The Book of Giants: The Nephilim Explained

The Book of Giants by Jeremy Payton, a paperback seen at an angle.

The Book of Giants tells the story that Genesis leaves in a single line. The Watchers came down from heaven and took human wives. As a result, their children were the giants, the Nephilim, the men of renown. Then the giants filled the earth with violence, and the flood came. For centuries the book itself lay in the dark. Finally, in the caves of Qumran, its fragments came to light among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now this book puts those fragments back together and explains what they say.

Above all, this is the book for anyone who has read about the Nephilim and wants the rest of the story. You want to know who the giants were, why they had to die and what the flood was really for. You need no Aramaic and no prior reading, because Jeremy Payton starts from the caves and then takes the story in order.

What is inside

Origins and discovery. Where the book came from, how it vanished, and how its fragments turned up at Qumran.
The Aramaic text. What the fragments say, in plain words, and also what their language tells us about the world that wrote them.
The Book of Giants and the Book of Enoch. How the two books share the Watchers and their sons, and where the Giants instead adds a story of its own.
Theology and myth. Why the sons of angels had to die, what the flood meant, and how the giants later became demons.
The book today. Why the Nephilim still draw readers today, and what the text says to them.

Between them, these parts follow one thread: the giants, their crimes and their end. Along the way, the book also follows the strangest part of the legend, a giant who may have outlived the flood. In the end, it answers the question that Genesis raises and never settles: what did the flood wash away?

How the text is presented

First of all, this is a study of the Book of Giants, not a bare edition of the fragments. The text survives only in pieces, and the pieces mean little on their own. So the book reads them in order, explains each one and sets it beside the Book of Enoch. If you want the fragments alone, look elsewhere. If instead you want to understand them, this is the book.

The writing is plain, current English. The chapters follow a fixed order, so you can read the book straight through or open it at the part you are after. Finally, a corrected and improved edition came out in August 2024.

What readers say

Two verified purchasers, one in the United States and one in the United Kingdom:

This offering held my interest from the beginning to the very last paragraph. It’s a great reminder that without open-mindedness, we will never grasp the truth of possibility.
Nancy Sonnier, Amazon, July 2026