Watchers in Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

In the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the fall of the angels is mentioned twice. One is only a brief reference stating that the Watchers “changed the order of their nature.” (Naphtali 3:5) The second is in Reuben, where he accuses womankind of seeking to ensnare men.

“Thus they allured the Watchers before the Flood, for as these continually beheld them, they lusted after them and conceived the act in their mind; for they changed themselves unto the shape of men and appeared to them when they were with their husbands; and the women, lusting in their minds after their forms, gave birth to giants, for the Watchers appeared to them as reaching up to heaven.” (Reuben 5)

In this account, the writer denies that there was a physical union between the angels and mortal women. He says that the real fathers of the giants were humans, but the giants were conceived from the mutal passion from angels and women.