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Ancient Texts: Lost Books of the Bible and Strange Passages

Lost books, banned books and the strangest passages in scripture and myth, quoted from public-domain translations with the reference for every line.

The lost books here include 1 Enoch and Jubilees, which survive complete only in Ge'ez and are part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible, and the Book of Giants, recovered in scraps from the Dead Sea caves.

Events 14

Greece and RomeArmies in the clouds over Jerusalem (66 CE)Before the war with Rome, Josephus says chariots and armed troops were seen running through the clouds around Judean cities.Other traditionsBronze Age collapseAround 1200 BCE the great kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean fell within a few decades, and the Egyptians blamed the Sea Peoples.IndiaKali YugaThe last and darkest of the four Hindu ages, 432,000 years long, which by tradition began in 3102 BCE, the year Krishna left the earth.Greece and RomeLivy's ships in the skyIn the winter of 218 BCE, with Hannibal in Italy, Rome logged phantom ships gleaming in the sky and figures in shining clothes.IndiaManu and Matsya (the fish)India's flood story: a tiny fish begs Manu to save it, grows enormous, and tows his ship through the deluge to a northern mountain.Greece and RomePliny's burning shieldPliny the Elder records a burning, sparking shield that crossed the sky at sunset from west to east in 100 BCE.Greece and RomeSolon and the priests of SaisAn Egyptian priest tells the Athenian sage Solon that Greeks are children who have forgotten the world's repeated destructions.Other traditionsSupernova of 1006The brightest star in recorded history: a new light in 1006 bright enough to cast shadows, logged from Egypt to China.Other traditionsThe 774 CE red cross and radiation spikeA sudden spike of radiation locked into tree rings in 774 CE, and an English chronicle's red cross in the sky that same year.Greece and RomeThe silver jar at Lucullus' battleAs Roman and Pontic armies prepared to fight in Phrygia, a flaming silver object shaped like a wine jar fell between them.Other traditionsThe year without a sun (536 CE)In 536 a mysterious dust veil dimmed the sun for over a year, bringing summer frost, crop failures and a century of cold.Other traditionsThe Younger Dryas freezeAn abrupt return to near-Ice Age cold about 12,900 years ago, and one of the most debated events in prehistory.Other traditionsTunguska eventIn 1908 an explosion over Siberia flattened some 80 million trees across 2,000 square kilometers and left no crater.JapanUtsuro-bune (the hollow ship)In 1803, Japanese fishermen reportedly found a round vessel with windows and a woman inside who clutched a box no one could touch.

