Why an Ancient Scroll About Giants is the Most Relevant Thing You’ll Read Today
By Mark Edward Chard
I am delighted to share that I have been appointed as an Honorary Lecturer within the School of Arts (Theology and Religion) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).
For those who may not know, UKZN is a global leader in the field of Contextual Theology. It is the home of the Ujamaa Centre, an institution that has pioneered the practice of socially engaged biblical scholarship, where the "text" is brought into dynamic dialogue with the lived realities of ordinary people struggling for justice. To be appointed here is a profound honor.
My role is to further our collective research into Black Relational Eschatology, decolonial hermeneutics, and the development of new theological frameworks for kinship and belonging.
This article represents my first direct contribution to this vibrant academic community. It serves as a precursor to a larger research programme I am developing with the faculty, exploring how ancient texts can provide us with the "theological grammar" needed to navigate modern crises.
THE HOOK: ANCIENT FRAGMENTS, MODERN FIRES
Scattered across roughly ten fragile Aramaic manuscripts discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the "Book of Giants" has long lingered on the margins of history—a victim of what we might call "deliberate fragility." For centuries, these fragments were treated as mere mythological curiosities, expanding on the enigmatic mentions of the Nephilim in Genesis.
Yet, these pieces are more than museum artifacts; they are a long-suppressed mirror reflecting the crises of our own age. In a world where the "gigantic" problems of late-stage capitalism and ecological collapse feel immovable, these ancient texts provide a vital grammar for our survival.
We live in a moment where the powerful seem as vast and untouchable as the giants of old. We are surrounded by systems that feel "too big to fail" and environmental shifts that feel "too large to stop." The Book of Giants is not a dusty relic; it is a blueprint for understanding modern oppression through a decolonial lens. These fragments were not lost by accident—they were waiting for a hermeneutical community willing to hear their cry.
TAKEAWAY 1: GIANTS AREN’T MONSTERS—THEY ARE SYSTEMS
In a decolonial re-reading, the giants (the Nephilim) are reinterpreted not as prehistoric monsters, but as archetypal symbols of structural power. Their "insatiable greed" is the defining feature of their existence. They do not sin in the abstract; they devour food, shed blood, and corrupt the land.
This "gigantic insatiability" maps directly onto modern multinational corporations and the legacies of colonial land dispossession. The violence of these giants is structural, not personal.
"In a contextual African reading, this grammar of gigantic insatiability maps with disturbing precision onto the structures of neo-colonial and late-capitalist power that continue to devour the African continent. Multinational mining corporations extracting platinum, cobalt, and coltan from southern African soil—leaving behind poisoned water tables, displaced communities, and collapsed ecosystems—are giants in precisely this sense. Their appetites are structural, not personal."
TAKEAWAY 2: THE "DREAMS" OF THE GIANTS ARE CLIMATE WARNINGS
The Book of Giants records that the Nephilim were troubled by ominous visions: a great stone tablet submerged in water and a magnificent garden felled by axes. These are "epistemic events"—moments where the truth of a collapsing system is revealed through the land itself.
Despite having conquered the earth, the giants suffered from a fatal lack of understanding. This mirrors our modern "Western ocular-centrism," which ignores the "epistemology of the land." While modern giants calculate quarterly earnings, the earth—and the indigenous knowledge systems that read it—has been registering warnings of systemic collapse for generations. Climate science today serves as the modern "submerged tablet," delivering a precise warning of the consequences of a world corrupted by over-extraction.
TAKEAWAY 3: ENOCH AS THE ORIGINAL "ORGANIC INTELLECTUAL"
When the giants realize they cannot interpret their own dreams, they turn to Enoch the Scribe. This creates a powerful inversion of hierarchy: the violent and physically powerful must seek out the moral authority of the powerless scribe. Grounded in the tradition of the Ujamaa Centre at UKZN, we see Enoch as the original "organic intellectual"—a thinker who places their gifts at the service of community liberation.
Modern "Enochs" are scholar-activists who remain accountable to the truth rather than the system:
Theologians and Scholar-Activists: Figures like those at the Ujamaa Centre who read ancient signs to name modern systemic evil.
Environmental Lawyers: Advocates who use the law to hold multinational "giants" accountable for the destruction of the earth.
Traditional Healers: The keepers of indigenous ecological knowledge whose understanding of the land’s health has been systematically ignored by extractive capitalism.
TAKEAWAY 4: THE SURPRISING GENEALOGY OF VIOLENCE
The Enochic tradition identifies a clear link between the original transgression of the Watchers—the violation of women—and the resulting cosmic ruin. The source argues that Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is the "seed" from which all other forms of social and ecological destruction grow. In this logic, the violation of the human body and the violation of the "body" of the earth are inextricably linked.
To act as an "Enoch" today is to recognize that GBV is not a private matter, but a cosmic transgression that destabilizes the entire social and ecological fabric.
TAKEAWAY 5: JUDGMENT AS RESTORATION, NOT DESTRUCTION
The "coming flood" in the Book of Giants is not merely a punitive catastrophe; it is a "restorative" act. It is the necessary leveling of "gigantic" structures that have made life impossible for the marginalized. This is the core of Black Relational Eschatology—a refusal to let the current world of oppression have the final word. It is a "tough, historically grounded hope" that the present arrangement of the world is not permanent.
CONCLUSION: THE TABLETS ARE READY TO BE READ
The Book of Giants is not a relic of the past; it is a promise for the present. It has survived in fragments, waiting for a hermeneutical community willing to hear its cry. It asks us to look at our own world and identify the "giants" currently devouring our land and our communities.
The text suggests that while the giants may be powerful, their authority is hollow because they cannot read the signs of their own ending. The power to interpret, to name evil, and to act for restoration remains with those—the Enochs of the townships, the courtrooms, and the classrooms—who are willing to speak truth to power.
Who are the giants in your life? And are you ready to read the tablets?
And now, at last, the tablets can be read.