BibleProject - Dragons in the Bible – Chaos Dragon E1

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

 Nahash, tanin, leviathan––the Bible is full of strange words describing a creature many modern readers can’t quite categorize. All these words are ways of referring to a monster of the deep, a dragon. In this episode, Tim and Jon kick off a brand new theme study, the chaos dragon, with a look at the language the Bible uses to describe this creature.View more resources on our website →Timestamps Part one (00:00-4:27)Part two (4:27-20:25)Part three (20:25-31:13)Part four (31:13-46:03)Referenced ResourcesInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTSAll other musical compositions and sound design are original works by the BibleProject team.Show produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder, Lead Editor Dan Gummel, and Editors Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Mixed by Tyler Bailey. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by Hannah Woo.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Tyler at Bible Project. I record and mix the podcast. We've been exploring a theme called the Chaos Dragon, and because it's such a big theme, we've decided to do two separate question and response episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the first Q&R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by September 13th and send it into us at infoatbibelproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, and try to keep your question to about 20 seconds. And please transcribe your question when you email it in.

That's a huge help to our team. We're so looking forward to hearing from you. Here's the episode. Today we begin a brand new theme study and it is on the chaos dragon. Dragons they are not just in the Bible, they are all over the Bible, all over all the different parts of the Bible. There's several different words that biblical authors use to describe dragons or chaos monsters in the Bible. Today we'll take a survey of those ancient words. Nachas, Tanin, the Byathen, these are all ways of referring to the same type of creature. We first meet the chaos dragon on page 1 of the Bible.

It's called a Tanin. And surprisingly, it's created on day 5 as part of God's ordered creation. It's good, but what this Nachasht is going to start doing is some knockout stuff. This makes us look with new eyes at the nachash of Genesis 3. Could the serpents of the nachash of Genesis 3, the one who tempts Adam and Eve, be a dragon? Sounds a lot like Daniel and the revelation. These authors have a coherent way of thinking it's just different than us. So what the biblical authors are doing is that they're actually deploying well-worn images and storylines, of putting those images in the service of a more unique set of ideas and claims about God and reality and good and evil of humans.

Today, Tim Mackey and I talk about dragons in the Bible. I'm John Collins. You're listening to Bible Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music when we start new projects and we're gonna be tracing a theme throughout the story of the Bible from the first book to the last, which is kind of what. It's kind of what we do. We define as a theme.

And this theme is the theme of dragons in the Bible, which is not anything I learned in Sunday school, Bible college, any sermons I've ever listened to, any Bible studies I've ever done. I don't think that I've ever, yeah, dragons in the Bible. You have the right book? Yeah, that's right, I thought that's fantasy.

Yeah, we're not reading Tolkien here. Exactly, yeah. Wait, Tolkien doesn't have dragons. No, he does, yeah, hobbit, his dragons, yeah. Oh, smog. The desolate. Oh, yeah. Yes, dragons, they are not just in the Bible. They are all over the Bible, all over all the different parts of the Bible. It just depends on what translation you read, whether you will see them or not. But even, well, as we'll see, there are some texts

that just they're right there. All you have to do is read that part of the Bible, which people may not. So when we're doing theme conversations, we are prepping to condense, however many hours this conversation takes into a video and also some other material you know that will make through Bible project but this podcast series is kind of where we found ahead. Found ahead we trace a theme and usually I try to pick themes where it appears in the first pages of Genesis repeatedly throughout and then culminates in the story of Jesus and then has some important role in the final book

of the Christian Bible, which is the revelation. Yeah. And dragons qualify. Great. Dragons qualify. I'm glad they do. So let's just quick, in this opening conversation, I guess I just want to make the case

that there are dragons all over the Bible. There we dragons. All over. There we dragons. All over. And the first ones that you meet, and certainly that ancient readers of the Bible would see right there, and did see right there, is on day five of the first story in the Bible about the seven days of creation. Day five has an explicit mention of the great sea monsters. So just sampling day five.

