The Myth of Leviathon.

[Brian Schuh]

Hello fellow religionists. There is no need to question the truth value of the myth of Leviathon at least not in this thread. Assume it is true before you are critical of it.

God created a very vicious animal he called Leviathon. God saw the need to stop this animal from procreating. God created the animals male and female as part of his plan, but saw that if there were many leviathons that they would devastate the earth. God was so upset that he made this mistake, that he engaged in overkill against the leviathon. Not only did he destroy the female leviathon but he also castrated the male leviathon just to guarantee that it would not be fruitful and multiply.

Have any of you done this? That you make a mistake with your children. But instead of admitting your mistake, engage in overkill? There is a "neutered" single lonely Leviathon somewhere who doesn't understand that it isn't his mistake. He WAS the mistake. That it is more humane to let the Leviathon believe God victimized him for some mistake HE had made, instead of being told that he IS the mistake.

This tells me something about God. God does make mistakes. God is more human than I am. The Leviathon should never have been created. But God took his remorse out on Leviathon instead of himself. That is what we call in child abuse cases as "overkill." That the child "deserves" to be punished, but the parent takes out his remorse over his own mistake on the child, instead of taking it out on himself. Obviously, it is "overkill" to not only kill the female Leviathon, but then God continued in his "wrath" and castrated the male Leviathon?

There is a sea monster out there who doesn't understand why he is single, lonely and impotent, he believes he is punished by God for something he did.

It is interesting that the Leviathon is mentioned in the book of Job. Job believed like the Leviathon that he was being punished but without knowing why. God quoted the story of Leviathon to Job I believe to tell him, that suffering isn't always your fault. Sometimes **** just happens, even with an omnipotent, all righteous and all knowing God. Hey Job, look at Leviathon. Did he deserve it? Or was the Leviathon somehow a "cosmic" mistake?

The myth of Leviathon makes perfect sense to be put in the book of Job. God says, hey Job, look at Leviathon. A creature who suffered and is still suffering, never understanding what he did to deserve it.

It is just a myth. I am not trying to push any theological views here. Take it at face value. Does this myth contribute any to the question, hey why am I suffering? What did I do?

 

[Kapalika]

So uh, where are you getting this from? Any text? Or scripture? I'm not familiar with the concept of Leviathan being 'punished' in this way. It is my understanding that Leviathan was what existed in the Abyss before Yahweh created the land and oceans above it, that the Abyss and "waters of the deep" existed before Genesis 1:1.

That's why it is said that Leviathan is the only thing that Yahweh ever feared, and why Satanists use his name on the Sigil of Baphomet.

I should note that I wouldn't call myself a theist, I'm mostly just talking within the context of the mythology and how others apply that mythology symbolically without actually subscribing to it as literally true.

 

[Ingledsva]

It appears from the Ras Shamra texts found at Ugarit, that there is a parallel between the seven-headed Canaanite monster Lotan and Leviathan. (Lotan Interestingly defeated by Hadad-Ba'al.)

These verses probably symbolically refer to those people, whom were a powerful seafaring nation, - as their sea monster.

Isa 27:1 In that day YHVH with his severe and mighty and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing (fugitive) serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the sea monster that is in the sea.

Psa 104:26 Thence with the ships which depart for abroad, Leviathan doth make sport.

*

 

[DanielR]

Leviathan = Tiamat
YHVH = Marduk ?

I think so.

Wouldn't that make Leviathan the creator of YHVH then?

 

[omega2xx]

Hello fellow religionists. There is no need to question the truth value of the myth of Leviathon at least not in this thread. Assume it is true before you are critical of it.

God created a very vicious animal he called Leviathon. God saw the need to stop this animal from procreating. God created the animals male and female as part of his plan, but saw that if there were many leviathons that they would devastate the earth. God was so upset that he made this mistake, that he engaged in overkill against the leviathon. Not only did he destroy the female leviathon but he also castrated the male leviathon just to guarantee that it would not be fruitful and multiply.

Have any of you done this? That you make a mistake with your children. But instead of admitting your mistake, engage in overkill? There is a "neutered" single lonely Leviathon somewhere who doesn't understand that it isn't his mistake. He WAS the mistake. That it is more humane to let the Leviathon believe God victimized him for some mistake HE had made, instead of being told that he IS the mistake.

This tells me something about God. God does make mistakes. God is more human than I am. The Leviathon should never have been created. But God took his remorse out on Leviathon instead of himself. That is what we call in child abuse cases as "overkill." That the child "deserves" to be punished, but the parent takes out his remorse over his own mistake on the child, instead of taking it out on himself. Obviously, it is "overkill" to not only kill the female Leviathon, but then God continued in his "wrath" and castrated the male Leviathon?

