Man, discussing Behemoth and Leviathan online can be quite the trip.
On the one hand, you can talk about real, earthly creatures regarding Behemoth and Leviathan, simply because they are connected to real, earthly creatures by way of metaphor/description/imagery/sacredness (ie, a temple cult could have literal creatures that they were caring for that represented here on earth the divine god in heaven). So Behemoth is likely "to be" like an aurochs, an extinct and very large bull. And Leviathan is likely "to be" like a sea monster (whale, squid, or unexplained-large-thing-seen-at-sea--think Nessie there), or even possibly a crocodile.
But just because we might shorthand say that "Leviathan is a sea dragon" or "Behemoth is a divine bull" (more on that "divine" part here in a minute), that doesn't mean that they are literally a sea creature or bull. Sometimes, as I said above, a real creature could stand in for the divine creature--but this is an example of the "mirroring of heaven and earth" rather than ancient people really thinking that the sacred cow of the temple was actually the same as the deity.
Does anyone know if the behemoth’s mentioned in the bible would be dinosaurs?
He's not. The description is one of a bull, which fits with ancient Near Eastern imagery as cultures around Israel had ideas of a "divine bull," and the Bible puts all that on its head. Just like it makes Leviathan, the chaos dragon, out to be a tame pet of God's, so it does with Behemoth.
So what about Behemoth's tail? Well, that's a euphemism for a part of male anatomy.
hink for a moment....if you were describing a sauropod, would its *tail* be the thing you'd mention? Just like you wouldn't mention a giraffe's legs first--you'd talk about its neck. And "grass" wasn't what a sauropod would eat.
Justin Amman
Carey Griffel a bull does not "rank first or chief in the works of God". A sauropod does though.
Carey Griffel
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Justin Amman If you were in an agrarian culture, which would matter most? A sauropod that you're not farming for things like food and sacrifice, or the biggest and best animal that fits those contexts?
Carey Griffel
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Justin Amman If you haven't looked up the aurochs, which is extinct now, it's a very interesting animal! If you haven't been in the presence of a bull elk or moose, it's quite the experience.
Carey Griffel The plain reading of scripture in this case is the most appropriate one.
A few thoughts to consider because I hardly think this is an area we need to get dogmatic in. But, what if they didn't know about dinosaurs, though? We know about dinosaurs because we've done all this digging and theorizing and we have a lot of science. What if we are importing that information into our understanding?
Reading the Bible in context means reading the Bible in the way that the ancient person would see it rather than importing our ideas and knowledge into it. We often color the "plain reading" with our knowledge, and we don't realize we cherry-pick the things we are okay with and the things we say must be part of the "plain reading." Most of us accept that the biblical authors had a different understanding of human anatomy, or physics, or astronomy. I know there are people who are consistent and believe that the world is flat, there is a literal solid dome preventing us from reaching space and there's an ocean above that dome, land is supported by pillars over a deep ocean of water below us, we think with our kidneys, and that beating organ in our chest is the source of our emotions. Those are ideas that a "plain reading" is going to get us.
Part of what Dr. Heiser taught is to study the Bible in it original context and try to put aside what we are thinking. The concept of the fertile divine bull is one that no one can discount, and it explains everything we see about how Behemoth is described, meaning that this is--at minimum--just as likely to be the "plain" and *original* meaning of the text.
Marcus Dumitru
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Carey Griffel Actually, Sauropods ARE herbivores. They eat grass like Ox. The Job creature is compared to an Ox in alimentation, not a type of Ox. Clearly not an Ox in the way the text is constructed.
And second: why wouldn't the ANE people know dinosaurs? People have encountered them till 2 centuries ago. There might still be some. Not to mention the sea creatures... We don't really know what is down there.
We have enough evidences of people knowing all kind of dinos, alive, not as fossils. They depicted and described them. So, what's the problem?
Carey Griffel
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Marcus Dumitru The problem is, not everyone thinks that dinos are recently extinct.
Don't really mind if anyone thinks that. The alternative explanation makes more sense to many, including myself. So my position beyond my personal opinion is that we can't take it as *proof* of dinosaurs since there's a perfectly reasonable alternative suggestion.
He could also be a hippo, though I think that's less likely, just like R Alter suggests leviathan is just a croc.
Joe Smith
Marcus Dumitru the KJV and Latin vulgate also translate behemoth as having stones or testiculorum. Which is not something observable with reptilian dinosaurs, but is something commonly observable in bulls or oxen.
Marcus Dumitru
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Kurt O'Brien Joe Smith... Maybe we are making to many suppositions about how a Sauropod would look like concerning soft tissue. How can we say it didn't have impressive testicles? Or why wouldn't it be able to eat grass? I just saw a Giraffe at the zoo bending it's long neck over the fence to get the grass on the ground on the other side. Impressive!
Let's not be to dogmatic about unsure things.
But who would compare a bigger Ox with a normal Ox and say "it grazes grass like an ox", when it's just an ox?
Also, the Bible has it's ways of speaking of masculine genitals, and it's not a "tail" in other texts.
Also, it has to be a real animal, not a mythical suprarealist being. It is the largest created beast.
Of all our Zoological knowledge , there is nothing bigger then a sauropod in the entire animal kingdom.
These are important arguments.
To discard the possibility of a sauropod is not based on science or text, but on certain presuppositions conectes to evolucionist geology and uniformism. This is against the original ANE context TOO.
Carey Griffel
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Ruben Varela The divine bull would be connected to multiple deities as well as being a divine (supernatural) being in its own right. In general, yes, we should be thinking in DCW-terms of the Bible upending the divine logic of pagan cultures around Israel. If we reduce Leviathan and Behemoth and Rahab to being just earthly creatures, then we're missing out on how the ancient person would be thinking.
