Nicholas Moore: Jude, 2 Peter, and Greek Mythology

Nicholas J. Moore, “Jude and the Watchers in the Early Church,” NovT 68 (2026), 92-93.

While 2 Peter offers less explicit engagement with Enochic traditions than does Jude, the wording of 2 Pet 2:4 is striking in establishing a further link with the Watchers tradition. The expression “when the angels sinned” (a genitive absolute, ἀγγέλων ἁμαρτησάντων) is generic and underdetermined, certainly by comparison with Jude, but the location and means of their detention is more specific than in Jude. God “committed them to chains (σειραῖς, or pits, σιροῖς) of darkness, casting them into Tartarus (ταρταρώσας), keeping them for judgment” (my translation). In Greek mythology Tartarus is a deep pit where certain sinners are thrown. In the Greek of 1 En. 20:2 the good angel Uriel has authority over Tartarus, immediately following Enoch’s tour of a deep pit (18:11–16) and Uriel’s statement that the angels who had sexual union with women are there (19:1–2). What is more, in Greek mythology Tartarus is the prison for the Titans, former gods-cum-giants, representing a further link with the Watchers tradition where the offspring of angels and humans are giants.19 Josephus draws the comparison between the Watchers and the Titans explicitly in Antiquities 1.73–75. In sum, there is ample evidence that both 2 Peter and Jude evoke the Watchers tradition.