So, remember on the six days of creation, first three, God separates light from dark, separates the waters above from the waters below, and then day three summons the dry land out of the waters. Days four, five, and six come along, and in the same order, God fills each of those realms with inhabitants. the lights above, the separate light from dark. Then on day five, the waters above and the waters below, the waters above are the Skydome, so he sets the birds in the air, they fly against the face of the waters above. And then in the waters below, what we're told, in Genesis, verse 21, is God created the Tani-nim, and every living

thing with which the water swarms and moves about in according to their kinds, and all the winged birds according to their kinds, and God saw that it was good. So the big question is in Genesis 1, verse 21, what are the Tani Nim? Tani Nim? Tani Nim is the singular, Tani Nim. And then this is the plural, Tani Nim. Okay, he put an E on it. Yeah, yeah, Tani Nim.

But Tani Nim is the singular. Okay. Yeah. So just quick survey of new international version translates T Tony Neem as the great creatures of the sea. Yeah, so that could be just, you know, some fish. Whales. Giant squids. Those are crazy.

Those are crazy. You know, it's wild is here in Oregon, this winter, like within the last month, January, 2023. There's been a large number of whales washing up dead on the Oregon shore. Really? Have you seen this in the last month, January of 2023, there's been a large number of whales washing up dead on the organ shore. Have you seen this in the news? Yeah, there was a huge sperm whale that washed up at Fort Stevens State Park and then numerous gray whales, more parts of the central coast.

I was reading a short article about it. It's really sad. Yeah. I've seen one. I think it was probably a calf once a beached gray whale. It was maybe like the size of a minivan. It smelled unbelievably bad. I have never smelled anything like that.

I think we've talked about this, but do you know like it wasn't the 90s or something out here in the Oregon coast. They tried to blow away it up. Yeah. That goes beached. Yes. You know how we'll get rid of this? We'll blow it up. Yeah. That goes beeched. Yeah.

You know how we'll get rid of this? We'll blow it up. So, somebody think of that. But these are the great sea creatures, like when our imagination, when I read great sea creatures, I'm thinking of whales. They're majestic. They're incredible creatures. And I mean, just...

And if you haven't seen one washed up, then the only time you'd ever see one is part of one. It's tail or it's back. In which case, you don't really know. What's the rest of it looks like? And if you're in a boat, maybe you could easily gain an impression that there's more to this thing than you ever saw. You're sketching the rest of it in your imagination. That's right. So great creatures of the sea, the new international version, you know, opens the category that that's just what it could be talking about. English standard version, same words different phrase, great sea creatures.

The old King James just straight up went for whales. Just great whales. Let's have it translated. Yeah, a ton of name. However, the new American standard and the new revised standard version both translate to the great C monsters. Okay. Now, calling a monster, I'm not thinking about a whale anymore. I'm thinking of- Yeah, what are you thinking of? C monster?

You think of like a Loch Ness, sort of like a- Yeah. Yeah, some sort of dinosaur that maybe... Some dinosaur reptile and dinosaur. Some massive alligator. Sea serpent. Sea serpent, yeah. Yeah.

So maybe long, so that maybe what you might see come up out of the water with a gray whale, like the back is just one. But you might think the next one is another like... Oh, it's the coils of it. Like the coil surfacing another like... Or is the coil of the... Like the coil surfacing another one, then with a huge dragon head or something like that. Yeah, sea monsters, okay?

So the question is, should we go with whales, King James? Should we go with sea monsters? Or should we go with sea creatures? Hmm. So let's just do a quick little survey of the use of this word, Tannin. Tannin. In little survey of the use of this word tanin, tanin, in the rest of the Hebrew Bible.

Okay. What we find are two Psalms that explicitly recall day five. Psalms 104 and Psalms 148 are explicitly structured and reference the seven-day creation narrative. And when they get to the creatures of the sea in Psalm 104 verse 24, how many are your works? Oh, Yahweh, you've made all of them in wisdom. The earth is full of your creatures. The great and wide sea. It is a big sea. It's pretty large. Animals move without number, living things, small and great. We probably still can't number the amount of creatures

in the sea. No. It's like, it's not possible. No. It's pretty wild for just one little flank space rock. And, you know? Yeah, it's mostly ocean. Yeah, it's mostly ocean.

70% something like that. Yeah, mostly unexplored. Yeah, that's wild. There, the ship sailed. Verse 26, Leviathan is there that you formed and then it's the Hebrew word Litzacheik to play.