Beings 34

Persia (Zoroastrian)Ahriman (Angra Mainyu)The destructive spirit of Zoroastrianism, who burst through the sky from outside and poisoned a perfect creation.Hebrew BibleAnakimThe giant clan of Hebron who made Israel's spies feel like grasshoppers, and whose survivors lived on in Goliath's city.Sumer and BabylonAnunnakiThe great gods of Sumer and Babylon, whose name means something like 'offspring of An', the sky god. They also became judges of the dead.Sumer and BabylonApkallu (the seven sages)Seven semi-divine sages sent by Enki before the Flood to give humans civilization, carved as fish-men and eagle-headed spirits.Gnostic textsArchonsIn Gnostic texts, the flawed rulers who built the material world and the human body, and who fear the spark of light trapped inside us.Enoch literature; LeviticusAzazelA name from the Day of Atonement ritual that became the Watcher who taught humanity weapons, metalwork and makeup.IrelandBalorThe Fomorian giant whose one destructive eye needed four men to lift its lid, and who died when Lugh turned it on his own army.Hebrew BibleCherubimNot chubby babies: the Bible's cherubim guard Eden with a turning sword of fire and carry God's throne.Enoch literatureGadreelThe Watcher said to have shown humanity 'the weapons of death' and to have led Eve astray in Eden.Bible and QuranGog and MagogA people locked behind a wall at the edge of the world, who break loose at the end of time in the Bible and the Quran alike.QuranHarut and MarutTwo angels in Babylon who taught forbidden knowledge, but only after warning every student: "We are only a temptation."Hebrew Bible; Canaanite mythHelel ben Shahar (Lucifer)The 'shining one, son of the dawn,' who tried to raise his throne above the stars and was thrown down to the pit.Sumer and BabylonHumbabaThe monstrous guardian of the Cedar Forest, wrapped in seven terrors, whom Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed against the will of the gods.QuranIblisThe fire-born being who refused to bow to Adam, saying "I am better than him," and was given respite until the end of time.Sumer and BabylonIgigiThe junior gods of Babylonian myth who dug the rivers, went on strike, and forced the creation of humankind.Quran and Arabian loreJinnA second intelligent species made of smokeless fire, invisible, with free will, and once able to eavesdrop on the sky.Book of Giants (Qumran and Manichaean)Mahway, Ohyah and Hahyah (giants of the Book of Giants)Named giants from the Dead Sea Scrolls who dream of doom, argue, and send one of their own flying to Enoch for answers.Book of Jubilees; Dead Sea ScrollsMastemaThe prince of evil spirits who, in Jubilees, negotiates with God to keep a tenth of the demons free after the Flood.Jewish mysticism (Hekhalot)MetatronThe highest angel of Jewish mystical texts, once the human Enoch, called 'the lesser YHWH' and given a throne of his own.Hebrew BibleNephilimThe mysterious offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men, named twice in the Bible and never fully explained.Sumer and BabylonOannesA fish-bodied teacher who rose from the sea, taught the Babylonians writing and law by day, and went back into the water at night.Hebrew Bible; Jewish mysticismOphanim (the wheels)Ezekiel's 'wheel in the middle of a wheel,' rims full of eyes, that later became a class of angels.Tobit; Enoch literatureRaphaelThe healing angel who spent weeks disguised as a traveler, then admitted he never ate a bite.Hebrew Bible; UgaritRephaim, Emim and ZamzummimThe giant peoples of the Bible's borderlands, whose name also meant the ghosts of the dead.Enoch literatureSemjaza (Shemihazah)The leader of the two hundred Watchers, who made his followers swear an oath so none could back out of the descent.Hebrew BibleSeraphimSix-winged 'burning ones' who sing 'Holy, holy, holy' and use tongs to press a live coal to a prophet's lips.Greece and RomeTalosA bronze giant who circled Crete three times a day hurling rocks at ships, powered by a single vein sealed with a nail.Hebrew Bible; Canaanite religionThe divine council (sons of God)The Bible's glimpses of a heavenly assembly where 'sons of God' report, debate and receive their sentences.Hebrew Bible (Daniel)The Prince of PersiaA hidden ruler who blocked an angel for twenty-one days, part of Daniel's picture of nations governed by rival heavenly princes.Enoch literatureThe Watchers (Grigori)Heavenly beings who never sleep, sent to watch humanity, who in the Enoch books came down, took wives, and taught forbidden arts.Sumer and BabylonTiamatThe primeval salt sea, mother of the gods, whose split body became the sky and the earth in the Babylonian creation story.IrelandTuatha Dé DanannThe god-like people of Irish legend who arrived in dark clouds, carrying four treasures, and later withdrew into the hills.Enoch literature; 2 EsdrasUrielThe angel who taught Enoch the laws of the sun, moon and stars, and was later struck from the Church's list of approved angels.NorseYmirThe first giant of Norse myth, born in the void, killed by Odin and his brothers, and butchered to build the world.

Gods 11

Sumer and BabylonAnu (An)The Sumerian god of the sky itself, remote father of the gods, whose heaven Etana and Adapa tried to reach.EgyptAtumEgypt's self-made creator, who rose from the primeval waters and promised one day to return everything to them.Sumer and BabylonEnki (Ea)The clever god of fresh water and wisdom who made humans, gave away civilization while drunk, and leaked the plan for the Flood.Sumer and BabylonEnlilThe lord of the wind and king of the gods at Nippur, who sent plague, drought, and finally the Flood because humans were too noisy.ChinaGonggongA red-haired serpent water god who rammed a pillar of heaven, tilting the sky to the northwest and the land to the southeast.Sumer and BabylonInannaGoddess of love, war, and the planet Venus, who stole the powers of civilization and sailed them home in the Boat of Heaven.Sumer and BabylonMardukThe god of Babylon who split the sea-monster Tiamat to build the sky, and was given fifty names, one of them Nibiru.Sumer and BabylonNinurtaThe warrior son of Enlil, who fought a stone demon with a talking weapon and turned a battlefield into irrigated farmland.ChinaNüwaThe Chinese goddess who molded humans from yellow earth and repaired a broken sky with molten stones of five colors.EgyptThothEgypt's ibis-headed god of writing, the moon and secret knowledge, later fused with Hermes into a legendary sage.Gnostic textsYaldabaothThe lion-faced, serpent-bodied false creator of Gnostic myth, who announced he was the only god and did not know what was above him.