There is a sea monster out there who doesn't understand why he is single, lonely and impotent, he believes he is punished by God for something he did.

It is interesting that the Leviathon is mentioned in the book of Job. Job believed like the Leviathon that he was being punished but without knowing why. God quoted the story of Leviathon to Job I believe to tell him, that suffering isn't always your fault. Sometimes **** just happens, even with an omnipotent, all righteous and all knowing God. Hey Job, look at Leviathon. Did he deserve it? Or was the Leviathon somehow a "cosmic" mistake?

The myth of Leviathon makes perfect sense to be put in the book of Job. God says, hey Job, look at Leviathon. A creature who suffered and is still suffering, never understanding what he did to deserve it.

It is just a myth. I am not trying to push any theological views here. Take it at face value. Does this myth contribute any to the question, hey why am I suffering? What did I do?

The main myth in this thread is that you have no evidence that what you said is true.



“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” ― C.S. Lewis

 

[Brian Schuh]

The main myth in this thread is that you have no evidence that what you said is true.



“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” ― C.S. Lewis

So uh, where are you getting this from? Any text? Or scripture? I'm not familiar with the concept of Leviathan being 'punished' in this way. It is my understanding that Leviathan was what existed in the Abyss before Yahweh created the land and oceans above it, that the Abyss and "waters of the deep" existed before Genesis 1:1.

That's why it is said that Leviathan is the only thing that Yahweh ever feared, and why Satanists use his name on the Sigil of Baphomet.

I should note that I wouldn't call myself a theist, I'm mostly just talking within the context of the mythology and how others apply that mythology symbolically without actually subscribing to it as literally true.

It is simply a midrash. There is no way to produce evidence for the existence of Leviathon unless some deep sea expedition digs him out of the ocean. Of course there is no evidence for the story, because it isn't true in the sense of being literal. I asked in this thread to suspend disbelief. For fiction does have lessons to teach. That is the first thing one learns in a literature class, to suspend disbelief in order to see what the point of the story is. One can't understand the moral of the story until he gets past the "that could not possibly be true" mentality.

Mandi, you get my point exactly, just because you are not a theist and may not believe in a literal leviathon, nevertheless, you can appreciate the value of a good myth or midrash.

 

[Brian Schuh]

"Legends of the Jews" is the largest collection of midrash. I might have read this there. I used to own a copy of "Legends of the Jews." Since that is the only collection of midrash I ever owned, I imagine that this story is in there. Otherwise, I can't recollect off hand where I read this story.

But like I said in the original post, look past how ridiculous the story might seem to be. This story when alluded to in the book of Job makes perfect sense. Otherwise, how does it make sense for God to point to Leviathon when trying to console Job? There is a connection here. Neither Leviathon nor Job himself knew why they were being "punished." I believe that is why Job chapter 41 contains such an explicit description of how great of a "monster" Leviathon is. The author of Job, (tradition has it that Moses wrote it) no doubt knew this ancient midrash.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

It is simply a midrash.

And a worthy one. Unfortunately, midrash is a form that most here know nothing about.

 

[omega2xx]

It is simply a midrash. There is no way to produce evidence for the existence of Leviathon unless some deep sea expedition digs him out of the ocean.

My main point was that you have no evidence Leviathon is a myth. It is mentioned in the book of Job and it was not a sea creature. It description sound a lot like a dino.

Of course there is no evidence for the story, because it isn't true in the sense of being literal.

A written record is much better than an non-provable opinion.

I asked in this thread to suspend disbelief. For fiction does have lessons to teach. That is the first thing one learns in a literature class, to suspend disbelief in order to see what the point of the story is. One can't understand the moral of the story until he gets past the "that could not possibly be true" mentality.

Whoever taught you literature is wrong. Many fiction stories teach a moral truth---Aesop's fables for example.

Mandi, you get my point exactly, just because you are not a theist and may not believe in a literal leviathon, nevertheless, you can appreciate the value of a good myth or midrash.

When you get some evidence leviathon is a myth get back to me. Until then the only myth is your opinion.

 

[Nietzsche]

When you get some evidence leviathon is a myth get back to me. Until then the only myth is your opinion.

It's a giant sea-dragon. If you'd kindly point me to a giant sea-dragon, you can continue this train of thought.

And I'm sorry but this;

Was not a documentary.

 

[omega2xx]

It's a giant sea-dragon. If you'd kindly point me to a giant sea-dragon, you can continue this train of thought.

And I'm sorry but this;

Was not a documentary.