You formed a play. Do you form to play? Created the Leviathan to play. To play. Yeah. That's not how I would describe a monster. Well, remember on day five, God made

the tiny Neem and all the other stuff and God saw there was good. Okay. Yeah. It's not bad. It's good. Leviathan. You know, it's a little bit like. Leviathan, what is that word? Exactly. Okay. We're now we're building out the vocabulary. Okay So instead of Tani Niem, Psalm 104, so let's just tuck it away, Leviathan. Where Hebrew, what's the word here? Livia Tann. So our English word Leviathan, it's just spelling and English letters.

Okay. Livia Tann. Okay. Psalm 148, verse seven, when it recalls day five, it just uses the word Tani Niem and that's in the deeps of the abyss. Correct.

So what's fascinating is in the second temple period, Israel returned some exalambablon around in the like 500s BC, and then they, as we're in the Amaya, rebuilt the temple the last all the way up till 70 AD after Jesus. It's called the Second Temple Period. And a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible was produced by Jewish scholars. Because Greeks has become the language of Franca. Yep. And to make the Hebrew Bible available to Greek speaking Israelites, Greek translation was produced. And at both of these places, if you look up both these Psalms in the Old Greek translation, Psalm 104, 148, both the Hebrew words

Taninim and a Leviathan are translated with the Greek word Dracon, from which we get our English word dragon. So ancient Jewish readers found dragons right here in the Psalms and in Genesis. Yeah. The rock on. Yeah. The Greek translation of both of these words is rock on. And in the Greek language, the dragon was merely a sea creature or...

No, it conjures up all the... All the everything. Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean, the in Greek myth and lore, you've got titans and all the famous dragons laying stories. Yeah. When I think of dragons, I think of land creatures. Oh, land creatures.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So, Drakan can refer to sea dragons or... What would be an example of a popular sea dragon? In what Greek mythology? Any mythology. Oh, I guess... Japanese have sea serpents.

Sea serpents, yeah. As we're going to see in the ancient world, dragons were primarily associated with the sea. Oh, okay. Not with the land. All right. They get wings later. Yeah, yep, they get wings later. Yeah, they get wings later here.

Let's just keep going. Okay. If you look at the ancient Aramaic commentaries and translations of the Hebrew Bible, also produced in the second temple period, and later they're called the Targums. If you look at the Targum of Genesis, chapter 1, on day 5, what you find, for example, there's a Targam called Targam Nehaffiti, it's an Aramaic translation, but very, almost like a form of commentary, very expansive. It's not a strict translation. No, not. So on day 5, they identified the monster's plural. Dr. Mufidi says,

and the Lord created the two great monsters, Leviathan and Behemoth. And these are the two monsters from the speeches of Job. Yeah, so there's other second temple Jewish texts, second Baruch, first Enoch, that also mentioned God making behemoth and Leviathan on day five. So the point is that ancient Jewish readers saw actual monsters on day five of Genesis. That's my point. And Greek readers saw Draklon, dragons.

But they were good monsters. But they're not bad. What's that? If I can't, let's just say. That's like, we're just doing a word survey right now. Okay. So now we've got two words. We've got Tanin, which is used 14 times in the Hebrew Bible. We've looked at a couple, Lvivathan, or Leviathan, to use five times in the Hebrew Bible.

But then we've also got one more word that gets connected with Tannin and Livyathan, and that is the word nakhash. It's snake. Which gets translated. It's the word for the thing that Adam and Eve meet in the garden. So I'm just going to, here's a whole bunch of passages. I'm just going to mention them because we're going to dive into these deeper in future conversations. Psalm 74, it's a poem that's recalling when God created the cosmos. Verse 12, Psalm 74, yeah, God is my king from a

old who works deeds of salvation in the middle of the earth. You divided the sea by your strength. So that's day. They too. They too. Mhmm. dividing the sea. Yeah. You broke the heads of the Tani Nim in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan. You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. Oh. I thought he created him to play. Oh, okay. Yep. Yeah. So we'll sort all this out. But the point is, it's just- I feel like we're just throwing puzzle pieces all over the table. Yeah, that's the point of this conversation. Okay, great. Wonderful. Notice how tiny Neem is in parallelism with Leviathan.