Jeff Sanders
To see some examples of phalli/tails in this context, I recommend searching Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe.
Jeff Sanders
To see some examples of phalli/tails in this context, I recommend searching Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe.
Matt Arnold
Carey Griffel more likely that the tail is something powerful that can sweep beings from their heavenly positions, a la the dragon (Draco) of Rev 12. Nothing to do with male anatomy.
Carey Griffel
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Matt Arnold Interesting point to bring up.
The question is, would this be ANE imagery that is related to Behemoth?
Your suggestion keeps him as a spiritual/divine being, but the bull as a fertility symbol is very, *very* prevalent during the OT. The imagery of the NT doesn't necessarily have to be the exact same as the imagery of the OT. An interesting point to consider, but I'd want to see ANE context of that in particular since that is where we see Behemoth mentioned.
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Matt Arnold
Carey Griffel yes, the ANE has chaos creatures such as Tiamat etc - check out the concept of Chaoskampf, the chaos struggle.
The whole concept of bulls also fits in with the Psalm 22:12 Bulls of Bashan https://ghostsghoulsandgod.co.uk/2020/04/bulls-of-bashan/ though you'll find that the concept of the bulls of Bashan as some of the fallen sons of God that weren't incarcerated in chains could mean that the behemoth is a different type of fallen being - possibly an Archon? Given that the men from the heavenly realms were attractive to the women, with "donkey sized" members, like bulls, the link is there, but I'm not sure trying to pin that on behemoth works as well.
Mike Chu
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Matt Arnold I think the book of Job is describing two versions of Behemoth (and likewise the other primordial chaos beasts like Leviathan). First it's the version that Job and his other ANE counterparts imagine when referencing the mythologies of their region. Second is the versions that God speaks of when He has his dialogue with Job from Job 38-40. They are different in feel and tone, which is a usual strategy of the Biblical writers, taking well-known motifs and addressing them from a completely different perspective (YHWH's).
Matt Arnold Yes. Familiar with chaos creatures and that's exactly what I mean about the bull imagery. The bulls of Bashan are definitely supernatural enemies, but we don't need to segment them to a particular group and then necessitate that Behemoth somehow can't be drawn from the same imagery.
Check out some of the other literature about Behemoth. What does 1 Enoch say about Leviathan and Behemoth, for instance? Leviathan is female and Behemoth is...you guessed it, male. 2 Esdras says they were separated at creation. A dragon creature like Leviathan would fight with its tail, like what we see in Revelation. A bull wouldn't fight with its tail.
Keep in mind that I'm not saying Behemoth *is* an aurochs any more than Behemoth would be a one-on-one correspondence to Apis the Egyptian bull god, but the concept of the "divine bull" which includes Behemoth would be patterned after an aurochs, a type of chaos creature that pretty obviously parallels Leviathan. Just like we don't need to pigeonhole the imagery of Leviathan into the serpent in the garden, we don't need to put an additional label onto Behemoth as if we're doing divine taxonomy.
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APIS (חַף, chaph; Ἄπις, Apis). Egyptian bull god of agriculture and fertility. Apis came to be associated with Ptah, chief god of Memphis, and was embodied as a live, sacred bull in the temple there.
Although Apis does not appear in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the Septuagint text of Jeremiah includes him in a prophecy against Egypt. The text reflects the common understanding that cities and peoples were protected by patron gods, whose withdrawal or weakness could spell doom (e.g., Ezek 8–11; Matt 23:38–39; Homer, Iliad, 22.350–59). In this case, the king of Babylon is able to defeat Egypt because “Apis, your chosen calf,” has fled after being weakened by the Lord (Jer 26:13–15 LES). The Septuagint text does not offer specifics about the Apis cult, but it indicates that he was considered a patron or protector of Memphis, which is named in Jer 26:14 (LXX). The corresponding text in the Hebrew Bible (and in English translations) is Jer 46:13–15. Although this version mentions Memphis (Jer 46:14), it generally refers to “bulls” instead of naming Apis.
Bull worship was common in the ancient world and appears in the Old Testament. Gods such as Baal, Zeus, El, and others appear with bull imagery in mythology and in worship. The incident of the golden calf in Exod 32 is an example of Semitic bull worship. Calf worship also is mentioned in 1 Kgs 12:25–33, in which Jeroboam returns from Egypt and sets up calf statues in the northern kingdom.
One of the main features of the Apis cult was the worship of the bull at the Memphis temple. The bull was believed to be the god himself. He would be selected as a calf, whose distinctive markings had to include a white triangle on the forehead and a wing pattern across the back. During his journey to Memphis, young women would gather to lift their skirts before him in order to guarantee their fertility. The animal (and often its mother) lived in luxury at the temple. Some ancient sources claim that he had a harem of cows; others emphasize that Apis had no offspring and “that a cow was selected and presented to Apis once a year, and then put to death so that no offspring would come of the match” (Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 137).
The bull’s death would bring elaborate funeral rites and preparation, including the mummification and burial of the animal in a nearby cemetery. Then the search for a new Apis would begin. A stele, possibly of the late Ptolemaic or early Roman period, depicts the Apis bull on a funeral vessel, being mourned by Isis and Nephthys. Although the piece was not found in situ, it most likely is from the nearby Saqqara Serapeum and represents the funeral procession for the Apis bull (Farag, “Two Serapeum Stelae,” 165–66).
Margaret Froelich, “Apis,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
David O'Neil
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Carey Griffel bwah hahaha. A bull with a tail the size of a tree? You're smoking anti-bible drugs.
Carey Griffel
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David O'Neil It's called hyperbole, as would be appropriate for speaking poetically of a supernatural creature. Just like you don't need to have a sea dragon that actually breathes fire and has seven heads like Leviathan is described.