People 28

Sumer and BabylonAdapaThe wise man of Eridu who was offered the bread and water of eternal life in heaven, and refused it on his god's advice.Quran and commentaryAsif ibn Barkhiya (the throne carried in a blink)A jinni offers to fetch the Queen of Sheba's throne before Solomon can stand. A man with knowledge of the Book does it in the blink of an eye.Sumer and BabylonBerossusA Babylonian priest who wrote his people's history in Greek, including ten kings who ruled 432,000 years before the Flood.QuranDhul-QarnaynThe Two-Horned One traveled to where the sun sets and rises, then sealed Gog and Magog behind a wall of iron and molten copper.20th-century American occultismDoreal and the "Emerald Tablets of Thoth"A 1930s occult teacher who claimed to have found and translated emerald tablets written by Thoth, a priest-king from Atlantis.Hebrew Bible; Enoch literatureEnochThe man who 'walked with God: and he was not; for God took him,' and who became the hero of an entire library of visions.Sumer and BabylonEtanaThe shepherd king who rode an eagle toward heaven and watched the earth shrink beneath him, then lost his nerve.Sumer and BabylonGilgameshThe two-thirds-divine king of Uruk who fought monsters and sought eternal life, and who reappears among the giants in the Dead Sea Scrolls.2 MaccabeesHeliodorusA Seleucid minister who tried to seize the Jerusalem Temple treasury and was beaten by a shining horseman and two young men.Hellenistic Egypt and Hermetic traditionHermes TrismegistusThe "thrice-great" Egyptian sage, part Thoth and part Hermes, credited with the books behind alchemy and Renaissance magic.QuranIdrisA prophet the Quran says was raised "to high station," whom tradition identifies with Enoch and later with Hermes.Book of Jubilees; SeptuagintKainam (Cainan)Noah's great-grandson, who found the Watchers' astronomy carved on a rock and quietly copied it.IndiaKakudmi and RevatiA king and his daughter visit the creator god for a short audience and return to find that ages have passed on earth.Dead Sea Scrolls; Enoch literatureLamech and BitenoshNoah's parents, in a Dead Sea Scroll scene where Lamech fears his glowing newborn son was fathered by a Watcher.Egypt (Greek-language history)ManethoAn Egyptian priest who wrote the first history of Egypt in Greek, starting with dynasties of gods and demigods.Hebrew Bible; Enoch literatureMethuselahThe longest-lived man in the Bible, 969 years, and in the Enoch books the son who carried his father's secret writings.Hebrew Bible; Jewish and Islamic legendNimrodThe 'mighty hunter before the LORD' who founded the first kingdoms, and whom legend made the builder of the Tower of Babel.Gnostic textsNoreaThe Gnostic heroine who was refused a place on Noah's ark, burned it, and faced down the rulers of the world.Hebrew Bible; rabbinic legendOg of BashanThe last of the Rephaim, whose iron bed, thirteen feet long, was kept on display as a trophy.Quran and Christian legendPeople of the Cave (Seven Sleepers)Young believers who slept in a cave for "three hundred years and add nine," and woke to find the world had changed.EgyptUnasThe last king of Egypt's Fifth Dynasty, and the first to cover his tomb walls with spells to send him to the stars.Sumer and BabylonUtnapishtimThe Babylonian Noah, who survived the Flood in a giant boat and was granted eternal life at the far edge of the world.QuranUzair and the hundred-year sleep (Surah 2:259)A man passes a ruined town, is made to die for a hundred years, and wakes to find his food still fresh and his donkey reduced to bones.Hebrew BibleUzzahThe man who reached out to steady the Ark of the Covenant and dropped dead beside it.Persia (Zoroastrian)Yima (Jamshid) and the VaraWarned of killing winters, the first king built an underground enclosure with its own lights and filled it with the seeds of life.ChinaYu the GreatThe legendary engineer-king who tamed China's Great Flood by dredging channels instead of building dams, and founded the Xia dynasty.Modern ancient-astronaut writingZecharia SitchinThe author who turned the Anunnaki into gold-mining astronauts from Nibiru, and made Sumerian gods a global phenomenon.Sumer and BabylonZiusudra (Xisuthrus)The Sumerian flood hero, king of Shuruppak, who survived the deluge and was settled in Dilmun 'where the sun rises' with life like a god.

