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The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Traditions.

Editors: Angela Kim Harkins, Kelley Coblentz Bautch & John C Endres S.J.

Fortress Press. 2014.

ISBN: 9780800699789.

The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Traditions is one of the best single-entry gateways into the “Watchers” tradition, mapping its development from Genesis 6 through Second Temple Jewish literature into early Christian, targumic, and midrashic receptions.

The editors gather leading scholars to trace how the enigmatic “sons of God” in Genesis 6:1–4 became a full-blown angelological and demonological complex in post-biblical literature. The essays track the Watchers’ story through Mesopotamian background, Enochic texts, Jubilees, Dead Sea Scrolls, early Christian authors, and rabbinic traditions, offering a compact survey of the motif’s historical and theological evolution.

Angela Kim Harkins is a Professor of New Testament at the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry, where she has taught since 2015. Trained at the University of Notre Dame (M.A. 1997; Ph.D. 2003) and further formed by study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on a Fulbright fellowship, she specializes in Second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Christian origins, with particular focus on prayers, emotions, and religious experience in ancient Jewish and Christian texts.

Kelley Coblentz Bautch, Ph.D., is Professor of Religious Studies at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. Her research centers on the history and religions of ancient Israel and early Judaism, especially apocalyptic literature and the Enochic corpus, and she is widely recognized for her contributions to scholarship on the Book of Enoch and related Second Temple Jewish traditions.

John C. Endres, S.J. (1946–2022), was a Jesuit priest and biblical scholar who taught for decades at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California. After doctoral studies in theology at Vanderbilt University (1977–1982), he joined the faculty in Berkeley, focusing on the Psalms, Wisdom literature, the deuterocanonical books, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and later became professor emeritus in 2020.

About Coram Deo

Coram Deo — before the face of God. This blog reflects on Scripture, world events, science, music, psychology, and the human mind — always through the lens of Christian faith. All of life is lived before the face of God.