The lost sequel to Enoch: a book about the giants, the Nephilim's children, their dreams of doom, and their appeal to Enoch, known for two thousand years only from Manichaean rumor until the Dead Sea Scrolls returned the original.
Documented
The fragments
Documented: fragments of the Book of Giants were found at Qumran in at least nine copies (1Q23, 1Q24, 2Q26, 4Q203, 4Q530-533, 6Q8), Aramaic, dating to the last centuries BCE, making it one of the best-attested non-biblical books in the caves. The giants Ohyah, Hahyah, and Mahaway appear by name; the dream episodes and Enoch's decipherment are preserved.
Assessment: Documented: nine manuscript copies, the named giants, the dream sequence. Qumran kept it as scripture-adjacent reading.
Stories
The Manichaean afterlife
The documented second life: Mani rewrote the Book of Giants as one of his own canon, and fragments of his version survive in Middle Persian, Sogdian, and Uyghur from Central Asia, carrying the giants' story to China. Augustine, who had been a Manichaean, references their giant literature. The book is thus documented on three continents in four languages.
Assessment: Documented: the Turfan fragments and Augustine's references. No other Enochic text traveled farther.
Interesting claims
The sympathy problem
The reading: the fragments show the giants not as monsters but as frightened sons, dreaming of annihilation, sending embassies, receiving a verdict with one rootstock spared. The Enochic authors gave the condemned a courtroom scene. Later tradition flattened them into ogres; the scrolls preserve the tragedy.
Assessment: Interesting: the emotional register is documented in the fragments. The oldest horror story we have ends with a parent hearing the sentence.