In the sea. And it's a creature with many heads that God crushes. Well, the heads, yeah, just split them heads. So it's a multi-headed sea monster. Yeah, this is a true monster. Yeah. Well, Isaiah 27 verse 1, in that day, which is a future day that did this red text. We'll talk about this later. Yeah, always going to punish Leviathan, the fleeing nachash. Okay. Leviathan is described as a nachash. With his fierce and mighty sword, he's going to punish him. Indeed, Leviathan the twisting nachash. He will kill the Tannin who lives in the sea. Okay, he throws them all there together. Yep. So Amos 9 verse 3 was as good. So Yahweh so angry at his covenant, partners Israel, for worshipping other gods and neglecting the poor,

allowing injustice and oppression, that he says, I'm going to hunt you down. In this poem, I'm going to hunt you down. In this poem, I'm going to hunt you down. And so, Amos 9.3, even if they hide on the summit of Mount Carmel, I'm going to search them out and take them out there. If they conceal themselves from my eyes on the floor of the sea, from there I'll command the Nakhash, and it will go bite them. Wow. From there I'll command the Nakhash and it will go bite them. Whoa. Gosh.

That's not it. So there's no mountain top you can flee to. Yeah. And there's no depths of the ocean you can flee to. Yeah. Yeah. Because down there God's got the Nakhash. Yeah.

So if you're on a mountain you're up in God's territory of the heavenly, right? I don't think you're on a mountain, you're up in God's territory of the heavenly, right? I don't think so. I'm going to throw him. But down in the seas, he's got agents down there. And what meaningful way is an ancient person going to go hang out in the bottom of the ocean? Well, it's poetry. Okay. Yeah.

Who is interesting on Jeremiah 51? Nebuchadnezzar. The King of Babylon has devoured me and crushed me. So this is Jeremiah who lived in Jerusalem when Babylon was being besieged by Nebuchadnezzar armies and was taken. So he described Nebuchadnezzar as having a mouth that can eat and swallow Jerusalem.

He set me down like an empty vessel. He swallowed me up like a tannine. He's filled his stomach with my delicacies and then he washed me away, meaning he exiled him. Vameded me out. Oh, oh, like he gushed me out. Oh, wow. So Nebuchadnezzar here is being described as a seam monster. Yeah. Yeah. Who swallows up Israelites and then vomits them out. That sounds like a story I know. In fact, Ezekiel 29, as I said, a oracles of a Israelite prophet Ezekiel 29, it's a set of oracles of Israelite prophet Ezekiel against Pharaoh, the King of Egypt. And in chapter 29 verse 3 he says, this is what the Lord God says, I am against you Pharaoh, King of Egypt, O great Tannin, that lives in the midst of the rivers. You say, the Nile is mine.

I have made it. But I will put hooks in your jaws. You're gonna fish out the tenine. I'm gonna make the fish of your rivers cling to your scales. Hmm, this is a... I'm gonna haul you up out of the rivers and all the fish will cling to your scales. And he says, I'm basically gonna put your carcass on the land and all the animals are gonna eat you.

But notice again, it's a king, it's a tyrant king. Yeah, the Pharaoh. An imperial king who like conquer other nations and plenters them like Nebuchadnezzar, so humans, kingdoms can be like sea monsters. Yeah. So these are all examples where there are three words are all mixing and mashing together here. Yeah, there'd be dragons. Yeah, there'd be dragons. So this makes us look with new eyes at the Nakhash of Genesis 3 that we meet.

Now that's a land creature. And so when you say Genesis 3, you mean the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, who all of a sudden this character shows up and it's a Nakhash. Yeah, a Nakhash. Which is translate snake, but the khash. Which is Trezley's snake. Mm-hmm, but it's talking. That's totally right. Yeah, yes, yeah, exactly right. It's talking. And the only for an ancient reader whose mind

has all these connections already, the only thing you would know to link it back to, well, I think there's a couple things you would know to link it back to. And this, we'll go into this and we have done in previous podcast series, like in the first born series, we did a long meditation on the relationship

