What the "Watcher" Stone Does and Doesn’t Tell Us

Mount Hermon is a towering peak visible from miles away, looming on the northern horizon of ancient Israel.  It has long attracted religious significance across cultures, from Canaanite to Roman, and perhaps most famously in the Jewish apocalyptic imagination of 1 Enoch.  But how tightly are these traditions connected?  A Greek inscription discovered at Qasr Antar--a likely cultic site on the summit of Mount Hermon--has reignited speculation that this could be a literal marker of the Watchers' oath from 1 Enoch 6, or at least something of the type.  So here we're going to ask, what does the evidence actually support?

I have a number of things to point out about this, and not a lot of time to try to give you this information in written form, so here’s a bunch of stuff to consider.

What the Qasr Antar Inscription Says (and Doesn't Say)

• Discovered by Charles Warren in 1869
• Greek inscription reads: "By command of the great and holy god, those taking an oath [go forth] from here"
• Likely dates to 3rd–5th century CE, based on script and grammatical form
• No deity named, and no reference to Shemihazah, Watchers, or any Semitic figures
• Found among ruins of a small stone building, presumed cultic but not definitively a temple

Connection to the "Watchers" of 1 Enoch/Genesis 6?

• Mount Hermon, which at least later manuscripts of 1 Enoch suggest is the location of the Sons of God episode of Genesis 6.
• "The great and holy god" sounds similar to language in 1 Enoch
• An oath is being taken
• The oath takers are to proceed from the mountain

Quote from Nickelsburg's 1 Enoch Commentary about this stone:

"The similarities might reflect cultic activity that was somehow informed by traditions from 1 Enoch."

Note the word “informed.”  Nickelsburg's cautious wording is crucial.  He suggests the stone might reflect influence from Enochic tradition, not that it confirms a historical event from 1 Enoch, or even that the inscription consciously refers to the Watchers.  (In fact, it doesn't, because if there is a connection, the terminology on the stone is reminiscent of a title for God Most High in 1 Enoch.) 

Interestingly, an idea surrounding a speculative new translation both tries to reinforce that connection--and ends up demolishing it at the same time.  

Douglas Hamp's Alteration and Its Consequences

• Harmonizes texts, beliefs, deities, and chronology

Douglas Hamp has proposed a retranslation of the Greek inscription that replaces "the great and holy god" with references to Dagon, which significantly changes the theological implications.  And as I said, ironically, this weakens the potential connection to 1 Enoch.  In Enoch, the title "Great and Holy One" is used for God Most High (not a lesser deity or fallen angel).  Replacing/changing this title undermines Nickelsburg’s point that the inscription’s phrasing may reflect Enochic influence.  

• Hamp’s supposition is that Satan commands the Sons of God to create a hybrid race
• Note this modern trajectory in “creating a hybrid race” vs what 1 Enoch 6:2 actually says:

And the watchers, the sons of heaven, saw them [the daughters of men] and desired them. And they said to one another, “Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men, and let us beget for ourselves children.”

• Note also his conflation with Shemhaziah and Satan; while there are similarities with many characters in 1 Enoch and other second temple literature, the question of how to relate one evil character to another often leads to a harmonizing that does not take into account the individual authors of the texts and the fact that these texts were not written systematically 

The Aramaic Enoch Fragments and Hermon?

• Oathtaking is mentioned in Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch from Qumran (4QEnoch / 4Q204):

Col. 3 1and they all said to him, Let us swe[ar …] 2We will [not] turn away, any of us, from th[is] plan […] 3all of them together and [they] took an oath […] 4in the days of Jared on […] 5who swore and took an oath […] and these […] 6Shemihaza 

…th[ey and th]eir [lieu]tenants [… they took] 14women of all that they chose and […] 15and to teach them sorcery […] 16and the women became pregnant by them and bo[re … and giants] 17were being born on the earth [… they consumed] 18the labor of all the sons of men and did not […] 19were conspiring to slay humankind […] 20against every bird and [beas]ts of [the] earth […] 21[and in] the heavens and to devour the fish of the sea; [their own] flesh […]

Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 281.

• Traditionally, the mountain is where the Watchers descend and swear their oath, but Hermon is not mentioned in the above text (our oldest); the text is fragmentary and may have included the name, but that is supposition
• The evidence that links these texts to the Qasr Antar inscription is vague and linguistically, the connection is not to Shemhaziah, but to God the Most High

...the title “the greatest and holy God” closely parallels one of 1 Enoch’s favorite divine titles, “the Great Holy One,” often rendered into Greek as “the Great and Holy One”

George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, ed. Klaus Baltzer, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001), 247.

The Nature of Oaths in the Ancient World

• Oath-taking was central in many cultures, often marked by physical spaces or stones
• Examples:
• Hittite treaty stelae (e.g. Suppiluliuma's treaties)
• Greek inscriptions at Delphi, often to Apollo or Zeus Horkios
• Joshua 24:26–27 ("this stone shall be a witness against us")
• Deuteronomy 27–30 (curses and blessings at Gerizim and Ebal)
• Mystery cults used oaths in initiations (e.g., Mithraic rites)
• Therefore, the concept of an "oath stone" is widespread and not unique to 1 Enoch

Speculation vs. Scholarship

• It is tempting to find confirmation of ancient texts in physical artifacts
• But dating matters: this inscription is ~500+ years later than the earliest copies of 1 Enoch
• The lack of specific names or iconography makes any identification highly speculative
• Mount Hermon has clearly been a site of many traditions and cultic uses
• Oaths are widespread in the ancient world; the mention of an oath may refer to all manner of purposes
• Modern interpretations often conflate multiple deities (El, Dagon, Enlil, Kronos, Shemihazah) into one "rebel god" framework not supported by evidence
• Even if Hamp’s translation is correct, bulls are related to many, many deities (including YHWH himself); just as a serpent has multiple meanings within the biblical text (see Moses lifting up the serpent on the pole for healing), so does a bull

What Mount Hermon Represents

• Hermon fits the symbolic pattern of sacred mountains across the ANE
• Mountains represent cosmic meeting points (e.g., Sinai, Zaphon, Eden, Olympus)
• In 1 Enoch, Hermon becomes a kind of anti-Sinai:  a mountain of rebellion, not covenant
• This symbolic use of geography is theological, not archaeological

What We Can (and Can’t) Claim

• The Qasr Antar site is likely cultic, but we cannot confirm its function as a temple or its direct link to 1 Enoch
• The Greek inscription is intriguing, especially with its phrasing, but does not mention the Watchers or even a Semitic god (and the timeline would make it strange if it did)
• Theologically, Hermon became a site of cosmic rebellion in Enochic imagination, but projecting that onto a late Roman inscription is unwarranted without further evidence
• Speculation can be exciting, but must be clearly separated from textual or archaeological evidence

Bottom Line: It’s possible that someone, centuries after 1 Enoch was written, reused Mount Hermon in their own religious tradition, drawing on similar ideas.  In fact, it’s quite possible that such a tradition was used and morphed and manipulated through time.  That’s how people do things.  But this type of repurposing is not confirmation of the Watchers myth, though it might be evidence of its potency.  We must resist the urge to retrofit evidence to match theological or mythic narratives.  In the study of ancient religion, caution is not skepticism; it is integrity.

Further Reading:

• George Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary
• Amar Annus, The God Ninurta...
• Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites
• Sarah Iles Johnston, Ancient Greek Divination
• Expertise and How to Detect It | Larry Hurtado's Blog