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  • From: Rochelle Altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Leviathan
  • Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:23:46 +0200

Hate to intrude with biological data, but if you read the description of the leviathan, with its long snaky "arms," etc., the creature is a giant squid, also referred to as a Kraken. It is indeed a creature of the deeps (tehom) and would have been extremely frightening to men in a small boat. Indeed, sightings of giant squid as late as the 19th-century CE scared the h..l out of mariners. Tales of the "Kraken" (giant squid) overturning large sailing vessels persisted. (Many illustrations available, too.) Giant squid have tentacles up to 90 feet in length.

The area between Rhodes and the current Syrian coast is squid heaven. The Rhodes Deep (4,000 plus feet) is deep enough to support giant squid.

If as late as the 19th-century men still were afraid of the creature, is it at all surprising that 3,000 years ago mariners were terrified of the thing and thought that only a god could handle it? Come to think of it; would anyone out here like to tussle with a creature with tentacles 60 feet in length. let alone 90 feet? Sperm whales with sucker scars indicate that there are 90-foot giant squids out there, though the largest tentacles so far found (dead to be sure) was ca. 65 feet.

Think of the size of a sperm whale, then think about sucker scars on their sides... giant sea monster of the deeps, leviathan? To be sure!

As a point of information, except in visions, there are no mythical creatures in the Tanakh. What later interpreters came up with is neither here nor there.
Not everything in the Tanakh is symbolic; quite a bit is straight-forward reportage, albeit, poetically written. (Yes, Yitchak Sapir, poetically. Only neophytes to literature make a hard and fast line between poetry and prose.)

Rochelle Altman
USA and Israel

Yet another long, but hopefully informative, post...

On 7/14/06, Doug Pickrel wrote, in several posts:

> "Leviathan" is the antiquity name
> for Satan, the twisted serpent that God cut his heads off and placed them
> in the deep. By the way, "Leviathan" means, "the one who live among the sea
> of humanity."
[...]
> I know this [...] There are about a
> dozen passages in the OT that talks about Leviathan and his fate. The late
> Louis Gensberg, former President of the NY Jewish Theological Seminary, and
> author of LEGENDS OF THE BIBLE gives the meaning of Leviathan to be "one who
> dwells in the sea of humanity."
> You know that often 'sea' in Scriptures is actually meaning nation of
> peoples.

This may be a good introduction to Leviathan. If we were to consider that a
primordial battle of cosmic proportions between a good God (Marduk, Ba(l,
Yahweh) and a Sea god or monster would see its reflex in Christianity or even
later Judaism, it would probably be through the use of Satan.

The question of the divinity of the Sea god or monster is also perhaps a little
nitpicky. While Tiamat was a god for the Babylonians, and Yam was a god
for Ugarit's citizens, it's also possible that this myth saw its reflexes in
creatures that were not "divine" proper, but were simply cosmic creatures
that only a god could defeat and subdue. In that case, it might be argued
that the Sea is not divine but simply a super-gigantic cosmic monster. In that
case, though, it probably nothing more than nitpicking on the exact definition
of the word "divine." Furthermore, a differentiation between the Sea as a
whole, and the Sea monster, may be problematic. It may be that simply a
legendary dragon living in the sea, or a Sea god that had control over the sea
but was not the sea itself, or perhaps the sea itself was thought of as the
body of this cosmic monster on whose back lay the Earth, and were this
monster not subdued and bound, the Earth would not lay still but would
constantly experience earthquakes if not worst fates. Isa 27:1 or Amos 9:3
suggest that the dragon was in the sea. Job 7:12 may suggest that Yam
was a name for a dragon. Both Babylon's Tiamat and Ugarit's Yam were
viewed as symbols of chaos -- perhaps because the sea is so chaotic in
nature, and while journey on land does not have to take into account a
huge earthquake or the earth suddenly opening up and swallowing you
whole, journey across the seas does.

As far as evidence goes, it is probably best to start off by bringing the
evidence from Ugarit. From my investigation, Leviathan, Ugarit's "ltn"
(pronounced "Lotan"?), appears only once, and another text, a copy
of the first mention, would probably mention him if that portion of the
tablet was still extant. The mention, probably part of a speech or
message by the death god Mot to Baal, goes:

1. ktmx'c . ltn . bt'n . brx
2. tkly . bt'n . (qltn
3. $ly+ . d. $b(t . r)a$m
4. tt'kx . ttrp . $mm . krs
...
t' = th, x' = khet (opposed to het)

An Ugaritic linguist, Dennis Pardee, is quoted as translating the above
passage as: "When you smite Lotan, the fleeing serpent / finish off the
twisting serpent / the close-coiling one with seven heads.' on the following
website: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/gilgy08.html
Websites are not always dependable, but I think the quotes in this particular
one are authentic. In any case, the translation ascribed to Pardee does
translate the first three lines appropriately: ktmx'c: k = ki, tmx'c = a verb
(Heb. tmxc), bt'n is probably related to Hebrew peten, tkly = from the root
kly, to finish, $ly+ = possibly Shafel/Hiphil of lw+ = to hide(?), but
some scholars
translate as "tyrant"; d ~ Hebrew zh, a pronoun. The last line is described by
Daniel Sivan, another expert of Ugaritic, as the first of three vague
or unclear
lines, providing possible translations for them. I include it because
it appears
to continue the previous three lines with a comparison to $mm = the heavens,
so it is relevant to the arguments that were previously brought on the
discussion regarding parallelisms with Shamayim.