of the humans and the sky rulers, human land rulers, sky rulers, and then the snake. Here, the Nakhash, the last thing in Genesis, in the two chapters that come before that you would associate with Nakhash are the Tanenim of Day 5 of Genesis. But like you said, this one is not a sea creature. Correct. It's on the land. On the land. Yeah. But I'm just saying in terms of word association, Nachas, Tanen, Leviathan, these are all ways of referring to the same type of creature. A monster of the deep. Well, it's good on day five,

but what this Nakhash is going to start doing is some Nakhad stuff. So if I was, yeah, if I was an ancient who like these words were all melded together, like what passage was that in Amos, or it's like all three of them. They were all synonyms. Oh, Isaiah chapter 27, where the Leviathan, the fleeing Nakhash, the Tani and the sea. Yeah. So if those words are all a bundle, and I'm reading Genesis three and a Nakhash comes, in my mind, I almost imagine this like,

a dragon. This sea dragon that's like slithered out of the ocean onto the land, it's still kind of dripping and scaly and fierce and it's like, hey. So what did God say? Yeah, exactly. Like a beast coming up out of the sea. A beast coming up out of the sea. It sounds a lot like Daniel and the revelation.

Oh my gosh. Okay. It's like these authors have a coherent way of thinking it's just different than us. Yeah, all right. Also interesting when the snake, well, when the nakhash does its thing and God curses the nakhash, what God says is

because you've done this, cursed are you more than all the cattle, more than every beast of the field, on your belly you will go. You will. and eat dust all the days of your life. So I've, yeah, I feel like what I've been taught is the snake was a lizard that turned into a snake. Well, it's legs, no, it's a slither. Yeah, so I think it's evocative in many ways because Isaiah is going to meet snakes That are thrown room courtiers of God in the divine thrown room in Isaiah chapter 6 You can have a vision what what are you talking about in the book of Isaiah's Old Testament Isaiah chapter 6

Okay, Isaiah wakes up in a vision dream. Mm-hmm where he's been going to be commissioned to be in profit to Israel and He sees what he calls Saraphim with wings surrounding the divine throne Uh-huh, and the word Saraph is the word snake. It's another word for snake. Yes, venomous snake. Oh really? Yeah, it's the word burn for talking about how the venom feels When they bite you in the Torah and the numbers scroll and other places that the word burn for talking about how the venom feels. When they bite you. In the Torah and the numbers scroll, and other places, the word, Sarah, means snake.

Okay. So snake with wings, which were a very common way to imagine creatures in divine thrown rims in the ancient world. Egyptians drew them all the time. Snake with wings. So here's gonna be a challenge we have as we have these conversations,

is symbolic imaginations merge visual symbols with their meanings which means that different looking visual pictures can evoke the same exact idea. And so there's going to be biblical passages, and we're going to look at other ancient texts that use similar images and to create an actual literal picture in our minds of like, wait, I thought that one had feet, but that one had wings, that one had multiple heads, that one just has one head. And we're trying to do something that is working against the grain of how the symbols work. So the most important thing about these symbols is the ideas, what they represent. And the visual images in each individual context will differ. So you're saying whether it's a creature in the sea, whether it's a creature that's crawled on the land,

whether it's a winged one in the sky, these are all... They all have a central meaning. They all have a set of connected meanings. And the reason why the visual descriptions differ from passage to passage or text to text is usually based on the kind of unique context of each what's happening in each one. Okay.

So for example, the nachas in the garden is it's a land creature. Okay. Clearly, it's a land creature. Can I have a, can I imagine it having crawled out of the sea? Well, it's somehow related to that tonneen. Yeah. The tonneenium of day five. What if it's a wayward tonneen who just was like, I'm going to go cruise up on the land. But remember, this is a good example. So in the Seven Day Creation narrative, the main imagery is of the dark chaos waters. That represents the rival of, not God's rival, but the rival of creation.

The disordered nothingness. You're talking about how Jesus one begins. Yes. It's just water. Yep, dark waters. And waters were a common symbol in ancient cosmology for disorder and what we call nothingness. And the main visual binary in the seven-day narrative is out of the waters come the dry land and the garden. Order in life. Order in life in the dryland garden is the opposite of darkness and the waters.

