Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rochelle Altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il>]

Hello Yitzhak,

I hit send instead of draft so an incomplete version went out to you. I was 
called away urgently to help a friend with early Alzheimers find something 
back. If you read the post I sent to the list, I do believe your questions 
are answered.

The only creatures in the Tanahk that are "unnatural" are in visions.

That tales of the monster added heads to the ends of the tentacles is 
hardly surprising. Think of the way the tips curl around; then the suckers. 
I'm surprised that many heads per "arm" weren't added to the 
description.  Serpentine? Why not? The serpentine is easy -- tentacles, 
after all. Fire-
breathing, sure. Add to the horror. Chinese fire-breathing dragons are 
serpentine, you know -- not at all like Western ideas of a dragon as an 
oversized fat lizard. Have you ever listened to eye-witness reports? Ever 
heard the embellishments? When you strip away the embellishments you have a 
giant squid. Then, of course, leviathan isn't a Hebrew word, is it.

And it sure does come out of the depths of the sea.

I have a hard time using exegesis or eisegisis on literature. So, I hope 
folks will forgive me if I don't indulge in the past time.

Incidentally, Dr. Read, the first four books are a consolidation of two 
different traditions -- hardly surprising that we find duplicate stories if 
you are trying to accommodate different, yet, related, peoples. We could, 
of course, ask when a consolidation of traditions makes sense. We could 
look at historical patterns as to when consolidations appear. For the first 
four books, the historic pattern fits the monarchial period. (Ah, but I 
forgot, if it's in the MT then it's not evidence.)

Never mind, I just returned from New Zealand and am more than a bit tired 
-- but you folks sure filled my mailbox. :-)

Cheers,

Rochelle Altman
USA and Israel

> > Hello Rochelle,
> >
> > We would probably not agree.  However, as I said in my private
> > response, the following are unsupported assumptions:
> >
> > On 7/16/06, Rochelle Altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il> wrote:
> > > Hate to intrude with biological data, but if you read the
> > > description of the leviathan,
> >
> > Where in the Bible does a description of a Leviathan mention:
> >
> > > 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.
> >
> > That the squid is frightening may be so, and that there are giant
> > squids even more so, but none of this relates to the question at
> > hand.  How do you know that the Biblical Leviathan is a squid?
> > What brings you to think (apparently) that a squid's arm would
> > be referred to as a "head" -- r)$ ?  Your statement that there
> > are no mythical creatures in the Tanakh is problematic because
> > of two reasons: 1) prove to me that a giant fire-breathing sea
> > dragon is mythical and doesn't really exist!  but, seriously,
> > 2) that statement depends on showing that there are no mentions
> > of possible mythical creatures.  Thus, you can't use this
> > statement as an assumption for a conclusion on the Leviathan,
> > because that would lead to circularity.
> >
> > Yitzhak Sapir
> > http://toldot.blogspot.com