Places 13

Quran and Arabian lore'Ad and Iram of the PillarsA vanished Arabian people of great stature and their city of pillars, "the like of which was not created in the lands," erased by a wind.Greece and RomeAtlantisPlato's island empire beyond the Pillars of Heracles, ruled by Poseidon's descendants, swallowed by the sea in a single day and night.NorseBifrostThe burning three-colored bridge between earth and the home of the Norse gods, guarded by Heimdall until Ragnarok.Other traditionsDoggerlandThe lost land under the North Sea that once joined Britain to Europe, home to Stone Age hunters until the sea rose over it.Sumer and BabylonEriduThe city where kingship first came down from heaven, according to the Sumerians, and where eighteen temples were built one on top of another.NorseGinnungagapThe yawning void that existed before the Norse world, where fire met ice and the first giant was born.Other traditionsGöbekli TepeCarved stone pillars in southeast Turkey, raised by hunter-gatherers over 11,000 years ago, seven thousand years before Stonehenge.Greece and RomeHelikeA real Greek city swallowed by an earthquake and the sea in one winter night in 373 BCE, its ruins later seen underwater.Hebrew Bible; Enoch literatureMount HermonThe 9,200-foot peak where, according to 1 Enoch, two hundred Watchers landed and swore their oath.Sumer and BabylonShuruppakThe city of the Flood hero, where archaeologists really did find a flood layer, and some of the oldest literature on earth.Greece and RomeTartarusThe bronze-walled pit beneath the underworld where the Greek gods imprisoned the Titans, and a word 2 Peter uses for fallen angels.EgyptThe Imperishable StarsThe stars around the north pole that never set, where Egypt's first kings hoped to live forever.Other traditionsVitrified fortsStone hillforts in Scotland and Europe whose walls were melted into glass by fires hot enough to fuse rock.

Objects 13

Hebrew Bible and EthiopiaArk of the CovenantA gold-covered chest with two cherubim on its lid, built to exact specifications, that struck down those who touched it.IndiaBrahmashiraA divine weapon in the Mahabharata so dangerous that, once fired, it could not be recalled, and was turned against the unborn.Greece and RomeHephaestus' golden maidensIn the oldest Greek epic, the smith god builds wheeled tripods that move by themselves and golden women who think and speak.Egypt and geologyLibyan desert glass (Tutankhamun's scarab)Yellow glass scattered in the Sahara, formed by a cosmic event 29 million years ago, carved into the scarab on Tutankhamun's pectoral.The AmericasMaya Long CountThe Maya day-count that starts in 3114 BCE, turned over a great cycle on December 21, 2012, and reaches numbers far larger than that.Jewish mysticismMerkabah (throne-chariot)The fiery throne-chariot of Ezekiel's vision, so dangerous to study that the rabbis restricted who could even discuss it.Sumer and Babylon; modern speculationNibiruIn Babylon, a name of Marduk and a crossing point in the sky. In modern lore, a hidden planet always about to hit Earth.IndiaPushpaka VimanaThe flying palace-car of the Ramayana, built for the gods, stolen by Ravana, and flown home by Rama with his whole army aboard.IndiaSaubha, the flying cityA flying fortress-city in the Mahabharata that could go anywhere, vanish, and rain weapons, until Krishna split it with his discus.Jewish, Christian and Islamic legendSeal of Solomon (Solomon's ring)A signet ring from heaven that let Solomon bind demons and set them to work building the Temple.Sumer and BabylonSharurNinurta's weapon that speaks, flies off to scout the enemy, and reports back with advice. Literature's oldest talking weapon.NorseSkidbladnirThe dwarf-built ship of the Norse gods: big enough for all of them, always sailing with a fair wind, and foldable into a pouch.ChinaThe Qigong (Jigong) flying cartA people from a far country build wind-driven flying carts; one lands in ancient China, is dismantled, and ten years later flies home.