In the Garden of Eden story, which begins in Genesis 2, verse 4, it's exactly the opposite, it's disordered wilderness from which a bit of waters emerged to plant a garden. So both stories end up with a garden. But one is land out of water and the other is water out of land. And the fact that both of the stories are next to each other, we're back to it again. Like, what, which one is it? Which one happened? And their complementary ways of thinking about the same reality. Okay. So you're saying, when we're introduced to the Tani and Genesis one, we're using the framework of too much waters. Yes. And there's the, there's the sea monster. Yeah. And there it's actually part of God's good creation. We'll talk about it. But it is in the waters. But it's in the waters.

We get to Genesis 2, and we're telling the story of creation again, not through too much chaos water that needs to be ordered, but too much wilderness that needs water to plant a garden. Yes. And then the creature we meet is a snake. It's a snake, which are associated with the wilderness. Okay. Okay. Because when you're out in the wilderness, they're gonna be crawling around under a rock and come out and get you. Oh, dude. Oh, man. Yes. This happened to me a few years ago. I was on a trip with my

family down in the Palm Desert area, Palm Springs, Southern California. I went on a trail run out in the hills south of Palm Springs. And it was a switchbacks, up a steep, steep hill. And then I just hit one and just heard the rattle. The rattle? Yeah, rattle snake rattle. Oh, dude. You jumped out of your seat. It was such a primal.

Like my body just like, it was wild. It was wild. I felt it for hours that surge of energy. The adrenaline. Yeah, I just froze. You know, you know me and some buddies will go and hunt them. Oh, yes, yeah, I told you you've told me about this. Yeah, it's still like we're like trying to get that adrenaline. We go find them under rocks and hit them down by their heads and then skin them. I never saw it. I never saw it. I found or I could locate the rocket was under and could see the den.

And that was all just locked in place, hoping. I hope it's not close enough to want a strike that will see me as a threat anyway. So, it's a wilderness creature. Yeah, it's a sneaky hidden, dangerous wilderness creature. So, what the Tani Nim are in the waters of Genesis 1 is the symbolic equivalent of what the Nakhash is sneaking out of the wilderness into the garden, so to speak. What's there been to just fight? But in both cases, it's a chaos creature.

So one discussion we'll be having throughout the series is what to call the video. So it began life as just calling it the chaos dragon. And I don't know if we could just call it the dragon because it can be a sea dragon or a wilderness dragon. But the dragon, like in modern imagination, is a very specific creature. That's right. That's right. That's hord and gold in the cave. Yeah. Yeah. And this seems broader. It's a chaos creature is kind of the broadest term I can think of.

Yeah. No, it's great because what we're going to see is that scorpions become an associated creature and also lions, which for us are like, that's a different species altogether. But in the Psalms, lions and snakes are two ways of talking about the same type of chaos creature. So the Nachos of Genesis 3 definitely definitely fits in the same kind of slot. That's the ton of Neem of Genesis chapter 1. So that's a quick survey of the Hebrew Bible. There are a lot more passages and we'll look at a lot more, but I was just trying to help

us want to build in our mind the set of associations and ideas. So these are maybe before we moved in the New Testament. So these are creatures associated with realms where humans don't fully belong at home. All right. Out in the ocean, out in the wilderness. Yep. You could go travel out there, but you're in someone else's domain. Yeah, totally. Yeah, the domain of the creatures. These are creatures that are threatening to human life. the creatures. Yeah. Yeah. These are creatures that are threatening to human life.

If you get close to them, you know, like maybe a whale isn't probably going to try and crash your ship unless you're a hab, the sailor, right? Mobedec. But out in the wilderness, man, stuff will hunt you down. And I think about this, we grew up not far from, and we in the summers like to go and explore the San Juan Islands, which is the island chain in the northwest corner of the US. There's carnivorous whales out there. Orca whales. Yeah, orca. And I've seen a few pods out there.

You know, when you see those creatures, and they're very intelligent, they hunt and pack. Yeah. And you just think like... Have you seen videos of them like flipping seals around and tossing it to each other? Yeah. It's not my realm. No, you're in their territory.

Totally. And we get in these little like hard shell motorbugs in like, anyway. So... They're not gonna hurt you, that's really... The feelings associated with they belong in a realm that's not for humans, they're dangerous. They're maybe not out to get you,

meet lions are. Snakes might be. Snakes are kind of protecting themselves. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Except for like anacondas. What if it goes things will eat you? They'll look. They're semi-hidden. Mm.

