Dragons in Genesis

In the mid second century BCE, the people of Judea did the impossible… the ended centuries of foreign rule by expelling the Seleucids and reviving the divine Judean kingship. To celebrate their victory, they wrote stories which pretended to predict this achievement and cast a legendary hero from Canaanite mythology as their prophet. The result included angels, foreign gods, dragon-slaying, and great beasts that would reappear in Revelation.

In the aftermath of the fall of Jerusalem the population was lost, bereft of king and temple. Their prosperity and security had been taken from them and family members had been carted away to a distant land. But perhaps worst of all, their own deity seemed to have turned his back on them. But when he finally took notice he didn’t offer comfort, but wrath.

Perhaps no other single book of the Hebrew Bible is as important to the New Testament authors as Zechariah. From it we find the idea of a suffering servant figure, a Davidic savior, one who is pierced through, who enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey and will remove the sins of the people before being elevated to the throne of heaven to sit beside God.

Could Yahweh be a dying-and-rising god? Does Malachi speak to the worship of Asherah in the Jerusalem Temple? Was Yahweh originally an angel who served his father, El Elyon? All these questions and more are raised by the minor prophets who saw the restoration of Judah as a parallel with the restoration of nature and linked it with annual sacrifices.

From giants and witches, to sun gods and talking animals, the Bible is littered with strange mythology. Curious stories concerning mystical beings can be found in every book, but one of the strangest stories is that of Jonah. Not only is a man eaten by a fish, but this prophet might just shed light on another myth which was prominent in the ancient world but seems blasphemous to modern theologians… Jonah might just tell us that, once upon a time, God died.

Throughout the New Testament we’re treated to countless examples of literary influence from the older texts, including the Book of Enoch and the works of Homer. But most striking are perhaps the numerous examples of New Testament authors borrowing directly from the Hebrew Bible in order to craft their most memorable scenes. From the nativity story to the crucifixion, virtually every scene from the life of Jesus can be traced to Jewish writings centuries earlier.

As the returning exiles begin settling in Judah and our timeline moves nearer the Intertestamental Period, the literature looks both forward and backward in time, to themes of a coming day of judgment that will lay the foundation for Christianity and to the idea that past sins caused their recent downfall which will soon inspire the mythic history which serves as the origin story for the Jews.

The influence from neighboring cultures in Second Temple Judaism cannot be overstated, but that influence shows up in some surprising places and comes from some surprising sources. Perhaps none more alarming are the Babylonians themselves who took the upper classes from Jerusalem hostage. From this hostile neighbor the Jews would get a new writing system, a new calendar, units and measures, the concept of the Sabbath, and even a new home for Yahweh, the great temple of the Babylonian storm-god Marduk.

An enemy of Judah is an enemy of Yahweh, and what better way to describe his enemies than in terms of his most ancient of foes, the great sea dragon? But this section of Ezekiel isn’t just populated with dragons, but also angels with flaming swords, god-kings, trees that reach into heaven, and rivers of blood.

The Bible is filled with strange scenes, but few can compare with the opening of Ezekiel when the sky is filled with clouds, fire, and lightning and a vision of a strange entity described as “wheels within wheels” terrifies the prophet so that he cannot speak for a week. But it’s hardly the strangest thing we’ll encounter in this episode. There’s also the worship of a bronze snake, a resurrected Sumerian god, child sacrifice, and Yahweh’s own mother.