Texts 30

Enoch literature; Ethiopian Orthodox canon1 EnochThe ancient Jewish book of the Watchers, giants and heavenly journeys, quoted in the New Testament and preserved whole only in Ethiopia.Enoch literature (Slavonic)2 Enoch (Secrets of Enoch)Enoch's guided tour through the heavens, surviving only in Old Church Slavonic, with giant escorts, silent Grigori and a new angelic body.Jewish mysticism (Hekhalot)3 Enoch (Sefer Hekhalot)A Hebrew mystical text in which Enoch, now the angel Metatron, tells a rabbi how he was turned to fire.Jewish apocalyptic (Slavonic)Apocalypse of AbrahamAbraham rides the wings of sacrificed birds into heaven, sees a throne of fire with wheels full of eyes, and meets Azazel.Sumer and BabylonAtrahasisThe Babylonian epic where overworked gods strike, humans are made from a slain god's blood and clay, and the Flood is sent to silence them.Dead Sea Scrolls; ManichaeismBook of GiantsA lost book told from the giants' point of view, recovered in scraps from the Dead Sea caves and the Silk Road.Medieval Jewish midrashBook of JasherA Hebrew retelling of biblical history that borrows the name of a lost book mentioned in Joshua, full of giants, hybrids and Nimrod's magic garments.Second Temple Judaism; Ethiopian Orthodox canonBook of JubileesA retelling of Genesis revealed to Moses by an angel, where the Watchers came as teachers and every event fits a sacred calendar.Persia (Zoroastrian)BundahishnThe Zoroastrian book of creation: a twelve-thousand-year plan, an invasion from outside the sky, and humans grown from a plant.Syriac ChristianityCave of TreasuresA Syriac history of the world where the 'sons of God' are Seth's descendants living on a holy mountain beside Paradise.Second Temple JudaismDead Sea Scrolls (Qumran)Nearly a thousand ancient manuscripts from caves by the Dead Sea, including the oldest copies of Enoch, Jubilees and the Book of Giants.Hermetic and Arabic alchemyEmerald TabletA short, cryptic alchemical text attributed to Hermes: "That which is below is like that which is above."Sumer and BabylonEnuma ElishBabylon's creation epic: a war among the gods, a sea-monster split to make the sky, and humans made from a rebel god's blood.Dead Sea ScrollsGenesis ApocryphonAn Aramaic scroll from Qumran Cave 1 that retells Genesis in the first person, including Lamech's fear that his son was a Watcher's child.Greece and RomeHesiod's five races of menHesiod's account of humanity made and unmade five times: gold, silver, bronze, heroes, and the iron race that is us.EthiopiaKebra NagastEthiopia's national epic: the Queen of Sheba, her son by Solomon, and how the Ark of the Covenant flew to Ethiopia.IrelandLebor Gabála Érenn (Book of Invasions)The medieval Irish history of the island's settlement by wave after wave of peoples, from a woman before the Flood to the gods and the Gaels.The AmericasLegend of the SunsAn Aztec account of four earlier worlds destroyed by jaguars, wind, fiery rain and flood, and humans remade from old bones and divine blood.Jewish and Christian pseudepigraphaLife of Adam and EveAn ancient sequel to Eden in which Satan explains that he fell because he refused to bow to Adam.Gnostic textsNag Hammadi libraryThirteen leather-bound books buried in a jar in Upper Egypt and found by farmers in 1945, holding lost Gnostic scriptures.The AmericasPopol VuhThe K'iche' Maya book of creation, where the gods make humans four times and then blur the vision of the ones who saw too much.EgyptPyramid TextsThe oldest religious writing in Egypt, carved inside pyramids to send the dead king up to the stars.IndiaSamarangana SutradharaAn 11th-century Sanskrit architecture manual that describes a wooden flying bird powered by heated mercury, and deliberately withholds the details.Sumer and BabylonSumerian King ListA list of kings who ruled for tens of thousands of years before the Flood, after kingship 'descended from heaven' at Eridu.EgyptTale of the Shipwrecked SailorThe oldest known fantasy story: a sailor stranded on an island meets a golden serpent whose family was burned up by a falling star.Jewish and Christian magic (Greek)Testament of SolomonA Greek magical book in which Solomon uses a sealed ring to summon demons, interrogate them, and put them to work building the Temple.Greece and RomeThe reversed world of Plato's StatesmanPlato's myth of a cosmos steered by a god, then let go, so that the world spun backward and people grew younger.EgyptTurin King ListA crumbling papyrus from the age of Ramesses II that lists Egypt's rulers back past the first pharaohs to gods and spirits.India (20th century)Vaimanika ShastraA 'Science of Aeronautics' presented as ancient, but dictated in the 1910s and 20s. Engineers who tested its designs in 1974 found they could not fly.NorseVoluspaA seeress tells Odin the whole history of the world, from the void and the first giant to the fall of the stars and a new earth.

Passages 154

All 154 passages

Features

SeriesOne HistoryEleven chapters that tell one story using only what the ancient texts say.IndexEvery ancient text passageAll passages, by tradition and by kind.

Questions people ask about Ancient Texts

What are the lost books of the Bible?

The phrase usually means ancient Jewish and Christian books that most Bibles left out. This topic covers several: 1 Enoch, quoted in the New Testament and preserved whole only in Ethiopia; Jubilees, a retelling of Genesis; the Book of Giants; 2 and 3 Enoch; and the Nag Hammadi codices found in Egypt in 1945.

Is the Book of Enoch in the Ethiopian Bible?

Yes. 1 Enoch and Jubilees are part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible, and Ethiopia preserved Enoch complete in Ge'ez for over a thousand years after it dropped out of almost every other Bible. The New Testament letter of Jude quotes Enoch by name, and copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

What is the Book of Giants?

A lost book that tells the Watchers story from the side of their giant sons. It was known in Aramaic among the people who kept the Dead Sea Scrolls, and later in Manichaean versions along the Silk Road. Scholars caution that it is very fragmentary, so the order of scenes is partly reconstruction.

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