Note: This had been posted earlier, but was taken down after a few minutes due to an error. There’s also been a scene added to this rendering.
Did you know the Bible says that God destroyed Leviathan when he created the heavens and earth? Genesis 1 isn’t the only creation text in the Bible. Check out Psalm 74 after watching this latest video from Shaun — another cool production!
Are we to read Psalm 74 as an independent polemic from Genesis 1 then? We’ve been teaching the Genesis 1 polemic as essentially saying… not only does YHWH NOT need Tiamat to seperate the waters from the waters but YHWH also created the sea monsters (1:21) and he cares for them too just like birds and fish. They are part of His created order. When we teach should we be synchronizing these or letting each one do their thing?
Respectfully,
Nathan
The polemic (regardless of the elements of the two) = “Yahweh brought order out of chaos, not Marduk.”
Best video yet! I also think your delivery sounds more enthusiastic in this one. Love them! Keep them coming!
Thank you Dr. Heiser, Shaun and anyone else involved!
Respectfully,
Nathan
You’re welcome!
Awesome.
I appreciated this video. It effectively and adequately puts different points I’ve tried to make with people regarding creation and what exactly Leviathan is and what was going on with the dividing of the waters (which I feel the traditional old earth and young earth proponents don’t know how to deal with since they can’t adequately explain how the waters above are ABOVE the firmament and the the sun and moon are IN the firmament, since they’re trying to read cosmological history into it). If I may ask, is behemoth also a chaos deity? and where can I track that down?
Behemoth is often considered synonymous with Leviathan, but it understood in Judaism as a “land equivalent” to Leviathan (i.e., Leviathan is the water beast symbolic of chaos, and Behemoth is the land beast symbol for the same idea). If you want a scholarly treatment of these metaphors (both are the meal served at the great day of the Lord feast in Jewish eschatology — which points to the death of chaos in the eschaton), I’d recommend the short Harvard monograph, “Two Strange Beasts: Leviathan and Behemoth in Second Temple Judaism”:
https://www.amazon.com/Two-Strange-Beasts-Leviathan-Behemoth/dp/1575069148/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1477514996&sr=1-1&keywords=strange+beast+leviathan
Few points of response from an OEC who takes Genesis 1 literally.
1. In looking into places where “taninim” and similar words are used, I found that in at least *some* places, they seem to be described as normal animals. Not mythological entities. Genesis 1 itself has such an example, they are created on day 5 alongside birds and “swarming things in the sea”. Not treated as some mythological thing.
2. I’m not sure how demonstrating that Genesis 1 has theology in it invalidates it as a literal history of the creation of the world. You yourself mentioned Noah’s ark, the parting of the red sea, and Jesus walking on water, are those things to be treated as JUST theological messages too? and not real events that actually occurred? I see nothing in the text that invalidates Genesis as a literal account of creation. Showing polemic elements in the text makes no move towards that in my opinion. (Granted, I also don’t see any validity to the arguement that the bible describes a flat and/or “domed” earth either)
3. The chaos language, while found in other nearby cultures is not scientifically inaccurate. In our current scientific understanding of the world, we see just that, chaos becoming orders. Our solar system was once a dark, chaotic cloud containing all the elements that make up our current solar system (including earth).
No disrespect intended. Just stating my opinion.
On #1, normal animals can indeed serve as metaphors for other things, like demons (see Isa 34:15ff. — many of these animals were associated in biblical times and the second temple period with demons via idols and idolatrous iconography. In other words, the “normalcy” does not nullify theological symbolism.
On #2, I’d agree. I don’t see creation as a non-historical act.
On #3, it’s also not scientifically precise. By definition, we don’t know the “details” of chaos — only when something is chaotic.
On #3, it omits details sure, but what do you expect? Genesis 1 would be so thick it would reach the moon if it included every possible detail. That isn’t scientifically inaccurate, it just isn’t very detailed, but it doesn’t need to be.
Nice job, Mike.
Hey Rob – hope to see you at SBL. I am tentatively planning on coming to your Ugaritic presentation. At any rate, hope to see you there!
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Since the tanninim & liwyatan in question existed when God is said to “create”, seems this would support John Walton’s view that Genesis 1 is most likely about “making the existing creation functional” as opposed to being Ex Nihilo creation, you agree?
I don’t agree that bara’ is ONLY about ordering. I’ve blogged a bit about that. While that would seem to disagree with John, he and I have chatted about this and he doesn’t *reject* the idea that bara’ can mean creation instead of ordering. For him “ordering” is the more important semantic in the verse, but that’s not to totally exclude the other idea.
I’ll be asking John in November to give us some time on the podcast while Trey and I are at the ETS-SBL meetings, so I’ll try and remember to ask him to say something about this.