Jewish Meaning of Leviathan

[David Davidovich]

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Thanks for letting me know that.

For most, it's more the former. Orthodox Jews, as well as traditional Jews in the past believe that in the World to Come, righteous people will enjoy some kind of feast comprised of the dead Leviathan and Behemoth, while sitting in a Sukkah (booth) made out of the skin of the Leviathan. This is obviously symbolic of something because eating is not something needed in the World to Come. I didn't mention this because it's not really related to the verses in Isaiah and Job. More Psalms, maybe. Anyway, most Jews don't spend time thinking about it too much. That may be shocking to you, but that's life.

Shocking? Okay, let's not get melodramatic here.

There are many, many such examples and it seems that every now and then someone finds another example. The conclusion is that from this perspective, the entire Tanach exists just as a Jewification of ancient mythological narratives from all over the world (mostly Mesopotamia and Egypt, but even Grecian concepts may be found, theoretically). This Jewification is not plagiarism, as many wish to claim. The Tanach, I believe, comes to present the true way one is supposed to view these stories and events, as well as being one continuous volley of headbutts to idolatry and idolatrous concepts.

Well, perhaps not plagiarism, but maybe a form of Mimesis.

However, this understanding of Tanach is something that troubles me a lot, for reasons that I don't want to go into here. I will only say that I have not yet found a satisfactory solution to these issues.

Do you mean the Talmud instead of the Tanach? Also, if you change your mind about not wanting to go into detail here, you're more than welcome to share those issues.

 

[David Davidovich]

Livyatan - Wikipedia

I can't believe science would have paganism in it when religious faith is anathema to scientific reasoning.

Ha...ha...ha. We have a Jerry Seinfeld here with us.

 

[David Davidovich]

For those of us who believe that the Tanakh is a multivalent human product, this is not a meaningful question.

I didn't know that. I had always thought that the Tanakh was primarily Jewish.

For those Jews who view the text as Hashem-authored, many might consider a lesson from Job, i.e., that it's presumptuous at best to think we should always be able to "quite understand" G-d.

Well, I'll say that definitely sounds like an argument from authority to me.

 

[Harel13]

Shocking? Okay, let's not get melodramatic here.

I assumed it may surprise you given that you were also surprised or maybe troubled that people weren't replying to your threads.

Well, perhaps not plagiarism, but maybe a form of Mimesis.

I see you aren't familiar with the Germanic school of Biblical Criticism, still very much alive in modern schools of Biblical Criticism.

Do you mean the Talmud instead of the Tanach?

Definitely not the Talmud. I definitely meant Tanach. We are talking about Tanach here, after all. Even if the Talmud had small hints of this understanding of the Tanach, it is nowhere near what I am describing.

 

[David Davidovich]

I assumed it may surprise you given that you were also surprised or maybe troubled that people weren't replying to your threads.

Well, you know what they say about people who assume? Assuming makes an *** out of u and out of me.

 

[dybmh]

I don't quite understand why Hashem would include that in the Tanakh since paganism is supposed to be an anathema to Hashem.

It seems like you got some good answers to this question. I'm not sure what further questions you have. When I have researched these issues, none of them bother me that much.

1. Enuma Elish
   • There are multiple versions that have adapted over time. Most people cite the earliest date, 1950ish BC when talking about it, but the version we have was actually written around 750 BC. The highlight of the comparrison when people look at the Enuma Elish is the creation of the firmament. But, that aspect of the story has been added and changed over time. The 750 BC version doesn't actually match the Genesis firmament. It's kinda-sorta matching. But the version that actually matches is from 300 CE. Basically the trend is, the oldes version doesn't match at all, the 750 BC version matches a tiny bit in just a few places. And the later version has a few good matches. So the story appears to have been adapted over time to match Genesis, not the other way around.
2. Epic of Gilgamesh
   • This is similar to the Enuma Elish. Originally, there was no flood story in the Epic. It was added around 1150 BC. It seems that both the Epic and Genesis have a common source.
3. Common motifs
   • This includes individual words and names that are used in other myths
   • Levithan is an example of this, along with Yam, Tehohme ( compared to Tiamat ), El ( compared to il ), etc...
   • When looking at each of these, I am not too concerned with elements that occur outside of the first five books. Those are the strongest revelation which is, in theory, dictacted directly from God. The later books are revelation which comes veiled in the author's point of view and life experience. if they were exposed to these elements in Babylonia, or in the mixed population where they lived, it would make sense that they would make use of these names / ideas.
   • the other issue is that Ugarite tablets which contain the history Canaanite religion is lacking vowels and was decipherd using the Hebrew bible. So that means that common sounding names, and similar phrasing would be expected. The transliteration was borrowed from the Hebrew bible, not the other way around.
4. Polytheistic / henotheistic elements
   • The actual examples of these are very rare. People point to several which I have concluded are totally bogus. The few that are interesting seem to me to be easily explained by the fact that the Jewish people were idol worshippers in Egypt. They struggled with idol worship from the very beginning. Struggled during the conquest, struggled after the conquest, struggled all throughout the prophets. So, it makes sense for the Torah to describe a sort of conversion over time from henotheism to strict monotheism.

I think that covers it from my POV. These things simply don't bother me that much. The very minor ( 2 words ) that actually match the Enuma Elish are a "so what". The Epic seems to have copied the flood story from somewhere, why not from the Jewish story. Similarity of names is easily explained and so are the polytheistic/henothestic elements.