Get your facts straight. Leviathon was not a sea dragon.

 

[Nietzsche]

Get your facts straight. Leviathon was not a sea dragon.

I'm sorry, it was supposed to breath fire. Anything big and scaly that breathes fire is a dragon. And the proper spelling is Leviathan. An A, not an O.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Is there anything so ludicrous that you can't find some people to debate it as if it were both real and important? Haven't found it yet...

 

[omega2xx]

I'm sorry, it was supposed to breath fire. Anything big and scaly that breathes fire is a dragon. And the proper spelling is Leviathan. An A, not an O.

for fire, think of a metaphor.

Congratulations on being accepted the the spelling police. If you read a lot my post, you will get a promotin very quickly. I left one in this post to help you get promoted as soon as possible.

 

[Nietzsche]

for fire, think of a metaphor.

Then why isn't the whole creature a metaphor? You can't start cherry-picking what's a metaphor and what isn't.

 

[omega2xx]

Then why isn't the whole creature a metaphor? You can't start cherry-picking what's a metaphor and what isn't.

It isn't cherry picking, it is understanding how the Bible uses figurative language.

 

[Nietzsche]

It isn't cherry picking, it is understanding how the Bible uses figurative language.

Let's take a step back.

For this creature to exist, and be utterly undocumented by modern science, it has to be solitary. This would make it untold thousands of years old. Nothing lives that long, and more importantly, nothing that size has lived in the region(Middle East and North-Eastern Africa) since humans have been there. We're really good at killing things dangerous to us, and what would be more dangerous to early humanity than a sea-dragon?

Either it's been long-since killed, or it died of old age, or it was someone's first time seeing a particularly large crocodile and the "tale grew in the telling".

 

[Brian Schuh]

Let's take a step back.

For this creature to exist, and be utterly undocumented by modern science, it has to be solitary. This would make it untold thousands of years old. Nothing lives that long, and more importantly, nothing that size has lived in the region(Middle East and North-Eastern Africa) since humans have been there. We're really good at killing things dangerous to us, and what would be more dangerous to early humanity than a sea-dragon?

Either it's been long-since killed, or it died of old age, or it was someone's first time seeing a particularly large crocodile and the "tale grew in the telling".

That's a good point. Leviathan, for the legend to be true, is solitary. He is probably dead if he ever existed at all. His role of being the book of Job as some kind of symbol of deeper meaning, like a metaphor, like you say is more important than whether he actually existed.

 

[Brian Schuh]

My main point was that you have no evidence Leviathon is a myth. It is mentioned in the book of Job and it was not a sea creature. It description sound a lot like a dino.



A written record is much better than an non-provable opinion.



Whoever taught you literature is wrong. Many fiction stories teach a moral truth---Aesop's fables for example.



When you get some evidence leviathon is a myth get back to me. Until then the only myth is your opinion.

My main point was that you have no evidence Leviathon is a myth. It is mentioned in the book of Job and it was not a sea creature. It description sound a lot like a dino.



A written record is much better than an non-provable opinion.



Whoever taught you literature is wrong. Many fiction stories teach a moral truth---Aesop's fables for example.



When you get some evidence leviathon is a myth get back to me. Until then the only myth is your opinion.

Wow, you reiterate my view that fiction can teach a lesson, then pretend that that isn't what I said, and then pretend that you are correcting me when you are just repeating what I said.

However, I like that you compare Leviathan to a dinosaur. Bill Cooper the creationist has made a good case that when early literature speaks of "dragons" it is really speaking of dinosaurs. Bill Cooper claims the first settlers of Ireland had to exterminate t-Rex and teradactyls before they could settle there.

But can you forget whether there was a literal Leviathan, and get to the deeper meaning of why he is mentioned in book of Job?

 

[omega2xx]

Let's take a step back.

For this creature to exist, and be utterly undocumented by modern science, it has to be solitary.

First of all, it does not have to be documented by science. Second, science does not look at the existence of animals.

This would make it untold thousands of years old.

No it wouldn't

Nothing

lives that long,

How long did they live and what is the source of your opinion.

and more importantly, nothing that size has lived in the region(Middle East and North-Eastern Africa) since humans have been there.

Another unsupported OPINION.

We're really good at killing things dangerous to us, and what would be more dangerous to early humanity than a sea-dragon?

Some of us are gullible and accept as true ever fairy tale invented by man by faith alone.

Either it's been long-since killed, or it died of old age, or it was someone's first time seeing a particularly large crocodile and the "tale grew in the telling".

Another unsupported OPINION.

If you want to believe something without any evidence, be my guest.



Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God. Blaise Pascal