The above Ugaritic excerpt is significant not only because it is relatively
simple to see the linguistic similarities between the Ugaritic language and
the Hebrew, making it quite straightforward to read even if you are not versed
in Ugaritic. But it is also signficant because of its parallel to Isa
27:1. It
appears that Isaiah is alluding to the primordial fight, casting it in
a new light,
as if saying, "on that day, God will recreate the world from scratch."

Today, we can't go back and interview the citizens of Ugarit or the ancient
Israelites to tell us what Leviathan was. But if we could ask of God a 200
word essay on who Leviathan was, it might very well read like Job 40:25 -
41:26. Verse 25, the first after several dealing with behemoth, returns back
to the second-person address of the initial verses of Job 40. This suggests
both, that the "behemoth" section is over, and also that the context of these
verses is that God has indeed performed these actions. He is asking of Job,
"were you the one who subdued Leviathan and made him an eternal slave?"
implying, "I was!" The cosmic primordial context of the speech is also
evident from God's previous speech to Job in which he deals with the
creation of the world.

Job 40:25 onwards describes in graphic terms who Leviathan was, how
powerful he was, and what God did to him. The description of fire
breathing in Job 41:10-13 would definitely befit a dragon as would the
mention of scales, of terror and fear wherever it walks, and the
comparison elsewhere to a snake. Job 40:25-26 and 40:31 also describes
in graphic terms how God bound and pierced the beast. This corresponds
to repeated uses elsewhere in context with the sea beast of such verbs as
prr, rcc, xcb and xll (such as Isa 51:9, Psalms 74:13-14). The use of the
verb &xq in Job 40:29 is comparable to the use in Psalms 104:26. Ps 104:26
also mentions that God created Leviathan, but it is unclear whether this is
an innovation on the part of Ps 104, or whether the author of Job and other
mentions also viewed Leviathan as a creation of God even if they didn't say it
outright. The mention of his everlasting covenant as a slave in 40:28 recalls
instances such as Job 7:12, where God does not completely destroy the
beast but subdues it and binds it. Job 41 ends off with a clear
differentiation
between Tehom and Yam and Leviathan. But it is clear that this Leviathan
has great power over Tehom, comparable to that of a "sea god".

It is worth mentioning at this point that an argument often raised in this
discussion is that "the Bible is monotheistic and therefore doesn't speak of
multiple or additional dieties." But this argument is too general. In fact,
it is texts such as this that would be the evidence for whether the Bible as
a whole is monotheistic. There are clear examples where the Bible makes
statements that are consistent with monotheism. At other times, though,
it makes statements that are almost polytheistic or at least consistent with
a wider view of polytheism. Sometimes, much more weight is ascribed to
the monotheistic statements than they should. For example, when God
says to destroy idols of other gods, it is not necessarily true that this
means that other gods don't exist. Similarly, the same would be true for
claims that the physical idols of the pagans are lifeless and devoid of
meaning. All these directly state is that the idols are simple earthly
objects or that the idols should be destroyed. A good example of a "very
polytheistic statement" is in Job 40:29. The entire context of this chapter,
is that God compares himself to Job. "Can you wear splendor? Can you
thunder your voice? Is your arm all powerful? Can you dig out Leviathan?"
In all these cases, "you" is essentially a reflex of God. A question posed
by God to Job, comparing what God can and has done to Job's limited
mortal power. It is therefore completely surprising that God mentions Job's
"maidens." Of course, Job has nothing left, least of all maidens. That's
how the entire story of Job begins. But the implication of Job's maids, is
that God does have maidens. It is therefore best not to harmonize instances
of the Bible which suggest monotheism with instances of the Bible which
suggest otherwise. The Bible is inconsistent on this point, and just as
one could argue that because some places speak of monotheism, so does
everywhere else, one could similarly argue that because some places speak
of polytheism, so does everywhere else.

Hopefully this post expands the discussion further, illustrating that the
Israelites did have a tradition of God defeating a cosmic sea dragon
comparable to that of Marduk vs. Tiamat and Ba(l vs. Yam or Ba(l
vs. Lotan, and even comparable to Hydra of Greek mythology (both
in name, Hydra vs Tehom/Yam, and in myth, as a many-headed
serpent; the constellations Draco and Hydra are also to be probably
traced to Babylonian Tiamat).

Yitzhak Sapir
http://toldot.blogspot.com





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