Yeah. They're obscured. obscured. I never saw this snake. You know, when I met one. And now, yeah, in your imagination, how big was that snake? Exit toll.

Yeah, exactly. How big were those things? Yeah. Dripping with venom. And I think the same holds for lions in ancient people's imaginations, because they're nocturnal. They hunt at night. They hide think the same holds for lions in ancient people's imaginations, because they're their nocturnal, they hunt at night, they hide in the brush, they make their noises at night. And if you see them during the day, it's very rare. And it's likely to

be your last moments. Because it will only be seen if it was it's us or King David unless you King David you take one by the beard and just So that's worth meditating on that's what should have woken our imagination semi hidden hard to detect Could be out to get you you're not entirely sure You're not sure when it's around if it's not and it's in a realm that really isn't like your home That is the case creature. Yeah, that creature. Yep. Okay around if it's not, and it's in a realm that really isn't like your home. That is the case. That creature. That creature.

Yep. Okay. So, if we're just looking for the repetition of monster-reptilian type of imagery, then you won't meet it very often in the New Testament, except just a handful of places. So, it's a good example where, when you get to the New Testament, except just a handful of places. So it's a good example where when you get to the New Testament, these themes are so developed and connected, and then in Second Temple Jewish literature explored that when you get to the New Testament, you don't actually need to talk about dragons all the time to be talking about dragons. So for example, when Jesus goes out in the wilderness to be tested by the satan, the adversary,

the adversary, or the Diabbalas, you're supposed to call it your mind the nachash of Genesis 3. Out in the wilderness, there's a creature out there. Yeah, and he's tested in relationship to food, the catamene beneath, and in relationship to power, and rule and authority, which is... That's all the themes of Avonée. Yeah, except it's in the wilderness and it's, you know, the satan, the adversary. However, in Luke chapter 10,

when Jesus sends out a group of 70 disciples to go and pairs, and he goes out, and he says, like, hey, announce the kingdom of God, heal the sick, invite the poor into your tables and then come back and tell me how it went. So Luke chapter 10 verse 17, it says the 70 returned with joy saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.

So even like dark spiritual forces, will like leave and leave people alone when we just say your name. So even like dark spiritual forces will like leave and leave people alone when we just say your name. And Jesus said to them, yeah, you know, I was watching the satan fall from heaven like lightning. Like when the kingdom of God advances, the elevated status of the adversary is brought down to the land. Interesting. And then he says, look, I've given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. Snakes and scorpions, you can stomp on them. Yeah.

We didn't read this in Genesis 3. That begins to sound like what God said to the Nachas in Genesis 3, which was, you're going to go on your belly. You're right there. And one day, there's going to be a seed from the woman, a descendant, who's going to crush you on the head while you strike him on the heel. So you're going to get stepped on the head while you strike him on the heel. So you're gonna get stepped on by a human

while also getting a strike in on the human. And it seems like Jesus is alluding to that, saying like, hey, listen, I did some snake stomping out in the wilderness and I sent you out in my name. And so you have my authority to start putting some pressure on that snake's head, but he joins snakes and scorpions. And he blends that with demons. Yes, that's exactly right. So spiritual powers, yes. That's, I haven't been thinking in those terms. I've been thinking about,

like, you know, God, when I think of all the creatures that God created, I don't think of spiritual beings. So a sea monster, I'm not thinking like it. You should. I should be. Yeah. We'll go back. The seamonster is a spiritual being. We'll go back to that.

Okay. But we should definitely see spiritual beings as a part of God's creation. They're called the host of heaven in Genesis 1. Oh yeah, I guess they're the creatures of the world. But they're in the sky. In the sky. Yeah. So the question is, what am I supposed to think when I think of the Tannin, this will

be our next conversation. Okay. Because the Nakhash, the Tannin, the Leviathan, these are spiritual beings in the imagination of their gods. Hmm. So we'll have to form that category in our next conversation. All right. So we'll have to form that category in our next conversation. But Jesus takes it for granted that spiritual beings in rebellion against God can be referred to with the imagery of snake sense corpian.

