an ark was the Babylonian Utnapištim rather than the Jewish and Christian Noah. Long before Mani was born an earlier version of the Book of Giants, also featuring Gilgameš, Humbaba, and Enoch as Enkidu, had been incorporated into an Aramaic version of the Book of Enoch, known from fragments of Dead Sea scrolls. The Manichaean version is known to us from even smaller fragments retrived from caves and monasteries in the Turfan in Sinkiang province. Enoch himself was partly modelled upon the antediluvian king of Sippar, Enmeduranki, to whom the gods had revealed the secrets of divination; and partly upon Enkidu from the Gilgameš Epic. Even in the time of the Syrian religious philosopher Bardesanes Enoch was acknowledged as the originator of astrology and divination. The link between Enoch and the Manichaeans helps to explain why the latter were condemned as mere magicians and astrologers whose defence against Fate was ritualistic. In the form of the Book of Enoch which Christians used, the chapter about the giants and about Gilgameš had been cut out.
Bibliography
| Dalley 1998, 165 | Dalley, Stephanie. “The Sassanian Period and Early Islam.” In: S. Dalley (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, 163-181. |
Stephanie Dalley
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