And so this helps us make sense of why at the conclusion of Paul's letter to the Romans, he'll say, Romans 16, verse 20, the God of peace will soon crush the Satan under YAHL's feet. The grace of God be with you. So he's got Genesis 3, 15, the brain, but in the place of the seed of the woman's crushing the head of the Nakhon. It's the people following Jesus. People following Jesus who crushed the satan under their feet. Not interesting. Yeah. And then the most famous dragon in the New Testament. Possibly in the whole Bible.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, the apocalypse. Yeah. Chapter 12. It's the last book of the Bible. The last book of the Bible. And it's a symbolic dream vision that he has. And it's of a woman closed with the sun, with the moon under her feet,

and she wears a crown of 12 stars. So that apparently means something. That apparently means something. She's pregnant. She cries out in labor and gives birth. Okay. But then he sees a huge red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns on the seven heads.

And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven, threw them down to the land and the dragon stood right in front of the woman about to give birth so that he could eat her child when the seed of the woman versus the snake. But to see the woman is being born in front of the snake. Yeah, exactly. So this whole vision is a dramatization of Genesis 315, the hostility between the woman and the snake and the seed of the snake. She gave birth to a son, a male child who was to rule the nations with a rod of iron, which is a good Bible trivia. Where's that from? This from Psalm 2.

Oh, yeah. Ruling the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched up to God and to the throne. And the woman went into the wilderness to a place prepared by God to be there for 1,260 days. Okay. That's half of seven years. Oh, is it? Yep.

Yeah, exactly half of seven years. Oh. And now there's a conflict in the skies with Michael and his angels waging war against the dragon and the dragon is an angels waging war But not strong enough No place for them was found in heaven. So the great dracon was thrown down that Serpent of old who was called the Diabolus and

the Satan The slanderer is Diabolus and the satan is the adversary. He deceives the whole world. He was thrown down. His angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now salvation, the power, the kingdom of our God, the authority of his Messiah has come for the accuser. It's another term now for him. The accuser of our siblings has been thrown down the one who accuses them before God day and night. So the Satan, the devil, the serpent, the dragon. Yeah, okay. So whatever that means that somehow bringing all the themes together in a way that's supposed to make you feel satisfied.

In some way. In some way. So there'd be dragons. There'd be dragons. That was my main point. Yes. Loud and clear, dragons in the Bible. I have many questions.

Good. So then I guess we're going to just go back through and really just start digging in to all of these occurrences ideas. Yes, but not the next step. The next step we've been trying to build up an association of ideas, feelings, images around the chaos creature, by looking at all these texts. What I next want to do is try and do like a time travel and get inside the mind of an ancient Israelite, an ancient Babylonian, an ancient Canaanite, and what ideas, stories, experiences came into their mind when they heard stories about a deity slaying or confronting

stories about a deity slaying or confronting a sea dragon and building of kingdom on a mountain over the nations as a result. This was a widespread cultural story in so many ancient cultures. So what the biblical authors are doing is that they're actually deploying well-worn images and storylines, but putting those images in the service of a more unique set of ideas and claims about God and reality and good and evil and humans. But they're doing it. This language is across cultural language in the ancient world of mountains and dragons. So we're going to actually do a survey of the dragons laying combat myth in the ancient world

Cool, that'll help us see how these images pop even more uniquely in the biblical story. Great. Let's do it Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast Next week we continue discussing the dragon will set some context for how the Bible thinks about the dragon. By looking at how ancient Israel's contemporary neighbors also had dragon myths. The dragon is a symbol for chaos, disorder, anti-creation. So we're going to look at the dragon combat myth in ancient Near Eastern culture and literature. And there, the monster is primarily a sea dragon. Today's episode was brought to you by our podcast team,

producer Cooper Peltz, associate producer Lindsey Ponder, lead editor Dan Gummel, editors Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Tyler Bailey mixed this episode and Hannah Wu provided the annotations for our annotated podcast in our app. Additional music and sound design for this series were written and composed by Bible Project

staff. Bible Project is a crowdfunded nonprofit and we exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And everything that we make is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Derek and I'm from West Palm Beach, Florida. Hi, this is Stephanie, and I'm from Cooley Wong,

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